“Could we dilute it with Nectar or have you drink half?” I said urgently, time was of the essence as soon as Achilles had died to Hades.

“It has to be all of it so the Titan’s voice comes out fully. The words aren’t a command, they’re a taunt, a rebuke, of his son.”

“What does he want you to say?” I said. “Hurry.”

“Kronos wants me to ask Hades ‘why does my eldest son rule only shadows?’” 13 said, still staring at the two vials as he contemplated his death.

Fish was keenly watching them too, scraping at one of his fangs with his claw-like fingernails. I pushed him back in case he lost control from his thirst for blood and ended up killing himself accidentally.

“Can’t we just say it ourselves? If it’s not a command but an insult, shouldn’t it work regardless?” I said.

Hades was idly walking over, his presence fearsome and the smell of rot and mildew and blood filling the air.

“Words hurt most from the right people.” 13 twisted off the cap of one vial. “Don’t waste my death with how you live your rebirth.”

“I won’t.” I promised.

He brought it to his lips and drank it.

“W-why… why does… my-“ The Larua coughed smoke pouring from his mouth. Each word he tried made the damage worse, accelerating the degradation. His eyes of red burned out to leave sunken ash pits in his eye sockets and golden sparks spat from gaping cracks in his flesh.

“Finish the sentence!” I said, shaking him. I felt his painfully warm shoulder collapse under my touch.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen. Kronos thought- I need-“ 13 said hazily as he gave up on trying to use divine commands before falling to his knees. I heard the kneecaps shatter when they struck the ground and winced.

Hades stood before us, everything outside the people in near proximity becoming hard to focus on. His closeness was causing my skin to redden and blister, and Pollixa was stumbling with unsteady footing. If he looked at her she would probably be knocked unconscious, the only reason I could bear his direct eye contact was having experienced something much stronger when I had my audience with Kronos in Tartaros.

“Whatever idiocy my father set you on, it won’t work. Neither a human soul nor a Larua can process and absorb that amount of a titan’s blood and metabolize its power into vocal authority without annihilation.” The Corpsefather said.

“You… you only need the Larua… network… for the words… anyone can…” 13 said. Black blood was pouring from his nose and ears.

I didn’t understand what he was trying to say, I was connected and obviously I didn’t want to die a permanent death as well, but I couldn’t make Pollixa drink it, she would just die before getting out all eight words. We didn’t have any options out of the human Brights and Laruas still present that got around what Hades had just said. Maybe Achilles could have done it and survived, but Kronos hadn’t offered it to him. I couldn’t tell if that was just another example of the King of the Titans’ prophetic visions being flawed or if he knew that it wouldn’t work while still thinking that 13 could manage it.

The head Larua slumped over before burning up entirely to release red and black smoke that left nothing behind except the vials. They bounced against the ground and the sealed one rolled to a stop against Fish’s shoe. I could barely spare a look at them before I looked back up to meet Hades’s burning gaze.

“You’ve been a consistent problem, Lucion. Achilles would not have left the Fields of Asphodel without you engineering it, nor would Elysium have burned and all its citizens been killed if it were not for your hand and your words.” The Corpsefather said, his dark eyes piercing my soul.

“I am what I am.” I said defiantly.

“You are what the Regent enabled you to be and nothing more.” He said.

“You could fill nations with descendants of my grandfather-“

“Augustas Heraclides isn’t your grandfather, he’s simply the origin of the genetic material that replaced some of your base genome.” Hades said.

“You could fill nations with descendants of my grandfather who has willingly claimed me as his grandson.” I said smiling. “And yet none of them have called upon Heracles’s sacred fire and given orders with his celestial spirit backing their words. I am what I am, and that is something that has never existed before in the Dominium. Disdain me all you want, but I started this rebellion and slaughtered the Blessed of Elysium without the body and bloodline the Regent gave me.”

“I think I will erase your soul from existence as I did the King of Heroes.” Hades said as if my defiantly smug grin was the reason for the punishment though I suspected he had planned this to be my ultimate fate before he had even arrived and unveiled himself.

I continued to smile, enjoying how the fight with Achilles hadn’t provoked true anger from the god of the dead but now Hades’s face was tightening as I ignored the weight of his influence. I had nearly ruined my mind speaking to Kronos and I had witnessed Achilles fight, even if he had been defeated in the end, fight and shine against the darkness. I couldn’t block a god’s blows like the King of Heroes had, but I could hold an arrogant smile for long enough to get under the Corpsefather’s nerves.

“You’re awfully smug for someone whose legend is about to end as your leader’s did.” Hades said.

“Achilles’s legend didn’t end, and neither will mine. Both of us would say that it would be better to be destroyed while glorious than to live in mediocrity. You can erase my existence, but you can’t erase the impact my existence had on the universe and the people inside it.” I said.

“Achilles was a renowned hero of the Trojan war, your only acclaim will be a failed rebellion.” Hades said derisively.

“That rebellion was the only uprising that has ever happened in the Underworld, failed or otherwise. And so what if it failed, people still remember Spartacus more than Crassus. I leveled the false paradise of Elysium and did the same as you will do to me to all its population. I’ve spat in the natural order’s face.” I said proudly.

“You spat in my face.” Hades said.

“No, I don’t think I have yet.” I said thoughtfully.

Then I hawked a glob of saliva at his cheek.

The god seized me by my throat and lifted me off my feet. With Achilles he had been vaguely annoyed, and he had been irritated just before I had literally spit on him, but now Hades’s expression was blank and devoid of all emotion, his eyes deader and colder than anything in his realm. He moved his right hand to pull out my heart, but at the last moment he looked to my side. I glanced over as well, curious about what had caught his attention and bought me a five second stay of execution.

It was Fish, he had just drank the vial of Kronos’s blood.

“That one isn’t too smart.” Hades commented, looking back to me. “How did you make him? Changed the ratio of Infernal Beast blood to Nectar from nine-tenths and one-tenth to seven-tenths Beast blood and three-tenths Nectar?”

I was floored to realize he didn’t know what Fish was, the god thought that my monstrous companion was some variant of Larua that I had made as Lord of Sutures.

“He’ll burn up soon enough.” Hades said.

Fish’s eyes blazed with golden light.

Hades had said that nothing human nor Larua could process and metabolize titan’s blood, but Fish wasn’t either of those. He was a-

“Leechling!” The Corpsefather hissed.

-and Leechlings could only survive off blood, strange and twisted creatures that they were having been mutated from being a Blur by drinking the life essence of a Bright.

I would have laughed if it weren’t for Hades’s hand squeezing my throat. 13 had used his dying words to tell Fish that anyone could say what needed to be said and his last amount of strength to roll the full vial of titan blood to the Leechling.

Fish smiled with serrated fangs. “Why does my eldest son rule only shadows?”

My eardrums were popped by that piercing question, the force and majesty of Kronos’s voice a hundred times more potent than the Corpsefather’s. The wave of sound and power carried with it meaning that I had not understood when it had been said normally by 13 the first time. Hades was the eldest son, brother of Zeus and Poseidon, and yet his domain was grim and lifeless. He was feared rather than worshipped and lacked a seat on Olympas as one of the Twelve. Reviled not revered.

Lastly, the echo of it in my brain revealed a memory, one that I had seen before. Augustas and I standing above Zeus as I was handing the Regent a spear to finish the Skyfather off.

From the look on Hades’s face as he examined me, he had seen it too. He dropped me and I landed on my ass.

No one dared speak.

“You, the girl, and the Leechling may go.” He said finally.

Evidently his resentment of his brother Zeus over the eons had grown enough that he would let me return to life in order to fulfill what his father foresaw.

“The Laruas are coming with me as well.” I said.

“Don’t test me, child.”

“I destroyed the Isles of the Blessed because of how the Laruas were treated. I have claimed them and I won’t forsake them.” I said firmly.

“Very well.” The god said through grit teeth.