Hades' Cursed Luna

Eve

Vassir's wings folded in slowly, almost gently, as if the conversation—this moment—mattered more than all the ruin surrounding us.

> "There is… one last secret," he said, voice sinking into the void like a stone in water.

I tensed. Every instinct told me to brace for cruelty. For one last cruelty.

But what came wasn't cruelty.

It was… revelation.

> "You wonder why he could carry me," Vassir said. "Why he didn't shatter. Why the Flux chose him when it has burned through kings, saints, monsters. Why the venom took root—but didn't rot him."

He took a step forward. I didn't move.

> "Because he is mine."

My breath hitched.

> "He resisted you," I countered, voice barely steady. "He fought you."

> "He did," Vassir acknowledged, tilting his head, that sorrow returning to his strange, weathered face. "As I once resisted what I was. But deep calls to deep. Hate recognizes the shape love wears."

> "What are you saying?"

His eyes locked onto mine—and in them, I saw something I'd never expected: not just pride.

But kinship.

> "You are Elysia," he said softly. "Or what remains of her in this life. And he… Hades… Lucien…"

His lips curled into something that might have once been a smile.

> "He is me."

I blinked.

The words didn't land right. They didn't fit. They rattled in my skull like stones in a jar.

> "But… you're here."

> "Only what's left," Vassir said. "A venom without a snake. A rage that outlived its master. My soul burned away long ago. But my essence—the echo of what I was—clung to the dark. Waiting."

I stared at him, reeling.

> "You're saying Hades is your reincarnation?" I whispered.

> "Not a puppet. Not a clone. Not a vessel. A rebirth. A second chance forged in blood, fire, and prophecy. Where I failed… he might not."

My knees threatened to buckle. My throat closed.

> "But he fought you," I breathed again.

> "Because he is better than I ever was," Vassir said. "Because he loved you in every life. Because what I poisoned, he still tried to protect."

My hands trembled. My vision blurred.

> "That's why you couldn't destroy him," I whispered. "Why even your Flux cracked around him. Because he is you… but he loves me more than you ever could."

> "Yes," Vassir said quietly. "And that is why you will always find your way to each other. As I once found her."

He gestured to the void around us.

> "This is the venom," he said. "I am the rot. The hatred. The ruin left behind by a man who could not let go."

I shook my head slowly. The grief—his grief—was real. Old. Unbearable.

> "So what happens now?" I asked.

> "Now?" He tilted his head skyward, though there was no sky, only darkness.

> "Now you live."

His gaze met mine one last time.

> "Save him. Save yourself. Make this story end differently than ours did."

The void pulsed again, a ripple like the end of time.

Then came the sound.

A low rumble. Not from below or around, but from within the space itself. The realm was crumbling. Not into ruin—but into cleansing. The sort of destruction that didn't raze for chaos, but made way for truth.

Vassir's eyes flicked upward, then down to me.

> "It's time," he said softly, his voice now devoid of malice. "This place was built to cage him. And now, it unravels because he chose freedom."

The void's edges began to brighten—not with light, but memory. Threads of lives, bloodlines, battles, kisses, screams, and promises all drifting past like dust motes in a sunbeam that had never existed. This was the memory of a world dying.

> "But before you go," Vassir said, stepping closer, wings coiled tight against his back, "there is one more thing you must know."

I looked up, still shaking, the truth of what he was—what Hades was—still a wildfire under my skin.

> "The Bloodmoon," he said, voice thinning into something less corporeal, "is not what any of you believe. It is not a prophecy, not a calendar omen. It is a gate. A reckoning. It marks not the return of power, but the unraveling of order."

The void cracked beneath our feet. The unraveling had begun.

> "The war will not be between wolves and lycans. Nor gods and mortals. It will be against the end itself. And only those bound by soul, not loyalty, will stand a chance."

I swallowed hard.

> "What am I supposed to do?" I whispered. "How do I fight something like that?"

He reached out slowly, clawed fingers brushing the space just beside my heart. Not touching—but enough to make something in me ache.

> "Find my second horn," he said.

My eyes widened.

> "What?"

> "It was ripped from me before my fall. Lost. Hidden. It was never found, but it remains—buried beneath blood, waiting. When it surfaces, it will sing. Not to you. Not to him. But to the ones who must rise."

He stared into me, like trying to etch the warning into my marrow.

> "That horn is the call. A rallying cry. Without it, your army will be dust. With it…"

He trailed off, smiling like a man watching a match burn all the way down.

> "With it, the forgotten will remember."

The heat deepened. A fissure split across the void, and through it I glimpsed flame. Not fire. Flame—white-hot, divine, pure.

> "I don't know what you mean?," I admitted, voice breaking.

Vassir stepped closer until we were nearly touching. The ruined horn above his brow glinted in a light that didn't exist. And when he spoke again, it was with something resembling grace.

> "It will all become clear soon. Follow the symbol of Malrik. You will find my gift, my horn. What is left of me."

The space around us began to dissolve. His wings loosened, floating as though gravity had abandoned us. His voice lowered to a whisper.

> "Forgive him."

I said nothing.

> "Even gods can be born in pain." He smiled

Then—he moved.

Before I could react, his arms—those monstrous limbs—wrapped around me. Not in threat. Not in claim.

But in release.

A final embrace.

> "Goodbye, daughter of the moon," he murmured into my ear. "Goodbye, light I never deserved."

His body shivered.

And then—

Turned to ash in my arms.

Not dust. Not bone.

But memory.

Like the venom had finally released its hold, now that the soul had somewhere to go.

The moment he vanished, the void collapsed inward with a thunderous silence.

And I fell—again.

Not into death.

But into beginning.