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A kiss from black painted lips on Lilith’s forehead, before Nyx stands as Eros stands beside the basket.

And the three voices spill once again from the Tree of Life.“The daughters of the Underworld and humanity possess the gifts of their mother, from which the essence of Chaos and Aether have now been divided into three, no less powerful than when whole. Sophia, daughter of the Underworld and humanity has been blessed by Eros, God of Love. She is destined to heal with affection the one who carries the weight of the fallen. Lilith, daughter of the Underworld and humanity has been blessed by Nyx, Goddess of Night. She is destined to walk in the light while offering the understanding of night to the one who carries shadows in his soul, for only darkness can welcome darkness.”

The Moirai are silent as the tear in the sky widens. From it spills the sounds of birth pains. Two women crying out together until the cries turn to the sounds of tiny, familiar cries.

Persephone shudders in my arms, her head tipped back, face to the sky. For the first time, I am thankful that I am on myknees. I do not know that I would have had the strength to keep my feet.

A soft laugh, filled with a mother’s love whispers a familiar name, “Sophia.”

Persephone sobs. And from another place far away, another couple coos over the daughter that is theirsand ours. “She’s beautiful,” a man whispers. “Just like you.” The sound of a tender kiss shreds me as he says softly, “Lilith.”

I didn’t see it happen, but Eros and Nyx disappear through the tear in the moments before it closes, and we are cut off from the sounds of our daughters entering the living realm.

“No.” Persephone shakes her head, her hands clawing at the roots of the tree which devour the basket, and our daughters, until there is nothing but grass where they once lay.

Persephone stiffens in my arms, turning to face me with those tears shimmering in glasslike lines down her cheeks.

“Do you hear them?”

I nod soberly. The Moirai no longer speak from the Tree, but within our minds. The tongueless cadence of their timeless voices eerie as it is beautiful.

She wipes at her face. “It’s time, Hades.”

Finally, I understand why it had to be now. Why I ever felt the desire to take her soul for my own. It’s not about keeping her safe, as I’d always thought. It’s not about keeping her in the Underworld, where she could never be taken from me.

It’s about unity. The connecting of God and humanity. The abolishing of the division that dirtied the lands of the living realm in the beginning of a ritual that would take place over the grave of our daughters. The place of their sacrifice.

“The echo of this union will live in the spirit of the twins, and when it is their time to offer their souls in connection to their Gods, they will do so with love that will unite the realms and all consciousness for eternity.”

Chapter

Forty-Three

Hades

Even as shewipes away her tears, more fall. I can taste her grief with every breath she expels. It permeates the air, feeding my own.

But even as I ache for all I have lost; my body responds to the situation. Behind my lips, my fangs lengthen.

Overhead, the Moirai depart, but they leave behind their magic which ignites the Tree of Life in the everlasting glow of the power that pulses inside the cauldron of souls. The tree shimmers so brightly under the teal light, it’s almost as though it now burns in blue flames that feed rather than destroy.

“The power of the twins’ sacrifice will forever feed the quenching flames that burn life into the Elysian Tree. Their bodies will never decay, but instead become one with the roots the Tree of Life. It is connected and fed deep underground by a spring which suckles from the cauldron of souls. They knew their fate, their sacrifice, before they took their first breaths. Like all souls, the contract was written and signed on the soul.This is their choice. Their great sacrifice, and it is the beginning of unity.”

I know without asking that the words sound in Persephone’s mind as they do mine. Sharp pain scores into the beauty of her face where grief I wish I could carry for her already lives.

“I can feel it, Hades.” She moves closer to me, close enough that I don’t hesitate to pull her into the circle of my arms. “My soul feels it.”

“As does mine.” I don’t tell her I’ve felt this need, this ache to pull the part of her that has always been missing from me into myself. To fuse myself so completely to her that there is no end of me and beginning of her. That we become one as we were always intended to be.

Her eyes flick to the crowd, and red climbs in her face. I can feel the Gods and Goddesses who have devoted their gifts and eternal life to the workings of the Underworld, calling this realm home, standing close. I can feel their eyes on us. And beyond them I sense the souls of the realm waiting as this moment of monumental history is made.

Somewhere deep in Asphodel City, I can feel the ground break as another statue in the colors of a bright dawn-touched galaxy is birthed from the realm. Us. Together. As one. Soul bound.

Persephone’s eyes tip upward a moment before her hands rise overhead. Following the path of her hands in the arc from her sides to the sky is that same color of a dawn-touched galaxy. I realise then that it’s the same colors that overtook her eyes when she created the realm in which was promised to Uranus. It is the power of her. Of Chaos inside her.

The haze of it deepens until it’s just us and the glowing blue tree inside the dome of a star struck sky with brushstrokes of mauve touched by the dawn. All sound of the realm is cut off,and we are left alone to this moment in which our souls have forever been guiding us.

I touch her face gently, my heart squeezing as she leans into my palm.