Page 2 of The Survivors (The Children of the Sun God #4)

Persephone

1951

“In breaking the bond that tethered my fate to his, I found a freedom that left scars. Better to live with scars than in chains.”

I dangle my feet off the dock behind my best friend, Ciara’s home. The coolness of the wood planking seeps into me, and the night air brushes across my skin. “Ioannis is at it again?” I say, shaking my head. Her name is Jenna Ciara, but she prefers to be called Ciara—her family name.

Ciara isn’t a demi-god like me. She’s from a long line of light witches and serves as the oracle for my herd. Her beauty has a way of capturing everyone around her, effortlessly drawing in gazes. Not once has she ever made me feel less than, but I’m not blind. I see how people, especially men, look at her over me. It’s fine, though. The last thing I want is a man tying me down .

“What did he do now?” Ciara asks, rolling her eyes with a smirk.

“He asked my patér for my hand in marriage.” I say it like it’s a joke, but there’s a bitterness lurking under the humor.

Ciara bursts out laughing. “But your people don’t get married.”

I nod, taking a sip of my cherry Coke. The fizz tickles my throat.

“What did your patér tell him?” she asks, curiosity alight in her eyes.

“He told him to get lost and to wait for my clock to tick,” I say, grinning despite myself.

“I’ve always liked your patér .” She pauses, her expression understanding. “But…does he know how you feel?”

“Ioannis or Patér ?”

“Both, I guess.”

I shake my head, gazing at the way the moon’s glow dances on the lake, painting patterns that ripple with every shift of the water. “How do I tell either of them that this life isn’t for me?”

It’s an expectation so deeply ingrained that sometimes I wonder if it’s tattooed into my very bones. I’m meant to settle down, birth a dozen calves, tend to my mate, and fade into the backdrop of everyone else’s story. It’s not just the fate of heifers but human females too. It makes my skin crawl, imagining the confines of that future.

I don’t want any of it. I want to read books, travel the world, and maybe even make a mark of my own. Something meaningful.

“He won’t give up, you know,” Ciara says, breaking the silence.

I shrug, watching the light flicker across the lake. “Maybe my clock won’t ever tick. Not unless some miracle changes what my heart wants out of life.”

“Do you love him?”

It’s the first time she’s ever asked me this. I hesitate, feeling something tug inside me. “I feel the pull,” I admit. “I always have, since we were calves. But, no, I don’t love him. I don’t know if I can. I know exactly what he expects of me, and it’s just…not enough.”

We sit in silence, letting the crickets’ song fill the air. It’s a quiet, gentle sound that feels like a balm against the chaos in my head, though it does nothing to calm the storm inside me.

“I can look, if you want,” Ciara says suddenly, her voice muffled.

My eyes widen, and I turn to her. “Look at what?”

“The future.”

The offer takes me aback. Ciara never voluntarily seeks visions—they always come at a cost. Each vision drains her, like she’s surrendering a part of herself for every glimpse into the unknown.

I reach for her hand. “Ciara, you don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” she insists, squeezing my hand. “ Maybe it’ll help you find the strength to face whatever comes next, whether that’s accepting your fate or telling it to go to hell.”

I let out a nervous laugh that leaves an uncomfortable ache in my belly. But the sound is strangely liberating.

“Okay,” I whisper, bracing myself.

Ciara stands. She gracefully plucks a few strands of my hair with gentle, yet determined fingers. I flinch from the quick sting at the roots. She murmurs under her breath, weaving the spell with the careful precision of someone who understands the consequences of what she’s about to do. Her knuckles turn white around my hair, and her expression focuses.

The air grows taut as her eyes lose focus, drifting away like she’s stepping into a place I can’t follow. I’ve seen her like this before—her eyes rolling back, her body folding to the ground as if the vision itself is a force that drives her down.

Now, her hands reach up to her eyes, pressing hard against them, and her face twists with an expression I can’t quite place. “He’s no good for you,” she whispers, her voice barely audible.

“What do you mean, he’s no good for me?” Relief floods through me, catching me off guard. I didn’t expect to feel anything, let alone a sense of freedom.

Ciara’s gaze meets mine, her eyes still clouded from the vision. “I saw a heart turning dark,” she murmurs. Her voice sounds like the rasp of dead leaves.

I look past her shoulder like I could glimpse what she saw. “What does that mean?”

“It means he has a fragility inside him,” she says carefully. “One day, he might not be able to withstand the heartbreak, the failures, the losses. He’s… vulnerable in a way that could fester into something bitter.”

My pulse quickens. “What sort of heartbreak?”

She shakes her head, and her brow furrows. “I don’t know. But it’s something powerful enough to break him, to lead him into a darkness he might not come back from.”

“So, are you saying he’s… evil?” My voice wavers as the words leave my lips. “A bad seed?”

In a low voice, she says, “I’m saying he has the potential to fall. Whether or not he does, that’s something only time can tell.”

“What should I do?” My voice trembles.

Ciara loops her arm through mine, pulling me close. “Maybe we shouldn’t have looked,” she says regretfully. “Sometimes, knowing our fate shapes it.”

“I shouldn’t have let you,” I say, barely above a whisper. “Am I now supposed to live with this fear? Life is filled with bad moments. We’re not promised rainbows. Am I to always wonder, ‘Is this what starts it?’”

A tear forms as if a part of me is breaking into pieces. And not in a small, passing way, but in a way that feels irrevocable.

I know then what I must do. I’ve made my decision. My souls splits in two the moment I reject him.