~~~
That night, Hades accompanied by his elite men rode horses, it looked as if they were in haste.
"Where are we going Hades?" Stefan asked as they ride faster.
"To get answers," He replied flatly.
They rode in silence until they finally got there. It was the dwelling place of the Oracles.
He had asked for an audience with the Oracle since that night—when his skin burned upon touching the queen. He had a feeling she was hexed and he wanted to know by whom.
The obsidian gates of the Oracle's Keep groaned open, a sound that always set Hades on edge. Even the most ancient of demon kings approached this place with unease. Here, time stilled, and truth twisted into riddles. Only the bold — or the desperate — sought answers from the Three.
In this case he was —the bold.
Hades walked in silence, his dark cloak trailing behind him like a shadow stretching through centuries. The jagged cliffs surrounding the Keep hissed with wind, whispering secrets to the void. None of his elite men accompanied him. No soul dared follow.
He didn't tell the queen.
He didn't need her to know how unsettled he was. Or how much the memory of her skin burning against his touch had haunted him ever since.
As he stepped through the veil of mist, the world around him changed. The trees bent away. The wind silenced.
Inside, there was only darkness, firelight, and the sound of threads being pulled.
Three ancient women sat upon stone thrones carved from bone and obsidian. Blindfolded, their eyes were sealed with ash-marked cloth, but they saw more than any man. Clotho spun golden thread with long, wrinkled fingers. Lachesis measured its length with a bone rod, and Atropos, the eldest, sat silent with the shears that cut fate.
They spoke before he did.
> "The King of death who binds shadows with duty. The son who walks alone.The husband who fears love more than death."
"The King of Death comes seeking truth."
The second leaned forward, lips curled into a jagged smile.
"But the truth he seeks is not his to command."
"He seeks the root of the fire… the soul behind the mask."
Hades clenched his jaw. "You know why I've come."
Clotho gave a crooked smile. "Of course."
Lachesis measured thread without looking. "She burns you, doesn't she?"
"She is not... herself," Hades said, voice low. "Since the ceremony. She dreams things she has never lived. She speaks with words not hers. Her aura shifts — it evades me. No human should be immune to a demon's sight."
The middle Oracle laughed, a brittle sound.
Hades stepped forward, anger cracking beneath his composure. "If she's hexed, I will break it. If she's possessed, I'll exorcise it. If she's not... then tell me what she is."
"Not she who is hexed… but the world itself."
The third Oracle spoke again, words deliberate and thick with fate:
"She is a vessel. A lantern. A cage."
"But not the flame," whispered the second.
Hades took a slow breath. "Explain."
The waters in the basins trembled, then rose into the air, forming swirling shapes — a silver-haired girl screaming in fire… another girl in a distant world, watching her reflection fracture… then, a single feather falling between them.
There was a beat of silence — then all three spoke at once, their voices layering like an echo across time:
"The soul of flame must rise through mortal shell.
As one falls through time… the other shall dwell."
The candlelight blew out.
Hades staggered back, every inch of him wrapped in an icy dread. "What does it mean?" he asked through gritted teeth. "Is she cursed?"
The third Oracle leaned toward him, sightless eyes burning with eerie calm.
"She is not cursed, Hades. She is chosen."
"You brought the flame into your kingdom," said the first.
"Now, you must decide if you will worship it…" said the second.
"Or be burned by it," finished the third.
The ground beneath him rumbled, and a gust of hot wind surged through the chamber.
Hades stood silent for a long moment, the prophecy echoing in his ears.
A lantern. A flame. A Queen not hexed — but inhabited.
If Hazel wasn't hexed… then who, in the gods' name, had he married?
"She is the veil," Atropos whispered. "But also the lock."
Clotho's voice chimed like an old bell. "You seek to protect her. Yet her truth may undo you."
Lachesis pointed a crooked finger at him. "Do not ask us who she is, Hades of the Damned. Ask why she was sent."
Sent?
"Who sent her?" he asked slowly.
They did not answer.
He turned away. "So you tell riddles like all the rest."
Clotho smiled again. "We do not guide — only illuminate."
The torches behind him re-lit themselves. The mists parted. The visit was over.
He bowed his head — not in reverence, but out of necessity — and walked away.
—
Later, that same night in the Hellfire Citadel...
Hades sat alone in the war chamber, hand cradling a crystal of wine, the glass untouched.
The room was quiet except for the occasional echo of laughter from distant halls. Hazel was probably with Miriam, or walking the terrace gardens like she did when the moon was high. He should be beside her. But the Oracle's words haunted him like chains:
> She is the veil... but also the lock.
He stared at the map of the underworld kingdoms laid out before him. He had studied battlefields and conquered realms, but this... this prophecy — it was beyond his dominion.
He had married a woman who was more mystery than memory.
And despite everything — her strange tongue, her stubbornness, the way her touch scorched him that night — he still wanted her. Wanted to protect her. Even if she became his ruin.
Hours Later, Back at the Citadel...
The Hellfire Citadel towered in silence, its towers aglow with crimson light. Hades returned under cover of darkness, slipping past the sleeping guards and sycophantic nobles who thought him a god immune to doubt.
He didn't go to his chambers.
He didn't seek Hazel.
Instead, he went to the war chamber — empty at this hour — and poured himself a drink. The wine stayed untouched.
He stared at the map etched across the obsidian table — the underworld's five kingdoms, divided by bloodlines and old grudges. And at the center of it all sat his kingdom, Hellfire Citadel, now under threat from within and beyond.
Hazel.
What was she? A vessel? A pawn? A fuse waiting to be lit?
And yet... he remembered her eyes that night he made a demon vow. And then her bold exterior, there had been no hesitation. No fear. She had not trembled before him like the others. She had made demands. She had claimed herself.
He remembered the way she had clung to him in her sleep, a habit she had now developed, always finding a way to embrace him in her sleep and one of the reason why he escaped from sleeping with her on the bed, it was torture for him.
Her scent was intoxicating and she was so close, yet he couldn't bring himself to touch her. as if he was the only anchor left in a world she didn't recognize.
That wasn't just politics. That wasn't performance.
That was real.