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But Hecate didn’t chastise me, not even with a flicker of her expression. Instead, she nodded in acknowledgment. “Libra demons. And Cole, in his seat of power. But that was not without consequences, Soteria.”
“Why do you call her that?” Daphne asked.
I’d just accepted people struggled to say my name. In Moon-Ghost, I was the Omega bitch. To Cole, little wolf. Another person, another name.
“It’s a title,” Hecate said, turning her head towards my friend, though her body remained facing me.
“Is it because of what Cole said about me having been his queen?”
Daphne jerked back and spun towards me wide-eyed. I shrugged in apology.
Hecate dipped her head in acknowledgment. “It does. But I do not think you are yet ready to hear why.”
I frowned, but before I could argue, Hecate continued.
“As I was saying, though he has power here, there is a cost. When you took the moonstone, it was not without consequences. In order to return to his seat, the entire pocket realm was destroyed.”
I just stared. Surely I had misheard her.
At my expression, Hecate gave an unbothered shrug and took another sip from her wine chalice. “Think of it this way. The moonstone was a key to a locked door, and it remained locked after you left. Cole couldn’t get to the capital with the door shut. So he ripped it apart at its foundation, and with it, the rest of the pocket realm.”
A sense of grief slammed into me. That castle had been the only home I’d ever truly known. The house I’d lived in as a Moon-Ghost reject hadn’t held a candle to it. The ever-full kitchen. The gym I’d spent hours training in.
The library. I mourned the library, the books, the most.
And then a wave of horror hit me at my shortsightedness.
“There were people there.” Maybe it wasn’t exactly right, but the murder mermaids, the demons that lived in the forest... they’d existed.
Hecate waved my concern away with a dismissive hand. “It’s hardly a loss. And he would do far, far more to get you back this time.”
The implications rocked me. This time.
He killed all of them. Yes, most of the creatures there had tried to kill me if we discounted the rabbits I’d caught in the woods.
But to die? Like that?
And yet, as I looked at my best friend, who was currently doing her best to stay caught up with our conversation, I knew with a pitiless certainty I would do it all again to rescue her. I couldn’t exactly claim the high ground here.
And he had rescued me. I would’ve died all over again, this time with Daphne, if he had stayed in his pocket realm and left us there.
“If this is his ‘seat of power’ or whatever, why did he even leave the capital to begin with?”
Hecate’s tone didn’t change when she said a moment later, “Heavy is the head and heart that wears the crown.”
Great. That explainedeverything.
“None of this makes sense,” I complained. “I appreciate this, but I’m even more confused than I was before. How did Cole become the King of Hell? Why am I even in Hell to begin with if when Daphne dies she’s supposed to go among the stars? How is she here now?”
“I second about half of those,” Daphne chimed in.
“She is here because you walked through a portal. That is not simple magic. The demons do so through a blood covenant. Your destiny will always lead you to Hell. And as for how he became King—”
“That’s enough.”
The words were quiet thunder.
Just like that, Cole appeared in the room as if made from smoke. He solidified, his eyes blazing in accusation.
