Chapter 1
“My friend... where are you?” I call into the darkness. But there is no answer. I reach out, but I can’t even see my own hand. I shout again. No echo or sound there is nothing.
Then a voice cuts through the void. “Kaelos.”
My name.
I spin toward it, searching, but the darkness remains absolute. Then another voice echoes around me. “The first victory shall make him immortal.”
My prophecy.
The prophecy that carried me through the Trials of Fate. The prophecy that has already come to pass. Its words ripple through the emptiness like a reminder of everything I’ve already sacrificed.
Silence follows. Then far away, a faint glimmer appears. Then another voice speaks. “The final victory shall make them eternal.”
I hold still because that... isn’t right. My prophecy only ever had one line. I float through the endless black, waiting for more. Instead, a single golden thread appears before me. I reach for it. My fingers pass straight through. The thread pulls impossibly taut.
Then—Snap.
The sound cracks through the darkness. A familiar voice follows. “Kaelos. Wake up.”
My eyes flutter open. A dim crimson light fills my vision. Hovering over me is Persephone. My stepmother smiles, though concern lingers behind her eyes. “Why are you sleeping in the Asphodel Fields?”
I groan and sit up. A short distance away stands Hades—my father. His expression is as unimpressed as ever. Persephone looks at me like she already knows something is wrong.
I force a tired grin. “I was visiting an old friend.” I rub the sleep from my eyes. “Their name escapes me... but I was visiting.”
My voice trails away. All I can think about is that golden thread snapping. “Up, you fool,” Hades shouts.
Persephone offers me a hand as she says, “Mortals are already praying for the Trials of Fate. We have to find the one you’ll bless.”
Like I don’t already know my own duties. I pull myself to my feet and follow Hades and Persephone toward the obsidian chariot. As we walk, I glance across the endless Asphodel Fields. Pale souls drift among the crimson grass beneath the blood-red sun that forever hangs over the Underworld.
I wonder… Will I ever have a place among them? Or will I truly remain immortal forever? Fingers snap in front of my face and I blink. Hades watches me carefully. “Kaelos,” he murmurs, “what’s wrong with you? Don’t tell me you came here looking for your mother again.”
A quiet laugh escapes me. I glance toward Persephone before answering. “No, Father. I’ve long since given up that hope. I come here to talk to whichever souls are willing to linger and listen.”
I shrug, with a heavy sigh. “Like old friends.”
I sound sadder than I mean to. Oddly enough, that seems to satisfy him. “Good.”
He claps a heavy hand against my shoulder. We climb into the chariot. “To the Receiving Temple.”
The skeletal horses surge forward. Within moments we’re racing across the Underworld. The Asphodel Fields blur past until the Receiving Temple rises before us, carved from dark obsidian and deep violet stone. This is where every prayer to Hades, and Persephone arrives.
I step toward the enormous vessel carved with a single title: God of Trials.
My vase of whispered prayers. Most years it only collects a whisper or two. But every five hundred years...It overflows. Mortals from across the world beg for the chance to compete in the Trials of Fate.
One victor.
One wish.
Anything the gods can grant.
The prayers pour from cracks in the ceiling like streams of black silk, spilling over the rim of the vase and pooling across the stone floor. I kneel and scooping the flowing whispers into my hands, I begin searching. Usually... One prayer shines. One that glimmers with golden light. The one I’m meant to bless. Persephone and Hades watch in silence. Their own vases collect only a steady trickle of prayers.
Mine floods endlessly. Mortals know that winning the Trials offers something even Hades rarely grants. A chance to rewrite fate itself: to resurrect the dead. So they pray to me and I keep searching for gold.
Nothing.
Another whisper.
Nothing.
Another.
Still nothing.
Hours seem to pass. Finally I fall backward onto the cold stone floor with a groan. Closing my eyes, I mutter the words from my dream. “The first victory shall make him immortal...”
I pause. “...the final victory shall make them eternal.”
Before I can laugh at how ridiculous it sounds— “Kaelos.”
Persephone’s voice is suddenly right above me. I open my eyes to her porcelain face that has gone pale. “Where did you hear that?”
I sit up. “It’s my prophecy.”
She waits and I go on. “The one I received before my own Trials of Fate...”
“But?” The single word comes out sharper than I expect.
I stand tall and even though I’m taller than Persephone, I’d never mistake that for power. She could flatten me without breaking a sweat. “I only ever knew the first line.” I swallow out. “Today... in the Asphodel Fields... I dreamed the second.”
Persephone grows very still. “Did you see gold?”
I nod slowly. “A golden thread.” I hesitate. “Pulled impossibly taut...and then it snapped.”
Persephone smiles, not with relief but with recognition. “Did any of the prayers shimmer with gold?”
I frown, “No.” I glance back toward the overflowing vase, “Not a single one.”
Persephone hums softly, trailing her fingers through the silken stream of prayers. “That’s because Fate has already decided,” she says.
I look up from the whispers, “You will be blessed as you enter the Trials of Fate...” She whispers out and a long pause stretches before she adds, “...again.”
I scoff. “I’m already immortal. What more could I possibly need?”
My heart betrays me with a heavy thud. Persephone’s smile turns sly, as though she knows me better than I know myself. “Love.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Love?” I sneer, saying the word as though it tastes rotten. “I’d rather wrestle Cerberus.”
Yet beneath my mockery, my pulse refuses to slow. The drifting souls of the Asphodel Fields fill my thoughts. The loneliness and silence that plagues my days and nights. The feeling that something has always been missing.
Persephone studies me. There’s admiration in her eyes, the same look she’s worn ever since I was a child. I inherited Father’s wavy black hair, storm-gray eyes and his sharp jaw. Even the slight bend in my nose. Sometimes I think she forgets I’m not truly her son.
She reaches up and gently grips my jaw, turning my face toward her. In a quiet voice, she says, “I know you don’t wander the Asphodel Fields searching for your mortal mother.”
Her thumb brushes against my cheek. “You go searching for your mortal lover.” She hesitates and then whispers in my ear”...Calista.”
The name strikes me like lightning and everything stops. A hundred forgotten moments rush back all at once. Golden afternoons filled with warm laughter. A hand slipping into mine. Promises whispered beneath a mortal sky. The crushing grief of losing someone I couldn’t follow into death. The invisible weight pressing against my chest suddenly breaks. I stagger back, sucking in a sharp breath. “Calista...”
The name leaves my lips as little more than a whisper.
My friend.
No...
Not my friend.
My Mortal love.
The name I have spent centuries trying and failing to remember.
