Page 198 of A Touch of Chaos

Theseus summoned his lightning bolt again, but the Goddess of Witchcraft, whose eyes glowed with an ethereal light, met his gaze. The blazing magic in his hand flickered and then faded, and a strange cold enveloped him. He tried to summon the bolt again, but all he could manage was sparks.

He gave a frustrated cry and drew his sword.

“What did you do, witch?” he demanded.

“Do you not know?” she asked. “If Zeus dies, so does his magic.”

Theseus lowered his brows, at first confused by the goddess’s words, but then the reality of what she was saying hit. He ground his teeth so hard, he thought they might break.

“I will murder you, witch.”

She smirked. “Then murder me,” she said. “But know that I will cling to you, even in death. You will never know peace, not in your waking hours or in sleep.”

As she spoke, he could feel something overcome him, a deep and terrible madness. He buried his face in his hands, nails biting into his flesh. “Do not offer me your prophecy, witch. I am already destined to win.”

“I am not giving prophecy, you idiot,” she said. “I am cursing your ass.”

Then she was gone, taking Hephaestus with her.

The only ones left battling were Cronos and Prometheus, whose magic shook the earth with eachdeafening strike, but even that came to an abrupt end when the Titan God of Fire vanished.

For a few seconds, Theseus and Cronos stared at the spot where he had been, a shared anger thickening the air between them. Prometheus was a traitor, to both Cronos and Zeus. He had loyalty to no one, save mortals. Theseus had not known that the Titan had escaped the Underworld. He had been in another part of Tartarus entirely, chained to a rock while an eagle feasted on his liver.

Cronos met Theseus’s gaze from the sky.

“I will have vengeance against the other Titans as I will have vengeance against my sons,” said Cronos. “Consider our alliance formed.”

Theseus would have liked to celebrate, but he was too angry. He turned his gaze to the sky, catching sight of Zeus. He had left him suspended there as a reminder to the mortal world of his power. Now, he teleported to the god and saw that there was a gaping hole where his heart once beat.

Theseus’s rage boiled over, and he lifted his blade, hacking at the God of the Sky, carving pieces of his flesh from his body and letting them fall to the earth.

It wasn’t until he was finished that he saw how many had gathered to look up at him from below, not only Impious but Faithful mortals who had yet to seek refuge within Hades’s obsidian tower.

As he lowered to the ground, splattered with the blood of Zeus, he declared, “The King of the Gods is dead.”

His words were followed by deafening cheers and a chant that dissolved his doubt.

“All hail Theseus, King of the Gods.”

Theseus’s body crawled with the threat of Hecate’s words, and he was eager to shed their weight. She might have murdered Zeus, but that did not diminish the prophecy of the ophiotaurus, and now he was assured of Cronos’s alliance. He would win this war and would reign supreme over a world of his creation. Everything he’d planned for had come to fruition.

When he returned to the House of Aethra, passing the high wall surrounding his mother’s residence, his servants waited on the porch, bowing as soon as he appeared. They would not meet his gaze, and he knew it was because they had witnessed him cutting Zeus to pieces.

If Ariadne were standing here, she would hold my gaze, he thought.And she would refuse to bow.

It wasn’t that thought that brought him pleasure, it was what he would do to punish her for her defiance. He would force her to her knees and shove his cock so far down her throat that she choked around him.

The thought of how she would feel sent a thrill through him.

Suddenly, he was eager to go to Ariadne again, to see how she had changed in the hours since he’d left. Would she fight him again?

He entered the house and made his way to his bedroom, pausing when the noticed the door ajar. Instantly suspicious, he approached with caution, peering through the opening to see Helen leaning over Ariadne. A blade gleamed in her hand as she cut through the bindings on her wrists.

“Why are you helping me?” Ariadne asked. She spoke in a whisper.

“I have to,” Helen said. “I can’t…live knowing what he’s doing to you.”

Theseus doubted Helen even realized the irony of her words—though perhaps she soon would.

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