Page 83 of Invoking Ruin

Finally, she nods, and I help her to her feet, steadying her as she wobbles.

The other gods are all dazed. Lethe is being cradled in Hephaestus’ lap, only her colorless hair visible, pouring over the thick wall of my brother’s arms. His head is lowered, his lips moving, though I have no hope of making out the words.

Nemesis recovers first, shaking off the shock and dashing for the exit. She stops only briefly to check on Dike and Deimos, but they both wave her on.

Others follow her—Eris and Apollo, Athena, even Hermes and Hecate. I glance at Atê, and she nods in response to my wordless question.

We stumble out after the others. My legs wobble like overcooked pasta, and hers aren’t much better, but we slowly regain our footing as we step out onto the hall’s landing. Dawn is breaking. We’ve argued the whole night through.

Nothing seems amiss at first glance. The palace is intact. There’s no damage on the surrounding mountain. The whole of Greece spreads out on the horizon, seemingly untouched.

Had that horrible noise really been nothing?

I shake my head, ready to go back inside when Atê gasps. Her voice breaks through the fog in my ears. She’s staring directly above us, her eyes wide with horror.

With growing dread, I tip my head back to follow her gaze.

A great fissure has split the sky, itself. The first glimmers of dawn and remaining night are both being sucked in, swirling together, like water into a drain of Void.

The hole in the sky stretches almost endlessly, grows wider, like a snake splitting its jaw to devour the world.

“Chaos.”

Chapter nineteen

Atê

The great crack in the sky looked like the bowl of the world had split open. I had no time to process the scale of the disaster before everyone panicked. Things happened too quickly, after that. There had been so much screaming, but it was like hearing the sound from three buildings over. Everything in my immediate vicinity was muted, cut off. I could see some goddesses and gods crying openly, but I couldn’t hear them.

Not until Apollo let out a piercing whistle and my hearing clicked back into place. My divine healing abilities kicked in at the worst possible time. The whistle sent me flinching back into Dionysus’ embrace while Apollo rounded up all the gods. Any thoughts of my trial were forgotten, and I couldn’t really blame them.

Apollo immediately called for his council, and Dionysus was among their number.

Then, they shoved me in this dusty marble cell in the old dungeons beneath Olympus.

I like this part less.

Everyone is doing something—though what, I don’t know—and I’ve been left in the dark, my hands still bound, forgotten once again.

It’s a shitty way to greet the end of the world, but it has a certain consistency, at least.

Of course my family would prefer to ignore me until the very moment we’re swallowed up by Void.

Nyx has been hard at work. What she’d done to open up such a massive a rift into the Void is a mystery, but there’s no doubt she means to end it all. And she will.

All because I gave her the knife.

My gut churns with something that feels suspiciously close to guilt. Not an emotion I’m familiar with, or want to consider too closely, but I can’t shake it, either. It feels like a worm twisting and turning inside me, unsettling and uncomfortable. Reminding me that I’d been too selfish to let Dionysus be killed.

No, I won’t regret that. I’d make the same choice over and over again.

But I also can’t get my mother’s voice out of my head. I did give our greatest enemy the means to destroy us all, just for a little extra time with Dionysus.

A god who doesn’t even love me.

It’s easier to blame the others. If they hadn’t chased me so relentlessly over the stupid knife, I wouldn’t have been backed into a corner and tried to seek out Nyx to begin with. Then, the Moirai would never have gotten in my ear. Momus, probably, never would have found us. It’s their fault for setting this all in motion with noble aims of protecting the world.

What did nobility ever get anyone but dead?

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