Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 378

Chapter 378: Hollow

Hades

"It was Lucinda," Kael’s voice reached me. It hit like a thunderclap. The ground beneath seemed to hold me still.

I didn’t turn. My chaos-ridden mind was already churning with the implication of his statement. I didn’t want to ask what he meant. That it was Montegue’s wife.

"It wasn’t a man that tried to take Elliot. It wasn’t anybody from Silverpine, or that Goddess-forsaken facility." His words came out in a rush, as if slowing down would make him lose the nerve to speak. "It was Lucinda. I ripped off her mask."

Laughter bubbled up from my throat. It felt foreign. And so, so wrong. Just when I had started to believe the sky had already fallen, the stars decided to implode as well. Every nerve lit up with a simmering fury that made the fine hairs on my neck stand up. Every breath burned, scalding my insides, until all that remained was a shapeless mass of wrath and disbelief.

Lucinda.

Like daughter, like mother, it seemed. I had let her hold my child. Embrace my wife. But in the end...

We had let an enemy into our ranks. And it had been during a high-stakes battle of wills and centuries-old animosity.

Something cracked. Maybe it was the dirt beneath my boots. Maybe it was my ribs, after my heart crashed against them. Or maybe...

It was the last delicate thread tying me to sanity.

I didn’t glance back. I simply walked away, even as I felt their eyes boring into me.

Each step felt heavy. I moved like I weighed a ton. The hiding place was deeper than I expected, and before long, the others’ voices faded into a distant hum.

My jaw ticked as I clenched my fist. I slammed it into the wall. Rocks and dirt came loose. It didn’t stop me. My second fist followed.

Then a third.

Then a fourth.

Pain bloomed, sharp and immediate. Skin split. Knuckles tore open. The sting grounded me, but it wasn’t enough.

I needed it to hurt more.

I needed something to break that wasn’t already inside me.

The wall trembled, but I didn’t. I shattered.

My breath came in ragged bursts. Every inhale scraped down my throat like broken glass. The darkness of the tunnel wrapped itself around me. Silent. Watching. Listening.

Kael was dying, and I was too much of a coward to watch my oldest friend rot into an empty shell. No more of his loud laughter. No more sly humor. No more of the kind of loyalty only Kael could offer.

Even after all these years, I don’t regret taking his place in my father’s twisted plan. I would do it again. Every cruel word I ever threw at him played on a loop in my head like a haunted record. Every unjustified insult slid another dagger through my ribs.

Agony and anger curled around my throat. It was a noose, a vice tightening with every breath.

I slammed my head against the jagged wall of the cave, again and again, letting the blinding pain drown out the torment that wanted to eat me whole.

I willed it to take everything away. The suffocating feeling of hopelessness, as time slipped through my fingers like oil.

The scream stayed locked in my throat. It refused to come out, no matter how hard I bit my tongue or clenched my jaw.

Blood dripped down my temple, joining the crimson trails on my knuckles. My pulse throbbed at the base of my skull. Pain radiated, hot and bright. But even that couldn’t reach the hollow place swelling in my chest.

Kael. The world, in its cruel wisdom, had decided to take him.

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