The shadows of the Underworld pressed in around Bianca, but even here, where time felt endless and cold, she couldn’t escape the memories that tethered her to the living world. She had made her choice—left behind her brother, her mortal ties, and you. But it wasn’t so easy to let go.

You, with your sea-storm eyes, your untouchable strength. You, a hero that was in Nico’s mythomagic decks, the one person who had unknowingly become the center of all her secret longings.

Bianca closed her eyes, trying to still the ache in her chest. She had left Nico too soon, abandoned him to his loneliness, thinking she was protecting him by becoming a Hunter. But now, here in the silence of her death, she wondered if she had made the right choice. Not just for him, but for herself.

And for you.

She could still see you cradling her dying body the last time she saw you—your face framed by the silver shimmer of the stars in the evening. You had this quiet, powerful presence, a force like the tides. Unshakeable, unreachable. She had never told you, but she felt drawn to you from the moment you crossed paths. And yet, she knew better than to hope for anything beyond fleeting.

After all, how could she, sworn to Artemis and bound to a life that excluded love, ever belong to you? You were like the sea—beautiful but distant, constantly moving, impossible to hold. And she… she had chosen to run. She had chosen duty over desire.

But the thought of you never really left her. Not even now.

She had told herself it didn’t matter. That her love for you was something she could bury beneath her devotion to the Hunt. But in her final moments, she realized that love doesn’t simply vanish when you ignore it. It festers. It lingers, even here in the Underworld, where nothing else remains.

What had it all been for?

Nico’s face flashed in her mind, his dark eyes filled with grief. She had left him, she thought immortality, the Hunt, would give her more purpose. She thought she could outrun the pain of all uncomfortable things.