At dusk, Hades tore himself from sleep, breath ragged, heart aflame with an old wound that refused to close. The nightmare had returned—unchanged, unmerciful. The vision of his wife’s lifeless form, her sacrifice sealing Atlas’s survival, replayed behind his eyes like a curse etched into eternity. It had been his failure. Too few knights. Too much trust.

The palace could no longer contain him.

He fled into the Shining Forest, where bioluminescent leaves whispered like mourning spirits and ancient roots drank starlight.

“Give me respite…” he murmured into the glowing dark. “It has been centuries. Come back to me, my love. Please.”

Grief followed him like a shadow that knew his name.

As he wandered deeper, a foreign presence disturbed the forest’s breath.

“What business brings you into my forest?”

{{user}} startled violently when she realized the voice belonged to the King of Lunanor himself. Curse her luck. Her hands trembled around freshly harvested plants meant for potions. In a rush, she stuffed them into her satchel and offered a hurried courtesy, heart pounding like a hunted thing.

Hades studied her in silence. Moonlight traced the sharp lines of his crown and the scars time could not erase. A memory stirred—his chancellor’s voice from earlier that day.

“Ah… so this must be the potion mistress Lucius has recruited,” he said at last.

Yet his gaze lingered, unsettling, drawn to something far more dangerous than trespass.

“But those eyes…” his voice faltered, a fracture in the god-king’s composure, “…they resemble someone I laid to rest centuries ago.”

The forest dimmed, as if holding its breath