To ruin an Omega Nov Chapter 425: When the seasons change 1

Chapter 425: When the seasons change 1

FIA

I blinked. Or I thought I did. The concept of eyelids felt theoretical at best.

The space around

resolved slowly. I noticed there were stone walls that were damp and gray. It looked... It looked like a cell.

The more I looked at it, the more I realized it was the kind of cell that had held

before, when I embodied my ancestor Athena in those vivid dreams of mine. Yes... It was. It was the sa vile space that had held so many innocents before and after her.

I could almost taste the iron in the air, could almost hear the echoes of screams that had soaked into these walls over decades.

But it wasn’t real. I knew that sohow.

I sat up. My body moved without the pain I should have felt after what had just happened.

I had no throbbing skull, no broken nose, no blood coating my face. All I really felt at this point was a strange lightness, like I’d been hollowed out and filled with sothing kinder entirely.

Then I noticed soone was there.

I looked and to mo one’s surprise. There was indeed soone.

The apparition stood across from .

She wore my face.

She had the sa dark hair, sa pale skin, sa fra. But the eyes were different. They held sothing ancient, sothing that had burned itself out long ago and left only embers behind.

"Athena?"

The word left my mouth before I’d consciously decided to speak.

She smiled. The expression transford her face, made her look younger despite everything those eyes had witnessed.

"We finally et, granddaughter."

The weight of that word settled over

like a physical thing. Granddaughter. I’d only gotten to know about her from fragnted mories I had gotten from my dreams. So all I had really about this woamn was the trials and tribulations that she had gone through in life. The woman who had suffered so Valentine could build so sick sort of empire with the blood of the Ogas who had died in these very walls, or ones like them.

"I’m dead?"

I needed to know. Needed to understand if this was the end, if that girl had beaten

into nothing and left my baby to whatever fate awaited children conceived by a mad warlock’s design.

Athena’s smile faded. She moved closer, her steps silent against stone that should have echoed.

"You should know by now that there are feelings and fates so much worse than death."

The statent landed with the finality of a door slamming shut. I thought about Morrigan’s face before the girl had thrown her against the wall. I thought about the baby growing inside , about Gabriel trapped in his own body while Aldric wore his skin like a costu.

"So this is like before."

When I’d been dying on that private road, when sothing had reached into

and pulled

back from wherever I’d been headed. When I’d woken with power singing through my veins and power burning on my flesh.

Was this another of my gifts similar to the dreams I had of the past and eting up with my mother’s younger version?

Athena tilted her head, studying

with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

"Muna used to tell

stories about you." Her voice went soft, almost fond. "Our whole salvation. And now you’re about to share the sa fate as . The history book on the shelf does like repeating itself."

The bitterness in those last words cut through the fondness like a blade.

"I can’t end up like that."

The words ca out sharp, desperate. I couldn’t beco another woman who died in these walls while Valentine continued his experints, continued his search for whatever vessel he’d been chasing since before I was born.

Athena laughed. The sound held no humor.

"Right. I was so pathetic that I died in his walls."

She stepped closer, and I could see the bruises on her throat now. Faint marks that hadn’t been visible before, like she was slowly becoming more corporeal, more real with each passing second.

"Riddle

this, Fia." Her eyes locked onto mine, unblinking. "How do you intend to defeat a warlock with a god complex and a juiced up healer born from fleshcraft?"

The question hung between us like a challenge.

I pushed myself to my feet. The movent felt strange, like I was learning how to inhabit my own body all over again.

"First, I need to leave this... trance."

Athena watched

stand, her expression unreadable.

"There’s nothing holding you back." She gestured around us, at the cell that wasn’t quite solid, at the walls that seed to shift and breathe with each passing mont. "You’re the one who pulled yourself here. You’re the one who pulled

here as well. Perhaps because you have need for ."

I stared at her.

"I did this?"

The concept felt impossible. I’d been beaten unconscious, had felt my awareness scatter under that rug while the girl had brought her fists down again and again. How could I have pulled anything anywhere when I’d barely been holding onto existence?

"I guess that’s the difference in this reiteration."

Athena moved to the wall, pressed her palm against stone that looked solid but gave slightly under her touch like it was made of sothing softer.

"Though we have similar faces, we perhaps don’t share similar fates." She turned back to , and sothing in her expression had shifted. Gone vulnerable in a way that made her look more real than anything else in this space. "You were born blessed. I was destined to suffer as an Oga and et a bitter end. Everything that was great about

was born in a lab. So was my sweet girl. Muna. Even her gift to peer into the future couldn’t save her from a bitter death."

"Enough!"

The word exploded out of , sharp enough to make the walls around us shudder.

"Don’t say that."

I couldn’t listen to her talk about my mother like that. Couldn’t hear the resignation in her voice when she spoke about the woman who had loved , who had tried to save

from this exact fate.