Chapter 3

When I woke up again, I was trapped inside a cold iron cage. Black roses curled up the bars. Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, had made me his pet.

I remembered it clearly. A tall man had saved me. It definitely wasn't that gloomy bastard Hades.

He only fed me once a day. The food was cold, rotten scraps that pulsed with the tainted Underworld air. It wasn't fit for a vulture, let alone a Phoenix-blood like me.

But that wasn't the worst part. He clamped iron chains around my claws. He locked me down as if I could sprout wings and vanish.

It was laughable. Even if I broke free, I had this scrawny, ashen sparrow body. How far could I fly? I had no divine power. I only had feathers and grit.

"Kraa!"

A hoarse screech sliced through the suffocating silence. I jerked awake. Black flames charred my soul again. The pain seared every nerve. This was torture. This was murder.

Hades' calculating eyes drilled into me. They were cold, cruel, and unblinking. He summoned the black fire. He scorched my feathers until they turned to ash.

"Pathetic. Useless. All these years and still not a single Phoenix feather. You are just as worthless as your ragged father."

The smell of burning flesh and despair filled the air. Every nerve in my body screamed. I bit down hard.

There was no way I would whimper. I refused to let that monster see me break. I refused to let him bask in his twisted game.

Anger flared inside me. He was testing me and torturing me just to see if I would shatter.

I couldn't stay here. If I did, I would die soon. I would just be another broken thing in his collection.

When Hades' maidservant came to feed me, I struck. My beak darted out and bit her finger hard. She howled, and I bolted from the cage.

I was too careless. The chain was still locked tight on my leg. I crashed to the ground and my bones rattled.

Pain exploded through me, but I refused to quit. I was bleeding and raw. I thrashed and tore at the chains with everything I had.

Then, one moment changed everything. A tear, red with blood, slid from my brow. It splashed against the worthless trinket I wore on my neck.

Golden light blazed.

Somewhere deep inside my fragile bird chest, ancient power surged. The chains erupted. Fragments flew like shrapnel, and I broke free. My wings beat wild and frantic.

I ran. I scrambled. I clawed my way out of Hades' dark palace with every last drop of strength.

Shouts echoed everywhere. "Hades' pet bird has escaped!"

If he caught me now, the next time would mean a hell so much worse. I would never leave that cage alive. I swore I would rather die than go back.

I didn't hesitate. I ran fast.

I dodged his hellhounds. I dove into the twisted fog at the edge of the Fields of Erebus. It was the borderland, crawling with wild things and monsters. It was a dump, but right then, it was the only place where I had a chance.

I stumbled onto a shack. It was rickety and half-collapsed in a pile of boulders. There were scratch marks on the door. They looked weirdly familiar, but my head was a foggy mess.

That chain around my neck caught a bit of my god-blood and glowed with a freakish, golden shine. Since then, the scars from Hades' dark flames had healed. Some lucky godly heir must have dropped it, and I had snagged it for free.

I set up a shelter. Every day, I perched in the scraggly tree outside and sunned myself. Below me, mutant monsters with five heads tore each other apart. It was honestly way more entertaining than the backstabbing in Hades' palace.

Just as things got good, a black shape streaked above me.

I tried to curse out whoever was tossing trash from the sky, but something slammed into the back of my skull. The world spun. Everything blacked out. I tumbled out of the tree, dazed.

When I came to, there was something in my arms. It was small, scaly, and dark as midnight.

It was a snake. It was barely breathing, sickly, and battered. It had a lone white mark on its tail.

I circled it a few times. "Damn, bro, you look like hell. Nobody wants a mess like you. You fit perfectly with a lost cause like me."

I wiped dirt off my face and dragged it inside.

"Lucky you crashed here instead of landing in Hades' stew pot. He would have dropped you in soup for sure."

I dug through the cupboards and found some leftover god-herb roots. I chewed them into a bitter mash and shoved it at the little black snake.

"Come on! I picked this up while the monsters brawled. If you weren't as pitiful as me, I would never waste these scraps on you."

The stubborn thing wouldn't open its mouth. It didn't matter. I jammed the herb in my own beak. I broke his jaws open and force-fed him.

Watching this little black wreck, something warmed in my chest. It felt like finding a shitty brother in this hellhole. For once, I wasn't totally alone.

"In a place like this, ugly fuckers like us? We stick together. It's the only way to survive."