Chapter 4

The iron gates of the estate slammed shut behind us, the heavy clanging sound mimicking the finality in my chest.

“Let him rot in his own arrogance, Ares,” Lucian spat, his hands trembling with rage as he gripped the steering wheel. “He has completely lost his mind.”

I couldn't even find the breath to agree. The air in my lungs felt thick, like liquid lead. I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to ease the sudden, agonizing pressure building behind my ribs. When a violent cough tore from my throat, it didn’t bring relief—only the metallic taste of copper.

Dark, thick blood splattered against the dashboard.

“Ares? Oh my god, Ares, look at me!” Lucian’s voice panicked, his hands frantically searching the console for something to wipe my face.

The world began to blur into a smear of gray and black. The last thing I heard was the desperate, erratic thumping of Lucian’s heart as he pulled me into his arms, screaming for help.

While the doctors were strolling me to the emergency ward, I watched Lucian calling Hades in desperation and then cursing him in rage for declining his call. In the meantime, he would whisper a few comforting words to me and that he would find the cure.

The last time I heard him, he was still begging Hades to arrange the best healers for me. I raised my hands to ask him to give up. He wasn't going to send any aid, not when he believed I didn't need any.

But then I realised the suffocating weight that had burdened my chest for years was entirely gone. I felt light. Weightless.

Turning around, I saw a chaotic flurry of doctors and nurses rushing into an emergency bay. Lucian was there, pacing the floor, violently chewing his thumbnail down to the quick.

“Lucian?” I called out, stepping toward him.

He didn't look up. I reached out to touch his arm, but my fingers melted right through his leather jacket, grasping nothing but empty air.

Panic seized me. I rushed into the treatment room, passing effortlessly through the solid swing doors. There, stretched out under the harsh fluorescent lights, was my own body. A doctor was shaking his head, drawing a sterile white sheet over my pale, unmoving face.

Time of death: 14:22.

I was dead.

The realization didn't bring terror; it brought a strange, hollow peace. My journey in that fragile, broken vessel was over.

Because my spirit was somehow anchored to the tragedy of my own passing, I couldn't leave the hospital's vicinity.

Lucian took care of everything. He was the one who signed the release forms, the one who picked out a simple casket, and the one who sat alone in the hospital chapel for hours, staring at the floor with bloodshot eyes.

He tried to call Hades twice—not out of respect, but out of a desperate, furious need to make him face what he had caused.

Both times, Hades declined the call, sending an automated text: “I am busy finalizing the venue for my ceremony with Hestia. Do not call unless it is an emergency regarding the clan.”

Lucian had simply thrown his phone against the chapel wall, letting the screen shatter into a spiderweb of cracks.

Watching him, a profound sense of regret washed over me. I had spent the last five years of my life entirely consumed by a man who viewed me as a transaction, completely blind to the quiet devotion of the brother who actually stood by my side. I had wasted my living years chasing a shadow.

On the third morning, the day of my scheduled cremation, Lucian finally left the hospital. He dressed in a dark, exhausted gray suit, his face hollowed out by sleeplessness.

I didn't understand yet why my soul was bound to Lucian and had to follow him wherever he went. But as he drove his car to his home, he was welcomed with a huge setup of Hades’s Blood bonding Ceremony.

Lucian's hands clenched into fists as he watched Hades taking vows with Hestia. He looked happy, content, and proud.

“How ironic, Ares. They are throwing their grand ceremony on the same day as your funeral,” he whispered as if he knew I was standing right next to him.

Even in death, hearing those words felt like a phantom blade piercing my soul.

The next second, Hades walked up to him and barked. “Lucian. Look at the state of you. You’re late, you look like a vagrant, and you’ve been ignoring my directives for three days. Is this still about Ares?”

Lucian remained silent. He didn't look angry anymore. He just looked empty.

“Where is she?” Hades demanded, his voice echoing off the high stone walls. “I sent the keys to the border apartment to her phone, but the system shows she never accessed the network. Tell her that she has only one night to move out or else I’ll dump everything that belongs to her.”

“Then dump them!” Lucian yelled, “She doesn't need them anyway. And you do not need to worry about the place she is staying. She has found a new place, Hades. A place where no one can kick her out.”

“She is lying beneath white stone, Hades. Her residence is our Clan's graveyard. She doesn't need your apartment anymore because… she is dead!”