Hades
"You do understand why this is necessary?" Father said, watching as the Deltas scanned my body.
"I do," I replied.
There was no need for further explanation. He would give it anyway.
"You were never meant to be ordinary. The birth of the twins changed everything. A shift foretold. A balance undone. You know this."
I did. Everyone did. It had been ten years since the prophecy had awakened Obsidian's darkest fears—and ten years since I had last seen sunlight. My first step out of the Black Room since the age of eight had been the day the twins were born.
That alone told me something monumental was coming.
Even my sixteenth birthday hadn't spared me. That gift—if one could call it that—had been the surgical removal of my dimples. A soft feature, they said. A weakness. It had been done without anaesthetic. My screams were considered part of the process. Proof that I could endure. That I deserved to keep my name.
But the truth was, that name had already been taken.
