Ghosts Of Revenge | ongoing

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHADOW AND LIGHT

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"How do you define a God?"

I didn't know how to reply to that. How was I even supposed to know that? I barely even knew Greek gods excited a few months ago. That Embry would have probably said the most basic answer ever that people drill into you from when you were a child but even then, I didn't think my answer would have been the most average one.

My father raised me in no particular religion. He explained to me that he was an atheist and that I could choose whichever I wanted whenever I wanted but now that I thought about it, he was probably trying to put himself as far away from the Olympians and the hidden world that surrounded them as he possibly could because he knew gods existed.

And yet, he still wanted me to have a choice of my own on the matter.

"You don't." The man across me replied after a few beats of silence, "Defining one puts down borders on what they can do and Gods don't have limits,"

I stopped looking around the small sitting room area he had taken us to and turned to face him, "That doesn't make any sense," I said back, thinking over the words that just fell out of his mouth.

"How so?" he seemed amused as he asked, tilting his head to the side, before dropping it entirely on his arm on top of his knee.

"You do have limits." At his arched brow, I explained what I meant, "You can't for example use persuasion magic like Aphrodite can, heal someone like Apollo or summon thunder like Zeus,"

Hades nodded from his spot across me, dropping his leg and spreading them apart as if to sit better on his chair. But it felt more like a mocking gesture; his posture screamed boredom and in a way relaxation like he had nothing to be cautious of and I can't lie and say that it didn't get on my nerves a little bit.

"I'm not the god of thunder," he seemed disgusted that I had even uttered Zeus' name and I instantly noticed that he hadn't said it himself. He called him the god of the thunder, the last of his titles, "I'm the god of the underworld; I have no limits when it comes to my domain,"

As if to show me his powers, Hades raised his left hand and I watched as shadows from all over the room started pulling out of their respective space and started twisting around his wrist before they formed a sphere at the top. Then, with a snap of his fingers, they burst into blue flames and I watched as they disappeared altogether. Not even my shadow was there. It was as if they didn't even exist, to begin with.

My breath caught in my throat.

The room seemed weird after that. With no shadows, everything seemed brighter and one. I could barely see where some of the decorations started and where others ended if they had similar or the same colour. The room seemed... monotonous without them. Like everything blended in with each other and nothing held meaning anymore. Noticing my perplexed attention on the room, Hades gave me a wink as he waved his hand in a careless manner and the shadows started bleeding back into their place.

I watched as one stayed around his hand, shifting and swirling around it as if it never wanted to leave him. Hades examined it with care and wonder before he gave me a delighted look and threw it on me. Like literally threw it at me as if it were a ball. My body tensed and my arms moved to shield my face but I didn't have much time to react otherwise. When I felt the pressure of something hitting my whole body, I dropped them and examined myself. I then clenched the arms of my seat as the shadows enveloped me and for a second, everything was dark.