The King

Chapter 39

Chapter 39: Now I hate Santa Claus

The flight was silent.

So

I asked for Chaos's help and she told me where my next stop was.

San Francisco.

The flight took hours, leaving everyone to find their own way to pass the time.

Grover played his pipes. Zoe got bored and started shooting arrows at random billboards as we flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store—and we passed dozens of them—she would peg the store's sign with a few bulls-eyes at a hundred miles an hour.

Thalia refused to look down; she had been hugging me tightly, eyes closed.

I was having a conversation with Chaos.

'So you're saying I'm your equal?'

'Superior,' she corrected calmly.

'No wonder the hierarchy of this relationship has always tilted in my favour.'

'So... you broke your own rules billions of years ago because you felt alone... and decided to create me?'

'Yes. That is the simplest way to put it.'
She paused. 'But you are not just another creation. You are my counterpart. Everything I have made — every world, every being, every law — is yours to command as you see fit.'

I hesitated. 'Do I have some kind of self-destruct protocol? In case I turn evil... or try to harm you?'

I didn't believe I ever could. Not her. Not anyone I love. But power like this demands safeguards.

She didn't smile.

'There is only one law that binds you.'

Her voice softened, but it did not weaken.

'You will never be able to leave me. Our souls are fused. That is why I slept for billions of years after I created you... and why I awakened the moment your soul began to stir.'

'This makes me feel a lot better, I didn't know why, but the idea of Nyx having another father or you belonging to someone else always made me uncomfortable, You're mine forever.'

Chaos smiled, if I saw her right now on her bed a chill would have run down my back, she had hearts in her eyes while smiling widely at no one in particular with a dazed look on her face

"I belong to you darling"

I was shaken out of it by Thalia who wanted to talk.

"You did well back there," I told her.

It was hard to tell what she was thinking with her eyes closed and her cheeks flushed red

"Maybe," she said. "How did you get away from the skeletons in the generator room, anyway? You said they cornered you."

I told her about the weird mortal girl, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who seemed to be able to see right through the Mist. She didn't look as surprised as I was, but she just nodded.

"Some mortals are like that," she said. "Nobody knows why."

Suddenly I flashed on something I'd never considered.

My mom was like that. She had seen the Minotaur on Half-Blood Hill and known exactly what it was. She hadn't been surprised at all last year when I'd told her my friend Tyson was really a Cyclops. Maybe she'd known all along. No wonder she'd been so scared for me as I was growing up. She saw through the Mist even better than I did.