Hades' Cursed Luna

Eve

The command screens lit up in front of me, the live feeds flickering into a collage of quadrants. At the top, Obsidian's central district—streets cleared, Gamma banners unfurled, the civilians ushered back behind locked gates.

The Royal Gammas moved first, their vehicles loaded with provisions and crates of food, each convoy guarded by disciplined ranks. Behind them, the Military Gammas marched in unison—black armor, silver insignias glinting under floodlights. Their formation was heavier, more deliberate, and the sound of their boots rolled through the speakers like distant thunder.

Every quadrant mirrored the same rhythm: distribution followed by deployment. Where the Royal Gammas gave supplies, the Military Gammas gave presence. A balance of provision and power. Shield and sword.

My gaze shifted down to the second panel of the feed—tabloids, live broadcasts, social media banners running like wildfire across the pack's communication grid.

It hadn't even been an hour since the dispersal, since the announcement, and already the words martial law burned across every headline.

The press spun chaos as only they could:

"Military floods Obsidian streets."

"Tower passes emergency law without statement."

"Civilians brace under silence."

Speculations overlapped with grainy videos of Gamma columns, shaky handheld footage of convoys rolling past corner shops, commentary running wild. Every anchor, every commentator, every anonymous feed scrambled to frame the same thing: control. Silence from the Tower. Punishment for dissent.

And through it all, I could see the citizens in the background of the shaky clips—faces pale, bodies pressed against windows, clutching bags of provisions as though they were shields.

I sat back, hands tightening on the edge of the console.

The press had their narrative. For now.

But soon—soon, we would have ours.

"I hope it all goes to plan dear." Monte's low voice snapped me out if it.

I raised my head to meet his eyes and the sadness whirling underneath. His trembling thumb stroked Lucinda's pale weathered hand softly. "You need this win."

My lips twitched but I could not manage a smile. "We all need this. We just have to wait." I murmured, rocking Elliot gently as he slept. The Infirmary was quiet, safe the beeping of the machines that Lucinda was hooked to.

The gray roots of her hair aged her, made appear fragile, her collar bones stuck out, her lips thinner as if pursed. Under her hospital gown, I knew was the blighted mark. The thing that managed to put her in this condition, had Kael kidnapped and Hades... and Cain...

"The Deltas have tried three times now," he murmured, gaze fixed on her frail chest. "Each time, the same answer. This is no ordinary wound. It clings to the skin, yes—but deeper than that, Eve. It binds the soul, the mind, the very things that command the body. Thought, will, even breath."

He exhaled shakily, his shoulders sagging under the weight of truth. "If it had been her arm, or her leg, they could have cut it away. Amputation. A terrible choice, but a clean one. But the mark lies here—" his hand hovered briefly above her chest, just shy of touching the fragile rise and fall. "Too close to her heart. There is no cutting this out. No severing its grip."

His voice cracked, rough and raw. "It is killing her slowly, in ways no blade or salve can reach. And I—" his throat bobbed, the words straining as he forced them out, "—I can only sit here, and watch her fade."

Montegue's voice faltered into silence, but the weight of his words lingered like a stone in the room.

I felt it crush me.

Hearing it said aloud—hearing the truth carved into sentences instead of whispers behind closed doors—made it real in a way it hadn't been before. My throat tightened despair digging deep where no hand should reach.

Lucinda's breaths were so fragile I could barely see them. The steady rise and fall of her chest looked more like the flutter of a dying bird's wings, too slight, too shallow to belong to someone who had once been fire. Once been life.

And Montegue, with all his poise, all his unshakable strength, was unraveling beside her. The tremor in his voice wasn't just grief—it was helplessness. The kind of helplessness that burned worse than any wound.

But apart from Lucinda, I watched Monte, his eyes dark with sadness, body weighted down by... guilt.

My voice came out sharper than I wanted. "Stop it, Monte,"

His gaze shifted to me, surprise flaring mildly in his gaze as if the sorrow tampered every other emotion that he felt. "What?"

"You know what," I replied, still sharp. "I know you better than you think. I know that look. You are blaming yourself again."

His mouth opened to deny it, only to shut again as he tore his eyes from me. He smoothed back Lucinda's hair, smiling faintly though his lips trembled. "She is a vision, isn't she?" He whispered, like he was not speaking to me, but to someone I could not see. "She always said her nose was too small, like a button. She wanted a strong nose, one with character." He pitched his voice just a little higher, with flamboyant flare of the words mimicking her. He chuckled to himself, but his voice cracked. "But she had enough character, the flare, the radiance of a queen. When she entered a room, you were tempted to bow."

His voice turned brittle, his fingers trembling as they lingered near her hollow cheeks afraid to press too hard as if she would shatter beneath his touch. "I Swore no harm would not to her as long as I lived. And yet here she lies..." His voice frayed. "Marked, broken, used against those she loves, now fading and I left with nothing but vows I could not keep."

There was more he did not say. The man had lost so much; his daughter, killed by his second daugther who abused his grandson and now his wife seemed to be in at the brink. It was more loss than most could fathom.

I walked up to him, chest tight.

"Monte," I said gently, "you love her more fiercely than anyone else ever could. That's not failure—it's devotion. What's happening to her is not because you didn't protect her. It's because Silverpine used the foulest thing they could find to hurt her… and to hurt you. No vow could have stopped that."

His jaw tightened, his eyes darting away.

"You feel guilt because you swore to shield her, but guilt isn't truth. Truth is that she's still here because you've fought for her at every step. Truth is that she needs you strong now more than ever, not broken under a weight no one alive could carry."

I crouched nearer, my voice soft but unyielding. "If you let this guilt consume you, then you let Silverpine win twice—once by harming her, and again by taking you from her. And she deserves more than that. You both do."

"Luna, Governor," he panted, bowing quickly before offering me the device. "Live feed from Silverpine. The rescue party—news just came through."

My heart jolted.

I set Elliot gently down, my hands already reaching for the tablet. On its screen, flickering images came into view—comms reactivated at last. The signal was shaky, the audio crackling, I recognise the location.

The border. They were reporting from the border.

But not as I remembered. It was crawling with armed Gammas, faces hardened and the posture taut.

From the looks of it, this wasn't simply a checkpoint—it was a fortress. Floodlights carved the night into harsh slices of white and shadow. Armored columns stretched in disciplined rows, weapons at the ready. Watchtowers rose at intervals, bristling with snipers.

And the gates… my stomach knotted the moment I saw them. I knew that design. Not built to shock, but to kill. Voltage enough to burn flesh from bone, to leave nothing but char and smoke.

The mines were worse. Buried in the expanse before the gates, their faint metallic glint visible only because of the high-res zoom. A field of death, laid out like bait, waiting for the first careless step.

It wasn't just defense. It was entrapment.

From above, the whole perimeter stretched like a scar across the land, mile after mile of steel and firepower. A wall not to keep enemies out—but to lure prey in.

The realization sank like stone in my gut.

And though it looked impossible, though every instinct screamed that no one could pass through that unscathed, one thing was certain—Hades and the others had not been captured.

If they had, there would be no need for this kind of theater.

The only clear space was the sky and even if by some miracle they could fly over the barricade and traps, they would be shot out of the sky.

My wiped my clammy hand on my clothes, skin tingling from apprehension.

Montegue spoke. "At least now we know that their claim was bull. They don't have them--- but for how long."