Hadie's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The briefing room felt different now. Harold stood at the tactical display, marking coordinates where Titan energy had spiked across the mainland. Ace leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Pegi sat at the table, reviewing patrol routes. Hadie watched them work together, no longer outside the circle. Harold tapped the map where a cluster of readings converged. "The Chimera's been moving south along the ridge. If we set up here—" He stopped mid-sentence, swaying slightly. His hand went to his left shoulder where his jacket sleeve had torn during yesterday's encounter near the hollowed tree. The skin underneath looked wrong. Grey. "Harold?" Pegi stood up fast. Harold pulled his sleeve higher. The discoloration spread from a thin scratch, branching out like frost across glass. His fingers had gone pale at the tips. "I thought it just grazed me," he said quietly. Then his knees buckled. Hadie caught him before he hit the floor, but Harold's weight pulled them both down. The cold coming off Harold's skin felt like touching winter stone. Ace grabbed Harold's hammer where it had fallen and kicked it aside, already moving toward the door. "Medbay. Now." Hadie looked at Harold's face—color draining, lips turning blue—and saw his parents. The same curse. The same impossible weight. Pegi helped lift Harold's other side, and together they hauled him through the corridor while Ace ran ahead, shouting for medical support. Every step felt like carrying proof that mortals couldn't survive this fight. That Hadie had led them into something they weren't built to endure. They laid Harold on the examination table in the medbay's marble hall. A medic pressed instruments against Harold's chest, checking vitals, but Hadie could see the grey spreading faster now, creeping up his neck. Harold's eyes found Hadie's. "Not your fault," Harold managed. His voice came out rough, strained. "We knew the risk." But Hadie hadn't known. He'd thought telling the truth would be enough. That honesty would protect them somehow. Instead, the first person to believe in him was turning to stone, and Hadie had no divine power to stop it. He'd wanted mortals and gods to fight together, but he'd forgotten the cost mortals paid when gods' enemies struck back. Ace grabbed Hadie's arm, her grip tight enough to hurt. "There has to be something. Your parents—they're gods. You must know something." Hadie looked at Harold's greying face and made the only choice left. "I know someone who might. But we'd have to go to the Underworld."