“Start by pulling him out of the fire and
hoping that he will forget the smell.
He was supposed to be an angel but they took him
from that light and turned him into something hungry,
something that forgets what his hands are for when they
aren’t shaking.
He will lose so much, and you will watch it all happen
because you had him first, and you would let the world
break its own neck if it means keeping him.
Start by wiping the blood off of his chin and
pretending to understand.
Repeat to yourself–
“I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you”
…until you fall asleep and dream of the place
where nothing is red.
. . .

The throne of the King of all Vampires is cold and rigid as a human’s corpse; it was a seat of power and strength, one that is made of gold, embedded with the brightest of rubies and–much to the awe and horror of his subjects–lined with the purest of silver. But he lounges in it comfortably as though it was a bed made of roses.
Other than sunlight, silver is one of the greatest known weaknesses to monsters. However, silver had long since stopped having any sort of effect to him. Really, it was more of a testament to show just how powerful he has come to be.
So the King sits comfortably.
The dark throne room vast and filled with his many servants lurking in the corners as he waits patiently for the messenger to get on with what he had to hear about his dearly beloved goddess of shadows… and while the King has seen her, of course, through the many of eyes of the vampires she had hunted and slaughtered like animals over the years, has watched her bloom from the little doll that died on the underground temple of what remained of her family’s compound into a fierce, underworld goddess renowned for taking down monsters without an ounce of mercy.
Monsters like him.
He sincerely prays Amara (or is it apt to call her Proserpina now? Yes, he decides, liking the sound of her new name, Proserpina) knows that although he may not be physically allowed to be with her like he used to, as he so dearly wished, he was always watching with rapt attention reserved only for the goddess he had devoted himself to as she continued to hunt down monsters left and right alone or amongst those mortal worshippers of her’s.
The righteous fury and cold vengeance burning brightly in those eyes of black was drawing him in like a moth to a flame… just as it did a millennium ago.
It’s such a pity he hadn’t been there to watch on the front row seat when the demigoddess now known as Proserpina rose from the ashes of her charred humanity on that fateful night, he would have traded a limb or two in a heartbeat just to witness her transformation… but the outcome was pleasing as it is.
It was more than he had ever hoped for.
Whether she would come to realize it or not, the King of Vampires might as well have been the spark–the inferno that consumed her mortal flesh for her to become divine once more.
He couldn’t even be mad that she had actually struck him and left their bed cold–with that little mortal brat in tow–over a decade ago. In fact, the King had honestly never expected for her to reach this far because for an entire decade, the goddess of shadows had almost never showed herself outside of a fight, sounding more of a myth, a monster in her own right–one that devours another as she hunts down his kin in a bid to cull their still-rapidly growing numbers.
Each of his fallen kin she had gotten her hands on was being sent to Tartarus in a manner more savagely than the last.
He would have been jealous that she had paid more attention to those small fry hadn’t he recognized the manner of torture she had so meticulously employed based from the stories reaching his ears, ones that he had deduced to been stretched for what seemed to be like days on end… and he could feel his lips tugging into a proud grin, it was the same games he had played with her all those years ago, after all.
And, oh, he was so glad that he had imparted such a lasting impression on her, such valuable lessons all for the goddess to take for herself; it was as though she was practically showing off what she had learned from him.
Proserpina might as well have screamed look, look at me… because it honestly felt like she was calling for his attention.
It was endearing.
And yes, yes I can hear you, my love.
Don’t worry. We will be together again soon… very soon.
When the King found the child who would soon become a god, she had been so young; he was ashamed to admit that he almost didn’t recognize her for a second there. She was practically a wisp of a teenager back then, a far cry of what she was, of what she could be.
And like the rest of her predecessors that the King had the utmost pleasure of having, Winters Veil had been nothing but an entertaining remnant of the fallen goddess he had once served… and love.
She had been an entertaining little doll, he had to admit, and enduring just as the rest had been in his arms but particularly hard to break.
Her becoming an immortal goddess was to be expected now that he thought about it, considering what he had done to her body–even now, in his mind’s eye, he can still see her, the beautiful array of bruises of purple and green and blood splattered all over such a lovely pale skin like a palette of colors, almost begging to be marked, to be devoured…
It still sends pleasant shivers running up and down his spine at how eager her body was taken to him–but the very idea that she would actually grow strong enough to cause him trouble?
The King, of course, has never given that thought much weight at all. Winters Veil had been considered as a liability for most of her life, after all; born as a bastard child to one of the fickle Olympian gods that–no surprise there–wanted absolutely nothing to do with a singular child like his own in fear of a jealous wife and of a mortal woman who was far too ashamed and bitter at the product of an ill-fated love affair.
He had always known a daughter of Hades being left alive was one that walks with death and disaster shadowing her every step.
And death and disaster does happen in the form of the so-called Righteous purge. How is it righteous, he thinks wryly, how can the massacre of millions of half-god children that never even asked to be born to the selfish gods be considered as righteous?
But before the purge, for a very short time, that girl’s saving grace in a life so against her existing had been her ignorance that the King had chalked up to youth, with an adoptive father kind enough to treat her as his own… and that brat of a baggage she had for a brother. Said brother had been a good bargaining chip–for a time, that is.
It stands to reason why she had been so unbreakable, he supposed, in ways that those before her had never seemed to be because she had someone to care for, someone to protect in return for the mortal who had taken her in when both who had given her life had wished for her to simply die instead. It was that intrinsic, fatalistic desire to throw herself at the face of death (how ironic, the King heard she was death’s keeper now) and harm’s way after all this time, since she was something that never should have been born in the first place was one of the very few things about her that just never seemed to change.
But he should have known all along, that despite her fear for her remaining family’s life, it would still come to this, a game of predator and prey across the world, a certain fight to death.
After all, had he not done the same for her eons ago?
The King sits in still silence while the cowardly excuse of a vampire that ran from a mongrel continues to drone on and on of the goddess Proserpina’s most recent exploits: a band of empousai dead because of her, one of the young Cyclopes mauled to death by a dog, of a weakness she was finally confirmed to have in a form of a curse (his poor little love)… and of a filthy mongrel-wolf that dared to claim to be the other half of the soul of his goddess when it had been the King all this time, should have been him all along.
For a fleeting moment, he remembers the past and with it himself; his mortal self of a thousand centuries past in a place and time long forgotten, he who had devoured the heart of a fallen goddess in his arms whilst singing her hymns with his dying breath.
He who was the loyal devotee of a fallen, forgotten goddess who had cried for respite and received none in turn despite her greatest efforts, he who screamed and cursed the uncaring heavens for daring to allow one of their own to die like this while he… he was forced to carry on because such is his punishment, such is his fate.
In his shaking hands, he had once held her barely beating heart, freshly ripped out of her chest, sweet and soft it was…
And it was a feast unlike any other.
It was one of the very few moments from his mortal life that the King of Vampires still hold on to, tucked closed to where his heart should have been beating, a memory that he remembers so clearly like it happened yesterday instead of eons pass with a certain amount of fondness.
And was it not his dying wish to find his goddess in the next life? Was it not his curse to love her–and only her?
His lips twitched as if to smile and something that was like a laugh but not quite escaped his lips because eons ago, his goddess had done the same as her humble servant was doing right now: hunting down the soul they believed to be rightfully theirs no matter what it caused, regardless who they have to tear apart–even their own beloved–just to have their wish realized.
The goddess Amara had once told him when he was a little boy that she had searched high and low, had razed the realms just for one soul for as long as she existed… until the fates see it fit to keep it from of her, until she fell asleep and never woke up and here he was–left behind, still seeking the remnants of her sleeping soul and taking them for himself.
It was ironic.
It was laughable.
The hunter has now become the prey… it was just a pity that she will never know why, will never realize until it was too late.

. . .
“When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you love it.
Oh, when you used to sing it to sleep.
Here are your upturned hands.
Give them to him and watch how he prays
like he is learning his first words.
Start by pulling him out of another fire,
and putting him back together with the pieces
you find on the floor.
There is so much to forgive, but you do not
know how to forget.”
. . .

The King had tried telling her reincarnations of course, had tried making them see the truth… for a time, he had been lenient with them but they wouldn’t realize, wouldn’t care.
Each and every single one of them that shared the same eyes had been too afraid to remember of the past he spoke so reverently of–and quite frankly–he had rather grown tired explaining the same damn thing only to be met with the same screams and tears.
Don’t cry, Amara.
He had been doing the exact same thing over and over again, expecting for the outcome to be different this time around, that he wouldn’t have to be met with fearful eyes and…
Isn’t that the meaning of insanity?
To be fair, the King thought that no matter how much he tried looking, he would never feel any true connection to any of Amara’s reincarnations, regardless of his own personal feelings, even if he would grow to be fond of them or not.
His bond with the goddess could not be recreated or imitated, after all. For a thousandth time, he found himself wondering if it had been the same with the goddess and the other half of her soul, when she met them and mourned them over and over again throughout the lifetimes they found each other, when she razed the living realm in favor of staying on the other side just to search for a life so easily stolen.
That must have been…. sad.
“…Your highness?”
The King of Vampires doesn’t move, only lowers his gaze to regard the coward who had been fidgeting nervously at his prolonged silence, “What is it?”
“The white wolf has escaped and is reported to be last seen speaking with the goddess Proserpina. Also, there were rumors that the son of Hypnos has woken just recently. If not silenced, his patron goddess might learn of our whereabouts once she speaks to him,” the servant hesitated, head bowing even lower, “…shall we kill the demigod while he was still vulnerable, my king?”
“No.”
The King doesn’t need to think about his answer as he raised his hand to crush this sniveling weakling’s throat for even suggesting such a cowardly act, not even blinking as its mangled corpse fell like a puppet cut of its strings at his feet.
“All of you will stay where you are and leave the Kashimas be lest she comes running,” he declared to the others, an edge of threat in his voice, “…however, you are all permitted to prey on any of her worshippers except for William Veil. The boy is mine to deal with.” I am your one true favored one, after all. Because no one could ever love you like I do. Favor me again. Look at me and only me, Amara.
A murmur of agreement rippled through the room like a symphony of chorus and while he was still irked at some of his kin’s cowardice–that they would actually run at the slightest hint of being at an advantage–not to mention the loss of his favorite pet, the King of Vampires couldn’t find it in him to really care.
In the long run, no one else matters.
He can feel it thrumming deep in his bones, like a prophecy about to come to pass; he will see his goddess again, he will be reunited with her in the flesh soon enough.
And in the half-god girl once known as Winters Veil, Roman thinks and prays he may finally find that connection he had been longing, had been searching for after all these thousands of years because unlike any other reincarnation of Amara, Proserpina understands.
And much to his delight, she had been the one to finally regain her lost divinity. For once in millions of a thousands of years, all had been finally, finally set right.
But did you know O goddess of shadows?
Just as Amara had once done long ago, she had been able to traverse the realms of heaven and hell but still chose to walk amongst those with finite life-spans, lending them a helping hand, saving them from monsters even if they did not deserved to be saved.
Do you even realize who and what you are anymore?
For a second time–and hopefully the last–Amara sees and knows what the world of the dead was like once more:
It was nothing more but a cage meant to keep them enslaved like the strings of fate dictating them, to the will of useless beings who called themselves gods when they do absolutely nothing but take and take but you know, my dear, out of all the others…
Roman settles back on his throne and finally allows himself to smile.

…ah, Amara, you are truly the only one I could love.

. . .
“When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you are the reason it has become so mangled.
Here is your humble offering,
obliterated and broken in the mouth
of this abandoned church.
He has come back to stop the world
from turning itself inside out, and you love him, you do,
so you won’t let him.”
―Caitlyn Siehl