Prologue I: Day of Reckoning
Amaranthe Ateius, Mistress of Hearthstone
Hearthstone was under attack.
Amaranthe Ateius had been running errands when it happened. Two servants in tow, all three of them was taken aback by the ground suddenly starting to shake, loosing their footholds when a crack appeared in the ground before them. A second was all it took for a hole to be ripped open, and for a portion of the auction grounds to be swallowed. An entire block gone from view in the time it took for her to demand assistance.
That was just the beginning of it. Amaranthe had found her peacock-feathered fan, picking it up from where she'd dropped it during the incident, when something rose from the pit. Something… unnatural.
It was tall and thin. Almost see-through in how its obsidian skin was flecked with bright, internal dots.
Like a starry sky in the shape of a human.
"Jupiter's wrath," she gasped, trying to pull herself away from the creature. Its dark visage turned its glare on her, and Amaranthe realized that it was devoid of any features. No eyes, no nose, no mouth - a blank canvas. Her heel got caught, part of her dress bundled between cobblestones. She fumbled frantically.
A blurry shape shot past her then, and she saw 182-Katya filling the space separating her from the creature. Amaranthe stilled to watch the girl tremble, evidently terrified, as she fought her urge to run away.
She'd been trained well.
"Do somethi-" Amaranthe began, but the words failed her as Katya's head was sliced cleanly off her neck.
That's when she saw the creature's hand. Instead of a palm and fingers, a curved blade emitted from its wrist. It was slim and delicate, looking almost like a scythe, soaked in the red of her slave's blood. A surge of it had splattered across Amaranthe's front; her vision was encased in a crimson filter as Katya's body crumpled and 223-Alexei jumped up to take her place. The boy stood as little chance as Katya had.
Amaranthe watched with a horrified expression as the creature's appendage changed from a sword to double-edged axe. Alexei lifted his arms in an attempt to protect himself from the blades, but a single sweep was all it took to cleave his body in half. Now all but two corpses blocked in its way to the esteemed mistress.
One step. Two steps. It towered above her in an instant.
"Please," Amaranthe sobbed, pleading for her life despite knowing that the creature could probably not understand her. She closed her eyes, grabbing the pendant around her neck. "Jupiter, I beg of you. Save—"
A flashing light exploded behind her eyelids, and Amaranthe was thrown back by the force of a powerful explosion. Groggily, she looked up, finding nothing but smoke where the monster has just stood, a cloud of glittering dust particles surrounding it. She was struck with awe, a warmth blossoming in her chest when she realized what had just happened. The king of Olympus had heard her plea. She had been saved.
Before she had the opportunity to celebrate, another of the creatures, as faceless and terrifying as the first, jumped up from the widening abyss. Lighting struck from the contained vortex, electrifying its body and rendering it limp. Not before a third one emerged, however. Then a fourth, and a fifth. A horde of them.
She needed to escape. She needed to do it now.
Getting to her feet, Amaranthe stumbled through the upheaved streets. All around her, Emporium had been reduced to smidgeon of its former glory. Agoras had been toppled over, stalls had been set aflame. The town hall was caving in on itself. And worst, sprinkled throughout the wreckage, the creatures moved.
There hadn't just been the one hole, Amaranthe concluded. Several smaller ones were opening up in every direction she threw her head, expanding quickly to swallow more of the auction grounds.
And the monsters climbing out from their depths were hungry, it seemed. Hungry for flesh and blood.
As Amaranthe struggled to make way on her heels, she caught views that should have appeared only to the most gruesome of Hunger Games. She saw a well-dressed man, one leg cut off at the knee as three of the macabre creatures speared him from different directions mid-fall. She saw two identical youths, twins no doubt, being pulled apart and feasted upon as they called each other's names. She saw a young boy, no older than ten, wailing as he cradled the head of a woman whose midsection had been completely torn off.
It was a nightmare come to life.
She was just about to reach the outskirts of the marketplace, where the retail sector yielded to one of the residential areas, when she bumped into something and fell back down onto the ground.
"In the name of Hades, what the hell do you think you are doing?!" she yelled, anger bursting from her like a flood. She stifled her frustration, however, biting her lip to keep from making any further noise when the dizziness subsided and she found herself staring into three empty masks, studying her from above.
But her silence could only last for so long.
A scream tore from her throat when an intense pain blossomed in her abdomen. It was unlike anything she'd ever felt before, as she was lifted into the air, something sharp protruding out through her back.
Vision blurring, Amaranthe clung to her consciousness. She was aware of being discarded, of landing a few paces away, of something hot and sticky pooling between her fingers as she held her stomach. She was aware of the crack that sounded, of the ground beneath her giving way to one of the holes and bringing her along with it.
Lightning crackled in the sky, the fan slipped from her grip. Everything around her grew dark.
She was falling into the abyss.
094-Cleopatra, Possession of Antony
tw. sexual references
Cleo had always enjoyed chaos.
There was something truly spectacular about watching things fall apart. A beauty that could be found only in dystopian displays of destruction; like Emporium being reduced to rubble before her very eyes.
From the balcony of her master's bedroom, she had a front row seat to the spectacle. The vantage point allowed her to witness the many holes dotting the auction grounds, and though the justice building would have obscured her view under normal circumstances, the structure's collapse changed things for the better.
The holes spread out, intersecting with other holes to create even bigger holes.
It reminded Cleo of art. She got the same feeling from watching this as she did observing the painters that sometimes visited Antony's ballroom, using flawless brushstrokes to create exquisite works of craftsmanship.
Satisfaction nestled in her belly. At this point, barely anything of the central square remained. The action houses Hearthstone prided itself on, where so many slaves had been brought in and sold to sadistic masters and mistresses, had fallen into the void. It was gone forever, and it had taken a good chunk of the district's population with it. Left were only the demonic creatures it had spewed.
And that unrelenting vortex of wind and lighting that seemed to be Thirteen's only retaliation.
Cleo had never believed much in the gods. Jupiter was a poor excuse for the Patricians's continued reign over the Plebeians, and was held over the 'lower caste' to establish an unfair barrier in Panem's social ranking. As she regarded the cloud electrify the monsters one by one, however, sending them back into the hellish maw that had birthed them, she had second thoughts. Perhaps this was Jupiter, coming to their aid.
As the cloud was accompanied by two spheres - one the brilliant gold of sunlight, the other a luminescent silver that reminded her of the moon - she was inclined to believe that Apollo and Diana had joined the fight.
Even from a distance, she could see sunrays and moonbeams extinguishing monsters left and right.
They eradicated the nightmarish forces, but the massive void remained.
The hole continuing to spread for a moment, swallowing one last block before stopping some hundred meters from her master's establishment. The deities vanished, leaving the heart of Emporium gaping. The pens that had promised Cleo an eternity of chains were gone. It felt like the sweetest possible revenge.
"Cleo, come to bed."
She turned around, being met with the shit-eating grin of her young master, leaning against the doorframe. He'd been gone for quite some time, no doubt assessing the situation with his advisors in some hidden alcove.
Now that things seemed to have resolved themselves, momentarily at least, he'd returned to claim what was his. By coin if not by love.
"Yes, Master."
Cleo followed Antony into his personal suite, smiling pleasantly as she settled atop the lavish silks of the bed. It smelled of that white-haired bitch; a stench she wanted washed from the sheets and out of the pillows. If she was going to be a toy for this man to play with, then she was going to make sure she was the only toy he desired. The first step of that was eliminating any competition, starting with the young woman whose scent clung like perfume to the man she serviced as he laid down beside her, pulling her body close.
Kissing a line up the column of her throat, Antony turned Cleo around in his embrace to hug her closer. This was her lot in life, and she was going to manipulate it in her favor. She was certain she could do it.
Because whilst she enjoyed chaos as a concept, she also knew how to bend it to her will.
She would be a queen amongst slaves.
Juno, Queen of Olympus
They returned to little fanfare.
Juno came to greet them at the entrance to Olympus, where an ivory archway created a portal between the mortal realm and its immortal counterpart. She tried to keep up warm front, spreading her arms wide as she welcomed them back to their home. A colorful prism sprung from her scepter in a display of her affection.
"Husband, are you injur—" Jupiter brushed past her before she could finish the sentence, and she turned to the twins he'd fathered with another goddess. Juno tried to have a positive attitude towards them, as she did with all of the king's bastard children. It was easy with Apollo, who gave her a pleasant nod before turning to walk down the Avenue of Heroes. It was harder with Diana, who let out a snort in her direction, not even meeting the queen's eyes as she followed in her brother's steps towards the glimmering palace.
Juno was their matriarch; She had the right to lash out at them for their lack of respect. Yet, as had been imprinted into her brain since her birth all those millennia ago, she was silent in her wifely submission.
She'd never raised her voice. Not said a thing as her husband cheated on her with woman after woman.
No wonder she had lost the ability to smile.
Grabbing her skirts, Juno made her way past the drunken satyrs playing on pipes in Pan's Grove and into the Great Weld, hearing the faint sounds of arrows embedding themselves into the bark of distant trees. She reached the clearing minute or two later, entering the stone circle and walking up to the scrying pool in its middle.
She didn't have time to place her free hand on the granite before a voice rang out.
"Looking for anything in particular?" A woman stood before her, cloaked in shadows, holding a lantern of blue flames.
"Trivia," Juno greeted stiffly. "Shouldn't you be feeding prophecies to the fates or something?"
The godess of witchcraft chuckled. "The fates are merely an extension of my portfolio; you know this as much as anyone else. My touch is upon them even now as I speak with you." She took a step forward, and darkness clung to her feet, creating a veil around her that hid all features. "Now, can I aid in your search?"
Juno had an urge to say no. Trivia was one of the most unreliable deities of Olympus, she gave her assistance only to those whose quests benefited her own. She always had something up her sleeve.
Still, scrying was one of her specialties. If anyone could find what Juno was looking for it was her.
"Perhaps you can," Juno said, unwilling to give away her reservations in the matter.
Trivia stopped behind her, placing a ghostly hand over Juno's. "Good."
She would come to regret this.
echoverse . weebly . com
I'm back!
Hello everyone, hope you're doing good. It's been a couple of weeks since EBW came to an end; I meant to upload this chapter last week but realized that school is a thing and that you can only ignore it for so long before it comes back to bite you in the ass. ooop. Now that things have settled again though, and I'm back in the swing of things, we'll hopefully be getting weekly updates once more (for the prologues at least).
I want to remind you that subs have opened! The form and guidelines, as well as the link to the echoverse blog can all be found on my profile. Thank you to everyone who's subbed so far, I've loved every single one of the lil beans I've received. Keep 'em coming; give me kids to kill in horrendous ways :)
Speaking of the blog: I want to give a few shout-outs! I want to thank em (district11-olive) and z (alice kingsleighs) for help with the lore, as well as corey (jabberjayheart) and linds (ladyqueerfoot) for guiding me through the mechanics of weebly. Without you guys, the blog would not be what it is!
And remember to check out my verse-collab friendo ben's installment in the EchoVerse - Borrowed Time. I've heard a rumor that the first introduction chapter might be coming soon! Stay tuned…
If you're so inclined, I'd also love to hear your thoughts about Amaranthe, Cleo and Juno. Which POV was your favorite and why? What do you think is going on in hearthstone, and what happened with the portion of the district that was swallowed by the abyss? The 'starry monsters' - who are they?! And what's going on in Olympus? I had a lot fun writing this chapter, let me know your likes and dislikes.
I think that will be all for now. See you next Tuesday!
Over and out
- remus