Chapter 184. Darkness

Hermes POV

Darkness.

Not the peaceful kind. The heavy, endless kind that presses against my chest and makes breathing feel optional.

“Hermes, honey.”

Natalya’s voice.

I turn sharply, my pulse spiking. “Natalya?” My voice echoes, swallowed whole by the void.

That’s impossible.

Natalya is dead.

The thought lands with a sickening clarity. I know this. I remember this. So why is her voice threading through the dark like a hook in my ribs?

“Hermes, honey. Come with me.”

The words drift ahead of me, coaxing, familiar, wrong.

I take a step forward anyway.

If this is death, then it’s cruelly accurate—voices from the past, calling me where I don’t belong.

Then—

“Marcus, son.”

My breath catches.

I turn.

That voice… no. That voice hasn’t existed for decades.

“Mother,” I whisper. My throat tightens painfully. “Mom…”

If the dead are calling me by name, then this must be it. I