Alecto I

Alecto's fury surged like a tempest in her essence as she stalked through the shadows, her talons slicing through the air with the force of a storm wind. Her mind spiraled deeper into the pit of humiliation and rage, the crushing weight of failure pressing down on her immortal soul. She, who had existed since the dawn of time, had been bested by a mere mortal child. She, whose name had once sent entire cities to their knees in trembling terror, had been brought low by a demigod—a boy no older than twelve.

It was unthinkable. It was unbearable. It was humiliating.

Alecto could feel her sanity fraying at the edges, unravelling like a tapestry torn apart by relentless, unseen claws. Her mind, ancient and infinite, was like a volcano on the verge of eruption, the magma of her wrath bubbling beneath the surface, threatening to consume her. How had this happened? How had she—Alecto, one of the Erinyes, born of two primordials, of the very essence of the heavens and the night—failed?

She had existed before the Olympians, before the world had even known their names, before they became kings and queens. Before mortals had dared to look to the sky and give names to the stars, Alecto and her sisters had been there, lurking in the shadows, watching. They were vengeance incarnate, born from the blood of Uranus himself, their creation a product of divine wrath. The essence of Nyx, the goddess of the night, ran through her veins, giving her form and power. In her blood flowed the raw, untamed chaos of the universe. And yet…

She had failed.

The thought gnawed at her, without an end and unyielding. How? How could a demigod—no, a child—defy her so easily? Percy Jackson had stood his ground against her, fought her, and matched her blow for blow. Even without her true form, even without the full weight of her divinity, she should have crushed him. He was nothing more than a mortal, a demigod—more human than god, an upjumped mortal. He should have screamed in agony as she tore him apart, as his soul was ripped from his body and dragged into the underworld to be punished for eternity. That was what should have happened.

But it hadn’t.

Alecto’s lips curled back in a snarl as she remembered the fight. The boy had smelled of the sea—Poseidon’s scent clinging to his skin like saltwater on a breeze. She had known then, without a doubt, that he was a child of the Big Three. The very fact that he existed was a violation of the sacred oaths taken by the Olympians. A broken vow. That alone was enough to damn him, to warrant his death. She had gone to Yancy to spy on him, to confirm what her master, Hades, had suspected—that Percy Jackson was not only a demigod but the one who had stolen the Helm of Darkness and Zeus’s master bolt.

For months, she had watched the boy, studied him. She had seen him move through the world with what had seemed to be the ignorance of a mortal, with the ignorance of someone unaware of the divine blood that flowed through their veins. He had smelled like a demigod, yes—but the stench of humanity clung to him, masking his true nature. He had been easy to overlook, hidden beneath the mundane stink of mortality. But when they fought… When they fought, his true power had emerged, stronger, more potent than she had anticipated, more than it should have ever been.

It was as if she had been battling a demigod from an ancient age—a true demigod, half god and half mortal and not mostly mortal with a spark of divinity like all modern demigods and most demigods in history. Fighting him had felt as if she had men against the likes of Heracles in his prime or Dionysus before his humanity had been burned away by divinity. It was wrong. It was unnatural. Alecto had fought many demigods in her time, sent their souls screaming to Tartarus, and none of them had ever stood a chance. Demigods, despite their divine heritage, were still mostly mortal. They were nothing compared to the gods, to the true immortals.

But Percy Jackson had stood against her.

Alecto’s wings flared out, the tips sharp like blades, casting shadows that seemed to stretch and warp around her. She had razed entire cities in the name of vengeance, had punished sinners and blasphemers without hesitation. Mortals had once called her and her sisters the Kindly Ones—not out of respect, but out of fear. They dared not speak their true names, lest they invoke their wrath. Her name alone had been enough to bring entire armies to their knees, begging for mercy that would never come.

She had brought destruction upon cities and kingdoms alike. She had ripped souls from their bodies with a touch, left fields of corpses in her wake, their eyes frozen in terror. For eons, Alecto had been the embodiment of righteous fury, an enforcer of divine law. She had been unstoppable, unchallenged.

Until now.

The weight of her failure pressed down on her chest, suffocating her. How could a boy—a child—have matched her? He had been powerful, yes, but he was still a demigod, still mortal. Her divine form, her true self, had not even been unleashed, and yet he had stood his ground. Had she been too arrogant? Too confident in her power? Alecto could feel her pride tearing at her, clawing at her insides like a wild beast desperate to escape.

She had always been feared. Mortals had offered sacrifices to her, had worshipped her and her sisters in the hopes of avoiding their wrath. She had been invincible, unassailable. Percy Jackson should have been another blasphemer to crush beneath her heel, another soul to be sent to the underworld for eternal torment. His death should have been swift, his screams a symphony of despair.

But instead, he had fought her and survived.

The thought burned in her mind like a brand. Her rage, once a simmering ember, now roared like a wildfire, consuming her from the inside out. She had failed her master. She had failed herself. Worse still, she had allowed the boy to live, to continue to walk the earth, free from her grasp. His survival was an affront to everything she stood for, everything she had been created to uphold.

Alecto’s thoughts churned like a violent storm. She could accept the defeat of the fragment she had sent to Yancy. After all, it had been a small part of herself, a mere sliver of her essence. But this… This was different. This had been her full self—everything except her divine form—and she had been matched by a demigod. The shame of it twisted her insides, filled her with a sickening sense of failure.

What made it all the more unbearable was the knowledge that she could have ended it all from the beginning. If she had unleashed her divine form, if she had torn through the veil of restraint and shown the boy the full force of her wrath, he would be dead. He and his companions would be nothing but ash, their souls trapped in the underworld, subjected to her and her sisters’ cruel ministrations for eternity. They would have been able to learn of the emplacement of the helm of darkness and the master bolt from the tortured soul of the boy. It would have been so simple, so final.

Instead, she had hesitated. She had underestimated him. She had been drunk on hubris and paid for that.

And now, because of her failure, the balance between life and death had been thrown into chaos. The dead were rising, the natural order of things disrupted, all because Percy Jackson had been allowed to live. She knew, deep down, that he had convinced his divine sire to intervene, to shield him from her wrath, that all of this was his fault. Poseidon, ever protective of his spawn, had tipped the scales in the boy’s favour. And now, the consequences of her failure rippled through the mortal world.

Her lips pulled back in a grimace, her fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white. This was all her fault. Every corpse that rose from the waters, every soul that escaped the underworld, was proof of her failure. But she would not let it stand. She would not be humiliated again.

Alecto’s resolve hardened like stone. She would not return to the underworld until Percy Jackson was dead. She would not answer her master’s summons, not until the boy’s soul was ripped from his body and delivered to her feet. This time, there would be no hesitation, no restraint. She would hunt him down, track him to the ends of the earth if she had to, and when she found him, she would end him. No more games, no more mercy.

He would die. And his soul… his soul would be hers for eternity.

For Alecto was not just any immortal. She was born from the blood of Uranus and the darkness of Nyx, a force of nature as ancient and relentless as time itself. She had existed long before the Olympians, and she would exist long after they were gone. She was vengeance. She was fury. She was the embodiment of retribution.

And Percy Jackson would know the full extent of her wrath. Alecto was hunting and the only thing she was sure of was that would be spilled.