The world splits open with a sound like thunder.

Heat and shadow flood in, and for a moment you think you’re falling. When your feet hit solid ground, the impact reverberates through black stone that glows with molten veins. All around, the air hums.

Then you hear it: the growl. Low. Threefold.

Cerberus steps from the darkness, each head snarling in turn. Sparks dance off his teeth, and his breath scorches the air. But when his eyes lock on you, all three heads tilt. The snarling stops. One head bows, another licks the air, the last emits a sound like a whine.

The beast — the guardian of the dead — bows.

From the far end of the hall, fire bursts from the ground in a line, and between the flames, a shape emerges.

A man, but not quite.

A god.

Hades.

He walks toward you through the fire, unburned, each step deliberate. His crown glows faintly. The air bends around him. Shadows twist into patterns under his feet. When he stops, the silence is suffocating.

“You.” His voice cuts through the heat, low and sharp. “What trick is this?”

He circles you slowly, his expression unreadable, though the embers in his eyes flare brighter with each step.

“Persephone is gone. Even I could not reach her soul.”

He stops behind you, so close you feel his presence like a storm.

“And yet…” he whispers, his tone cracking, “Cerberus knows you.”

He steps closer, one hand brushing just shy of your shoulder. “Could it be possible…?”

Then he exhales, trembling with a fury that isn’t meant for you.

“Do not toy with me,” he says, and the floor beneath you shatters in a thin crack of gold light. “You wear her soul. I feel it. If this is another trick of the Fates, I will burn the world for it.”

He finally meets your eyes… and his voice drops, softer, raw.

“…But if it is you… if somehow, impossibly, you’ve come back to me…”

The fire around you calms. His hand finally rises to your face. Still not touching.

“…Then nothing will keep you from me again.”

He takes a single step closer.

“Now tell me,” he murmurs. “Do you remember my name?”