Every pretty girl needs a fighter (they break bones not hearts)
1 – In the Grip of Death
The wind smelled of salt and storm.
Lyra stood on the black cliffs above the coast and gazed out at the sea, as if she might find answers there. The waves crashed hard against the rocks, breaking into white foam – just like people’s prayers to the gods.
Loud, desperate, and ultimately meaningless.
“You shouldn’t be up here,” a voice called from behind her.
Lyra didn’t turn around. “And you shouldn’t think I’m listening to you.”
A soft sigh. Footsteps on stone. Then Alexandros stepped beside her, cautiously, as if her mere presence could get him into trouble.
“The priests say a storm is a sign,” he said. “Perhaps from Poseidon.”
Lyra snorted. “Of course they say that. If a fish swims the wrong way, that’s a sign too.”
Alexandros fell silent. He often did that when she spoke of the gods. Most people did. Not out of respect, but out of fear.
Lyra, on the other hand, had learned that fear made no difference. The gods took what they wanted, whether you knelt or not. No prayer, no begging, no tear changed anything.
Her gaze drifted over the horizon, where dark clouds were gathering. The sea was restless today. Different than usual. As if it were angry.
Instinctively, she reached for the chain around her neck.
The stone felt cold against her skin. Black, smooth, and so heavy, as if it were carrying more than just its own weight. She didn’t know where it came from. Not really. Only that it had stayed with her when everything else was lost.
When her family died.
When the gods decided that her life was worth less than their game.
“Lyra,” Alexandros said more softly, “you should be careful. If anyone hears you talking about them -”
“Then let them listen,” she cut him off sharply.
Finally, she turned her head and looked at him. Her eyes were dark, not soft like those of the other women from the city. There was something hard, unyielding about them.
“I won’t pretend they’re kind. Not after what they’ve done.”
Alexandros couldn’t hold her gaze for long.
No one could.
Distant thunder rumbled across the sea.
Lyra turned back toward the horizon – and at that moment, it happened.
The water moved. Not like waves. Not like a storm.
It parted.
A narrow crack ran across the surface of the sea, as if something invisible were cutting it open. Darkness poured out of it, not ordinary darkness, but something deeper, older.
Lyra froze.
“Did you see that?” whispered Alexandros.
But she didn’t answer.
The stone around her neck began to burn.
A sharp pain shot through her chest, so sudden that her breath caught in her throat. She reached for the chain, but it would not come loose. The stone pulsed, as if it had a heart of its own.
The sea grew still. Unnaturally still.
It drew her toward it – not her body, but her soul.
Lyra staggered forward, her feet slipping on the wet stone. Alexandros called her name, but his voice sounded distant, distorted—as if she were no longer quite here.
The world around her warped, the light refracted, and darkness enveloped her.
And for a single, endless moment, she fell. It felt as though she would fall forever and never reach the bottom.
Cold enveloped her like a second skin. Voices whispered, thousands at once, a deep murmur, as if trying to lull Lyra to sleep. Memories that weren’t hers brushed against her like shadows.
A weight settled on her eyes and pressed her eyelids down.
Silence.
Lyra hit the ground hard.
The air was knocked out of her lungs as she landed on the cold, hard ground. For a moment, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe – she could only feel the burning pain in her chest.
Slowly, with great effort, she opened her eyes. It was dark, but not completely.
A faint, bluish light hung in the air, as if the darkness itself were breathing. Fog crept across the floor. In the distance, figures moved – shadowy, fleeting.
A shiver ran down her spine and made her heart race.
Lyra sat up.
She forced herself to stand, even though her legs were trembling. The stone around her neck was cold again – as if nothing had happened.
A breeze ruffled her hair.
She heard footsteps. Slow, heavy, they were coming toward her.
Lyra spun around.
A tall figure stepped out of the darkness. It was cloaked in black.
Power lay in every movement, calm and overwhelming at the same time – like the depths of an ocean that had never seen light.
His gaze met hers.
And in that moment, Lyra knew two things with absolute certainty:
She was no longer in the world of the living.
And she stood before a god.
2 – The Dance with Death
His footsteps didn’t stop until he was standing right in front of her.
Lyra sensed it even before she actually saw him – that presence that made the air itself feel heavier. As if the world had held its breath.
He said nothing. He didn’t need to say anything.
His gaze rested on her, dark and inscrutable, and Lyra felt as if she were being pierced – not physically, but deeper. As if he were seeing something inside her that she herself did not know.
She forced herself not to flinch.
“If you intend to kill me,” she said finally, her voice rough but firm, “then at least do it quickly.”
A barely perceptible twitch crossed his face.
Could it be surprise, or perhaps amusement?
“You’re not dead.”
His voice was calm. Deep. No anger in it – and that was precisely what was unsettling.
It was a question, wrapped up in a statement.
Lyra lifted her chin. “Obviously,” was all she could manage.
She brushed dust from her knees and her blouse to give her hands, trembling with nervousness, something to do.
A hint of shadow moved around him, as if darkness itself were reacting to his mood.
“Mortals do not enter this realm alive,” he continued. “Not without reason.”
“Then maybe you should find out who brought me here,” she snapped back. “And send me back. I certainly’m not here of my own free will.” As she spoke the last sentence, she furrowed her brows and poured all her anger into her staring contest with the god before her.
He let out a soft, almost inaudible exhale.
It didn’t sound annoyed, more like resignation.
His gaze slid over her, slowly, scrutinizingly. Not like a man looking at a woman – but like a judge examining a defendant.
Lyra hated it.
And at the same time, she couldn’t look away.
“You speak with little reverence,” he said.
“I have no reason for reverence.”
Lyra sucked in a breath, but the words were already out. The man said nothing in reply, continuing to scrutinize her with an intensity as if his gaze were peeling the clothes off her body.
For a moment, Lyra thought she had gone too far. That he would now simply destroy her- a thought that triggered surprisingly little fear in her.
If anything, she was tired.
Tired of gods who took without asking. Who created lives with a snap of their fingers. Who killed without batting an eye, often in the same breath. Who played with people’s lives as if they were mere pawns on a chessboard.
But he didn’t kill her. Not yet.
Instead, he took a step closer.
The temperature dropped instantly. A cold breeze brushed against her skin, making her shiver involuntarily, and she hated herself for it.
He noticed. Of course he did. His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he’d discovered something that fascinated him. He was still looking at her as if she were a puzzle he hadn’t yet solved.
“You’re not afraid of me,” he stated.
Lyra held his gaze. “Should I be?”
A faint, dark smile flitted across his face, so fleeting that she wasn’t sure she’d really seen it.
“Most people are.”
“Then I suppose I’m an exception.”
The words were out before she could stop them. Did she really want to die?
One more mistake. How many could she get away with before he took her life for this disrespectful behavior? She tried to bow her head in humility – which she didn’t quite manage – while mentally setting the “offending the God of Death counter” to 2.
He bridged the distance between them and reached out his hand. He lifted her chin until she stood before him with her head held high again.
“False humility doesn’t suit you,” he said. His voice had grown softer. More dangerous. “Your pride and your anger suit you so much better.”
His fingers lay cool against her flushed cheeks, and when he lowered his hand again, they left a tingling sensation on her skin.
The shadows around him thickened, grew heavier, denser, as if the realm itself were reacting to his words.
Lyra took half a step forward before she could think about it.
“I know the gods,” she said. “That’s enough to be angry.”
For a moment, there was something in his gaze. It vanished so quickly that she couldn’t make sense of it. Then it disappeared again behind that impenetrable calm.
The counter jumped to 3, but Lyra didn’t care. She felt another wave of rage wash over her.
“I’m not like my brothers and sisters.”
“You’re all the same!” Lyra snapped at him. She seemed to truly be longing for death. She blinked. This was the fourth time she’d been rude to a fucking god.
A long moment passed.
A silence stretched between them that was almost tangible. No sound, no wind, just this strange, electric feeling, as if something invisible were pulsing between them.
Lyra felt her heart beating faster.
Not out of fear.
And that was exactly the problem.
His gaze dropped briefly to her chest. To the stone she wore around her neck.
Lyra immediately reached for it, as if she’d burned herself, but too late.
He’d seen it, and now there was no calm left in his face, only icy coldness.
“Where did you get that stone?” he demanded, his voice cutting through the air.
Lyra tightened the chain around her fingers.
“It’s mine.”
One mistake after another, and once again she realized it too late.
He was suddenly right in front of her, so close she didn’t know when he’d moved.
The world around her seemed to stand still.
His shadow fell over her, cool and heavy, and for a moment Lyra forgot to breathe.
“Nothing about you belongs here,” he said softly. “Except this stone around your delicate, fragile neck,” he hissed. Blue fire swirled in his eyes.
His hand rose, but he hesitated before touching the stone. Before touching her.
“This stone lay on a velvet cushion in my treasury. It lay there before it was stolen from me fifty years ago.”
At these words, a jolt ran through Lyra and her eyes widened.
A chill shot through her body and at the same time, a strange, flickering sensation, as if something were lighting up inside her. Images flashed by, foreign and fragmentary.
Laughter. Light. Loss. Shards of memory that weren’t hers. Couldn’t be hers.
She gasped for air and knocked his hand away.
The contact broke abruptly.
The silence that followed was deafening, so much so that it hurt her ears.
Now he could no longer hide his reaction. His gaze held a mixture of emotions: recognition, realization, fear, anger, then fear again.
Lyra pressed her lips together; her heart was pounding.
“Don’t come any closer,” she said quietly.
Another mistake? No, not this time. For instead of getting angry, he took a step back.
Slowly, as if to give her space, he retreated into the shadows, letting her breathe a sigh of relief.
His gaze never left her.
“You will stay,” he said finally.
No threat, no judgment – just a statement, as if he were declaring that the sky was blue.
Lyra laughed dryly. “That’s not a decision you get to make.”
A shadow flitted across his eyes. Brave, Lyra, truly brave.
“I make every decision here.”
The air between them grew colder and yet it felt as if something were burning.
Lyra lifted her chin.
“Then for a change, you should make the right decision,” she snapped back, crossing her arms over her chest.
Another moment.
Then he turned away.
The darkness closed in around him, following him like a living cloak.
“I’m going to find out why you’re here,” he said without turning around. “And then you’ll leave this place.” A brief pause. “Or stay here forever.”
He vanished into the shadows and Lyra was left alone.
Her breath came in quick gasps. Slowly, she raised her hand to her chest and took a deep breath. Once. Twice. You could call that a near-death experience.
The stone was calm again.
When he vanished, he had taken with him the little light that had illuminated this dark pit. She took a few steps and paused as glowing blossoms bloomed beneath her feet in the darkness. When she looked up from her feet, she saw tiny points of light floating in the air, each one moving further away from her the moment she took a step toward them. She followed the dancing light that steadily guided her through the darkness. With every step, flowers bloomed beneath her soles, glowing pulsatingly and withering again as soon as she moved on. As she stumbled through the underworld in pursuit of the light, Lyra couldn’t help but think of the emotions in the god’s eyes. The fragments of memory. The realization, the disbelief, the fear in his face.
Here lay a riddle before her, and she wanted to solve it.
And for the first time in a long while, Lyra wasn’t sure if the gods had truly taken everything she could lose.
in progress…
novels by chiara 