Like the Prince, Kitty had changed. If she appeared unstable before, now she didn’t even maintain a façade of sanity, “Welcome, O Prince, or shall I call you Nathan, a human name is fitting for what you’ve become.

“Ethel, betraying me so soon?” the Princess rose off the throne, unfolding her legs like they belonged to a spider.

“Death of all humans, have you truly thought this through?” Ethel’s voice remained soft as if speaking to a skittish cat.

The Princess snarled before turning her focus back on the Prince, “The majority is with me this time, I won’t make the same mistake you did. I won’t leave you alive.” Suddenly the Princess doubled over holding her head.

The other gods twitched, looking disturbed but not surprised. Neither did the Prince, “You haven’t been an anchor for three thousand years and never on your own. The pressure of all those minds, can you even hear your own thoughts anymore.” He approached her.

“You would make a deal for one human,” the Swan stepped forward, getting in the Prince‘s face. I had never seen any of them so confrontational, especially with the Prince. “Humans are dangerous, they affect your state of mind, they should be eradicated but you would have us indulge them.”

The Prince remained unmoved, “You are devastated Black Swan is gone, I can see the pain of it in your soul. She was your creation, a part of you was in her,” at his words her mask slipped, a desperate sadness infused her face.

The emotion lasted only a moment, “The caring makes us weak, look at you.”

“Yes, look at me,” the Prince nodded, “What has caring for a human done to me? Or was it what my charges did to me? I made a mistake with Ethereal, I will not repeat it. You can still replace your Worshipper, but if the Princess has her way, your only playthings will be the beasts.”

“Ah,” the Princess seemed to be over her headache as she lunged at the Prince, her fingers turned to claws she dug into his skin. I had never seen him bleed, but now red blood overflowed her fingers, up her arms.

One hand in his cheek, the other digging into his throat.

“I don’t want to be anchor,” he said, trying to pull her hands away but he was no longer strong enough. I took a step forward.

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“You can’t help him,” Ethel took my arm, “None of us can help without tipping the balance.”

“Isn’t that what you want,” I asked confused.

“No, the majority is an unconscious decision, they need to decide.”

I remembered the Swan and the Veil doing nothing in Florida. Stupid rules.

“Don’t lie,” the Princess snarled pushing her fingers deeper into his neck. Blood gushed, practically pouring out of the wound. The wounds fought to close around her fingers.

“Do you remember,” his voice gurgled now, soon she will get his voice box and he wouldn’t be able to talk anymore, “when we anchored them as one.”

Her eyes narrowed, “Oh I remember,” she let him go, ripping out as much of his throat as she could grab.

Suddenly she was right in front of me, a bloody hand grabbing me by the throat. “I remember why we fought, I sided with Ethereal, thinking how could humans affect gods. Now I know better.”

I couldn’t breathe, panic made me thrash my arms and legs. I wondered if my powers would keep me from being asphyxiated.

“No,” the Prince lunged at her, his wounds closing slowly.

The floor shifted beneath us and we moved…I would have gasped if I wasn’t being choked. Greek columns rose above me, white and crumbling. Below us were more ruins and then a city? The scene seemed familiar...before it hit me. We were at the Parthenon, in Greece.

“You brought us here?” The Princess screamed throwing me away. The wind rose as if responding to her anger.

“Do you remember what else happened here?” The Prince stepped toward her as if the wind wasn’t quickly turning into a tornado.

I grabbed onto the nearest set of stones hoping the structure lasted this long, it wouldn’t break now.

“You sided with the humans, even after your speech about how useless they are, how much their connections to us are detrimental. I remember you refused to turn any of them, now you run after this human," the Princess snarled, "It’s their fault we have become cruel. We brought them civilization, steered them towards innovation. Do you remember what you said?"

When the Prince remained silent, the Princess continued, "They are beasts that would sooner bite the hand that feeds them, and you were right, they repaid us with killing each other. Taking what we taught them to come up with new and worse ways to murder.”

“Not everyone is like that,” I heard myself yell over the wind.

The Princess turned on me, “No, there are those too poor to think of anything but survival and those so innocent that they love to watch the levels of depravity humans are capable of on their televisions.”

I opened my mouth to argue but found I had no voice.

“Enough, Princess,” the Prince reached her, “You can try to kill me or we can put everything behind us, be anchors together again. The humans will live but we will withdraw from their world.”

“Or I can kill the only reason you want to be anchor again,” she moved towards me too fast for me to react, even as I tried to stand in the unrelenting wind. The Prince moved too, blocking her from me.

“This is futile, we can be at this forever.”

“Or not,” the Princess jabbed her claws into him, the Prince fought to pull her away. Abruptly she moved, as the Prince took a second to recover she bypassed him, reached out and stabbed me in the neck. I gurgled in surprise. With one strong jerk she took my head right off.