Fallen

Fallen
But he knew where she was now. Remembered who they were to each other. Remembered why those horrible words would dig so deep and where all the anger had come from. 

It wasn’t him.
That bastard. 

Later. He’d deal with him later. Now. He just had to run. Run. Run.

In another life, they had more than just a vow to tie them.They had an elemental rite and he could save her no matter where he was, but here… Now.

Faster.

He skidded down the steps of the beach, to the quiet little cave hiding a gate into Deturos and found her slumped against the wall, eyes hazy and pushed magic into her until her eyes filled with light again. The necklace crumbled to nothing in her lap. 

“Leandros…” She croaked, her voice slowly growing stronger. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t— I couldn’t—”

She pressed a finger to his lips then pointed to the horizon. Slowly, he turned and watched a spear of light appear in the distance.

“What is that?”

“Number,” she grunted.

“Four.” He turned back to her. “What does it mean?”

“We’re close,” she whispered, pulling him closer and resting her forehead on his shoulder. The Helm of Thryaon appeared on her brow. “I’m so sorry, but it’ll all be over soon… you’ll be facing him at Delphos again.”

He squeezed her close. “I hope I take his fucking head.”



Leandros drew his sword, feeling Naos’ malice and hatred. He took a step forward. They had done this once before, hadn’t they? He’d been young then, too, unprepared for Naos then. Hapless. 

Not this time.

“Hello again, Uncle,” he said. 

Naos smirked. “Still as irritating as ever.”

“Not a coward though,” he quipped. “Not that you would know anything about it.”

He glared at him. “Don’t speak of things you don’t know.”

Leandros looked at his sword. “Last time you had a different sword, didn’t you?”

He sneered. “How dare you!”

Naos charged at him. He blocked it easily as Naos staggered. Nine lifetimes of injuries compiled together, making him clumsy and ragged. 

“Not so great to be hacked to pieces, is it?”

He remembered what it had felt like to be all alone in that deep dark, in pain and confused, drowing in sorrow he couldn’t understand. He felt it, striking his chest like an echo. Naos was clumsy in this life. Pathetic, probably just as hapless as he had been then. He was careful to retrace those wounds on Naos now. In the chest, so he bowed forward, panting and staggering. He blocked the next, and the next and the next, but the one after struck him in the shoulder at the right angle, leaving him open. He struck Naos in the shoulder with a the tip of his sword before he hit Leandros with blast of magic he most definitely wasted. The Armor absorbed it and he barely slid back a few feet. 

He lifted his head and sneered at the ugly void in Naos’s shoulder as he felt her drawing closer. Had she always been so fast?

“I’d like a leviathan to eat, so you can know how your son felt. The way you made sure I knew how mine did.”

His eyes widened and narrowed as Leandros lifted his sword. Naos hit him with another blast, sneering at him. 

“It will never be over.” He smirked. “Never, stupid boy. Ever over.”

Leandros drove his sword into his chest.

“Leandros, no!” Penelope screamed. 

He felt it before she’d said a word, remembering the trick. He dodge that spike that rushed up from beneath the sand and stepped aside as it separated Naos’ head from his shoulders. His head tumbled and blood bubbled out. He turned to see her, beating at a barrier that shouldn’t be there. Her eyes spilling over with tears as she beat at the barrier. 

“Leandros! Get out of there! Off the beach! Get off the—”

The ground gave way, dropping him and all he heard was her shrieking his name and the way it echoed through the air. 

He felt the abyss open and close him in darkness and silence. 



The barrier shattered, he’d felt it but it didn’t matter. Leandros Eredes was finally back where he belonged. He walked in Ardas’ body chuckled, adjusting the Helm of Thryaon on his head.

Too easy. Why these children thought they could out maneuver him when he had seen all that had happened and ever would, he didn’t know. 

Fools like their parents.

He approached her from the left as the hole into the underworld began to close. 

“You should have chosen wisely, Aseras.”

Aseras, Giver of Life. Boundless. Endless. Perfect.

“Lord Ardas.” He scoffed and shook off the old man’s appearance and looked over at the mage who shook and bled, missing a limb. He dropped him into the abyss. Then, the air grew sharp. He turned his head sneering and barely moving aside as a blast of power like a cannon rocketed past him, searing his chest and turned a full line of mages behind him to nothing. 

Who the hell had done that? Another hit him in the shoulder, taking a chunk of it as if it had never existed. He lifted a shield at the last possible moment, and the next blast broke into acidic sparks, melting through his clothing and the sand, hitting the two beside him. They shrieked and writhed, falling to the ground. 

Then, another hit his shield, pushing him back. 

He cut through it as it began to lose power and a dragon roared over head. Rhiannon? He hissed.

“I should have made sure you were dead before.”

Where the hell had she been hiding and licking her wounds all this time? Rhiannon roared overhead, blowing fire into the group of mages marching toward the heart of Delphos. 

“Kill it, you—”

He swiped the next blast out of the air and focused to find the direction of the blasts that came at him. This was new. He deflected those he could manage and dodged the others, letting them sail past. The ground exploded at his feet forcing him to back pedal, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste when pain shot through his whole body in the distance, another spear rose into the sky. That made five. 

Yet, he could access any of those memories. Silence drifted over the beach and a gust blew the dust away revealing Penelope standing there, hardly looking like a Weaver of Hope aiming her glowing spear at him, eyes blazing with fire as tears streamed down her face. Something shimmered on over her chest, just the faintest impression of light and metal. 

Armor? Had they completed an elemental rite in this life? It hardly mattered as he’d won.
“Not very fitting. I prefer the other you.”

She fired another blast, forcing him to stop mid step and pushed him back. Then, she was casting streaks of light he did and didn’t recognize at him. His heart clenched and he felt a bit of mortal terror as she charged on him with a cold focus. The tears hadn’t dried, yet she said nothing.