Broken Bonds

"Azi, you seem very quiet," Vangelis pointed out. The last few days she seemed rather aloof. All she had been doing was rummaging through the library, looking for something in particular. The priestess would go from shelf to shelf picking out a book and then discarding it. She didn't put all of them back in place either, it was certainly a librarian's pet peeve.

She looked up from her book and smiled at him, tossing the book back to the shelf. Not it. "What exactly are you looking for? I might be able to help you find it since I have been the librarian here since I was alive," he chuckled. She didn't seem to be staying in one particular section of the library though.

She shrugged, "I hadn't thought about that. I won't know what I'm looking for until I see it though." Well that made perfect sense. Sort of.

"You still worry me. You've never been this depressing to watch. It is nearly as bad as Dark Lord," he grimaced. "Come on, you can tell me what's really bothering you, you know. I won't mind listening."

She paused and turned to face the ghostly scholar. "I guess I'm just more confused than anything…I'm not sure."

He nodded and drifted over to her. He could easily guess what was on her mind. He knew she was beginning to doubt how she felt about Athanas, but who could say that her feelings were any more than that of a caring friend? He could hope for that anyway. It was easy to pity Dark Lord, though he would kill you if you ever told him that. Vangelis, despite his differences and own wants, wanted to see his old friend happy…or did he?

"Dark Lord still?" She nodded. "This is a tough one, you know? The Dark Lord you see now is completely different from Athanas. They are the same person but time has changed him drastically. He is not even the friend he used to be. Unfortunately, he is a monster regardless of what we would like to think."

"What changed him? I mean, why would he let himself do such horrible things if he was really a good person to begin with?" The scholar grimaced at her questions. There were many things that changed Athanas but the start of it all…was Lila. This fact was glaringly clear. She had been nothing but trouble from the start. Even before she and Athanas... Just the thought of her left him angry.

"You know, it began with Lila, of course. She was only the beginning of a much deeper problem. Nicholas and I knew right away that she was not genuine. I, being the intelligent and opinionated scholar that I am, told him right away how I felt. Terrible idea…" If he had only kept his mouth shut, things might have turned out differently.

"You two don't get along very well," she pointed out. Vangelis seemed to be disliked by both of his former friends but from what she could tell, it was not his fault. The circumstances were just not in his favor.

"It used to be Nicholas and I that argued all the time but that was just the way we worked. We bickered like brothers rather than enemies. I'll tell you how the friendship between Athanas and I all but ended." She looked curious and waited for him to continue. It seemed like all she heard from any of them was about their past and many memories, but was it not all they had left?

"Evening!" Vangelis shouted from across the courtyard. The lord knight was on his way to the Legion's main office in the castle when he saw the scholar waving from the doors. He must have been waiting for him for some reason. To be perfectly honest, he had no desire to see the scholar. These days he was nothing but a nuisance. Their friendship had been teetering on the edge and he was not sure that their bond would survive much longer. He would try to repair the friendship but Vangelis made it very difficult. As he approached, the scholar took a few steps toward him. "I, um, wanted to apologize…" he said, his blue-gray eyes cast downward.

"For?" Athanas asked. This was rather interesting.

"For saying all those things about Lila. Now, I still believe all of that but I could have said it more appropriately." This was not the apology he was expecting from the scholar but it was a start. The gesture was more important than the particular words.

"I just wanted to try and make things right, or at least a little better. It's all I wanted." Azrielle nodded as he continued.

After a moment, Athanas continued up the steps and into the castle. He had to drop off his report to the Legion office for the king. "Athanas? Wait for me!" Vangelis whined. Here he was trying to make peace and the bullheaded knight did not say more than one word. How very rude. He followed his friend up a flight of stairs, taking guess that he was headed to turn in a report of some sort. "Sooo, nothing to say? Come on, you were never one to stay silent." Vangelis took a few hurried steps to get ahead of Athanas.

"I believe it is you that always talks too much. What do you want anyway? I really have things to do." The lord knight said as he continued walking. Vangelis gave him a questioning look and sighed in annoyance. Things just weren't the same between them. Not only that, but Athanas had been acting strange lately.

"I'm trying to apologize." The disheartened scholar was a few steps ahead of Athanas as they strode through the brightly lit hallways of the castle. As he rounded a corner, he froze, whirled back around the corner and stopped in front of the knight. Oh god, he thought to himself, this was terrible. If he could hold off Athanas from turning the corner, he could perhaps save his friend from…

"Vangelis, what are you doing?" he asked. The scholar was blocking him from going any further. Well, he would have to use force to move him. He grabbed Vangelis's arms and pulled him out of the way. "You really are a pain," he muttered as he walked around the corner.

"Athanas, wait!" He started to reach out for his friend but pulled back as he saw the knight freeze, his hands balling into fists. It was too late now. He saw Lila before him, lips and arms entwined with some crusader. She was far too busy to notice her former love standing ten feet away.

Yes, Athanas's heart was broken and yes, he was extremely upset. For some time, there had been a rage welling up inside of him and now, he was trembling with the release of that rage. He never in his life felt such anger and animosity toward anything. Something within him had just snapped. He then turned the other way but stopped next to Vangelis.

"The look on his face then was...it was terrible. I had never been afraid of my own friend until that moment. The look in his eyes was nothing like I'd ever seen in him before. It was a look of utter hate."

"If this had anything to do with you, so help me God I'll make sure you regret it," he whispered maliciously. Something was terribly wrong with the once pleasant lord knight. He stalked off, dropping his report on the stone floor without a care.

Vangelis ran a hand nervously through his dark brown hair and leaned up against the wall. He was terrified. He was simply terrified at the look in Athanas's eyes and the tone of his voice. Hearing light footsteps, he looked up to see a smiling Lila who had stopped near him. "You…you..." Vangelis began, "...you've made a horrible mistake."

"Is that so?" she replied sweetly, "I didn't think so." With that, she left. The crusader she had been with nowhere in sight.

"After that, things began to change for the worst. Not just Athanas, but many people began to change. I even started losing myself. I noticed things here and there before that, but after that incident, Athanas was not the same person I had met as a boy," Vangelis said softly. He had his face buried in his hands, his ghostly figure wavering. It pained him to think of the way things used to be. It was so wrong when the good memories were the ones that truly hurt.

"I really did try to get along with him…it just did not work after she came into the picture. You know, he still terrifies me." Azrielle watched him silently, nodding in understanding. Sadly, the past cannot be changed and the memories of pain linger. She wished she could help but she knew that she was merely an onlooker. She would have liked to see Nicholas, Athanas and Vangelis before all of this. "Well, anyway, sulking helps nothing. What triggered you to start rummaging through the library?"

"Glad you asked," she grinned. She had a hunch about something and she knew she could find the answer in here somewhere.

--

The doppelganger king looked intently at the woman before him. She was frowning, staring at the wall to her right. She was no more than a ghostly haze, hardly able to do anything more than exist. He could tell that simply existing far past her time angered her. "I'm very disappointed. I thought surely that you would be able to take care of this problematic priestess. Lila, you performed flawlessly the first time. Why not this time?"

Lila slowly turned her gaze toward the "king".

"It isn't my problem this time. I did my job the first time and now I just want to rest! I did not ask to be brought back! You have nothing to offer me because I don't want anything. Just leave me be!" She was seething in anger.

He shrugged and she suddenly disappeared. He had no further use for her. "Alexander, you had better perform better than she did," he said to himself.

--

Night had fallen over the outskirts of Prontera and the party of three settled down in front of their fire. Kaeru had been sent along with a sniper and an assassin to scout around Prontera but so far, no threat had appeared. It must have all been within the city. "I still don't know why they sent me to scout with you. It isn't exactly my area of expertise," Kaeru wondered aloud. The sniper, Naomi, a mellow young woman with auburn hair chuckled.

"Well, you're good back up I guess. I would think that they're trying to keep everyone busy. I'm just glad to get out of Geffen. I was about to lose my mind if I had to sit through another meeting. Unlike Hailey," she said gesturing to the assassin next to her, "I don't get to go on the fun infiltration missions."

Hailey stuck her tongue out childishly and grinned. "At least you didn't have to carry a dead guy." She was more shaken about her last trip to Prontera castle than she let on. Hauling a bag of bones was not bad but she and Jeremiah could have easily died if not for Jared.

Just then, Naomi's falcon landed rather lazily next to her, a rolled up piece of paper tied to her leg. The sniper removed the paper and unrolled it. As she read, a grimace crossed her face. "We have scouts on the other side of Prontera and it looks like they've spotted a lord knight leaving the east gate. Seems like the cloaked assassin saw the Silver Crest emblem on the knight."

Kaeru hung his head knowing that his older brother was near. He was only glad that they were about four miles from the south gate. "Alexander…"

"Oh, you know him?" Hailey asked.

"Unfortunately he's my oldest brother." Hailey and Naomi glanced at each other with knowing looks. The tone in the high wizard's voice was a dead giveaway that the two brothers were not on good terms. "We ought to get some sleep, don't you think?" The two women nodded, laying back to enjoy the full bright moon until sleep claimed them.

Unbeknownst to the trio, Prontera's eyes spread much farther than they anticipated. Alexander dismounted his grand peco and approached the sleeping party. Tonight he would rid his family of an unwanted blemish and enjoy every moment of it. As he stood over his younger brother, he paused to wonder who in their right mind would have let him become a high wizard.

The firelight cast a menacing shadow over the sleeping wizard as the lord knight raised his sword. Before he could swing, Naomi's falcon dove, talons scraping across Alexander's face. He gave an angry shout as he clutched his blood streaked face. "Did you really think we were that easy to get?" Naomi laughed as she aimed an arrow at him, "Silly knight."

"You obviously didn't plan very well," Hailey yawned as she assumed her fighting stance. Kaeru could only stare up at the large form of Alexander as he lay in a very dangerous position.

"Kaeru, we're sorry we didn't let you know that we already knew about this but it was for the best. Now get up and come over to us." Naomi ordered as she watched the knight with sharp eyes. He scooted out of Alexander's reach and walked to the sniper's side. In a situation like this, he would have been dead if not for the keen senses or the insight of the girls.

He knew that his powers were formidable but only at long range combat. He was as good as dead in close combat. He didn't believe that he could think and cast fast enough to get close to the enemy as of yet. Despite being a high wizard, his skills were new and raw. He had the magic strength but his control was not quite where it should be. Vance had warned him of this because Kaeru's power was potentially dangerous for teammates if it got out of hand.

"I didn't come here to play with you two little girls. I came here to kill him," the lord knight sneered as he cast a deadly glance at his brother. Kaeru could only stare and worry. "I won't leave until you're dead, even if that means I have to kill them to get to you."

Hailey lifted a skeptical brow at the knight's threat. Surely, he realized that he was outnumbered and could not possibly win.

After a bout of silence and glares, Kaeru spoke up. He could not risk Naomi and Hailey getting hurt. They seriously underestimated Alexander. Could it be possible that he was also overestimating his brother? He knew one thing for certain. He was finished letting his brother walk all over him. "Could you two give us plenty of room? I don't want one of my spells to hit you on accident," he said. The two women gawked at his words.

"You can't be serious!" Hailey exclaimed. "He won't give you any space to cast and you can't fight him up close!" Kaeru smiled weakly and motioned for her to move back.

"Don't worry. I've already thought about that."

"Hailey, this is his fight. Obviously we can't interrupt," Naomi said softly, understanding that Kaeru felt he needed to do this. She still felt uneasy letting him fight alone against the knight. If he did become unable to fight, she and Hailey could always step in. Still, it made her stomach turn knowing that she was allowing this fight.

"You really are stupid, Kaeru. You can't possibly win." Alexander laughed, "You were never any good at anything. Not swordplay, not healing and I'm damn sure you're not any good at spell casting."

"I don't really feel like talking to you. Let's just get this over with." Kaeru sighed as he held his staff close to him. He gripped the staff tightly to hide the trembling of his hands. Hopefully this wouldn't turn out to be a mistake.

In that instant, Alexander rushed toward him, sword ready. Kaeru instantly cast firewall and knew right away that it may not have been such a good idea. Alexander gave an indignant snort and swung his sword straight through the flames, narrowly missing the wizard. Kaeru took the chance to back up and get himself back together. As much as he hated to admit it, his brother had always frightened him. If he could stop the knight from moving, he could easily end the fight. Unfortunately, Alexander was never one to make things easy for people.

--

He tried to fight in Glast Heim. He truly tried but in the end, it was of no use. At the time, he was slowly heading toward a breaking point. He had been overly stressed with all the sudden problems in the city, his heart had been torn in two and something in him was changing. He was slowly and surely pushing everyone that cared for him away as he fell deeper into despair and darkness. He shunned even his two closest friends. Every time he was near Vangelis, the scholar was silent and nervous and tried to find any reason to leave his presence.

He never wanted that to happen. He never meant for things to turn out like this.

It was not long before he began to hear the voice of reason; or so he thought. The voice turned out to be full of lies and selfish wants. Much to Athanas's dismay, he fell easily into the deceitful world of the doppelganger. The creature twisted him into the murderous monster that he was now. The infamous Dark Lord. He loved death and to be the cause of death. The more blood he spilled, the more satisfied he was. Yet…it was never enough.

Now, here he was again. He sat in the dark, listening to the lies of the doppelganger. On one hand, he was comforted by death. To bring death to Midgard would surely make him happy again. Would it not? Perhaps it would only cause him to sink deeper into his pit of lonely misery. No…the doppelganger had promised him happiness, but wasn't the doppelganger a liar? So why did he hang onto the creature's every word in complete belief?

"Athanas, why would I lie to you?" Indeed, why would he lie to his favorite tool? Yes, he was a tool and nothing more. "You did very well with Glast Heim and it made you happy to get revenge on all those who hurt you, correct?" Glast Heim did nothing to Athanas. He knew this very well. It was only Lila that hurt him more than he could believe. He had reached his breaking point when he saw her with another man that night.

"Glast Heim was not enough?" he asked the seemingly empty room. It was not empty, however. The doppelganger lingered in the dark lord's mind, scheming and deceiving. Athanas did all he could to ignore the creature prying into his mind though it was no use. For weeks, the doppelganger had intruded his thoughts and dreams. Things were suddenly changing even in the deadness of Glast Heim.

There were no people training on the undead, no Nicholas or Vangelis bothering him and no Azrielle. It seemed that there was something troubling her and so she avoided him altogether. From the moment he first attacked her, to the current moment, something drew him to her. She may have been the only living person to ever take the chance to see the man he once was since he had become the Dark Lord. She had given him a chance and he had thrown it away because he could not let go of that damned huntress.

"Athanas, you really are pathetic. What made you think that you could ever feel love after the one woman you truly loved threw you away? " Yes, chances were, Azrielle only pitied him. What was he thinking? What was the point of going on to live within an undead life of pain and regret? The doppelganger could not offer him truth but he could offer him solace by making him into the pawn he was before. A pawn without his own thoughts or feelings. He could get away from the reality he hated so much. He hated the kingdom of Rune-Midgard with an unmatched passion.

He then stood and placed his horned skull mask on his face and surrendered himself to the power of the doppelganger.

--

"Reeve Blackwood? Now that is absurd," Nicholas sighed. Vangelis and Azrielle were blurting out idiotic ideas about the doppelganger and who they believed he was. It was just ridiculous. Even if it was whom they thought, why had no one noticed before now? "Actually, the idea is just outright stupid," the priest muttered. Did they honestly believe this? Vangelis wholeheartedly believed in his and Azrielle's findings.

"Nicky! Why are you so stubborn?" Vangelis burst out suddenly. Azrielle tilted her head a bit, looking back and forth from the ghost and the priest. Obviously what ever it was, was bothering Vangelis very much. The two often erupted into argument like this and all she could do was watch and wait until they had finished. "What the hell happened to the other Nicholas? You used to be nice, albeit evil sometimes but…not anymore, you've changed so much. I seriously do not believe Julia would have liked what you turned into."

"Quiet. Do not bring her into this."

"Hit a sore spot, did I?" the ghost spat venomously. Nicholas's expression had darkened and he stared off into the depths of the library. The dusty shelves and time-decayed walls were not that interesting. "I wonder what Julia was thinking when you killed her," he continued rather thoughtfully, his gaze never leaving Nicholas.

Azrielle gathered that Julia was Nicholas's wife. It was apparent that the priest still carried some sort of burden when it came to her death. It seemed that every soul stuck between life and death was weighed down by something. Love, hate, grief…no matter the cause, it never left them.

"Come on you two, just sto—"

"Stay out of this!" Vangelis and Nicholas exclaimed at the same time. She immediately closed her mouth and looked away. It was probably not her best idea to interrupt them. "Sorry, Azrielle," the two said in unison again before quickly turning back to glare at one another.

"If you could just hear us out, maybe you'd see why we think the way we do," she said, trying to distract the two dead men from one another. Vangelis had told her that Reeve Blackwood was no stranger in Glast Heim history. He was a famous alchemist in the city until he was exiled. The church and the king had found a secret project of his and knew right away that he had to be banished. His lab was destroyed and he was sent out of the city.

During the next few years, all of his works were rejected and forgotten in not only Glast Heim, but also all around Rune-Midgard. What the condemned project had entailed was never released for the public eye so it remained a sort of mystery. Six years after being exiled Reeve was murdered. No one knew or admitted to whether it was random or if it was an intended assassination.

"Azrielle, we all know the story of Blackwood but after he was exiled, no one really knew what he was doing. He was always a secretive man. No one really heard any more about him until he was murdered."

"Nicholas, we found other evidence in the old alchemy lab down the hall from the library." She held out a journal stuffed with loose sheets of paper. The priest took the supposed proof from her grudgingly. As he opened the journal, Vangelis and Azrielle watched him. They knew he would change his thinking after he saw the proof they had found.

Azrielle's first hint had been an entry in a guards watch log. The guard had overheard two of the foreign alchemists talking and heard the name of Reeve Blackwood. Thinking it might be something, he noted it in the daily log but it appeared to have been ignored.

She then paid a visit to the eerie lab down the hall from the library. After some searching, she found a treasure trove of information hidden away in a desk. She immediately called Vangelis and within the journals and random notes they discovered that new project of those alchemists was Reeve himself. Whether he had been assassinated or not, they did not know, but Reeve had been resurrected into what was now the doppelganger. He had strange power and a different appearance so he was not so obvious to everyone.

"I'll be damned…" Nicholas whispered.

"Well, we have been damned for a few hundred years so it's a little late for that," Vangelis sighed. "Now, none of us are alchemists so much of the technical details do not make a lick of sense. We only know the outcome. Then—"

"Be quiet, will you?" the priest frowned.

As the two men were about to restart their bickering, a wanderer approached. His skeletal face was expressionless. The three watched him for a moment before Azrielle spoke up, "Is something wrong?" The pale skull nodded as he stepped closer to the trio. Something must have been wrong.

"Dark Lord has left Glast Heim," he said quietly in a raspy voice. Vangelis stared at the skeletal warrior with a blank expression, trying to comprehend what he had heard. Dark Lord never left Glast Heim unless it was about Azrielle. In fact, he had left only a handful of times since he had died and it was with or about Azrielle. He could not have gone under that creature's orders. He just could not. "I can only assume it is because of the doppelganger." The wanderer gave a low bow and left the three of them alone.

The scholar turned to look at Azrielle and saw that she had turned the other way. He could see her slender hands balled into fists out of anger. "Azi?" he called gently.

"I know he won't just slaughter everyone against Prontera, he'll kill everyone. Including those serving that bastard doppelganger won't he?" she asked. Her tone wavered slightly with building rage.

"Yes, most likely he will do just that." Nicholas sighed, "I do believe that there is a method to…Reeve's plan. He may be a raving mad man but he has a plan." He could scarcely believe that a repeat of events was about to unfold.

"Ha! See? I knew that was who he is!" Vangelis exclaimed triumphantly. Much to Nicholas's annoyance, he did come to believe that the priestess and scholar's findings were correct. The pieces of that puzzle fit together just right. Reeve must be getting revenge against Midgard for forgetting him. It was just difficult to believe that no one had seen such an obvious mystery. "So what might that method be?"

"I am almost certain that Reeve intends to let Midgard war with itself until he is satisfied and then he will send Athanas in to kill the remaining people. I cannot believe he was not satisfied with the death of our city though." Or with the death of the city's people…the death of my wife, Nicholas thought.

Each memory of Julia's smile, her laugh, her love…all of it hurt him. It was his own fault that he could not control his actions. He had killed her and he spent every moment of his after life regretting it. His one comfort was that his son had not died but only disappeared. He later found of that someone had taken him out of Glast Heim and he had lived on. The proof was his descendants. "I have to go somewhere. I will be back later," he said and hurried out of the city of the dead.

--

Mariah sat in one of the studies at Geffen Tower, trying to calm herself down. She had exploded angrily in her last meeting. Nothing was going according to plan and no one seemed to care. There was nothing but chaos everywhere and she just could not understand why Christopher chose to do nothing to control the situation. Laying her head on her arms, she heaved a sigh. "Calm down, Mariah…" she mumbled to herself. She had always been such a patient person and thought that it was one reasons she had become a high priestess. Perhaps she was wrong.

"Just like my wife," a man said. Mariah glanced up in alarm. She had not heard anyone enter the room. "Worry not, I would never dream of hurting you."

"You were that priest with Azrielle a while back," she said, still uneasy that there was a dead priest sitting across from her. She abhorred the undead but mostly because they frightened her to no end. People generally thought that being a priest meant you had no fear of the dead but that was not always the case.

"Indeed," he smiled. "I needed to talk with you about some things."

"Why me?" she asked suspiciously. He chuckled at her distrustfulness. She had every right to be, but he was desperately seeking answers so that just maybe, he could find out finally what had transpired the night he killed his wife. He truthfully had no memory of it and it didn't look to be coming back. He just needed to know because he felt that his time was coming to an end.

"Well, you are the only one who can help me. I have a feeling that you do know who I am, right?" Nicholas asked. "I need to know what happened to my son. He was obviously saved somehow but…how?" He was near pleading. After over 300 years of mourning and regretting and ignorance, he had to know. He had to end this nightmare he called the afterlife.

Mariah gave a weak laugh as her fear was confirmed. "My dead ancestor, are you? Ever since that…rumor…began, the Locke family has endured such tragedy. We're a small family due to the untimely deaths of nearly every member. It's a lot like a curse. One that you started."

"While I am completely in the dark about the events of that night, I must admit that I did murder my wife. I—I …have no excuse except that I was not myself." He knew this was coming and he had to endure it. It hurt him like hell to remember that course of events but it seemed like the only way. Mariah leaned back in her chair, giving him a look that seemed to be passing some sort of judgment. She really did look like Julia, he noticed.

"All right then," she began, "From what I know, your son was taken to a church in Geffen in the middle of the night. The priests that he had been left with only knew that the man that brought the child to them was the father. He was a priest as well and the description of the man matches you. Obviously, you took him out of Glast Heim for some reason that night." What had he been doing that night? If only he could remember…

"Mariah, I only want you to know that I never would have done such a vile thing to the woman I loved so much. The thought I cannot even bear right now. I just…" Mariah stood from her chair and moved to the other side of the table to stand next the priest. It was obvious that he could not have been in a sane state of mind when he did what he did.

"I know you wouldn't. It just doesn't change the fact that it happened. I only wonder how we will all survive against such a terrible being." She laid a hand on his shoulder, seemingly forgiving him. He looked up to meet her distant gaze.

"As long as I am around, nothing will happen to you." How else could he atone for his sins? Could anything truly redeem him? They heard the creak of the study door and as she looked over, he disappeared.

"How are you holding up, Mariah?" Christopher had come to check on her. She shrugged and glanced at the chair next to her. It was empty.

A/N: R&R please as usual. Lots of love and cookies to my readers!