–Ten years before The Fall –

Errin's mother, the wife of the revered King Arthur, died after giving birth to their second child, as the exhaustion of labor claimed her life. Ever since then, Errin struggled to adjust to the absence of a caring mother figure, the many duties that forced her father to leave her on her own for long stretches of time, and the expectations everyone at court seemed to have regarding her behavior. Her title as princess of Camelot drove enough children her age away to make page-long lists, so she kept quiet about her heritage whenever the opportunity presented itself.

But for as lonely and confusing her childhood might have been, there was always someone who she could depend on: her older brother, Mordred.

He often snuck into the kitchen with her to purloin a piece of disgustingly sugary cake, with whipping cream stacked so high the cake disappeared beneath it. He defended her when their father found out about Errin training unsupervised, saying that it had been his idea all along. She repaid him by dragging him away from the library to play hide and seek within the mazelike hallways and gardens of the royal palace. She collected countless bruises so she could ride out on a horse alongside him. And she stood beside him every single time to cheer him up when he was beaten in a training fight against one of their father's Holy Knights.

The sun stood so low that eight-year-old Errin could barely make out its bright circle behind the walls of Camelot's royal palace, but she refused to leave her brother all by himself. Far from the level of precision and expertise as Nashtar, Mordred hacked down the limbs of the training doll, a sad construct of wooden sticks and straw that had its best days long behind itself. Every strike was accompanied by either a growl or a grunt to prove that Mordred had yet to overcome his anger. Demolishing half the training equipment scattered around the yard had by no means eased the feeling of defeat.

"I. Don't. WANT. TO!" Every word was followed by another slash at the training doll, each more forceful than the last, until the straw-larded head rolled from its shoulders and came to rest next to Errin's feet, where it threw its slayer an accusing glare. "Why can no one else do this stupid job?"

"Because," Errin recited her father's words, "no one will be as good a king as you. And you owe it to all those with lesser power to do your very best."

She slipped down from the fence on which she had been sitting. But what had looked elegant in her head turned out stupidly childish, as she failed to land on her feet and had to use her hands to avoid bruises on her knees – well, new bruises. She always managed to scrape her knees at this or that occasion, regardless of her care. With a frowned face, she picked up the head of the training doll and attempted to place it back onto its former body. But even after tiptoeing, she couldn't reach as high, and Mordred had to help her.

They stepped back to appreciate their work.

The way the head rested on the straw creature's torso, tilted to one side and at the verge of tumbling down looked utterly ridiculous, and Errin couldn't help but giggle. And as a smile crept into Mordred's pouted face, and he could no longer hide his joy no matter how much he scowled, Errin laughed until her sides hurt.

"But seriously," Mordred said after his face had lost some of its redness. "Don't you want to be King of Camelot? That way I can do other things than train all day long and listen to old people bragging about commerce."

Errin wasn't sure what a 'commerce' was, but the word alone sounded boring. "No. I mean training all day doesn't seem too bad, but the rest of it sounds like a bunch of drawn out afternoons with the council geezers where I don't get to do what's interesting."

"Now come on, Errin, the council isn't that bad."

Errin and Mordred turned towards the voice of their father. He was approaching them from the insides of the palace, dressed in his formal armor of gold-layered steel paired with the royal white cape, but the bulk of his distant court demeanor fell off of him with each step. Despite Arthur's smile, Mordred stood to attention, eyes averted to where he had thrown a handful of training swords to the ground in his tantrum. He started as Arthur put a metal-gloved hand on his shoulder.

"I see training isn't going as smoothly as hoped," he said, his tone sympathetic but with a smidge of exhaustion. This wasn't the first time Mordred had wrecked the training ground to pieces. Nor would it be the last.

"I am doing my very best," Mordred said without looking at his father.

"I know that. And that's all I'm asking for." When Arthur turned away from Mordred to look at Errin, the fatherly beam she cherished so much appeared. "And you, Errin? Have you been training with your brother again?"

"I almost beat him this morning," Errin declared, and the taste of her almost-victory returned to make her cheeks burn. "I was this close to disarming him. You should've seen it!"

Arthur's smile dipped as he scooped her from her feet. "I would have loved to watch. Did I ever tell you how jealous I am of your inseparable bond? If I'm not careful, you two will forget all about me. Now, it's been a long day and you need to go to sleep. If you prepare for bed quickly, we might be able to squeeze in a really short bedtime story."

Errin almost squealed but controlled her excitement in time to remind herself of the importance of manners; she knew exactly what story she wanted to ask her dad to tell. Arthur shifted Errin into his other arm and made his way back to the palace. Mordred walked beside them. His eyes followed the lines and patters on the hallway tiles, even though he had to know them by heart by now.

"You're getting heavy, little girl," Arthur said as he struggled to ascend the wide set of stairs.

"How was work today, father?" Mordred asked, his tone empty as though he was addressing a stranger. "Has the rebel Rience been found yet?"

"Nothing of sorts," Arthur said. "He's still underground somewhere, but he'll be found eventually. For the past months, Stronghold has shown no signs of resuming its hostile tendencies, so I doubt he would be able to find support there if he were to return. He is the last of the eleven rebellious kings, and once he is dealt with, we will be one step closer to achieving total peace."

"Was Nashtar allowed to become a Holy Knight because Stronghold is now part of Camelot?" Errin asked through a suppressed yawn.

"No, I knighted him because he showed great promise and swore to be loyal to the crown of Camelot," Arthur corrected. "Too many lost their lives in this rebellion, but the faults Stronghold has made as a kingdom are not his. I would have dubbed him a knight regardless of our victory over his brethren."

"But he's so slimy."

Arthur laughed and ruffled Errin's short locks. "I can't argue against that."

Their walk led them to the east wing and the chambers for the royal family, different from the sameness of other halls and corridors thanks to the floor decoration in the form of the ginormous pelt of a Black Hound – a specimen so huge Errin could not imagine the army it had to have taken to defeat the creature. Her feet downright disappeared into the colorful fur as Arthur sat her down in front of her room.

"Can you tell us the story of how the Seven Deadly Sins fought the Demon King in Camelot?" Errin asked and ignored how Mordred was rolling his eyes at her request.

"Let me see how fast you can disappear under your blanket. Then we'll talk."

Errin took on the challenge with the same energy she did every hurdle and sat expectantly at the head of her oversized bed in record time. Mordred resumed his common position next to her and let his bare feet dangle over the edge of the bed. No matter how often he claimed to be tired of the ever-same stories, he would always listen beside her before returning to his room next door.

Arthur, who had taken the time to release himself of his breastplate, cape, and gloves, lowered himself onto the foot end of the bed and made sure that Errin was properly covered up.

"Still the same story?" he asked and was answered with an enthusiastic nod and a heavy sigh from his children.

"Okay, now…" Arthur paused for effect before continuing in the special voice he reserved for storytelling. "The Holy War had broken out once again, and the forces of mankind were threatened to be overrun by the Demon Clan. The Demons were a nasty kind, and they spread darkness wherever they went, and where their feet touched the ground there would never grow a single seed again. But the worst of these evil creatures was the Demon King – he was so powerful that a single look of his could kill a man in an instant.

"The hour was dire because the dark lord of the Underworld instructed his son, the Demon prince Meliodas, to assemble all Ten Commandments and serve as a vessel to them – as soon as this deed was done, the Demon King would have complete dominion over the realm of Britannia, and no man, Fairy, or Giant could hope to stand against his powerful magic. But Meliodas defied his father. He was not only a son of the Demon King. He was also a member of the most powerful group of knights this world had ever seen: The Seven Deadly Sins. These heroes didn't know fear because they could always rely on each other's strength, and they all gathered to free Meliodas from the clutches of his father.

"But they arrived too late – Meliodas had already absorbed the Ten Commandments, and their corruptive might had turned him into the manifestation of the Demon King. After millennia in Purgatory, the place where only cursed souls go to atone for their wrongdoings, the Demon King was free to enact his wrath onto the mortal realm. It seemed all hope was lost. But our heroes never gave up on their friend. Even though the hour was dark and their abilities seemed no match for the dark lord, they entered Meliodas' mind to gift him with new courage. And Meliodas heard them. He heard of their unending support and of the strength they had garnered because he had put his trust in them. He knew then that his fight against his father wasn't hopeless, that he would prevail because he wasn't alone – there had never been any need for standing up to the darkness alone.

"And as Meliodas freed himself from the controlling hands of his father, the Demon King realized that he had lost. Faced with these powerful heroes without a vessel to control, he felt fear enter his dark heart for the very first time. The Seven Deadly Sins combined their strength, and united like that, they drove the Demon King away. He was less than a ghost, less than a shadow, that's how weak he was. And thanks to the Seven Deadly Sins, Britannia was saved from his evil, and the kingdom of Camelot could be rebuilt. The Seven Deadly Sins meanwhile, celebrated their victory with their allies and friends for seven days and seven nights, and their names are known by everyone – as the heroes who purged the darkness and ended the Holy War. The End."

Errin clapped. "Aren't the Seven Deadly Sins the most amazing people ever?" she asked while hopping up and down on her cushions. The story had wiped away all remains of her tiredness.

"I couldn't agree more," Arthur said with a youthful grin. "No one will ever be as amazing as the Seven Deadly Sins!"

"Can we hear the story about the return of the Demon King next?"

Arthur pushed Errin back under her blankets with a gentle but firm hand. "Maybe tomorrow, if my meeting with the King of Orkney doesn't take too long. You should sleep now. You both should."

He attempted to shove Mordred towards the door, but his son freed himself from the loose grip around his shoulder.

"If no one will ever be as capable as the Sins, what point is there in trying at all?" he asked. The bitterness he had carried around all afternoon had crept back into his voice.

A shadow might have passed Arthur's features, but the dim light of the room made it impossible to be sure. He tried putting a hand on Mordred's shoulder a second time, maybe accompanied with words of reassurance. But Mordred was out of the door before his father had a chance to stop him, and more than a low 'Night, Errin' didn't escape his lips.

Arthur shuffled after Mordred with the energy of an old and broken man, stepped through the frame, and shut the door behind him. Errin was left behind in the shadows of the room that was too big for her alone, with curtains of brocade too valuable and porcelain toys she never played with. The candle next to her bedpost had flickered and died when Mordred's departure had stirred the air.

She would later wish to have been more mindful of Mordred's words and strange behavior on that day.

:.:.:

– One month before The Fall –

Side by side, Errin and Mordred overlooked the capital of Camelot as its rooftops glistered under the cloudless sky. The summer heat had scorched the grass covering the gentle hill, and made it insufferable to wear a set of full body armor. Errin had traded the metal for a lighter doublet of red fabric, but if need be, she would fetch the armor from the depths of her saddleback. As soon as she would have brought enough space between herself and the city, she had little doubt of giving into the temptation and replace her face with an anonymous helmet.

"Will nothing I say change your mind?" Mordred asked. His eyes rested on the cluster of fortifications and towers and houses that ten thousand people called home. Far more if one counted the great many farmers and village folks living in the surrounding hills.

Errin studied his profile. Grief had eaten its way into his features and made him look far older than his nineteen years should amount to.

"The Knights of the Round Table are your creation – you don't need me to oversee them in your place," Errin said, even though she knew that her reluctance to join the Round Table wasn't the only matter standing between them.

She had a great many reasons for why she needed to leave Camelot so soon after the funeral of their father. At least she told herself to have valid excuses when doubts arose.

"I don't even have a way to make sure that the council will eventually hand the throne over," Mordred said after a few beats of silence. "They might just as well forever hold onto the claim that father thought me too young and too inexperienced."

The words of their father came to Errin all on their own. "You just have to keep trying then. You have great aspirations, and eventually they will have to admit that. We're at peace now, there's no threat Camelot needs to fight. So there's no harm if no one sits on the throne for a while."

"Are we at peace though? When you patrol the borders and travel to the furthest corners of this realm, do you see peace?"

The honest answer would have been no. Gwynned and Demetia only held their shaky truce with Camelot because Camelot's troops and Holy Knights outclassed their military – and these kingdoms nevertheless performed raids across their border regions on a regular basis. Civilians had been slaughtered, libraries had been ransacked, items with magical power had been stolen. And to the east, the kingdom of Orkney waited for the chance to overwhelm Camelot's defenses.

But Mordred didn't need Errin to be reminded of these things. "For as long as magic and power are limited, there will always be small conflicts like these. But the Holy War will never resume, and we should be thankful for that."

Mordred contemplated about her words, or maybe his lost expression spoke of other thoughts only he knew. "I wish the people of Sorestan could have seen it the same way as you."

Errin averted her eyes to the reins in her hands, braided with golden threads. She had heard of Sorestan, a village north of the capital, and what had happened there. A mage used to reside in this town, skilled in the magic arts and owner of countless small trinkets with marginal magic energy. For years, all had been fine, the mage had gone about her business and so had the villagers. But when the single well dried out, the people became desperate. They demanded for the mage to return their water, and when she argued such spells lay beyond her abilities, they blamed her for the crisis. She was burned at the stake. The villagers fought over her magical trinkets, killed their brothers and sisters, and hoarded their haul until Sorestan stood in flames. The death toll surpassed the hundreds.

Errin had heard of Sorestan. Mordred had witnessed the aftermath.

The urge to leave grew stronger every passing second until Errin gave in and turned her trusted horse around. After so many years, she and Mordred had learned to part from one another, and she thought there was no longer need for weak words of goodbye. But Mordred surprised her by calling after her one last time.

"You will always be able to come back if you ever need help." Regardless of the turmoil that had plagued him over the past days, his eyes were full of sincerity.

He would always have a supportive hand for her, no matter for how long she disappeared to the farthest corners of Camelot. It had been this way all her life.

She waved Mordred farewell and spurred her horse. The clam of Salisbury plain welcomed her, and she relished the refreshing breeze. The absence of the noise of Camelot enabled her to push aside the death of her father and all the worries that were about to follow after.

:.:.:

– Present –

This familiar gaze with which he looked at her threatened to make all her resolve tumble. She hadn't seen him in so long – not since she had left Camelot on a summer afternoon an eternity ago. And even this farewell was a memory only she could hold onto. Mordred hadn't seen her in months, long before Arthur had died. All he recalled was the day she had pushed away him and his offer to join the Knights of the Round Table.

Errin hated herself for the quivering in her injured leg and for the illusory hope that she could walk over to her brother and forget all that he had done and all that he planned to do. He hadn't committed murder yet. He hadn't yet crossed the line from which there was no return. But judging from his expression, this deep conviction carved into his feature, he was willing to do what Errin feared the most. Her brother was no longer the man she had known all her life – no matter how genuine his smile might seem.

"Go, the others need your help more than I do," Errin addressed Ivy. She hesitated, maybe she wanted to say something, but Errin shut her up. "Go! You promised to spare him, and you did just that. The rest is up to me."

When Ivy turned and raced off to where Lance had to be engaged in fierce battle, Errin fastened the grip around the hilt of her broadsword. After Nashtar had returned to the battlefield, Lance needed every aid he could get to defeat the knight. Other than Mordred he was by far and away the most formidable player left on the field, and Errin had had no choice but to cut her duel with him short to reach Mordred.

Alongside Ivy, the roots and tendrils that wavered around Mordred and prevent him from advancing disappeared. With a concise motion of his wrist, Mordred made quick work of the remaining plant life.

He unclipped his cloak but remained where he stood.

"I suppose you still won't change your mind if I ask you."

"Do you really want war so badly that you are willing to murder the heroes of old?" Errin shot back, careful to shift her stance into a position that would provide her with more stability. "Those same heroes our father used to tell us stories about, those same heroes who did everything in their power to help you?"

"I want peace. Peace that doesn't threaten to turn into a new rendition of the Holy War because power is only held by seven individuals who are accountable to no one."

There was so little point in arguing with him; Errin had never won an argument against her brother, and nothing had divided them with an unbridgeable rift this wide before. For all the hope she had clung onto, hopes of preventing him from a path of violence and death, she knew that Mordred wouldn't change what he believed in.

Not even for her sake.

At some point, Lance had given up all attempts to control the flow of battle with strategy. His efforts were no more promising than fighting a raging ocean with his bare hands while he happened to be drowning in that exact ocean.

Gaius had kept Coel's metal-based attacks to a mere inconvenience, Katrina had retaliated Orland's flames with her own, and Lance had taken his time to incapacitate those Holy Knights bold enough to advance past the defensive lines. So far, he had escaped both death and killing. But this approach only lasted as long as it wasn't challenged by changing circumstances, and when Nashtar reemerged from the mist of obscurity, the scales had dipped in his favors at an instant.

He might not have the tactical prowess Gawain brought to the table, but among the Holy Knights he had made a name for himself, a presence to inspire willing subordination. And he, like Lance, knew that a united front posed a higher hurdle to overcome. And while all this would have been a severe but manageable problem, the enemy's seemingly unlimited supply of incantation orbs to heal their wounds with gave Lance a headache. How Mordred had gotten his hands on so many of these pricy trinkets, he had no idea, but the fact of the matter was that he had come to Avalon far better prepared than Lance and company. In hindsight, perhaps he should have refrained from confronting Mordred in Camelot. If the tide of battle did not change in the next minutes, Lance would be forced to pay the price for this mistake. Or worse, watch someone else pay the price.

He cursed a string of colorful oaths under his breath as he dispersed yet another one of Ragnell's wavery clones with a backhanded slice. As long as Bryanor or Eugenius alternated in occupying his attention, Ragnell could send as many copies at him as she liked without fearing consequences – whereas Lance needed to stay on guard since one of them always had the potential to turn out as the real thing.

Above his head, a cloud of metal shards exploded into pulverized particles, and he and Eugenius halted their clash of sword to shield their eyes from the fine drizzle that succeeded. Lance, worn out and tired, recovered slower from the diversion, but Eugenius hesitated to capitalize on the opening; his harmless strike didn't come close to scratching Lance.

Dazed by the all the fighting that dragged out for longer than his muscles and reflexes tolerated, Lance nearly slipped as he drove his opponent back with an uninspired chain of swings – only to lose that acquired ground right thereafter as Bryanor replaced his comrade.

What Lance needed was a pause, an opening to think, but with the remorseless pile of odds stacked against him, there wouldn't emerge a moment to breath because he wished for one – and Nashtar hadn't even cared to join the fun thus far.

"Gaius!" Lance shouted between two evasive steps that saved him from Bryanor's forceful blows. "Do me a favor and get these annoying pests off of me for a sec!"

Gaius' response came with lengthy delay after he had stacked what sounded like three different incantations atop each other to risk the short-lived distraction. "You must be aware that all my wide-range spells have a high probability of hitting you if I were to send them into the fray."

"Yeah, I've noticed." Otherwise he or Katrina could've blasted these pesky knights into surrender a long time ago. Lance grunted as Bryanor tested the durability his defenses with another heavy jab. "Just get to it already."

While hovering high above the ground at the edge of Lance's periphery, Gaius rearranged the air particles to twirl in an expanding tornado. Lance felt his balance waver despite being planted a good distance away from the elemental manipulation. The pressure increased, the noise soared, and the tornado tore out of Gaius' grasp to strike the battle field where the bulk of enemy forces had ganged up. Lance dropped his right sword and performed a one-handed backflip that brought him away from the epicenter and out of danger. He swayed a little when he landed on his feet, but the fact that his abandoned sword had been caught in the storm to pivot into arm's reach for him to pick out of the air more than made up for his less than graceful landing.

His adversaries were less fortunate; Bryanor had been blown out of sight, and Eugenius and Ragnell were both holding on to their disarrayed sense of up and down to little success. This was the best opening he would get. No time to think now.

With the last remains of energy he had to spare, Lance sprinted forward and towards Nashtar.

Gaius could hardly see the others through the smoke screens and the bursts of light in the form of magic-infused projectiles. His last spell had turned the battlefield into a mess where he knew neither up nor down, and he feared to have used up more energy than reasonable. His breath rattled in his chest. What if he passed out? What if the pendant around his neck broke, hit by one of Coel's stray arrows? Would he drop from the sky and die before he struck the ground?

His life felt so fragile after Belialuin. One careless move could snuff out all his thoughts forever. He didn't belong on the battlefield, he belonged in a library where the worst and most exciting thing to happen was a misplaced book, and the longer Gaius clung to this idea, the weaker he felt. The voices of Belialuin whispered their chant. Or maybe it was his own voice that told him to surrender.

A flaming metal spike shot past his ear, and the heat burned his right cheek. Too out of his mind to find the right spell words, Gaius hurled a battery of icicles in the general direction from which the arrow had flown. Even if he had calculated the angle without fail, Orland would have little trouble melting the projectiles before they could do damage.

Gaius couldn't see Katrina. The mist had swallowed her, and perhaps the creeping hands of death had already reached for her. With his eyes closed, Gaius fought for air, forced his heartbeat to calm, and searched for her presence.

Too many impressions hailed onto him, too many spells and incantations and magical presences as the magic field itself rippled at the cusp of tearing in two. Nashtar and the Fairy magic he had stolen dominated the maelstrom, and Ivy's light seemed feeble by comparison.

Gaius's eyes darted open.

Ivy?

She had returned without Errin and was heading straight into Nashtar's arms. Despite the renewed strength in her presence, an incredible combination of Fairy and Giant magic, Nashtar's abilities dwarfed hers, and he had only waited for this opportunity. Lance wouldn't reach them in time.

Gaius was all too aware of the brittleness of his life. But if he let another moment of hesitance control his thoughts, Nashtar would win, Mordred would win, and Merlin would die before he could ask why she had prolonged his life.

With a time spell to freeze Nashtar on his lips, Gaius delved into his last reserves, even reached out to the magic inside his pendant – but the effort was too much, overcharged his dead heart and his dead mind, the magic dispersed unused, and like a book knocked from the highest shelf, Gaius fell.

As Lance was crossing the torn and tormented ground towards Nashtar, Ivy emerged out of the mist, alive and unscathed – and ignorant towards the danger she found herself in. Lance caught her gaze too late, the warning on his lips failing to reach her in time, and Nashtar made his move.

Bestowed with Fairy magic far beyond his wildest dreams, Nashtar released the true might of his power, and the freed magic clung to every source and vessel it could find in proximity. The forces of iron and fire doubled over as a new wave of energy infused their spellcasters, Katrina puffed somewhere above as her magic threatened to grow beyond her grasp, Lance's perspective shifted to reveal events unfolding in slow motion – and Ivy's Shrinking Bracelet glowed without her intent.

In the heat of battle, Katrina had lost her sense of time and space, but as a new wave of energy washed over her, hijacked her control, and made her hands tremble, panic sunk its teeth into her heart.

She couldn't lose control, she had done so well with directing her light and darkness up until this point. But from one heartbeat to the next, the light escaped her palm, and the darkness behind her eyes tore down her barriers. The heat crackling between her polar powers scorched her insides, but what she feared far more was the thought of hurting, killing someone else with her lack of self-control. The darkness might consume one of the knights of the Round Table. The light might eradicate one of her friends.

Had she learned nothing since the Colossai who had died at her hands? Was she still to weak to protect what mattered to her, destined to lose her brother, her parents, and every friend she had in this world?

No, not again, not this time. Katrina had fought her demons and her ghosts. The magic at her hands, amplified or not, followed her command. This surge of power was not a curse but a blessing; in her hands, she held the strength to save not kill.

In a strange moment of clarity, where mist and magic and even the bloody smell of war lifted, Katrina saw Gaius as he fell out of his levitation spell towards the rugged battlefield. The pendant around his neck flickered with blue light like a candle about to go out. And with wings of light and darkness, she raced after him and caught his hand before he shattered on the ground.

No matter how slowly her form dwindled, Lance's feet didn't move one fraction faster, and Nashtar reached her long before he did. As Ivy was still caught in the delay of surprise, the working of her magic item not concluded, Nashtar swung his sword. The strike cut deep into the back of her left hand. Ivy screamed, Gideon dropped into the muddy waters below, and Nashtar stepped behind her to wrap his arm around her throat before she could think to react.

Lance skidded to a halt, one of his swords raised to point at Nashtar – and by proxy Ivy, who had turned into his living shield and getaway ticket. The claws of pain carved its way into Ivy's features as she tried in vain to free herself. The fingers of her left hand pulled at Nashtar's arm, but she couldn't get a solid grip. Blood ran down her forearm. Her fingers stopped moving.

His gaze focused on Lance, Nashtar increased the stranglehold around Ivy's throat and raised the tip of his sword to hover an inch away from her cheek.

"Let her go," Lance growled. The blade of his sword trembled in the air.

Nashtar cut Ivy's struggles short with a brutal kick to her knee; she slacked in his grasp. "I don't stand to gain anything if I do."

"You gain your life."

Nashtar laughed a humorless laugh. Somewhere behind Lance a burst of brightness and heat lit up the air, but he couldn't spare a second to look for its cause. For a brief moment, Nashtar's face was illuminated by bursts of orange and crimson.

"Ask yourself this: can you live with taking another man's life? Can you go to sleep with a clear conscious after you've put more souls to rest on a single day than you can count, all in the name of someone else? Can you look at your reflection after you've murdered those of your kind because you don't want to end up weak like they are?" Nothing beyond grim distance filled Nashtar's gaze – the distance of a man who had long abandoned his sorrow. "Tell me, Lancelot, will you be able to live with yourself once you've killed me?"

Lance's eyes darted from Nashtar to Ivy, whose pained form remained upright to shield Nashtar's torso, and back to Nashtar. The thin blade, outstretched between them, stopped its tremor.

"I don't want to go through this." Lance turned by a margin. His feet found grip in the bed of the pond. "But I will if I have to."

With no magic resources left to spend and no magical ability to rely on, Nashtar had no means to stop the sword slash from cutting into his flesh. His strategy had been founded on nothing but Lance's reluctance, and for one final heartbeat, realization sparked in his eyes.

Nashtar's head rolled from his shoulders. He remained standing for a moment, as though his body couldn't comprehend what had happened and stayed unwilling to admit defeat.

Then he toppled over, and Ivy was freed from his grasp to stumble into Lance's arms.

Under the heat of the climbing sun, the mist had recoiled, but the field of shallow ponds, treacherous reed, and muddy banks remained a difficult terrain to deal with. If Errin didn't place her steps with care and found a way to overcome her leg injury, she would fight her surroundings as much as she would her brother. The weight of the steel in her hands gave her a fixpoint to focus her thoughts on. She had gone through the first seconds of a fight uncounted times. There was no anxiousness left to divert her attention. This was no different from her previous duels.

She charged as Mordred was taking another step over the uneven ground and was for a moment not a complete master of his balance. But as Errin had expected, he regained his focus long before her sword could hope to reach him, and their weapons clashed with a sound plucked straight out of Errin's memory.

Her opening strike had been blunt and without finesse, and Mordred redirected the force behind the blow without real effort by holding his sword crossways in front of his torso. The chain attack Errin enacted next was equally deflected. One mutual step brought them away from each other. They started circling and lapsed back into old training habits at the same time.

Test the terrain. Search for a weakness in your opponent's stance or footwork. Intimidate or mock them if you deem it an effective approach.

Errin cut the waiting short and used a simple but useful technique she had learned at the beginning of her career as a Holy Knight; chain a couple swings from switching sides and angles together and drive your adversary backwards with brute force. And while Mordred did retreat a handful of feet, he remained in full control of his movements at every second.

Their physical strength equaled another, and Errin's muscles ached as she blocked the onslaught Mordred racked her with. She spun out of the way, and his next hit struck air. He saw her low-aimed thrust to his side coming and sidestepped without breaking his pace. She turned her forward movement into a sideways one; the metal of her blade brushed over the steel of his breastplate without inflicting any damage beyond the steel.

For this move, Errin had traded her solid stance, and she tasted the consequences of her decision right thereafter in the form of a kick to her kneecap. Her leg buckled, and she was forced to dive down to evade the slash that would have severed her head otherwise. She rolled out of the way of Mordred's downward strike, ignored the taste of muddy water in her mouth, and climbed back to her feet – in due time to block the assault of heavy strikes Mordred sent her way.

His calm demeanor gave way to the anger boiling underneath, and every hit was infused with more force than the last as he hacked her defensive pattern down to its foundations. The last of these strikes came so raw and desperate that the successive downtime trapped him in one motion for too long. Errin brought her elbow forward to meet his chin, and blood splattered as his nose broke.

He couldn't use his magical ability against her, and neither could she. Regardless of how much magic potential each of them possessed, this fight came down to strength and stamina, action and reaction.

With an emotionless glare, Mordred rubbed the blood from his face and resumed to circle her. Errin did the same, in a hopeless attempt to lure him to where the ground lost itself in the mist and where uneven pools lay hidden out of view. His armor would make him more vulnerable to uneven terrain than Errin – but Mordred predicted her plan and countered. He charged and they locked weapons as steel of equal quality ground over the edges of one another. His two inches in height advantage enacted additional force against Errin's wrist, and her pain receptors protested. To keep the blockade up high, she had to twist her wrist further and further. Her rear foot slipped through the dirt, and she bit her tongue as she lost that crucial part of her balance.

And with one last effort, Mordred broke through her defenses and cut into the flesh of her torso beneath the chain mail; his sword would have cut far deeper if Errin hadn't withdrawn sideways at the last possible moment.

She stumbled backwards to rebuild distance and felt blood under her hand as she reached out to touch the wound. Her breath hitched in her throat, and she swayed under the intoxicating effects of blood loss.

If he had told her that all was forgiven once she stepped down, she might have accepted his offer in a fit of weakness. But he had wasted his forgiveness on another, and there remained nothing but the grim feeling of betrayal. Mordred's eyes shone with distant cold as he advanced to hunt after his sister.

A hit with the hilt of his sword knocked one of her teeth out. She countered by burying the penknife from her belt in his upper leg. Blow for blow, eye for eye they pounced on each other, a battle that would only see losers, no victors.

His determination blazed as high as ever, as high as hers, but all Mordred was fighting for were high concepts and a crowd of shadowy faces, of none of which he would learn the name. And this weakness proved Errin's strength.

He set out to clash swords with her anew, his movement a display of perfect study in spite of his wounds, forged into his brain by the most capable fighters in all of Britannia. Errin knew every single muscle movement he would make. And she remained still. Her broadsword hung at her side, and its tip touched the torn-up earth below.

The moment before Mordred ended her life with a diagonal slash, Errin shifted to the right where Mordred would end his swing, where his weapon would not arrive until another second.

This second was all she needed.

She reached for Mordred's hand with her own and pried the fingers wrapped around his sword hilt open. His eyes widened, and he didn't think to hold onto his weapon.

They both remained motionless for another moment, the fingers of his right hand interwoven with those of her left. Caught in a moment of eternity, they stared into the eyes of the other. Eyes they had known since as far back as their memories reached, eyes they had met in glee, anger, sadness, and distance over the course of eighteen years. Bright gold and dark violet. Always pulled into the current of the other, always sure to find comfort in the depths of their opposite. Determination brimmed in both of them. Determination to carry out what they deemed right, a mindset that had started as one but had diverged over the years.

Until Mordred's eyes became clouded. Blood covered the corner of his lips as he opened them to say something. But the words remained unsaid. He slumped forward, into Errin's arms, and both of them sank to their knees.

Errin's sword had cut so deeply in between the separate plates of his armor, had torn through so many vital organs that his breathing was sure to only last a handful of seconds longer. Any sort of aid would arrive too late. No amount of wishful thinking would cease to flood of blood staining the ground beneath them. His blood, her blood, the blood of the Pendragon.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry for never being there when you needed me." Errin buried her head into his shoulder. "I always wanted to return some of your kindness, I always wanted to be strong so that you wouldn't have to worry about me. I wanted… to stand beside you and give you the helping hand you always offered me."

Tears streamed down her face, and her voice broke. She pulled him closer, and his heartbeat flickered against her own. His breathing faltered with a raspy sound as blood filled his lungs instead of air.

"I love you. I won't leave you this time, I promise."

Errin hugged her brother until his heart stopped beating, and she stayed this way for a long while after silence enwrapped them. The magic he had stored inside him, the little thread of energy that had defined his life and the path he had set out on left his body alongside his final breath to return to the soil. So that it might nurture future beings to come.

(A/N) That was it, the big final confrontation. I hope you enjoyed. After this, I plan to have one more chapter for the aftermath and an epilogue that should tie up the remaining loose ends. This chapter is once again late and probably includes too many section breaks. But I could not for the life of me decide on another way to make it work - and I spent a lot of time puzzling my head over this. Hopefully the quick cuts managed to portray the confusion of battle and didn't just end up confusing you. Please let me know what you think.

So long!