One Year Later
Xanthe and Leon scouted ahead for any sign of danger.
Percy and Thanas were in the back, lugging the cart with the equipment as they made their way down to Thessalonica.
For a while, Leon looked happy to be back in friendly territory. It had been free from Romans for almost a year now, as the war began to pick up its pace again. Romans had been pushing up from Sparta, hitting successful targets in Athens and Larissa. The Greeks had begun to decentralize operations, separating into regional groups, just like they had been in the past. Though Constantinople remained the Greek stronghold, only the young and defenseless remained, and the administration of course.
Alexandros and Viviana were still the leaders of the war effort, but with territory stretching from Naples to Ankyra, it was almost impossible for the two of them to manage it all.
Percy and Irene had stayed with them to manage Thessaly and Thrace. In the year or so since Thanas had become the general of the Greek forces, the five of them had grown closer and closer. Thanas looked more and more like the Thanas she knew from before Ionna's death. Irene was less guarded and opened up to them, proving that she really was different from other children of Aphrodite.
And, most of all, Percy had changed. His true self was more like Leon than she ever thought possible. He was proud and thought of himself highly, but he was also a jokester and was loyal to a fault.
It helped that every time he looked at them outside of battle, he would burst out into a smile. Even though he still fought like a demon in battle, he took more time to care about allied forces than he used to. She thought that was a step in the right direction.
But, on their way to Thessalonica, something went wrong. Very, very wrong.
"Why is there smoke?" Leon asked, his eyes wide and alert. "Why is there smoke pluming from my village?"
In the distance, a large column of thick, black smoke rose above the treetops. They weren't far from where Xanthe and her mother had dropped Leon off when they were kids, when he returned to his village after accidentally killing his uncle. Xanthe's senses tingled, and she suddenly had a bad feeling.
"Leon wait!" Percy shouted.
But it was too late. Leon had taken off.
Xanthe sprinted after him, leaving Thanas and Percy with the equipment. Leon was fast, and she could hardly keep up with him. She tried to follow his path step-by-step, taking each shortcut he did. They raced through the bushes and crested the hill overlooking the village. They sprinted down like demons toward Leon's family and friends.
In the distance, Xanthe saw Romans fleeing. It wasn't like them to retreat so easily, and Xanthe immediately knew why. The attack wasn't to kill them or attract them to battle. It was a warning. You destroy our family, we'll destroy yours.
Half of the village had been razed to the ground, nothing but ash and soot scattered on the ground. The dozens upon dozens of dead bodies lay on the ground in what had clearly been a massacre. None of the villagers had been prepared to fight the legionaries.
It was a terrible sight.
The other half that still stood wasn't in very good shape. There were clear signs of struggle as the Romans had fought through. Xanthe figured the Romans had entered the village from the opposite side, and the villagers in this half were given more time to prepare to fight.
Leon rushed to an old man, who was clutching a bad wound across his forehead. It looked like he'd hit his head across the stone wall he lay next too.
"Elder!" he said desperately. "Elder!"
"Leon...?" the old man's eyes were glossy, but he fixed them on Leon. "Is that you?"
"Yes, Elder. It's me. I'm going to get you help, okay?"
Leon ripped off a chunk of his tunic and wrapped it tightly around the man's wound. Xanthe had a horrible flashback to the day her mother died, where something had been tightly wrapped around a wound across her forehead.
"Xanthe, watch the village elder and signal Percy and Thanas," Leon ordered. His eyes were wild with panic. "I'll help the others."
"Leon!"
It was no use. He ran off without casting a single glance backward.
Xanthe cursed under her breath. If the Romans changed their mind and doubled back and attacked the village again, they would be finished. She looked down at the village elder, who was still groaning in dazed pain. She wasn't a doctor, but she hoped she knew what she was doing by keeping him as still as possible.
She waited for what seemed like an eternity before a voice shouted, "Elder!"
It was a boy, maybe a few years younger than her, holding a gladius, running toward them.
"Help us!" Xanthe shouted at him as he approached. "Where's the doctor?"
The boy quickly decided she wasn't a threat and knelt beside them. He looked at the elder's wrapped forehead and grimaced. He looked up. "The doctor is dead."
"From the attack?"
He nodded.
Xanthe looked around. "Is there anyone else with you? Anyone else alive?"
"Soon," the boy said. "A handful of us went out to kill those bastards and send them to Hell. They're faster than we thought. We retreated, just in case the village is attacked again."
She nodded. Leaning down toward the elder, she said in an assuring voice, "Don't worry. Help will be here soon."
The elder nodded weakly in assent.
When Xanthe looked up, she saw the boy staring at her weirdly.
"Who are you, by the way?"
"I'm Xanthe." She introduced herself quickly. "I came here with Leon."
"Leon?" The boy's ears perked up. "He's here?"
She nodded and pointed toward the undamaged section of the village. "He went that way to help the others. We can't leave the elder alone. We have two more allies coming in from down the path. They're carrying supplies so I'm not sure when they're going to get here, but it shouldn't be long."
"Leon's back..." the boy said, mystified. "When he left... he..."
A blinding flash lit up the sky, accompanied by a thunderclap that nearly blew out her ears.
The boy covered his own ears, wincing in pain. "What in God's name...?"
Xanthe's eyes widened. It was Leon. Had the Romans returned for another strike? Did they change up their strategy? Were they turning back to kill Leon?
A group of armed villagers ran up the main street. They looked like the ragtag team the boy had described. The leader's eyes were wide with fear, and he asked the boy, "What's happening? Are they attacking again?"
"I'll go!" Xanthe said. She pointed at the elder. "Someone needs to attend to him. He has a bad cut on his forehead."
"Who are you?"
She didn't answer, taking off in the direction the lightning had struck.
Racing past the fields and the houses, she eventually found a back road. There were living quarters lined up together. She figured all the houses that worked on a certain set of fields were clumped together. The centralization of the living quarters was good to organize who was working where and when and on which field amongst a larger group of people instead of having disproportionate households working on equal-sized fields. The bad news was that it made for an easy target in a raid.
Leon was fighting alone against a group of six Romans. As far as she could tell, only two villagers had been fighting by his side. Both had been struck down by the legionaries.
A crowd of the villagers had formed, stunned by what they were seeing. They must have been surprised at Leon's sudden appearance, for one. Seeing him actually fight against an enemy must have been shocking. The second was because lightning was literally shooting out of his hands. Their mortal minds must have been working hard to unsee what they were seeing, but the Mist was weak from centuries of war between the Greeks and Romans. The gods were inactive due to all the fighting. No one capable enough was managing to hold the barrier.
She shoved her way through them, drawing her sword and joining Leon in the fight.
"Together!" she shouted.
He nodded, and they locked swords.
The sky turned dark as newly-formed clouds rolled in. The winds began to pick up, swirling around them faster and faster, turning into an inescapable vortex.
"Get the mother!" one of the Romans shouted, knowing that this was their last chance.
Xanthe almost lost focus. That was why they'd come back. Their plan was to take Leon's mother hostage, have a bargaining chip and bend him to their will. Whoever was leading the Thirteenth Legion had to be smart. How could they figure out Leon's weakness so easily?
Leon's rage only grew, and the winds became even harsher. It was almost impossible to see within the radius of the storm. No human could open their eyes without the immense burn of the winds whipping around them.
Then, Leon let go and charged forward. The storm seemed to condense around him, turning him into a tornado. He cut the Romans down, ensuring that no more damage was done to the village. Except for the miniature storm that threw up the soil and crops.
Xanthe felt drained. She'd used up a lot of energy to conjure the storm that Leon fed off of.
When the Romans were dead, Leon let the winds go, and they flew off in every direction, finally free from the son of Zeus' grasp. The dark clouds rolled away, and the storm's chill was replaced by the warm spring air.
Leon turned around. His eyes scanned the crowd for something, and when he found it, his eyes lit up. He marched over and found a beautiful older woman and hugged her.
His mother, she thought.
The crowd backed away, still staring at Leon in a sort of daze.
Leon pulled away and held his mother's shoulders at arm's length. "Gods, I don't know what I would've done if they took you. I'm so glad you're safe."
His mother stared at him in disbelief. She blinked a couple times. "Gods?"
For a moment, Leon looked confused. Then the alarm went off in his head. There was a flash of panic in his eyes, but he tried to act as if everything was fine. "I said 'God', mother. Are you hearing things?"
"You just..." She looked at his hands warily and then up at the sky. "You just..."
Leon slowly looked up at the crowd around him. The ragtag group of armed villagers and the boy had made it to the crowd. There was no doubt that they'd just seen what had happened. His expression fell as he seemed to come to the realization that they'd all just seen what he'd done.
"The Mist..." he mumbled.
Xanthe felt the urge to reach out to him and comfort him, but she didn't have the confidence to do it in front of all the people he grew up with.
"You gave birth to a demon," one of the other women told Leon's mother. She was shaking her head in stunned disbelief. "He shoots lightning from his fingertips. He's not a gift from God. He's a curse from Hell."
"Aunt—"
The woman cut Leon off before he could say any more, her eyes blazing with anger. "I'm not your aunt. I ceased to be your aunt the moment you ran away from here with those lunatics chasing you. You brought your mother more bad luck than the rest of the village has suffered combined! My sister, who has had to deal with people talking about her as a single parent in this wretched world, has suffered immensely. You... being with you brought our brother to his untimely demise. How can you explain that, boy? How can you explain your survival and his death? I've kept my mouth shut for years because I didn't want to upset my sister, but here we are. It's the end, boy. Now everyone has seen, with their own eyes, what a curse you have been on our village."
Leon looked like he'd just been stabbed in the gut.
Xanthe's eyes scanned the crowd. No one could look up at Leon. Their expressions ranged from horror to distaste to guilt. Not everyone agreed with his aunt. She could tell that much. But most of them did. Most of them thought he was a burden on them.
"I just wanted to save you..." Leon trailed off. "Elder. Mother. Aunt Martina. I... I couldn't stand to see them destroy my home. I just wanted to—"
"This isn't your home," his aunt sneered. "It hasn't been for the past three years. You haven't even sent a message back telling your mother if you were okay or not. You let her hang onto the belief that you were okay and well."
"I... am okay and well," he said.
"A demon. That's what you are."
"Stop, Martina," Leon's mother said, stepping in between them. She looked torn. "Leon did nothing wrong. He's not a demon."
"Did you not see the sorcery that sprouted from the tips of his fingers?! He brought misfortune upon all of us!"
"You're right," Leon said, hanging his head. "I did bring all of this upon you."
"Leon..." His mother stared at him incredulously. "Don't... don't say that. You just—"
"It is my fault, mother," he said, this time a little more forcefully. He turned to her. "Think about all those years, raising me in a world that seemed to haunt you. You were terrified of all the creatures that you were seeing. You were stressed out because you were afraid something bad was going to happen to me. You prayed to God that it would end soon, but it never ended. Because you were sick, you had to send me off to Uncle Kyros, and that day when I returned to the village without him it was because I killed him. I killed Uncle Kyros because I accidentally discovered my powers. I killed him when he punched me off the cart and I got angry."
"You didn't do that!" she insisted. "You did nothing wrong!"
"All those years, from the day Uncle died to the day those Romans came for me, I'd been training behind your backs. I'd defeated countless monsters in the woods and forests around here. In Thessalonica, I learned about who I really am, where I really come from. I'm half god, and I don't mean God. I mean the old pagan gods. The reason why you thought it must have been your God is because my father is Zeus, the king of Olympus. He's the closest to God a Greek god can get."
Xanthe caught his mother as she stumbled back, losing her balance in shock as her son finally revealed the secrets he'd kept hidden over the years. Xanthe met Leon's eyes and shot him a comforting look. She understood that he wanted to lift the burden. She would've wanted to rant as well. But he needed to stay calm. The Romans weren't very far out.
"I left because I couldn't protect you alone," Leon continued after taking a deep breath. "I would've died if I stayed, and me dying would only hurt you. I couldn't let that happen. I left to train and fight with people like me, people who are half god and half human. We're going to destroy the Romans. I won't let them harm you or anyone here again."
His aunt scowled and looked at his mother. "Don't listen to him. He'll just get up and leave again. He brings nothing but misfortune."
"You don't have to believe what I'm saying, mother," he said, ignoring his aunt's stinging words. "I just want you to be safe. You can hate me for the rest of your life and think that I'm a curse. That won't change how I feel about you. You are my mother. Nothing will change that. And I won't let those Romans hurt you."
Xanthe held her breath as his mother turned to face her. She was beautiful. It must have been why Zeus had fallen for her and why Leon was so good-looking himself. The woman looked like she was searching for some sort of confirmation or indication that this was all just a big prank. Xanthe kept her gaze level and calm. She hoped it rubbed off.
Leon's mother reached up and touched her cheek.
"You wield demonic powers yet you feel and look human," Leon's mother muttered. "You should be creatures form Hell, but your eyes tell a different story. You're such a beautiful young lady. It would be a waste if you were just one of Satan's servants."
"We may have demonic powers, but we each have a human's soul," she replied. "I promise."
"I... I believe you."
"What?" Aunt Martina exclaimed. She looked like she was about to be run over by a horse. "You believe that... that thing you've known for less than an hour but not your own sister?"
"I'm not a thing," Xanthe spat through clenched teeth. Aunt Martina was getting on her nerves. "Maybe Leon shouldn't have saved your life and let you die at the hands of those soldiers."
"Xanthe, stop," Leon intervened. He walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. He flashed her his trademark smile. "If we fight anger and hate with more anger and hate, we'll become what Percy once was... still is."
"I know, but she's pissing me off!"
Leon's mother put a hand on Leon's cheek, and then on his chest, as if she was trying to feel for something that would confirm he was indeed her son and not just a demon.
"My head feels like bursting," she told him.
Leon gave her a sympathetic look. "I know it does. Mine did too when I first found out."
"This isn't the time for chatter," Aunt Martina interrupted. She stopped forward with one of the pikes, still fuming. "Let my sister go and we will let you free. Otherwise, we'll put your heads on two pikes and let your souls rot in Hell!"
"I don't think you're capable of doing that," a voice said from the back of the crowd.
It was Percy's.
There was a clap, and then a shout: "Sleep!"
And, instantly, the crowd—including Leon's mother—collapsed on the spot. Xanthe stumbled, trying to catch her.
"Mother!" Leon immediately dropped to a knee to check if she was okay.
Percy brushed his hands off and looked at the crowd. The bags under his eyes looked pronounced, even from a distance. He let out a yawn. "Well, that was tiring. Haven't put a crowd to sleep like this in years."
"You..." Xanthe was speechless. "The whole crowd..."
"Oh, don't worry. I'm about ready to pass out." Percy glanced at Leon's mother. "Looks like Thanas and I will be headed back to Thessalonica with a guest."
"You and Thanas?"
"I saw a large group of Romans circling around," Percy explained, pointing toward the main road. "You and Leon need to cover us."
Xanthe glanced worriedly at Leon's mother.
"Can you handle it?" Percy asked.
Leon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, recollecting himself. When he opened his eyes, she could see the determination shining in his electric blue eyes. He would overcome this, and he would fight off the Romans to save his mother. "We can," he replied confidently.
"Good. I'll leave it in your hands."
"What about the villagers?" Xanthe asked.
Percy looked toward Leon.
The son of Zeus hesitated for a moment, but decided, "We'll leave them here. They'll be fine, right Percy?"
"Should be. They won't be asleep for long."
Leon nodded, locking his eyes on the unconscious form of his aunt. He gave her a sad look, as if he was disappointed. Xanthe couldn't tell if he was disappointed in her or because of her, but she didn't like to see him sad. She instinctively reached out and grabbed his hand. He didn't turn to face her, but he squeezed back tightly, like he didn't want to let her go.
"Stay safe," Percy said knowingly, a twinkle in his eyes and a genuine, wide smile splitting his face. He lowered himself to a knee and picked Leon's mother up with ease. Either she was light, or he was strong. It was probably a mixture of both.
Xanthe and Leon stood there for a while and watched him walk away toward the road. She knew it wasn't smart of them to stand, exposed, in the middle of the village. But there wasn't much she could do. Leon wouldn't take his eyes off his mother.
She remembered the feeling when she saw her mother at the camp the day she died, after years without direct contact, and how excited and elated she felt until the few moments before her death. She loved her mother. At the very least, Leon's mother wasn't dead. Leon would be able to see her again, unlike her own mother, who died on that hill.
"Thank you, Xanthe," Leon said, finally turning to her and pulling her in for an embrace. "I'm sorry that I'm such a mess right now."
"You consoled me when I went to visit my mother," she said. "This is nothing."
"Yeah, but you didn't cry," Leon argued.
"I was still sad."
"Yeah but—"
"Are we really going to argue about this when we have a bunch of Roman asses to kick?"
"That wouldn't be ideal," Leon said, letting out a quiet chuckle.
Xanthe smiled and squeezed him tight. "Good boy. Now, let's find the bastards who did this to your village."
They raced down into the wilderness in the direction of the attackers. Xanthe never left his side as they hurried to find the enemy, keeping pace with him even as he surged forward at almost full speed. It didn't take long to find the nearest group Romans, considering their conversation with the villagers was brief, but when they saw who was leading them, they stopped in their tracks.
"You!" Leon's eyes lit up when he saw the man. "I thought... I thought we destroyed the Eleventh!"
Marcus, the monster that killed her mother, laughed.
Spreading his arms out like he was expecting them, he gave them a cruel smile. "Do you think I would be stupid enough to stay there after failing to successfully defeat you at your pitiful little camp? I knew there would be a counterattack. I just never thought that it would be executed by a small group of misfits like you. Do not take me as a blind fool. I am a descendant of Mars, the god of war."
Xanthe hardly noticed that she was squeezing Leon's hand until it was white. She could do nothing but stare forward at the Roman leader. She thought she'd killed him three years ago at the camp. A confused mixture of anger, regret and sorrow swirled in her chest. Leon squeezed her hand back three times, and she focused her attention on him.
Leave it to the son of Zeus to keep her grounded.
"Young love," Marcus sighed with a smile. "Oh, I wish I could go back to those days. When I was younger, I fell in love with a local, in fact. She was from Thebes. A beautiful young lady named Sophia."
Xanthe tensed up again.
"She was a clear-sighted mortal," he reminisced. "Beautiful indeed, but our legion was to move onward. And after what happened later..." He didn't finish his thought, and his mouth twisted into a scowl. "This was back when Iustinus was the emperor. What a terrible choice for an emperor. He was but a herder of swine. From a family of fools, not a family destined for greatness. And he was not even a full Greek at that. He was some Thraco-Greek or Illyro-Greek hybrid. I suppose, after all, that makes him better than a Greek demigod like you two, but for the throne of Rome... I must say the Eastern Empire continues to disappoint."
"I thought this wasn't the real throne," Leon challenged, likely trying to figure out a plan. "The real throne of Rome fell with Italia."
"A disgrace is a disgrace regardless," Marcus snapped.
"I thought Diocletian was the last demigod to rule Rome," Leon asked. "Didn't he work his way up from nothing? He was a son of Zeus—"
"Jupiter!" Marcus growled. "You filthy Greeks think that you're the center of the universe. Well then how is it that Rome became the most powerful civilization this world has ever seen!"
"Because we were too busy fighting ourselves?" he suggested.
Marcus snarled and unsheathed his sword. "I will have your head!"
"Sophia..." Xanthe muttered. The world around her was registering, but it felt like her head wasn't working properly. Why did it sound so familiar? "Thebes..."
"Xanthe..." Leon said, his nerves making his voice crack. He summoned Koptos. "Xanthe, we've got a bit bigger of a problem than Sophia and Thebes."
She looked up at the Roman, as the realization hit her like a bull. "She was fifteen when you met. You had a child named Florian, a boy you told her to send to the legion when he was old enough."
Marcus' eyebrows furrowed. "How do you know that?"
All these years, when she had spoken to Leon and Thanas about her half-brother in the Eleventh Legion, sometimes she forgot that he was actually a legacy. He was a descendant of Mars, from an illustrious and long-standing family. Now that she took a long look at Marcus, she could see parts of Florian in him. The same determined, confident look stared back at her, and her knees suddenly felt wobbly.
The Romans seemed hesitant. They looked to their confused leader, whose brain worked overtime to figure out who this girl was.
But before anyone could take advantage of the moment, Marcus burst into laughter. "You? You're the blasted Greek scum that Sophia gave birth to? Oh, this is wonderful! Florian would've loved to see you here like this. He never would have believed it. For months he tried to convince me that he had a daughter of Neptune for a sister, and finally I meet you at last! Thank the gods I never went back to that wretched woman."
"Wretched woman...?" Xanthe's eyes turned dangerously bright.
That was why Marcus had laughed when Sophia stood against him. That was why he had hesitated when he made the order to throw javelins at her. That was why he'd waited until the last moment until he dove out of the way of her blast of magic.
"It was hard at first," Marcus sighed, "seeing Sophia on the other side of the battlefield. But I did what had to be done. She was already weakened, and she was helping the enemy. Throwing the pila was the hard part. Watching her die was easy."
Leon clenched his fists.
"Isn't that funny?" Marcus asked his Roman companions. "I killed the girl's mother, my old lover. And I decided to let the boy's mother, that stupid Christian woman, live? Does that not seem odd?"
Xanthe was trembling with anger.
She knew the Romans would be receiving reinforcements sometime soon. Marcus clearly thought he had the upper hand with numbers and with military training. But there was one piece of knowledge he had no hope in knowing.
Leon summoned Koptos and charged.
Xanthe, right on his heels, drew her sword.
Marcus' eyes lit up with glee. "Running to your deaths?"
The Roman line locked shields.
Marcus had seen a tiny glimpse of their powers. He saw that they could fight against multiple enemies and win. But he must have thought that as long as he was commanding the troops, fighting on the front lines, that the two of them would be defeatable. Especially since there were only two of them.
Wrong.
Leon let loose a blast of thunder and lightning, all directly aimed at Marcus.
Electricity arced from his sword and blasted forward with blinding power. Marcus didn't even know what hit him. He flew backwards, his hair darkened with soot. He was probably still alive, Xanthe thought, but he lay unmoving on the ground.
Leon slashed to the right, and Xanthe took the Romans on the left.
Summoning the winds to his command, Leon flew right over the top of their heads before they could blink. Two of the five were dead before they could even turn. He blasted them again with more lightning, a storm cloud gathering above him. He battered them with the wind, just as the Eleventh had battered them all those years ago with their aquila, and struck down his opponents with ease.
Xanthe had gone on a similar tear, just using brute force. When she was angry, she looked truly scary. A miniature storm of her own surrounded her, pushing the Romans back and deflecting all their strikes. She cut them down one by one until no-one remained.
They both glanced at Marcus' body.
Xanthe took a step forward, raising her sword as if to strike, when Irene suddenly burst out of the woods.
"Stop!"
Her charmspeak washed over them, and Xanthe dropped her sword arm.
"Leon, help me tie him up," she commanded.
Leon nodded immediately. It took him a moment to realize that she hadn't used her charmspeak powers, but when he looked at Xanthe, he understood. Her eyes were glossy; Irene was preventing her from killing the Roman.
"We're taking him prisoner," Irene continued. "Don't worry. You'll get your chance to talk to him. But not like this."
"I..." Leon trailed off. She was right. If they succumbed to hatred, like Percy, what would they become?
He obliged and followed her orders.
But it didn't occur to him until a few days later that Irene had literally come out of nowhere. Especially since she'd left for Thessalonica hours before they did. Especially because she greeted Percy like she'd been in Thessalonica the whole time.
It had begun. The final stage.
It was time to save Percy.