Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan. I don't own any works credited to his name. I'm not Cassandra Clare, either, and I don't own any works credited to her name, either. I'm simply just me, and I only own works credited to my own name. Check out my profile if you'd like to see those! (Writing Desk's Raven, previously JustAnotherChapter, Fangirl Queendom, and some other name I don't remember.)

Previously on More Than A Mortal:

With everything in place and all preparations we could have possibly made done, I went up to my study above the belfry. I settled down on my blankets and pillows, crossing my legs. Looking out the nearest of the large open windows, I saw that the sun was beginning to set.

I let out the largest surge of my power that I could.

The chains shattered with how much power I sent into them, and the entire belfry lit up like a lantern for a few moments.

When the light faded, one of Them was standing in front of me.

"Avalon." I greeted.

He scowled at me. "What-" He cut himself of abruptly as a war cry rose up from the members of my court as they rushed out of the temple and towards the two of them still down in the clearing. Avalon stalked to the window, gripping the sill so hard his knuckles turned white. There was a visceral roar from below, and his face turned murderous as he rounded on me.

"Why can't I leave?" He demanded.

"A simple enchantment, placing more wards upon my study. Just as the others cannot get into the temple, you cannot leave this room. Beren had a vial of your blood laying around, so it was simple, really, to pour my power into the wards as I caught your attention." I explained calmly.

"You will die." Avalon snarled. "You have killed my sister and brother and now your people intend to kill my only remaining sister."

"It wasn't me that killed your sister, nor was it me that killed your brother, if you'll remember." I told him. "And killing me will only allow you to complete the cycle, won't it?"

That confused him. "What cycle?"

"The one where you killed Eleos and her child. You've already taken my child, I know she is dead, and you plan to kill me, now." I said. "It is a cycle, you do what you can to destroy what we protect."

"Eleos had no child." He said, expression guarded.

"She did not tell you because you betrayed her." I informed him. I picked up the diary from where I'd left it up in the study, and tossed it to him. "Last entry."

He flipped through the pages, glancing cautiously up at me every few seconds, to make sure I didn't do anything. Then he found the entry, and his eyes widened as he read the writing.

"She was with child…" He murmured., looking down at the diary. Then he looked up at me. "You think you know everything about us, what we were. You don't."

I didn't say anything. Let him talk, it meant he wasn't going to kill me yet. "I loved her. I truly loved her." His voice was raw with emotion. "I was always the runt of us siblings. Nadia, she was always the Alpha. So when she sent me to act and get close to Eleos, I thought it was a wonderful chance to prove myself.

"But then it was more than an act. I wanted her to see me as good, I wanted her to think the world of me. I told Nadia and Iolande and Teren that it was just part of the act, to get her to trust me. But it was real. Being with her, it made me more human. Made me less of what I was. They didn't see it because they'd always seen me as less than them, as the runt of the litter." Avalon spoke. "I fell in love with Eleos. I did everything I could to put off helping my siblings, but Nadia grew suspicious.

"I had to give them something. So I gave them our location and told them to go for the mortal. It would hurt more if she lost her court first, I told them. I just wanted to figure out how to save her. It hurt me more than anything when I watched my siblings kill Cattalina and cause Dreyden's death, when they kidnapped Alazae. They told me everything they did to her, you know, and they made sure I knew the exact moment she had died, cursing my name." He continued. "It all went downhill when I went for Beren. I put it off for as long as possible, but Nadia urged me to move more quickly.

"The old man is smart. He figured it out just before I tried to put the dagger through his heart. He called out to Eleos, and she came running into the tent. She saw me, with the dagger, and she knew, immediately. Her eyes filled with disgust, hate. And hurt. I was the person she trusted more than anyone else alive or dead, and I had been betraying her since the very beginning." Avalon took a deep breath, sitting down and leaning against the wall under the window he'd been looking out earlier, eyes cast upwards. "Nadia was near, and Iolande and Teren, so I couldn't even tell her once more that I loved her.

"Instead, I told her of how I hated her. She did not realize it, but I was not talking of my feelings toward her. I didn't wish to see her dead, the one I wanted to see dead was Nadia. She has controlled my entire life, and when I finally found something I loved, a new family, she forced me to destroy them." Avalon said. "Beren is smart, I'm sure he realized who the words were meant for, though I know he, too, was shaken from my betrayal.

"Nadia was very angry, later, that I had let them get away. I played up the runt excuse, saying that Eleos was stronger than me and her power had overwhelmed me. I could have caught them if I'd wanted to." Avalon said. "But I didn't want to. Nadia put us all on the hunt for them, and we hunted Eleos and her growing court for a long time.

"When we finally found the temple, only I was able to enter. None of us knew why, but Nadia told me if I didn't kill Eleos and that damn old man, she would kill me herself, slowly and painfully. Nadia does not play around with threats, and I had no choice. I had to kill her." Avalon said. He shifted his gaze to me. "She did not kill me for Eleos surviving, because she had seen her body when I brought it out and begrudgingly accepted I had done what I could. None of us expected Eleos was still there."

"You still don't know how she did it, do you?" I asked.

"Not a single soul truly knows how she separated her spirit from her body as she died. No one but her knew, and she is gone, now. You let her pass." Avalon told me. "Before you came along, she would still talk to me. I could not see her, nor could anyone, but I could hear her. My siblings thought my time pretending to be good had driven me crazy, they thought I was speaking to myself. They could not hear her, perhaps the only thing they could not hear, for she hid herself from them."

"What did she talk to you about?" I asked.

"Anything. She watched me for a time, she said, after I killed her." Avalon answered. "She told me she forgave me, which meant more to me than anything ever could. What she could not forgive, though, was my continued pursuit against her and her court. I could not get out of my sister's clutches, I explained, but she said there was one way. I was too much a coward to approach death, even though she told me we could be together again, for eternity. So I have remained here on earth, following my sister's orders. I am not proud of my choices."

"She has passed on into the afterlife of the immortals." I told him. "You would have had to wait for her before, but she is already there, now. You could be together again. She is the spirit of forgiveness, so I know she will be happy to see you."

Avalon was about to say something, but then he shut his mouth and stood quickly. "Nadia approaches, the wards have weakened greatly. I am sorry for all we have done to you and those you love, but I know no other way. There is nothing I can do." He said, shaking his head.

At that moment, Nadia herself appeared in the center of the room. She looked between Avalon and I, a murderous look on her face. Then she rounded on her brother. "Avalon, why is the girl not dead yet?" She asked coldly.

Avalon was staring at me. I stared back. "It is not the only way. You did know another way, for quite a long time." I told him.

Nadia glared at me before looking back at her brother. "What lies is she filling your head with, brother?" She demanded.

I could tell Avalon was warring with himself on the inside. He wanted to do what was right, be released from his sister's control and make his love proud, but he'd been under Nadia's control for so long that he didn't know how to break it.

Slowly, Avalon turned to face his sister. "Did you know," he asked quietly, "how I was able to get into the temple when you three could not?"

"Of course not!" Nadia exclaimed, a bit too quickly. Avalon stared at her, unmoving. Her tone changed to angry. "I knew that wench was with child, I'd smelled her monthly cycles before and it wasn't there when it should have been. You'd betrayed us, Avalon, and when you were able to get in, it only confirmed my suspicions. She would have to set the wards against us, but not you, or she would not be able to get in. I decided it was fitting punishment that you be the one to end her. A final betrayal, for all you have done in your worthless life is betray."

"No, Nadia. All I have done in my life is follow your orders, even when it killed me to do so." Avalon said emotionlessly.

Before I knew it, Avalon had shifted into their monstrous wolf form, and he'd launched himself at Nadia. She was surprised by the attack, and went down under his weight before shifting herself and throwing him off. She was much bigger than him, he had said he was the runt of the litter, and I knew from the start that he was fighting a losing fight.

While they were preoccupied with trying to kill each other in the middle of the large room, Beren made his way into the study. He edged along the wall, quietly and carefully, so as not to attract the attention of either of them. When he made it to me, he knelt down beside me to whisper. "We must get you out of here. The bunker will be safe."

"No." I whispered back, watching the fight. Avalon was holding his own, but he was tiring.

"I must protect-"

"You must remain alive to pass on your knowledge."

"But-"

"No buts. This mortal body no longer matters."

"We can save-"

"No one can save me. If it is to happen, I must save myself."

"We must protect humanity, for what are we without it, as humans?" Beren desperately tried once more.

"And we will protect it. But for that to happen, you will need to pass on your knowledge to the new Eleos, teach her and guide her as you once did me. You know the knock. Get as many as you can down there and have them lock the doors behind you. Nadia will not be able to get in, the wards there are too strong for her to be able to break for another hundred millenia, especially as the only force working against them." I told him. "Go, Beren."

He reluctantly stood, edging his way along the wall, back to the trapdoor. When he was gone, I turned my attention back to Avalon and Nadia.

Just in time to see Nadia toss Avalon's limp body to the floor. As she shifted back into a human form, his body flickered back weakly.

Avalon out of the way, Nadia turned to me, wiping her brother's blood from her mouth. "You really shouldn't have turned my brother against me." She told me, annoyed.

"And you really shouldn't have done everything you have." I said, finally standing up. "You think, without your siblings, you have nothing to lose? Bitch, you've taken everything from me, my family, my friends, my entire life. I can never return to them. You know, I understand some of how Avalon felt. You kept him from returning to the people he loved, too."

"Do not presume to speak of my brother." Nadia growled. "He was straying from our way, so he had to learn a lesson."

"How about you don't threaten me?" i countered. "We both know you're going to kill me anyways."

She took a step forward, but then stumbled back as my body filled with a bright, burning light. Even with her eyes shielded, the light still paralyzed her as I made my way towards her. She looked afraid, for a moment, as I came nearer, but it passed when I stepped past her toward Avalon's body.

I knelt down beside him and placed my hand against his forehead. "You've done pretty well. Go, be with her and enjoy your eternity." I whispered, the light travelling from me to him. I stood and took a step back, as his body dissolved in the light, disappearing.

"What did you do?" Nadia demanded, looking at the spot where her brother had been, no longer paralyzed by the light. She looked up at me, expression even more angry than murderous.

"I sent him to the afterlife he deserved, the one where he can finally be happy." I told her. "I took him away from whatever hellish afterlife you will go to, whatever afterlife Iolande and Teren now reside in."

"You. Bitch." She spat, stalking forwards. I took a step back, and another and another, until I hit the wall below one of the windows. She stopped in front of me, grabbing my throat. I made no move to stop her, though she did nothing but hold me there for the moment.

"I will crush the air from your lungs and throw your body down to my army to tear you apart." She said viciously. "You will be destroyed in front of your court."

"Might be a little hard." I told her seriously. "None of them are down there." I didn't need to turn around and look to know they were no longer fighting, that Beren had gotten everyone he could out. Nadia and her siblings had always had ears everywhere, one of their hellish powers, but she hadn't been paying attention.

The sound of all fighting had stopped long ago, while she fought her brother.

"What!" Nadia screeched, looking past me at the clearing below. The only thing down there now would be the fallen and her army.

"No matter." Nadia said, grip tightening around my throat. "I will still kill you, and throw them your body. It will be a treat for my army."

My airways were cutting off now, but I gave her a soft smile as she glared. A whisper of a breeze passed my ear, and with it, a whisper of a voice. "Eleos and I send our thanks." Nadia heard it and her grip tightened even more.

Then, just before I could pass out, she threw me from the tower. As my body hit the ground and the first of her demonic creatures tore into my skin, my soul and Eleos's remaining bit of spirit split from my body, and from each other.

My last thought was that I was glad the court was safe, and if only I could have seen Sage one last time-

Thank you to anyone who has reviewed, followed, or favorited! You are not inclined to do any of those things if you do not wish, but it would be much appreciated! I send my love to all of you!