Chapter 5

Circa 550 CE
Justinian Dynasty
Greek Camp, Macedonia

"She said... 'I must return home,'" Ionna murmured. "She was studying a map of some kind... muttering to herself in the old tongue. She mentioned Odysseus."

"They say he was really clever," Xanthe nodded.

Ionna smiled at her. "Yeah. The Trojan Horse trick was quite the feat." Her smile faded. "Anyway, she didn't look normal. She was dressed in adventuring gear. You know how the gods used to appear, right? In armour or combat gear, right? She wasn't wearing a dress or formal gear. I guess you could say she was dressed like a commoner."

Xanthe nodded again. "So what was the problem?"

"She was Minerva at the time," Ionna explained. She swallowed and looked down. "Minerva is supposed to be the goddess of wisdom. I hate the Romans as much as anybody... but she looked so different... so broken. She wasn't a goddess of wisdom. She acted more like Nemesis, the goddess of revenge."

Xanthe frowned. "Then that's probably why Thanas said children of Athena are the ones who start these wars."

Ionna wrinkled her nose. She knew it was true, but it left a bitter taste in her mouth.

"I mean, it makes sense logically, right?" Xanthe held out her hand and began counting them off. "First of all, we know how the gods are like when Greeks and Romans are fighting. They can't stay in control of their personas. I met my father once, and he could barely hold himself together. Both fought against each other, with each argument becoming increasingly hostile." She folded her small finger over. "Second of all, when the gods do take form, they tend to act like themselves... act under their domain." She folded her ring finger. "Thirdly, there's no source of anger or tension between the two sides that I can think of other than ancient rivalries. Sure, the Greeks destroyed the Trojans, but the Greeks also destroyed themselves afterward. Isn't that why the world became more mortal-focused? There has to be another reason. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Athena was leading the charge against the Trojans. Her hatred probably stems from there." She folded her middle finger. "And fourthly—"

"I think it all stems down to one thing," Ionna interrupted. She reached into her sleeve and produced an old silver drachma. It showed an owl, Athena's sacred animal, with an olive branch on one side and a Greek inscription on the other. "The Mark of Athena. She told me to avenge her. She said she was replaced... sacked. She said she was looted like a trophy and carted off. She said I would find my answer in enemy territory."

"Did you find out what that means?" asked the daughter of Poseidon.

Ionna looked around, as if to check for an uninvited guest. Quietly, she said, "It turns out, as I learned on my trip to Athens, that there was once a statue of Athena there. After all, it is a city named after her. Of course they would build a statue and keep it in the Parthenon. But it was taken long ago, when Rome conquered Greece. Apparently, it broke the Greek spirit and forced capitulation. Greek demigods were systematically executed or assimilated into Roman culture. Only a small band of demigods managed to flee, forming this camp with Chiron. The statue is called the Athena Parthenos."

Xanthe pursed her lips. "So is it in Rome?"

Ionna sighed. "Most likely. Rome was the center of the Roman Empire until Constantine rose to power. After Theodosius' sons divided the empire, Ravenna became the capital, but that wasn't until just one or two hundred years ago. But I'm going to try to check the other cities first, just in case. It might take me a while, though, because I'll have to avoid the Romans."

"Will you be safe?" Xanthe asked. Her eyebrows knotted in concern. "Is it a dangerous trip?"

Ionna nodded. "I think so. If the stories are true, then there's a possibility I might die."

Xanthe frowned again. "Shouldn't you tell Thanas?"

She looked away. Truthfully, she couldn't tell Athanasios. Despite years of bickering and arguing, Ionna couldn't deny that she loved him. And she knew he loved her back. That was undeniable. She couldn't bear to tell him that she was going on a potentially life-ending journey. Especially after his proposal the week before.

He wanted to get married. She'd been stunned and elated at the same time. Yes, she wanted to marry him. They were still young, and their relationship had so much more time in the future to develop. At the same time, they had a war to fight, and marriage would be an impediment. This marriage wasn't like with Empress Theodora, who was secretly a daughter of Aphrodite. She wouldn't be helping the war cause by marrying Athanasios.

She told him to wait until their battle was done... until they had served their duty. If they both survived, they would get married.

She didn't have the heart to tell him that the chances of her dying were high.

"I guess you can't..." Xanthe watched her carefully. She placed a hand on Ionna's forearm. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

Ionna found herself coming to tears. "Thank you," she whispered, hoping her voice wouldn't crack. "Thank you."

Xanthe had grown into a beautiful young lady. In the five years since Xanthe had come to camp, Ionna had watched her grow up from a timid little girl to the strong, confident adolescent she was now. She had become more powerful than she could have ever imagined. Yet, despite that aura of power, she was still one of the most humble, caring people she knew.

"Are you still hesitant about your half-brother?" Ionna asked her.

Xanthe stared at her for a moment. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't, but I wouldn't necessarily say... hesitant."

Ionna nodded. "It'd be natural. I'd find it difficult to cope with the fact that the brother I grew up with was actually a Roman. Have you seen him since?"

Xanthe shook her head. Originally, she'd only stayed at camp for part of the year. But when her brother was scheduled to come back from Italia, he didn't show up. Even after sending her back to camp, her mother reported that her brother was still missing. After that, Xanthe decided to stay at camp and train, while her mother was to keep an eye out. Xanthe had gone out into the mortal world a few times for missions since then. Ionna thought she might've seen her brother in those periods.

"My mother's been following his legion," she explained. "The Eleventh. She's been keeping me updated. I feel bad because I'm using that information against them, but at the same time, I know my brother wouldn't die. Not yet."

"What happens when you do find him?" Ionna asked. She watched the daughter of Poseidon sadly. "What happens when you both come face-to-face knowing that you're each other's enemy?"

Xanthe looked down. "Honestly... I don't think I could kill him. If... if he turns on me, and I'm alone, I would probably die. He helped me a lot when I was young. He only became distant in the later years. But he's much older than me. He was likely busy trying to find out as much about the legion as possible."

Ionna pressed her lips together. That wasn't encouraging to hear.

"I think... I need another year or two before I could finally fight back if I have to..."

"You're powerful already," Ionna told her.

Xanthe gave her a sad look. "Maybe out here..." She lifted her hand, and a fountain of water burst through the ground. It was salty. "But not in here..." She dropped her hand and pointed at her chest... at her heart.

The daughter of Athena couldn't help but pity Xanthe.

While Athanasios was looked up to for power, Xanthe had been a role model for the younger ones in both power and leadership. As a child of Poseidon, people seemed to admire her more than fear her. After all, Poseidon was more favoured as a Greek than Hades was, either as a Greek god or Roman god. She'd been placed in a tough position... given the burden of responsibility.

Yet she was barely fifteen. She was at the age of marriage for most mortal girls in the eastern Roman Empire, but she was still young and inexperienced.

It wasn't to say Ionna was any more experienced in this life. After all, it had been Xanthe and Athanasios who actually killed the manticore during their last quest. She'd just come up with the plan.

For her journey to Rome, she figured she would spend a couple of years trying to gather as much information as possible. She didn't know what awaited her when she reached the Roman city. If there were Roman guards waiting for her, she wasn't sure she could fight them off herself. After all, she wasn't the type to fight with weapons. She preferred to fight with her mind.

Of course, there was an inherent risk. Like with any mortal, emotions sometimes overruled logic. Just like not telling Athanasios that she would likely die.

"You will be a great hero," Ionna promised, placing a hand on Xanthe's shoulder. "You will save Greece from destruction and be known forever as the heroes who destroyed the tyrannical Romans. You and Thanas."

"The final fight is soon, huh?" Xanthe said morosely. She didn't sound excited to join the battle.

Ionna nodded. "The Twelfth Legion has moved down to northern Italia. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth close in from Phrygia. And the Eleventh are on our doorstep. The time to fight is now."

Xanthe took a deep breath. She looked up at the daughter of Athena with a sad look. "Stay safe. I'm glad I met you."

Ionna felt her chest tighten, as if Xanthe could foretell her death. "You will always be a sister to me," she said back. "I will not fail. I will follow the Mark and bring the Athena Parthenos back to help us win the war."

With a parting hug, Ionna set off, eventually jogging past Viviana and Alexandros, and into the wilderness.

Leon blasted the hellhound to dust.

Panting, he wiped the sweat off his brow and looked up at the sun. It was an oddly hot day. A day of grief and remorse, he thought.

It had been five years since he killed his uncle. The monster attacks had worsened. He'd nearly died out in the woods several times, and each time the monsters were bigger and scarier. His mother always wondered how he'd gotten hurt each time. He never said anything. And fortunately, his mother never noticed that he'd stolen her bronze dagger.

Celestial bronze, apparently, was the metal's name. It couldn't harm mortals. He'd snuck up on the little kids, stabbing one with it. It harmlessly passed through. The children didn't even seem to notice it was a knife. Perhaps it was because he'd tried stabbing them with it. If he just held it, many of the villagers could see its true form. The Mist seemed to work differently with the dagger.

He tried learning things on his own. Since his uncle died, his mother sent him off to Thessalonica to gather supplies that his uncle used to bring. There, he met an old seer, a blind man who knew of the gods. The seer knew he was a son of Zeus, told him many of the old stories, helped him harness his powers.

When he wasn't training himself, he prayed to the Christian god with his mother, keeping her sane and happy.

In fact, over the five years, she'd become much healthier. Her eyes glowed and her cheekbones didn't look as sunken as it had all those years ago. His presence seemed to brighten her mood, especially now that the monsters weren't attacking the village.

He thought about his powers and what the old man had said.

"There's a camp," he had explained. "Far in the wilderness, a camp stands where demigods like you can train to fight against monsters. But these days... these days it is used as war barracks. That camp has turned into a military training center. The Romans march on toward the camp, seeking to destroy the Greeks in a final battle. If they fall, you will become one of the few remaining in the outside world carrying on the spirit of Greece."

"I don't think my mother would like the sound of that," Leon replied with a frown.

The seer gave him a sad look. "There will be a time in the future where you will have to make a decision. Your mother's sanity is one option. The other... I cannot say now. It's never good to know too much about your future. But... believe me, Leon. It will be a difficult decision. The fate of Greece lies in your hands. Even if the others destroy more than you... even if you feel like nothing can stop you... there will be a point in which you will save or destroy our world."

Leon stared at him. "What?"

"It may be difficult to believe now, but you will know soon..." The old man laughed. "A sad fate you have been given, but a necessary one. To cleanse the world... just as your father did thousands of years ago. A new beginning... a rebirth."

"What did my father do?"

The old seer smiled. His eyes looked distant. "You will find out soon enough, boy. You will find out soon. In the meantime, the Romans have figured out who you are. They will close in for the kill sooner rather than later. Beware."

Leon found himself thinking about that other girl and the sorceress that saved him after he killed his uncle. He couldn't get those sea-green eyes out of his mind. All he remembered was that she was a daughter of Poseidon.

According to the seer, there were once hundreds of children of Zeus and Poseidon. In the olden times, Zeus and Poseidon were quite busy procreating.

Poseidon's kids included heroes like Bellerophon and Theseus and Neleus, but also included rogues such as Procrustes and Sciron and Phineas. Zeus had more immortal children than Poseidon, but also had his fair share of demigod children. Leon would have been related to heroes like Perseus, Heracles and Polydeuces.

And those were only the best of them. There would have been many more who were lost in history.

These days, supposedly, children of Zeus and Poseidon were scarce.

Leon jogged back toward the village along the river. If remembered what the seer had told him correctly, rivers weren't exactly Poseidon's domain. He was the god of the sea, not the god of water. But the naiads helped him from time to time, and if he was to abuse his power, he would easily have been able to overpower the petite water spirits.

Ever since he acknowledged the Greek myths, he found that things he didn't see before became more visible. It was almost as if the world knew that he was aware of it. The attacks increased in frequency. He could now see nature spirits, like dryads and satyrs. Everything seemed to make more and more sense the further his life progressed.

Looking at the river, he saw naiads swimming alongside him, giggling and laughing amongst each other. They pointed at him and gurgled. He got the sense that they were making fun of him. He remembered hearing about a story where Heracles used a river to clear some stables of horse manure, which ended up polluting the water and killing a bunch of the wildlife. Maybe naiads weren't too fond of sons of Zeus.

He wondered if the naiads would attack him if that daughter of Poseidon were here to support them.

The sorceress, the girl's mother, had come back a couple years ago to try and convince him to go to the safe haven... the camp. He wasn't quite sure himself of why he didn't want to go. There was a part of him that wanted to stay... to help protect his mother. Perhaps it was the guilt eating at him for killing his uncle.

That day, he'd blasted his uncle with lightning for something so insignificant, there was no other label for it other than 'murder'.

He hated that his village was Christian.

Often, he resented it. It went against his very existence. It was why he'd felt so uncomfortable his whole life. But he couldn't abandon his mother. Regardless of beliefs and realities, she was his mother by blood. He couldn't abandon her. After all, he was all she had left.

"Leon!"

He looked up. At the entrance of the village, his mother was waiting for him, waving as he approached. Smiling, he waved back and picked up the pace.

Over the five years, he'd grown spectacularly. Now his mother was a full head shorter than him. And she was far from short. If the village was to measure everyone's height, he would've been the tallest for sure.

He embraced her.

"Did you find any food?" she asked.

He remembered about the bow slung over his shoulder. "Ah... no, I couldn't find anything I could catch, Mother. It seems God's will today is for a vegetarian meal."

His mother frowned but nodded. "I see. That is disappointing, but the Lord's will is the Lord's will."

Before, when she had frowned, she looked old and distraught, as if she had aged fifty years. Now, it only looked as if she was concerned. She didn't look as broken as she used to. That fact made him happy. By training himself, he had been able to help cure his mother from all the pain and suffering he had brought upon her when he was little.

"There are actually visitors," she said as they walked back home. "Men from the army."

Leon gave her a curious look. "Army? Why?"

"They need more recruits," his mother explained. "Especially with that horrible plague that swept through. They say millions of people have died. I'm just happy that God spared us."

Actually, Apollo was just mad at one of Ares' children and it spread like wildfire, he thought. But he didn't dare say it aloud.

"I wonder what we could have done to deserve such punishment?" she mused to herself.

He kept his mouth sealed. "So..." He changed the topic of the conversation back to the men from the army. "Why are they coming here for recruits? There aren't many eligible boys to pick from. There are like... three maybe?"

"Three is still better than none," she pointed out.

He shrugged. "I guess."

"Ah! There they are!"

Leon looked up to see his neighbour's wife pointing at them, standing next to a couple of men wearing battle armour. They appeared to be high-ranking as they wore bright golden armour, contrasting greatly with the far more common hardened leather of the normal soldier.

Immediately, he felt tense. Even though he had only seen them for a moment, he knew they were enemies. They were Romans... true Romans. After waiting a little longer, and analyzing their equipment, he knew for certain that they were Romans. Instead of the spathion sword, which was a longer and heavier blade more suited for individual combat, they had short swords strapped to their belts. A gladius, it was called. Their armor was also segmented. Soldiers these days wore mail or lamellar armor.

He saw their eyes scan over him and light up, as if they found their target. Well... technically he was their target.

"Marcus!" his mother called out. Her face lit up. "Yes, Marcus, my boy is home! Here he is. Isn't he a strong, handsome young man?"

The one called Marcus smiled. Of the two, he was shorter. His hairline was receding, but that didn't make his gaze any less intimidating. Leon knew that Marcus would easily kill him if they fought on even ground. If Marcus was able to sneak up on him, Leon would be dead before he knew what was happening. And that didn't even factor in his partner.

"My boy!" Marcus extended a hand for greeting. "The villagers have told me much about you. I'm glad to see you're even better than I imagined."

Leon took the hand and shook it. Marcus' grip was vise-like. Leon could feel the contempt in his grasp. It hit him then. The Romans had finally arrived. The five years of practising were over. Everything the old seer had told him was coming to fruition. He suddenly felt scared. For the first time in a long time... since his uncle's death... the thought came to his mind: I don't want to die.

"He's the tallest boy for his age by far," his mother boasted. She smiled proudly. "God gifted me with a beautiful boy like him."

Marcus laughed. "Does he take after his father?"

His mother blushed. "Oh, of course. His father was godly." She giggled like a little girl.

"I bet he is," Marcus said. His eyes gleamed, almost maniacally.

"Mother," Leon interrupted. He swallowed nervously, afraid the Roman might suddenly grab his sword and run him through. "Can I go eat first?"

His mother gave him a confused look. "But food isn't even—"

"I'll take care of it," he said quickly before rushing off.

He didn't look back once as his mother called out after him, confusion evident in her voice. He ground his teeth. She wouldn't understand. They were here to kill him. If he survived the first attack, she would become delirious again. This time, he wouldn't be able to hide the truth from her. He could only imagine how her world would be shattered... how she might reject everything and go insane.

Leon swung open the door to their small house and nearly fainted.

Sitting calmly at the dining table, playing with a ball of fire, a familiar woman about his mother's age looked up. At her feet, half-wrapped in some sort of shroud, was the body of a disemboweled young boy. Somehow, it didn't smell like flesh, and none of the blood was staining the wooden floor. The woman put out the fire with her hands before yanking him inside and closing the door behind him. Except she didn't move from her seat. She was using magic. Only then did Leon recognize her.

"You—"

The sorceress smiled. "Hello again, Leon. You might want to listen..." Her eyes turned downward. "Or I won't be able to save you and you'll end up like him..."

A day earlier than usual! In reality, it's because I'm going to be busy tomorrow and can't actively update at a good time, but here's the next chapter. Hope you all think it's not terrible! Since it's pretty much a filler chapter.

Sharky