This chapter was actually not planned in any way, but I know you all probably won't believe me after reading it! It just sort of happened while I was in the middle of writing it, and it couldn't be stopped!
As always, let me know your thoughts! Enjoy!
The last thing Ragnor wanted to do was enter another fight. But that seemed to be the only option he had because the two people he'd ever cared the most about were in the middle of it. There was no way he'd ever let Magnus go into a situation like this alone, not to mention the fact that Raphael had been in Idris at the time of the attack. So Ragnor had no plans to even so much as rest until he contacted Raphael, and he knew that his mind would rest only when he was by Raphael's side. So following Magnus through the portal to Idris wasn't a very hard thing for him to decide to do. There was no decision for him to make.
The hardest part of the entire situation was that he knew Magnus would follow Alec to the ends of the earth, even if that meant being killed by Valentine or the Circle. "You're worried," Magnus said, his voice breaking Ragnor out of his thoughts and quickly pulling him back into reality. "But I promise you that the first person we'll look for is Raphael." After nearly three hundred years of friendship, Magnus was finely tuned into Ragnor's every last need and thought.
"You won't leave Alec's side long enough to search for anyone," Ragnor replied, only slightly joking. He couldn't blame Magnus for it, and he knew he never would. If their positions had been reversed, he certainly would have never left Raphael to look for anyone else; he would have forced Raphael to come with him. And Raphael likely would have complained the entire time. Magnus's only response was to chuckle and walk over to have a word with Alec. Ragnor wasn't the least bit surprised when Alec stated that he was going to help them look for Raphael.
The search for Raphael was much more nerve-racking than Ragnor had originally anticipated. Things had quieted down since Valentine's initial attack, but that had only given everyone time to gather the bodies of those who had been killed in that attack, and Ragnor couldn't even begin to keep himself from looking for Raphael in them. He couldn't exactly keep pulling down his pants to check that their tattoo hadn't faded, so searching for Raphael's face in the pile of bodies was Ragnor's compromise.
Ragnor whirled without a second thought when he heard Alec say Raphael's name, already running toward Raphael without really knowing exactly where he was. Relief flooded through Ragnor when he saw Raphael standing as out of the way as possible, talking to Luke as though he didn't have a care in the world. Raphael was obviously initially confused when he saw Ragnor, but he quickly erased that and replaced it with his own sort of relief. "What on earth are you doing here?" He asked, his voice raising several octaves, telling Ragnor that he was simply anxious about the situation as well. "Don't you know how dangerous this place is right now?"
Whatever Ragnor might have said in response was quickly replaced by several shouts that only confirmed Ragnor's suspicion that the Circle was attacking again. Raphael shot Ragnor a look that told him this was the exact thing he was talking about, but Ragnor didn't have time to deal with the irony of the situation at the moment. The only thing Ragnor had time to do was shoot Magnus an equally meaningful glance that told him to stick together. At times like these, he was entirely thankful for the fact that their centuries of friendship had given them enough of a connection to be able to understand each other when it mattered the most.
Much more quickly than Ragnor would have thought possible, Alec had located his siblings, getting them by his side with such ease that it was impressive. Ragnor watched with a breaking heart as Alec quickly moved to speak with Max, telling him exactly what he needed to do in order to stay safe. Ragnor knew Alec's anxiety all too well. Magnus was the closest thing to a brother Ragnor had ever had, and he couldn't even begin to imagine what would happen if he lost Magnus in this war. But at least Ragnor knew that Magnus was capable of fighting, that he was capable of taking care of himself. Max was still a kid, and Ragnor couldn't even begin to imagine how worried Alec was about Max's wellbeing in the impending fight.
"I know what you're thinking," Raphael said, stepping up behind Ragnor in an almost protective sort of way that Ragnor had never seen from him. But Ragnor could see in Raphael's eyes that he did, indeed, know that Ragnor was promising himself that he would help Alec protect Max during this war. "Just don't die in this fight," Raphael finished, moving to quickly, gently kiss him. Ragnor allowed himself to be swept away from reality for the few short seconds he and Raphael shared together before the first demon entered the building. The last thing he wanted to do was to pull away from Raphael's touch, but he knew that if they had any chance of survival that he would have to do so.
The first several minutes of the fight stretched on for what seemed like hours, and Ragnor worked on autopilot. Trying to keep his mind divided by so many things was a horrible task for the middle of a fight, but Ragnor did it anyway. His attention continually switched from Raphael to Magnus to Max and back again, the demons around him coming in second to his worry. Alec and Isabelle seemed to be doing very well at protecting Max, so over the course of the fight, Ragnor began relaxing, trusting that the others could keep him safe.
When Raphael cried out in pain, Ragnor's attention was automatically turned away from all the others. He could have felt Raphael's injury without hearing or seeing Raphael at all, their soulmate connection telling him that something had gone wrong. Ragnor turned to see Raphael on his knees, a Circle member holding up his seraph blade, ready to bring it down at any moment. Raphael's leg had been cut, bringing him down without a chance of getting back up in time, but Ragnor only registered that for a second before the full weight of the situation hit him.
Before Ragnor could so much as raise a hand to magic the Circle member's seraph blade away, he felt a sharp pain in his own leg, and he knew he was going down even before he hit the floor. Panic welled up inside of him, but it certainly wasn't panic over the demon that was currently attacking him. The only thought that filled his mind was the thought of Raphael, his fear for his soulmate taking over every inch of his body.
When Ragnor finally freed himself from the demon, he was shattered to see that the seraph blade was in motion, on its way to end Raphael's life in just a matter of seconds. And Ragnor knew that he didn't have the magical abilities to stop it, not from so far away, not with so little time, and certainly not after he'd been fighting for so long already. He wanted to shut his eyes, he wanted to stop moving and simply give up, to resign himself to the fact that he was losing Raphael and there was no way around it. And then there was a dagger, flying impossibly quickly toward the Circle member. Raphael seemed equally as surprised when the dagger found its mark with an almost terrifying accuracy.
The Circle member hit the ground long before he seemed to realize what had happened to him, but Ragnor was no longer paying attention to that. He traced the dagger's path backward as best as he possibly could, searching for the person who had actually saved Raphael's life. There seemed to be so few suspects, so few people who would actually care about Raphael's life that Ragnor had a hard time coming up with who it could have been. Magnus would have used magic; Alec would have used an arrow. So Ragnor was only slightly surprised when he saw Max, his arm still outstretched from throwing the dagger, seemingly in disbelief over what he had just done.
Ragnor didn't have time to do anything other than scramble to Raphael's side, quickly healing his leg before tending to his own wounds from the demon. Raphael shared a look with him that told Ragnor that they needed to thank Max later, that at the moment, they had much more pressing issues to turn their attention to. Like the fact that another demon was closing in on them, quickly followed by another Circle member. To Ragnor's infinite surprise, an arrow took out the Circle member for them, making their fight with the demon much easier.
The next few minutes of the fight seemed to fly by, Raphael falling into an easy sort of rhythm beside of him. Things were wholly uneventful, and Ragnor made the mistake of letting his guard down, of relaxing just enough to make things dangerous again. Ragnor saw what was about to happen, and jumped into action without a second thought. Both Magnus and Alec had their backs to the situation, and Isabelle and Jace seemed to be nowhere in sight, so Ragnor knew that if he didn't do something, that no one else would. The Circle members seemed to be trying their best to leave the children alone. The demons, however, were not even beginning to try.
And a demon was headed for Max at that very moment. Max was attempting to retreat, his eyes wide in fear, obviously having used his one and only dagger to save Raphael's life. Ragnor launched himself toward Max, sparks flying from his hands in his best attempt to distract the demon until he could get there. Max continued to step backward, nearly running into Magnus as he did so. Magnus whirled around, losing his footing and attempting to catch himself, but not doing so in time.
So Ragnor's only option was to continue forward, to continue with his plan. His only option was to reach Max before the demon did. Because the other options were ones that Ragnor refused to allow himself to think about. The only problem was that Ragnor actually did reach Max before the demon did. But only about a second before it did. And that single second wasn't nearly long enough for Ragnor to reorient himself or to do absolutely anything at all to defend himself from the demon. The only thing he'd actually managed to do was throw himself in front of Max and in the path of the demon.
He heard both Magnus and Raphael scream his name, he heard Max's cry for help, but he was powerless to do anything about the situation, and he very grimly understood that. So his mind quickly switched away from the demon and the situation at hand and moved to Raphael. Ragnor had no idea of what was going to happen, but he wasn't going to argue with his mind if it wanted to focus on Raphael just in case these were his final few moments.
The last thing his mind focused on was Raphael's smile. Something that was so rare, so hard to come by that Ragnor momentarily wondered why that was the one thing his mind wanted him to see. But none of the mattered when he felt the demon crash into him, sending him away from Max before he had the time to assess the situation. What Ragnor did know was that his thoughts about Raphael had only taken milliseconds, and his time was quickly running out. Ragnor wasn't surprised when he didn't hit the ground, pain so intensely slicing through him that he knew there was no turning back. Ragnor welcomed the blackness that washed over him, the image of Raphael's smile a stark contrast to the darkness.