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"Agreed," Lucan replied. "They have been my brothers for a long while. I do not wish to harm them."
Ahead of me, I watched my mother pin a young knight and his squire to the wall of the castle with her silvery goddess gaze. Another squire, attempting to grab her from behind was thwarted by my father.
With a deafening roar, Ares grabbed the teenaged boy, squeezing him tightly around the ribs. I heard a loud crack before he tossed the boy limply aside. The boy didn’t move. He wasn’t dead, but broken ribs would keep him immobile and would prevent him from rejoining the battle. It seemed that we were all of the same mind--- to avoid killing these soldiers.
In front of me, Cerebrus sat calmly, while Bedivere and Lamarak charged toward him. Their faces glistened with hate, their armor clattered as they launched themselves at him. Cerebrus reared his head back and breathed a mouthful of horrendous gas toward the knights.
It knocked them over and Bedivere retched into the dirt.
"By God, that is vile!" he shouted. "It smells like death."
"He eats death for dinner, my brother," Lucan replied from behind them.
With that, he drew a short sword, approaching the two knights in the dirt. Both of them lunged to their feet, drawing their weapons to fight. While they parried to and fro, the Cerebrus watched with glistening black eyes, its mane of snakes writhing along its great neck. It caused me to shudder before I turned my attention back to the battle raging around me.
Just as I was deciding where to intercede, the sky around me turned a deep, bloody red. Gasping in surprise, I turned my face to the sun and found that it had turned black. Gray, thunderous clouds rolled through the crimson sky and a hideous wailing filled the land.
I covered my ears with my hands, unable to stand the horrifying shrieks.
"What is it?" I screamed to Aphrodite. She whirled in a circle and then lunged to the top of the palace wall, crouching as she searched the horizon. But then I saw them myself and my blood turned to ice.
The Fates were descending from the sky, each of them coming upon us as demons.
They flew with massive black wings, the skin stretched taut over pointy bone. Their na**d bodies were covered in black scales, their eyes as black as pitch. They possessed tails and fangs and claws and they were without a doubt the most terrifying creatures I had ever seen. They were evil personified.
My mother leapt from the wall to stand with me and we circled, keeping our backs together in order to protect ourselves. As the Fates landed on the ground, they walked on all fours, their curled claws scraping the earth loudly as they moved.
I gulped.
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"This isn’t good, mother," I observed.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" she asked lightly. "They are nothing, daughter.
Do not be intimidated."
I looked around and found that the knights did not appear surprised at anything on this battlefield… not the hounds from hell, not the bronzed fire-breathing horses, not the Fates themselves. The mortal world had certainly changed. They were simply accustomed now to expecting the worst at all times. I shook my head at the misery of that existence.
Lachesis caught my eye and stepped from the middle of her sisters, her black eyes snapping and gleaming as she approached. I swallowed hard and gripped my dagger tightly.
"What will you do with that, keeper?" she hissed as she drew up in front of me to her full height. In this new demon form, she was seven feet tall. Her fangs glistened in the eerie red light and I felt chills run down the length of my legs.
"Perhaps I will drive it into your black heart," I suggested as I turned it over and over in my hands.
My mother stood rigidly against my back, protecting me from any unexpected attack as I faced the middle Moirae sister. Ares was engaged with the other two, his muscles straining as they fought. I blocked it out. My thoughts had to focus on this one sister. This was my fight.
"Why you?" I asked her seriously. "Why has it always been you that tormented me? It has always been you that visited me in so many lives, it has been you that thought of ways to torture me. I am betting it was you who chose to take my child from me and hide her away with Calypso. Why?"
She threw her frightening head back and laughed, but her laugh now sounded like a hissing shriek. My heart stilled at the sound, but I showed no outward sign of fear.
"Of course it was me!" she exclaimed proudly. "It has always been me that understood what a threat you would eventually become. My sisters didn’t believe it,"
she sneered. "Even though the prophecy was clear, they couldn’t fathom that the weak girl that we had thrust into mortal form so many times could actually challenge us."
She appraised me, her onyx gaze glittering. "But I knew."
"I’m not weak," I replied. "I’ve never been weak."
"No," she answered thoughtfully, her voice frighteningly calm. "You haven’t. But you are weaker than me. I dine on little goddesses like you."
Anger surged within me, fury at everything she had done to me over the millennia combining to fuel my rage.
"Try it," I snarled, leaping toward her."I dare you."
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She lunged and met me mid-air, her wings closing in to clasp me to her within the diaphanous folds. Her skin was slippery and sticky at once and I struggled against her.
Her fetid breath was moist on my neck, the tip of one fang scratching my skin.
"I’m going to drink every drop of your blood," she breathed into my ear. "And then I will have your daughter’s for an evening cocktail."
She shouldn’t have threatened Raquel.
My rage filled my fingertips and exploded, throwing Lachesis off of me. She flew into the palace wall and rolled to the ground, but quickly leaped back to her feet. Out of my periphery, I found that Lucan had joined Ares now and they were engaged with the other two Moirae sisters.
"Harmonia, are you alright?" Lucan called, not taking his eyes from Atropos. He held Zeus’ sword in his hand, raising it parallel with her face. She hissed at him in response, lifting one clawed hand to scratch at the ground in front of her.
"I’m fine," I answered, keeping my gaze locked with Lachesis. She grinned, a horrifying, grotesque sight.
"Are you?" she asked. "I don’t think you are."
She advanced on me once again, taking slow steps. I didn’t move back, choosing instead to stand my ground. This was going to end here, today. There was no point in retreating.