Of Blood and Darkness

Flittering Memories

"Father?"

Valen looked up at Hazel standing by the door.

"Your father is Pluto too?"

He sighed, "I have reason to believe it, yes." He paused, "Wait. What do you mean 'too'?"

She nodded, "I'm a daughter of Pluto."

To prove her point, she bent down and picked up a small ruby that had not been there a minute ago.

"Huh," Valen breathed out, "Wait, does that make us half-siblings?"

"I guess so," she nodded, smiling awkwardly; not knowing what to make of that information.

In the recesses of his mind, Valen remembered a similar conversation with two other demigods. He could not remember their names and their faces appeared blurred in the memory.

He shook his head, "Anyway. What did you want to talk about?"

"It was about this actually," she said, "Your heritage. I had my suspicions after seeing you shadow travel the other day."

Valen nodded, "Yeah, that was a dead giveaway." He paused, "Pun unintended."

"There's someone you should meet." she said. "He's also a son of Pluto, but he doesn't stay here."

"There's another?" Valen whistled. "Pop's been busy."

Hazel stared at him momentarily, sighing, "It's... complicated."

Valen shrugged, "So, when does he come back?"

"I don't know," she said. "He was here a few days ago, so it might be a while."

"Huh," he breathed, getting up. "We should probably return, we have sword-fighting classes today right?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "They should start in a few minutes."

"And about the half sibling thing," Valen said on his way out, "don't think too much about it. I'll probably just be a bit protective over you now."

Hazel raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

Valen shrugged, "I am the older one."

.

.

.

Days passed, and a sense of normalcy returned to the camp. Octavian was still ever hateful of him; he still thought Valen had tried to assassinate him, so he forbade him from going on any of their future hunts. Valen didn't mind, he'd rather spend his time honing his swordsmanship or trying to remember his past.

It was during one of the war games that it happened. He was scouting ahead, testing the opposing team's defenses, when floodlights turned on all around him, momentarily blinding him.

It took a while for his eyes to adjust, and in those moments the entire first and fourth cohort had surrounded him. He tried to shadow travel away, but there were no shadows nearby, the sheer number of floodlights made sure of that. Valen could count at least twenty.

This is bad, he thought as the legionnaires closed in on him, keeping their shields ahead of them. He could cause some of their weapons to cause mayhem, but he couldn't do that to all of them. He cursed under his breath.

His gaze flickered to his sword, the lightning inside seemed as calm as ever. An idea began forming in his mind. He raised his sword, intending to will the lightning inside to fly out and shock the legionnaires, but something else happened.

Reyna watched from above, as much in shock as the legionnaires. Watching Valen call down lightning reminded her of... an old colleague.

The sky flashed blue, and a bolt of lightning fell down from the heavens, hitting his sword and spreading out all around him. It arced violently, but surprisingly didn't manage to hit any of the legionnaires. Instead, it lashed at the floodlights, destroying them one by one.