The Unknown Destiny

| Chapter 14 || Success? |

Chapter Fourteen

Success?

*Third Person Point of View*

The air was rigid around Hermes wrapping him in the looming shadow of guilt. Each breath he took grew shallower as it settled in his lungs like wet cement, imbued with the burning spark of horror as he realized the truth. Galene still looked up at him, still gazed lovingly at her charge with a bright trust shining in her lifeless eyes. She'd been everything to him. She had sworn her life to him, to guide him and care for him, and yet, it was his sword that struck her down.

How could he?

How, after all the gods had been through with their guardians, could he have ever thought that she would turn her back on him? Their relationship had been more than that, more than protector and charge, more than friends - even more intimate than lovers. It was a bond that he couldn't possibly put into words, and yet he still tried, trying to search the deep recesses of his mind for some flaw to exploit and give reason to his betrayal of her.

He looked up, surprised, because as his world ended, for everyone else, it was still spinning. The battle had not ceased to allow for his epiphany. There was no pause in the bloody slaughter of demigods. In fact, the field had become a warzone permeated by the metallic stench of blood; Hermes could feel it sinking into his pores. He saw the blades of grass running red and gold, horrifically mimicking the weaponry ripping through flesh above them. As his eyes roamed, Hermes could see a secondary landscape superimposed over the battle. The fields of Asphodel haunted him, ghouls roaming aimlessly amidst the brutality, lost to the world.

Hermes blinked, and it vanished.

Instead, he saw Ares trying his best to fend off both of the remaining guardians at once. His weapon was a blur of motion next to theirs, only pausing to impact with a harsh clang of metal on metal. What surprised the messenger god most was that they had Ares on the defensive. Eulalia, Ares' own guardian, and Hades' guardian Berenike were some of the greatest warriors Hermes had ever witnessed - though they were nowhere close to Percy's skill - and with that skill, they were pushing Ares back a few steps.

As two of the longest-standing guardians, it was logical that they'd be some of the best fighters, especially when minding gods with such important domains.

While Ares was distracting them, Hades emerged from the shadows alongside his son (Hermes doubted that Nico's boyfriend would approve of him shadow-travelling). Both Hades and his boy wielded their Stygian Iron swords, ready to strike Eulalia down from behind - unethical as it was - but Berenike seemed to have anticipated the move. Her sword blocked both of their swings, sending their blades askew.

Berenike spun, launching a seamless counter-attack on the god of the Underworld. Hades stumbled but caught her attack, whereas Nico was thrown entirely out of the skirmish. By the time the demigod rose to his feet, the guardians had already sectioned the gods away from the rest of the battle, leaving monsters to fill their wake.

Hades and Ares pressed back to back as their former guardians closed in. Berenike swung, and Hades braced himself, but then she froze. He glanced over his shoulder to see that Ares' opponent was in a similar state.

Both guardians adopted a blank expression, weapons by their sides before their lips curled into identically horrendous smiles. Hades' gaze did not leave Berenike as her eyes rolled back in her head, only to be replaced by an endless darkness. It dripped out from behind her eyelids in a viscous sludge-trail of tears, even catching in her teeth as she grinned unnaturally. The sound that came next sent chills, even down the ghoulish god's spine.