And all hell broke loose.
A cry sounded from The Raven's throat - The Taken's throat - like a drum. Both steady lines wavered as they lunged forward, snow kicking up like wisps behind them as they sprinted toward each other.
Fire collided first, futile against one another. Bodies spun blazing, turning the snow at their feet into moist ground.
A gleaming white stream leapt from the line to the east, chocolate hair waving behind her like a flag. The only winged creature to ever have brown hair, so rich even from the eyes viewing her below. The ivory wings jutting out from her shoulders were tipped with brown and ivory feathers, more bird like then angel. A hawk then, as she dove at that blazing fire, wings outstretched. Where she flew in that crowd of fire, soldiers fell. Either falling from decapitated limbs or simply being sliced in half. The Raven had plated her wings with razor edging. She flew back up into the sky, now red covered and leaving a trail of it in the snow behind her.
Somewhere else in the line, invisible boot prints marked the snow. They weren't the only pair that began to cut the opposite side down but this mark in the snow stretched out with magic. Caging as many people in one of her steal bindings she watched them struggle, strangling them where they stood. And when that wasn't fast enough she began throwing them into the air with her mind, where the razor tipped hawk sliced them in two. Or she would just pull on them from two opposite ends, stretching them apart until there insides broke.
A gleam of white past them all, not wings or snow covered but burning so hot and bright the flames had gone stark white. No one could keep there eyes on her because the brightness and heat alone burned their eyes right from their sockets. But to those few who could look where she dashed could see that on that blazing face was swirling eyes. Hunting for something, looking deeper and easier then anyone else for spot of black on their souls. A small chance that maybe they could be saved by the blinding piece of light that shot from the fingers of the hawk in the sky, of that chocolate haired blood streaked beauty. So much like her sister, and so not at the same time.
And if they couldn't be saved? They were thrown into the path of that invisible shredding force that ripped people in two before they could even catch their next breath. Those invisible hands with the strength of a thousand men.
Other things fought back, not as new and strange and powerful but more. The sheer number against them was frightening. It seemed the more they cut down, the more crawled up over that hill.
Lightning hit the earth, breaking a piece of that unending line into shards. The Raven's eyes fell on soldiers and where he looked souls fell. The Taken using that terrible gift to take the life from their bodies with a single look. Humane, so much more gentle then his brother of the dark.
The Given.
So deceiving their titles were. The Taken, The Given, The Merge. Sure The Raven was brutal in many ways, cunning and unstoppable and horridly beautiful but not the worst of his siblings. That youngest brother, the one they didn't like to talk about, was after all a death god. Cursed like the rest of them but perhaps deranged, corrupt. Their father hadn't taken well to that accident from when they were children. But it hadn't been the youngest's fault, no. It had been that middle child, The Given, the most horrible of the three fates.
But it wasn't the middle brother who had gone insane with guilt. Not even when his punishment had been the worst of them all. No. It had been that spoilt youngest child, that child of the present.
And the eldest brother stared across the chaos, killing as he looked, lightning flashing in those grey eyes. His gaze met a pair of icy blues, swirling with that maniacs glint. He searched for that string.
He couldn't take Sebastian like this, he was his friend, he couldn't do it. But this, this life he could take.
He gripped his brothers heart thread, preparing to take it from his chest and he found another twisted around it.
If he took one, he would take the other.
For the first time in a long time he felt true panic.
He couldn't do this then. Couldn't kill his youngest brother with out killing the second. And they couldn't only have one fate, all that power in one body would kill him too, surely. And then this world and the next would crash.
Hades grinned from across the mass of bodies. He knew he had done it, ensured his own survival. Finally out smarted his brothers and their gifts.
Alaric released him. They would have to find another way.
So he kept on killing, levelling those masses of people and things his youngest brother had dragged up here from the depths of hell. A purple bolt of light hit the earth. Something in his head whined.
Something sky blue blurred his vision, leaping through the air like it was in water. It was down a woman's throat the next moment, bursting her apart from the inside out.
And then it was solid, tanned skin and long long brown hair. Gold tipped scales covered her hands as she used the sharp edges to slit throats. She was leaping again, no longer a stunning creature but a blue wraith.
She struck down people every which way she went. Clair that small, wicked minded vixen.
From behind Hades a figure moved. The Given trying to reach out to his mate again, trying to get her a message if he could. Those normally blazing eyes were dull, drained. How much had been done to him all these days? By the look of him it had been far worse then imaginable.
There was a gash along his stomach where they had surely pulled his organs from his body, only to put them back in twisted and mangled. He would heel, and then they would move on to something else. Popping holes in his lungs like they were balloons, breaking his bones, pulling the veins from his arms. All because they wanted him weak, weaker still.
And yet he did not break. That wall in his mind stayed up and steady, protecting those things deep inside. Hades had wanted to slip his sticky fingers in, use Elijah as a puppet in this battle. But if he did, his youngest brother would know who controlled the walls in his heart and his head. And he would enjoy this so much more.
So he had endured it, endured it all and would have gladly endured more if it would keep her safe.
He didn't care what happened to him, as long as that half of his soul lived on. Didn't care what became of him as long as she lived through this.
And there she was appearing out of thin air in front of him, kneeling as he was in front of him. Tears were on her cheeks, hot and angry as she searched his bare shredded torso and blackened face.
Her hands were in front of her, wanting to touch him, not wanting to hurt him. Her blue eyes swam more in those tears.
"What has he done to you," she whispered finally letting her fingers land on his collar bone. Her voice broke as she said it, eyes finally turning up to meet his gaze where he slumped before her. The sight of his soul behind those eyes, dimmed to nothingness, drove her rage over a cliff.
He wanted to touch her, wanted to reach out and feel her skin, wipe those tears from her face. A choked noise game from her throat.
His breath hit her face. "You are okay," he said to her, more as a confirmation to himself. She was alive, streaked with blood and gore of those she had cut down to get to him, but okay all the same.
She lunged, arms going around him. Bruises and wounds flared with pain but he didn't care, not when he could finally smell her again. Smell her blood moving about her veins, that faint hint of sea and salt and brimstone. Her heart pounded against his, that pain in his chest, worse then anything they had done to him, fading away. Her body shook, sobs breaking apart her head.
And then they were both thrown to the side.
Thrown away from each other.
The animal under both of their skins awoke.
They would not be denied each other.
She's snarled, rolling into a crouch. Hackles raising like a cat, eyes rippling with green flames this time. Green like her mates. Vengeance.
Elijah struggled to his knees, arms still bound in that unbreakable substance. His face had gone dark, The Given gaining back some of that power in the small amount of time he was near her. His shoulders rippled.
"Don't touch her," he said still on his knees. The tone was not lost, inhuman, menacing, savage.
"Like this?" the youngest brother asked as a blast of something sickening knocked her back. She rolled, head hitting at an odd angle. She stood, hands covered in white hot flames.
Elijah snarled again, teeth gnashing. He didn't get a chance to say anything else.
A pulse rocked from her. A pulse so large and powerful it knocked the whole clearing flat. Hades fell back, head slipping against a rock buried in the snow. The only ones left standing was Mari herself, and Elijah still on his knees.
She didn't give a damn who he was. Child of the present, The Merge, one of the three fates. Not a flying fuck. He had touched him. Not only that but brutalized him, tore him open, drained him.
He wasn't theirs to touch. He wasn't anyone else's to lay a hand on, hers and hers alone.
Hades recovered, crawling to his feet like the rest of the clearing she had knocked flat. His face was red with fury.
He jutted a finger out at her, shaking in rage. Around them people began to rise again, picking themselves out of the snow like berries. The ones created were first, bird wings, white flames, blue wraith and a now visible girl with black hair. The court of the dividend rising before them.
"I should have killed you when you were a baby," Hades said to that girl with snowgold hair. "I should have killed you then." He lowered his hand, eyes sparking with something that unsettled her. Familiarity, warmth.
She snarled at him.
It had been an act. This man before her had used her as a hiding place from the very people who were hunting him. Used her like a pawn.
If only he knew he had just tried to play the queen.
Ebony wings spread from her back, cloaked in flames of gold. Scales covered her body, armour. They were nearly black with blood. And in her finger formed a sphere of clear adamant.
The Raven swore.
It left her fingers, heading straight for that youngest brother. He didn't even have a chance to counter her attack.
He went sprawling, that gash on his head bleeding more now.
When he stood out of the snow he was grinning. Grinning like a mad man. Something in that grin made her scales rattle in warning.
"I have had enough," he said turning in a circle, arms outstretched to encompass the crowd of bloodied and ruined people.
Mari was still there, watching him with wings outstretched, ready for his counter attack. Her chest shook in heaving breaths from that blow she had thrown his way. She tried not to let it show.
The Raven stepped out from mixture of bodies and watching faces. The storm clouds in his eyes were darker then normal.
Elijah watched his brother move into the circle, something was wrong.
"You die today," He said pointing that finger at Mari again. But nothing came at her, no lunge of energy or strike.
Alaric turned on her, The Taken's eyes gone black.
The middle brother felt his stomach drop. This was what Hades had been trying to do with him all this time. Slip his fingers in and use him to take care of his problems, to eliminate his own Mate. He hadn't let it happen, had been so aware of the threat on Mare that he hadn't given an inch.
But Alaric, mind occupied with this war, watching Clair slaughtering people left and right, had left the walls in his mind unprotected.
The eldest brother wasn't accustomed to having things taken from him. Not when all he had ever done was take. He wasn't aware when his youngest sibling had slipped in, taking his free will like it was a candy.
One step after the other Alaric walked toward her, toward the girl he loved like a sister. Family, she had become his family, wholly and completely in the small time he had know her.
But he wasn't thinking about his family now. His thoughts were not his own, they were someone else's.
And that middle child, the fate of the past knew that this had become the end. Mari wouldn't do it, Mari wouldn't be able to stop Alaric as he stalked toward her. He could see the panic on her face.
Because he had become her family too. Looking out for her more than her own blood. She loved him, loved him too much.
And maybe she was a cowered for not being able to move as he came nearer. For not even fighting back for fear of harming him as he raised in single hand in front of himself.
Elijah broke the binding on his wrists, did it without thinking. He drove, mangled body tearing open old healing wounds as he dove in front of her. Blocking the attack.
And just as Alaric's fingers found that sapphire thread, another one slipped into it.
It was mangled and thicker than normal, spun around another. He pulled.
And Hades was screaming.
And Mari was on her knees, his face cradled in her hands. Screaming too.
The grip loosed on Alaric's mind, enough that he truly saw what was happening. What he had started...
Both of his brothers were on the ground, fingers digging into their ribs as they choked and sputtered for air. Mari was holding Elijah's face, screaming at him to stay.
And then Elijah fell, the last words coming from his mouth. "I love you," he said as tears streamed down her face. She screamed again.
But Hades did not fall, he had untangled their threads at the last moment. He stood smiling as he caught his breath.
And then all they could see was white light as Mari combusted. Her council members all did as well, their light heading straight for her, filling her with more power.
Alaric couldn't see what was happening. No one could but the two people on the opposite ends of that too white light. Hades screamed from within.
And then the light was fading and that youngest brother was cinders in the air. Obliterated.
And Mari crumpled where she stood, body landing next to that of her dead mate.