Nimue's POV

"You couldn't of just waited to pass out when we were home, could you?" I huff out while carrying Arthur back through the door leading to the underworld with the help of Jackson.

"When are we going back for that castle?" Percy asks.

"Soon, but first I'm making sure that my brother's not going to die on me Percy. If you're forgetting, we're human unlike the rest of you. He doesn't have a healing factor." I feel the blood drip through the clothing some more as I move my hand slightly from under him.

"Athena!" Percy calls out while running ahead of us.

'Come' The voice from before rings throughout my head, alerting me to turn towards the sword that floats in my wake.

A sudden gust sending Percy into shock as Athena comes into view, running from the distance of the palace with urgency written all over her face. "What happened!?" She quickly extends her hair to wrap around Arthur, picking him from us and taking him back towards the palace.

"We got attacked" Yue responds.

"By what!?"

"The Spirit, I'm not sure what it was doing in there though." Percy steadily limps to open the palace doors for us as Athena guides us to a spare room.

"It wasn't in there before us, it came at the exact same time Percy." Jackson adds.

Percy's face scrunches up a bit with confusion, "Fe-I was told that it's been here for a long time now? What does that mean?"

"The only thing I can think of is the first Shade attaching to my shadow, it was probably on one of us this entire time. When we left Cliodhna's home...he took someone dear to me that you guys won't be able to remember, I'm not even sure why I myself am able to remember her." Jackson explains as Athena opens the spare room door, placing Arthur on top of it.

"F-I was also told that it took something already. I'm not sure if that's the person you're talking about though Jackson, I'm sorry." Percy continues while making his way to a chair in the corner.

"Either way, nobody aside from Arthur was seriously injured right?" Athena unwraps him from her hair, staring around the room at their drained bodily expressions.

"I'm good enough to keep walking, don't worry too much about it" Yue laughs out before holding her stomach in pain.

"Yeah right, I'll show you another room in a bit that you can rest up in before heading back home. Anyone else?" Athena offers but draws her attention back to Percy after he laughs a bit.

"I didn't take you for one to be so entertained by children's toys Athena" He smiles while picking up a little ball, fit for a kid.

"That thing? Chris might of brought it I guess?" She answers, holding the ball up in the air above her eye. "Looks like it had a name, looks kind of scrubbed out though. -ay", I'll ask him about it another time. She tosses the ball away as it rolls under the bed and into the shadow of it.

"Is that the sword we fought for?" Yue points towards it floating behind me.

"I guess it is, we'll ask Saint at some point. But considering it managed to kill that thing, I'd assume it's the real deal." I answer with hesitation, looking towards the engravings that are similar to Oracion's blade.

Athena begins to tend to Arthur's wounds, slowly wrapping a bandage around his body. "How did that thing manage to overpower you all?"

"That wo-" The shining fissure down Jackson's chest forms again, stopping him from continuing with the sentence. "Someone else explain for a second, please." He rests himself against the wall, sliding down it before closing his pain filled eyes.

"The environment itself became alive as it spoke, guiding whatever was around it to do its bidding. I've never seen anything like it!" Percy rubs his hands through his hair in annoyance.

Jackson catches his breath before continuing, "The Spirit is the embodiment of gifts, those whispers you were referring to before Athena. Nobody quite notices them but, you did. It forces anything and everything around it to become its weapon."

"And you know this how?" Yue asks.

He looks around a bit as if trying to reword something in his head, "When it was inside the mirror...it never had the physical means to speak out loud. But ever so slightly, just when I thought I was alone. I'd hear it whispering to me, "break...shatter". He explains but doesn't seem satisfied with his own answer.

"How on earth did you beat that?" Athena cuts off the bandage, putting Arthur's torn short back on him and leaving him to me.

"Fenrir...he delayed it for me, brought it into the same area as that sword." He points towards me, bringing the attention back to my blade.

"Be careful of that Percy, I don't know what you were experiencing but you can't trust him. Even if he saved your life" She worryingly distresses before walking up to me.

"Can you call out Aegis? The Kindred inside...the black blade? It looks far too dark to resemble anything gold, right guys?" Athena looks around as if searching for validation, which they all firmly agree on.

"I'm not sure...I can hear something though." I admit.

"Like what exactly?" Yue asks.

"A voice, sometimes anyway. I'm sure she'll come out in her own time."

"Speaking of time, when someone's free, can you ask Chris to return? I'm not sure how he enjoys sitting here all by himself, but I can confirm that it's driving me insane by the minute." She laughs a little bit with a hint of seriousness in her tone.

I tap the floating sword a few times as it spins in response, "If he's not still busy then I'll ask him, I'm planning to return home this time anyway, thinks for the invite to stay though."

"Ah I see, if you've got any updates about the sword for us then for sure let us know. But it seems to work just fine by you, unlike Saint having a preference." She looks behind me, staring at it with fascination.

"What's wrong?" I ask her.

"Oracion's was sized to be proportionate to his body right? If this was King Arthur's blade then I guess the human size would make sense, might even add to why you're able to use it yourself." She laughs before gesturing for Yue to follow her. "I'll have Yue explain the rest to me while she's here, when you return tomorrow we'll check up on Arthur" She opens up the door before heading out with a farewell wave alongside Yue.

"Adam's probably crying without me so I'm gonna head back with you two" Percy stands up to help Jackson back up.

They both stare at me with a sudden guilt in their eyes as I make my way over to Arthur's injured state, "Heal up, I'm sorry for dragging you into that" I apologize to put my mental state at ease before opening up the door ahead of them. "Let's head out" I breathe out.

-

Just as we enter the portal frame, 'Kneel' Another command rings out through my head, causing a loud thump to near enough throw us into the air.

"What was that?" Percy quickly pokes his head back through into the side of the underworld, "Uh...he's sitting." He pulls his head back in, looking back at us with a smile across his face.

"Cerberus?" Jackson asks.

"No, Charon." Percy waits a moment before giving up the sarcasm on Jackson, "Yes Cerberus, who else?"

"He probably dropped his guard after we all left the underworld, can't blame him for needing a rest" Jackson empathizes with him before opening the door for us to head into the pack house.

"I...am going to go ahead and wait for Adam in our room, it's dark as is and I'm sure he's going to be back anytime. Get home safe you two" Percy signals off with two fingers like a salute before heading up the stairs.

"Make sure to tell him about what we found" I groggily state while walking towards the front doors.

I hear him shout from the floor above us in an attempt to respond, "Will do!"

As I open the pack doors I hear an audible crack in my head like something split open, causing all the strength from my arms to suddenly drop. "Are you okay!?" Jackson rushes to my side to lift me up.

"I-m fin-e" I breathe out, "Let's ju-st get home". He hurries his pacing as the other side of me suddenly feels lighter, a grunted exhale as Irene helps to carry me as well. "You don-t need to" I state to her but she ignores me with a sigh as we pass the centre statue.

"Nimue!" A human resident comes running towards me.

"Cynthia, what's w-rong?" I feel the pain again as I attempt to talk to her.

"First of all, are you okay?" She worries.

"I'm fine, please, go on." I hurry her.

𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮

An explosive boom suddenly goes off, scaring her and making her jump slightly. "It's that!" She points towards the direction. "It goes off every now and then and only seems to be getting louder!" She exclaims.

"From the tomb...?" I ask

"We all saw a big wolf like man head towards that direction, but ever since then there's been these extremely loud outbursts, I'm worrying that something may be happening." She explains.

"Chris? I'm su-re he's fine, I'll check in the morni-ng. Sorry." I tug Jackson to bring me to my home despite not entirely easing her worries.

"Oh, thank you!" She hesitates to comment before letting me leave.

-

"Home." I state as I throw myself against the door, "You can get yours-elf to bed, rig-ht?" I ask Jackson as I already find myself leaving him alone as I wander off to my own room.

"Are you sur-"

"I'm fine, check on me in the morning" I slam the door shut behind me, interrupting his question.

'Pull'

'Read'

'Burst'

Numerous voices whisper throughout my head as if resonating through me like some sort of echo. 'Control', 'Flow', 'Explode'. They continue throwing commands into my head as if wanting me to chant something, I tear the band that ties my new purple tinted hair up, dropping it freely in aggravation.

"SHUT UP!" I screech out while looking towards the body length mirror in my room. Noticing an eerie amount of silence throughout my head, and my extended left arm now gripping the sword's handle. My gritting teeth and obvious chest compression as I inhale and exhale deeply, the rage suddenly overcome by shock as black serpentine like lines coil from the sword. Spiraling up my arm and crawling along my face as I try to scratch the sword from my hand but it won't let go.

"WAI-"

A feminine voice interrupts my cracked voice, "Shh". The whisper bringing an abnormal immediate calmness to me as I look back at myself, my eye spiraled into darkness as the iris turns gold. "I can feel it within you, the potential waiting to bloom even through the harshest of climates. Read" She commands.

"Aegis? Read what?" I respond back with a question, staring around the room but nothing stands out to me. Looking down at the blade I see two eyes formed alongside it like a reflective surface.

"Hand me the iridescent shard first." She demands, tugging my hand towards the dresser with a shard placed on top.

"But that's Jackson's" I try to reason with it.

"So did The Spirit," She forms one at the tip of the blade, a different shape entirely as it's its own piece of the mirror. "This is what ties them to the earth...find them all and give them to me to destroy. That way we can stop them as soon as possible, isn't that what you want?" She makes me tilt the sword down to touch the shard.

"But shouldn't we keep Jackson's then?"

"No", the sword absorbs it, causing it to glow a little bit before dimming again. "Now, the book, I feel it around here. Close your other eye." She advises me, which I calmly do so.

Forcing the room to turn a shade of black and white, immediately causing the book I borrowed from the Gabriela to stand out. "Read", She demands again.

"I can't, I could only recognize a few words before." I explain.

"Not with those eyes. Focus on the letters, read the book out loud. Stop suppressing yourself and give in to the power that's being bestowed upon you." I feel my hand tighten around the handle.

"Fly" She calls to the book as it flows towards us, opening to the front page.

The scribbles that previously looked as if they were drawn by a toddler, piecing themselves together through my lens like vision. Whispers to the gifted and the cursed, that was what this book was called before...but this isn't just a simple pen and paper written to tell a story. The letters rearrange themselves, phasing in and out to bring forth newer ones. It's a diary, "The Spirit Whisperer, a right to rule." I read out loud within the silent room as the page flicks over.

"It started with a knocking, something that went unnoticed by me at first. Day after day it began developing more into a chime...a whisper...a command. One that filled me with an energetic chill down my spine and gave me a sensation of power. It started with a minor word, something so simple but said with my complete and utter malice to the person in front of me, the orb of light that surrounded her conjured itself through me..."Twist". Her head snapped back to face me, a monotone gaze of a dead girl. The light that filled her simply faded away back into the environment. Those guards that came running to me, asking what happened...they filled with light that murmured the words through me, "Obey". Removing the colour from their eyes as they disposed of the body like any other piece of meat." I feel a shiver of wind line across my hand as if someone took mine into their grasp.

"Day in and day out, I'd find these lights around people. Each whispering to me a different word. Bend, snap, break...rot. It all rolled off my tongue like second nature. These deaths that filled my home...my kingdom, they eventually began to bring tension to the castle. Nobody knew who or what was causing it...everyone except my brother. He told them of my actions, forcing me into a place and time and gradually pointing them in my direction. I don't see how they were meant to be missed, they were mine to use, right? When they cornered me I asked them if they heard the knocking? Did they feel that power? All to be labelled as insane, dragged along the floor and thrown against a pile of wood to burn, they cried and wept themselves for me, screaming out prayers to the gods and wishing for me."

"Little did they know...I was the messiah they wished for, I'm that god they so desperately cried for. The person who was given the power of these supernatural that we lived with, wolves who dance with flames. Tales of the vampiric who manipulated kingdoms into their play. I never felt the pain of when my eyes melted from my skull...when the flames torched my skin to a crisp or even when my limps were torn from my torso...In fact, in this very moment, I've never felt more alive...this divine power that rushed through me, something unexplainable that broke through this charred vessel, the limit was a single word, one word was all I was allowed. Until this very moment, something deep within me, further than some biological tie. It spoke a phrase, "Wither and crumble, scatter and explode" I laughed. Watching those who tried to kill me, breaking away and ageing into dust.

"I ran experiments, giving the instructions to those I deemed worthy. Close your eyes, feel the grasp of divinity tear your flesh and embody you. Feel that rush course through your veins and speak the words that spawn within your soul. At best they spoke a word...that was all. Such thrilling moments this brought into my life...but it's time for all of you to forget. "Forget and subsume". I wanted more of this I thought to myself...there has to be more, I cried to myself. I 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 more...I reasoned with myself. Setting out to obtain exactly that...more." The book suddenly shuts on me as the sword floats out of my hand, meeting eye to eye with me.

"Another day Nimue, give it one more day...and you'll gain the power you've worked so hard for, I can help you achieve that" I watch as Aegis closes her eyes, fading back into the reflective surface.

"Wait what was the point in the book!?" I shout back at it but get met with nothing more than my own reflection. Blankly staring back at myself...me.