A knock at the door surprised him so much that Vigo let out a slightly unmanly squeal as he stood up, arms in front of him as if he was going to fight off an attacker.

A nurse poked her head inside, her eyes narrowing when they landed on Vigo and his karate hands.

“Really?” Her posh English accent dripped with sarcasm until she looked into the room farther and saw Leta. Her eyes went wide and she stepped fully into the room to give a very low bow at the waist.

“My sincerest apologies, your Majesty.” She breathed reverently, “I’ll have this man removed from your room at once.”

“No, please!” Leta put her hand up as if to stop her, “He’s fine. We’re all good here.”

“Of course, your Majesty.” She squeaked, backing out of the room so as not to turn her back as she made a quick exit.

The pair were silent for a while before Vigo looked back at her with an aghast expression. “Are you royalty?”

“I don’t know.” Leta moaned, putting her face in her hands. “This is a new development.”

“That nurse seemed to think you are someone well to do.”

“Yeah, and there’s a really good possibility that everyone in this hospital is absolutely bonkers.”

“So… what do we do?”

Leta ran her hands through her hair, “Honestly, I’m contemplating that myself. Now that we’re part of all this, the Blessed will be after us - mostly me cause I’m an Arisen but you’re not off the menu either.”

Vigo swallowed audibly.

“However, if we stay with these guys, we may never see our family again.”

Leta could only imagine what her parents were thinking. By now her team would either be arriving in Athens or would still be on the ferry. They would have noticed when Leta and Vigo didn’t return and would have contacted the authorities.

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Who knows? Maybe the next steps had already been decided for them.

A much gentler knock on the door sounded before a soft voice said, “Pardon me, your Majesty. The Sect leader of Athens, Atreus, is here to see you.”

“Oh! Um, please let him in.”

The nurse from before opened the door as a rough looking man entered. He was maybe in his early forties, with a short black beard that was peppered with gray and hard gray eyes that seemed to catalog everything in the room at once. His face was square, and every part of exposed skin she could see bore scars. Some were small like small cuts from sparing with a sword. Others, like one that cut down his temple to curve around his cheek spoke of a man who’d weathered countless battles.

He was tall and well built, his reinforced motorcycle jacket and simple black shirt doing nothing to hide a toned physique. His blue jeans were slightly dusty as if he’d just come from a fight, his combat boots making ominous thuds as he walked.

He carried himself like a commander of legions, his aura telling her that this was a man who had garnered a respect that was well earned.

When the man had made it to the center of the room, he stopped and bowed low.

“A pleasure to meet you, your Majesty.” His voice was deep with an accent Leta didn’t recognize. It came from the middle of his mouth like Australian, but had a slight edge to the vows like German.

Leta and Vigo shared a look before she slowly replied, “Likewise.”

He rose from his bow, “I am the head of the Chosen’s Sect in Athens, Atreus Swordsworn. How do you feel?”

“I am well, thank you.” With all this bowing, she tried to sound as regal as possible.

“It is good to hear that. I came to speak with you about your future plans and how you would like to proceed with matters.” He watched her with unblinking eyes, his hawk like gaze catching every tell that passed over her face.

Leta took a deep breath. “What matters would that be?”

“As you know, the events in Santorini have been… unfortunate. We have been doing our best to cover the incident to protect yourself and our people, but this has caused some… stress to the Mundane that you had been associating with on the island.” Atreus’s gaze had flicked to Vigo at the last part.

“What do you mean you’ve been covering the incident?” Leta questioned, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of your stomach.

“If you will permit me…” He walked back to the table at the other end of the room and found the remote for the television, flipping channels until he landed on a Greek news station.

Leta’s heart dropped.

Sprawled along the bottom of the screen were the words ‘Fiery accident in Santorini’ with clips of the burned-out husk of a truck on the side of a hill overlooking the sea from different angles. An aerial shot from a helicopter showed police officers and forensic techs all over the scene, taking pictures of the deep skid marks and footprints in the dirt.

“Oh shit…” She heard Vigo whisper.

“As you can see, we’ve removed any traces of Arisen, as one would expect. You were flown to Athens to be treated, which is the story provided to the authorities.” Atreus turned back to her, “The question is, would you like the story to be that you survived a fiery accident, or that you succumbed to your wounds and perished. Which shall it be?”