[Third Person Pov]
Lykaon gulped audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing with visible fear as he stared up at them. “W-What do you want from me?!” he demanded, voice shaking.
Artemis swiftly drew a silver arrow from her quiver and pressed the sharp arrowhead directly against his mouth, forcing it between his teeth to keep him silent and immobile. “Don’t play dumb with us,” she said coldly. “You know exactly what we want from you. Where was Zoe taken?!”
“And don’t forget the why,” Lucian added from behind her, his tone deceptively calm. “That’s what I’m most curious about.”
“I can’t answer that,” Lykaon managed to say carefully, doing his best not to cut his tongue on the razor-sharp silver.
“Can’t or won’t?” Lucian asked, slowly appraising Lykaon from head to toe with a piercing gaze.
“Both,” Lykaon sneered once Artemis slightly withdrew the arrow, giving him room to speak. “Who do you think I’m more scared of right now—you or Kronos?”
“Me…” Lucian replied with chilling confidence. “Because I can inflict you with the most unimaginable pain—pain that would make even Kronos look like a saint in comparison.” As he spoke, he activated the curse within his eyes, letting the dark power flare to life.
The moment Lykaon met Lucian’s gaze, it was as if every one of his worst nightmares had materialized at once. An overwhelming wave of pure dread crashed over him, so intense that his body betrayed him. A puddle slowly formed beneath him as he lost control.
“Wha—Ew!” Artemis exclaimed in disgust, quickly backing away as the acrid smell hit her.
Even while trembling violently, overwhelmed by soul-crushing terror, Lykaon forced himself to look at Lucian. “J-Just… K-K-Kill me!” he stammered, gritting his jaw and steeling himself. “I’m dead either way. When I die, it won’t be you I’m meeting—it’ll be him. I’d rather face torment now than later at his hands.”
Both Artemis and Lucian turned to glance at each other for a brief moment.
“I have to respect it,” Lucian said with a casual shrug.
“What?” Artemis asked, staring at him as if he had lost his mind.
“I mean, look at him,” Lucian continued, nodding toward the broken werewolf. “This mutt managed to wet himself in sheer terror, and yet the fear our grandfather instilled in him is so strong that he still won’t say a word. Kronos really knows how to break people. You have to respect that level of control.”
“I don’t have to do anything!” Artemis exclaimed, rolling her eyes in exasperation. She was truly at a loss for what to do with Lucian sometimes. “And stop calling him our grandfather.”
While the two of them were momentarily distracted, arguing with each other, Lykaon saw his chance. He leapt forward without warning, roaring savagely as he swung his deadly claws straight at Lucian.
Suddenly, everything began to spin as his perspective violently shifted.
‘Why am I in the air?’ he thought in a fleeting moment of confusion as he looked down.
There, below him, was a headless corpse of a giant bipedal werewolf. Blood gushed violently from the gaping wound at the neck while Lucian stood with his arm and hand stretched out to his side, his hand completely drenched in crimson. ‘Is that… my body? Have… have I been beheaded?’
Lucian and Artemis were both splattered with the warm, sticky liquid as Lykaon’s headless body tumbled forward uselessly onto the snow. Dark patches of blood continued to pour from the wound, pooling around them in a growing crimson stain.
“Lucian!” Artemis groaned, wiping blood from her face with the back of her hand. “We still had more questions to ask him!”
“I know,” Lucian replied calmly, staring down at the corpse. “But this will make him more compliant.” A dark smile touched his lips. “Arise.”
A giant spectral wolf slowly manifested from the swirling shadows, rising powerfully before Lucian and Artemis, ready to serve its new master.
“Here, now we can ask him whatever the hell we want and he will answer honestly,” Lucian said proudly as Lykaon’s decapitated head landed with a dull thud a few feet away in the snow.
“Well, that’s certainly useful,” Artemis muttered, eyeing the giant shadow hound warily. She narrowed her eyes and asked, “Where have you taken Zoe?”
The shadow wolf merely stared at Lucian, completely ignoring Artemis and her question.
“Answer her,” Lucian instructed firmly.
“Mou… Mou… Mou…” Lykaon’s shadow began to stutter, the words barely forming coherently.
Suddenly, the spectral form combusted violently into green and black flames. Both Lucian and Artemis took a cautious step back in surprise.
“Mount Tamalpais—” it managed to force out before exploding into a powerful wave of darkness that pushed both of them backward.
The two of them stood staring at the spot where the shadow had been, momentarily stunned into silence. Lucian looked the most surprised, his crimson eyes wide with disbelief.
“Was that… meant to happen?” Artemis asked.
“No… It wasn’t,” Lucian replied, his jaw clenched tightly. “It seems Kronos managed to interfere with his shadow, preventing him from speaking or allowing us to extract any real information.”
Artemis turned to Lucian with a raised brow, her expression a mixture of irritation and disbelief. “So you mean to tell me that you killed our only potential informant, believing you could control his shadow to extract information out of him—only for him to combust into flames, leaving us with barely anything?”
“Hey, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have known Zoe was on Mount Tamalpais at all,” Lucian shot back, clicking his tongue. “It might not be much, but it’s at least something, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, and we would have probably had a lot more to go off of if he was still alive,” Artemis retorted with a scoff, rolling her eyes.
“You don’t know that. You saw how much he feared Kronos. Who’s to say he would have talked? We would’ve just been wasting our time,” Lucian replied instantly.
“And who’s to say he wouldn’t have talked?” Artemis shot right back.
“Well, I guess now we’ll never know,” Lucian said with an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders.
“I suppose we won’t,” Artemis huffed. She secured her bow over her shoulder and started walking away.
Lucian quickly gathered the spoils of their battle using his shadows and hurried after her.
“Augh,” she groaned, still trying to wipe the sticky blood from her face and clothes. “I’m in desperate need of a bath.”
“So high maintenance,” Lucian teased. His magic ignited in his palms, and with a casual wave of his hands, a cleaning spell washed over both of them, removing the blood and grime in an instant.
Artemis gave him a playful kick to his backside. “I am still a goddess,” she reminded him, then added with a touch of remorse, “You used to be so respectful and much more tolerable when you were younger.”
Lucian rolled his eyes and shook his head with a deadpan expression.
She started smirking, almost teasingly. “Always calling me ‘Lady Artemis~’,” she said in a high-pitched, mocking tone.
“Are you done?” Lucian asked with a straight face as Artemis began to giggle.
Lucian watched as her faint laughter slowly faded. They continued walking side by side for a while longer until he noticed her expression growing pensive and distant.
“What? Worried about Zoe?” Lucian inquired gently, offering an understanding smile.
“I am,” she replied honestly. “But at the same time, I’m not. Knowing she’s on Mount Tamalpais actually fills me with a bit of relief.”
Artemis stared down at her feet as they left clear imprints in the snow. “You see, Mount Tamalpais is Zoe’s home. It’s where her sisters and father are. Although she was excommunicated, she shouldn’t be in any immediate danger. But that’s not to say she’s completely safe.”
She kept her gaze fixed on the ground, her voice growing quieter. “What I’m truly concerned about is what exactly they want from her.”