-NOTE-

This epilogue does not continue the karaoke storyline like the previous one, but expands and bridges this book to the sequel "The Time Before". It will fill in the gaps of Leo's "awakening" of his past and a key part of the plot in that book. You do NOT have to read this if you are not interested in "The Time Before."

Echoing footsteps, clear as bell, rang for miles in the room they were trapped in. The floor mirrored what was happening and captured the terrified faces and tears that he loved so dearly seeing. If only he could freeze them in time like that, the young--and soon, so soon, to be king--prince held back on his knees. Arms shackled and pulled at uncomfortable position behind him, legs and ankles bolted to the ground, and a piece of cloth gagged him. He looked helpless. Weak. Vulnerable where he was, unable to protect the woman he fell for and the kingdom he was going to swear himself too. 

The the young titaness wasn't too bad looking herself. Her arms pulled high above her head and shackled, ankles had celestial bronze cuffs wrapped tightly around them and bolted her to the reflective floor. Tears trailed down her caramel skin and left small stains on the dress she made herself. She too looked helpless. Weak. Exposed to every whim and desire the man had with her, but she could do nothing to stop it. 

"I never tire seeing you like this, your highness," He spoke. His deep voice carried a sadistic kind of joy and envy. "Chained to nothing and powerless against me. It is a treat, you know."

The prince, still wearing the clothes he wore to the coronation ball, glared at him. Ice blue eyes dripping with malice, hatred, and glowing with revenge. Revenge for the deaths of his three closest friends, for the threat he made against his planet and kingdom. Revenge for all he has done to the daughter of Gaea that endured every sinister touch and kiss and wound placed on her because he wouldn't do as the man said. 

"It is also a treat having her here as well," He said and walked to the daughter of Gaea. His hand caressed her face gently and held her chin so that her multicolored, glossy and tearful, eyes forcefully locked to his purple ones. "Able to gaze and graze every part of her. Of course, that's what you want to do to her, huh, little prince?" He looked to the restrained prince that never released his glare at him. "You want to do all that I'm doing but with her permission, and yet you can't, because you'll never get to."

Somehow the gag around his head fell and stained his chin with his own saliva. It fell to his chest leaving his mouth open and free to speak. "What do you want from us? From me?"

"That is the big question now isn't it," He let go of her chin and walked around her, entangling his fingers in her curls she spent hours perfecting for this night. Though, the night she was hoping for, and not this torture. "Why do I trap you here and kill the biggest threats that I have? Because this is not how I envisioned my creation to bloom."

The prince looked curiously at the man, still enraged that he trailed his hands at the women he loved. What threat could he impose on him? He didn't even know who this man was, but he gave the same feeling of power and command his own father had in him. If he squinted, the prince could see similarities between his father and this man. The same jawline he himself inherited and widow's peak in his hairline, but also the same mischievous grin when he was getting what he wanted. The same deep and intimidating voice that commanded respect and attention; the same deathly glare to his enemies and foreboding laugh. 

"Young prince, I made this universe so that life could be unyielding to the impossible," He said finally stepping away from the lady that flinched to his every touch. "So that flora and fauna could finally thrive in a place where no one threatened them; but my brother, your father, sought to give order in my beautiful chaos. 

"He believed that if life was not balanced, not in it's own equilibrium, would perish from it's own self," The man stood in the middle of the room facing the prince. "That species, which have evolved to live in the planets I made, would eventually die because nothing would continue them to evolve and become more intelligent. And when he gazed upon your little Eskryia and it's sister planet Earth, he fought against me to keep this thriving, death-ridden, sinful, petri dish of evil alive.

" He wanted to see your deities bloom in a world that fought against them. Wanted to see them build from the destruction that fails to wipe them out of pure spite. Because to him, it was the balance your planets held that made them thrive." He pulled out a dagger. It's sheith buckled to his belt behind him. "He thought of you as warriors. As a species that proved their existence in my universe, the universe that needs no fight to survive, and a species that deserved to to live."

The prince pulled at his restraints as the man stepped toward him, dagger in hand, ready to seek revenge at the 'threat' that plagued his world. "But I forbid him from aiding in that planets survival. I told him to be rid of it's curses and it's evil that grew corruption within my perfect universe, but he still fought against my word. As did the people he watched over." 

It was then did the pieces of the puzzle finally come together in the princes' mind. He knew who he was because of the stories his father told him and taught him and his siblings as a child. He knew of the war that murdered thousands of the mortals that lived in harmony with the deities, the armies that slaughtered women and children for the name Void.

"You...You're Void," The prince said eyes wide in realization. 

"The creatures of your planets, mortals as you call them, as well as the deities gave a valiant fight for their survival," Void dug the tip of the blade into the prince's back, tearing the fabric and leaving bloody wounds that drip ichor onto the reflective floor. Puddles of gold ruined it's illusion and Void scowled. "Your father barely managed to seal me away so that you and her and all the others you care so deeply about could live in a peaceful and prosperous world."

Void cut deeper into the prince's skin, pulling cries of pain and anguish from him, but he just smiled and continued. Grimacing at how messy his own attire became while indulging himself with the prince's pain. He stabbed the dagger into his shoulder and left it there, watching as his muscles tensed and released around the blade causing ichor to drip down his back. 

"But here I am again, ready to finally wipe away this blight and return my universe to its proper place, a place of prosperity and life," Void said walking away from the prince. "Before I can do that, I must get rid of you both, you pose a threat to my plans and I cannot have that in the rebirth of eden."

Void pulled out his sword. It was a rapier, long, flexible, but immensely sharp. It could cut easily through anything and stab through anyone. When he released it from it's sheath at his hip, he studied it carefully, making sure the blade still stood straight and strong and sharp enough to kill them both in one motion if he wanted. When void felt the blade was ready to kill, he turned his attention to the daughter of Gaea who stared with wide eyes. 

"Wait!" The prince yelled, desperate to keep her alive. "Don't kill her! Please don't kill her!" 

He didn't stop when the prince begged and screamed. Void walked behind the girl and waived his hand, before them both a hole grew and opened into emptiness. Nothing but a black abyss lay inside of it. 

With one precise thrust, Void skewered the girl. Close enough to her heart to kill her but away from the lungs so that she could call out to the prince one last time, "Dymitro." Void pushed her body into the hole he created and smirked as her body fell and was engulfed by nothing, vanishing into nothing, never to be seen or heard of again. 

"Now," Void spoke cleaning the golden ichor from his blade with the fabric he ripped from her dress before she fell. "Before I kill you, I am to offer a covenant between you and I."

"I have no intent on bargaining with you," Dymitro, the prince, spat. 

"Oh, but you will listen to what I say, won't you?" Void lifted the prince's head with the tip of the blade dangerously close to his throat. "I will let your planets live, far from each other, but living nonetheless. The people of earth will forget about their sister planet Eskryia and continue to evolve...and you and all who you love will be reborn on this new earth, unknowing of your past on Eskryia. 

"The deities will be bound to not speak of your home planet and it's king, my brother," Void pushed the tip of the rapier into his neck just enough to cause pain but not hurt him too badly. Enough so that he can speak. "But when I believe your planets should be wiped from existence, should be cleaned and begun again, you will make sure to stop them. To foil their plans and aid me in tearing apart that of which you love by my side."

Void released the rapiers hold on Dymirto's throat only for his hand to seize his jaw in a tight, bruising grip. "Do we have a deal?"

"To hell with you," Dymitro barred his teeth and pried his head from Void grip, wincing in pain from the bruises he knows are there. "I will not fight by your side and cause the destruction of my own people and home just to live again with those I love. Your mind must think me a fool to agree."

" I do, because I know you'll say yes to my offer or else it all ends today," Void smirks. The exact same one that dons his brother's face when all is going according to what he wants. "Disagree to my deal and the whole universe ceases to exist. Just like that--" Void snaps his fingers. "They won't even have a chance to stop it, and they will watch as their whole world around them perishes.

"What you say now?" Void pulls out the dagger from his shoulder and presses the end of the rapier to the center of his back, right behind his heart. "Little prince."

Dymitro hangs his head in defeat giving in to Void's plans. He wishes he didn't have to agree to him, wishes that life could continue on as it used to, happy and peaceful. But this is the price he must pay for relishing to much in that era and not once preparing for another crisis or war like his father. "I agree."

"Good," Void plunges the blade into the princes heart only to gasp at the pain inflicted upon him. He looks down to his chest to see a multitude of deadly sharp icicles piercing through him like his own weapon in the prince. But before he could remove them, the prince fell through his restraints and into the hole like his lover before.

Leo woke up in the infirmary with a loud gasp.  His head pounded with an immense ache as memories from another life flooded in without warning. Scenes of running through open green fields with a girl so identical to Piper and yet completely different, moments of laughing with titans as if they are family, and a memory of stargazing atop a tower overlooking a kingdom with a planet so large in the horizon.

"Woah, Leo," A voice called out to him. He recognized it immediately. It was Percy, at least he thinks it's Percy.  Images of a person identical to Percy, but with white hair and crazy blue eyes, flashed in his brain and collided with the image of Percy Leo was seeing right in front of him. When he'd look to the son of Poseidon his eyes would flicker from green to the unnatural blue in his head, his hair would shift from black to white like a strobe light, and it was hard for him to decipher what's real or not. "Take it easy, dude, you hit your head pretty hard."

"What?" Leo asked closing his eyes and rubbing his temples, trying to relieve some of the pain.

"You fell from the rock-wall and hit your head on the ground pretty bad," Percy handed him a glass of water and a couple of pills. "Will said you might have a concussion, so take it easy, 'kay?"

 That's when everything became clear. What he saw when he was under, what the memories that bombarded him meant, and who the demigod in front of him really was. It made all made sense now. But what he didn't understand was, why Dymitro agreed in the first place.

A/N

I hope you all like the extra epilogue that connects this book to "The Time Before" and I hope it intrigues you to look into it. I am working really hard on that one since it's still ongoing, as well as so many others and the ones I am working on behind the scenes. 

Thank you for reading it!

~Kitty