Sophie grunted as another bomb rocked off the hillside and exploded 600 feet away from her. They were completely pinned with no help from her men. The same men that most likely drowned in the crash.
The three Morrettis had been holed up in the Pythia's palace. Surprisingly, Lucrezia was nowhere to be seen. Neither were her attendants nor her priests. Almost like she knew this was going to happen and prepared.

"I've never quite had a criminal with the same amount of audacity as you, Miss Morretti. Or would you prefer Miss Foster? Maybe even Keeper? The people seem to love every single one of those names except the one that suits you best." Vincenzo announced over the field.

Sophie bit her tongue, thinking her response through before asking, "And what would that best suiting name be?"

"Heinous bitch who doesn't know how to die." Vincenzo snarled.

He was trying to bait her out of her hiding spot. She knew that. But she had nowhere else to go but play his little game.
Weapons, she needed weapons. She needed men, weapons, and a plan. But all she had was the shoddy armor on her back and her father's gauntlets strapped to her wrists.
How did he find them so quickly?

"I always knew jealousy doesn't suit you. I know you wish the people love you the same way they love me."

Vincenzo shrugged, "I'll give them time. They will see who their true saviour is in time."
Time. We all needed a bit of that, didn't we?

"This is your last chance, Amalia. You may die here or come with me-"
"To die later?" She called out.
Vincenzo was quiet in response.
"I'm not playing your games anymore, Assassin. You have one hour to come to your decision!"
An hour?!

Sophie blanched, scrambling down from the windows as she met with Kassandra and Alexios were huddled in the corner of the sacred room of the Pythia, where she answers the prayers of the citizens. Where the gods now ignored any prayers of even their chosen mortals.

Sophie clamped her eyes shut, sending out wave after wave of pleas. Any person with an open mind would be able to hear them. Which made Sophie wonder if Vincenzo could hear them as well.

"We hold our ground." Alexios and Sophie turned to Kassandra, who leaned against the bookshelf to keep herself upright.

"We are Morrettis. We never bowed before and we aren't going to start now." Kassandra spat out black vile that was crawling up her throat.
And for once, Sophie agreed with Kassandra.

"Do you think that the Pythia might have something laying around we can use?" Sophie asked her brother.

Alexios thought for a moment before it clicked, "The Isle is right next to some of the biggest groves and farms in Inalia. They get so many different offerings and if we can combine it with oil from the olive groves, we might be able to make-"

"Bombs? Just say bombs, boy, don't explode your tiny brain there." Kassandra cut in.

Sophie snorted at Alexios' glare before getting back into the game, "So we booby trap the place? Won't the Pythia get really pissed off?"

She and Alexios froze, both of them meeting each other's gazes.

"Uh, what are two doing?" Kassandra hissed, but Sophie and Alexios kicked into gear. They began to booby trap the entire time not only to protect themselves from Vincenzo but also to piss off the Pythia. A win-win.

Sophie carefully handed Kassandra her cane, helping her to the small storage outpost behind the isle, the furthest point of Vincenzo's seize team now lining up along their southern flank.
"You stay here until Alexios or I come and get you." Sophie breathed to her aunt, carefully sitting her down behind the tools.
"I can fight better than both of you combined! Let me out there!"
"Kassandra." Sophie didn't spit venom or raise her voice. Her voice was wavering, pleading almost.
She didn't know if any of them would live through this. Kassandra's shoulder slumped, and she reached out for Sophie's cheek, "Alright then."

Sophie patted her aunt's hand and locked the door behind her, but not before grabbing a rake propped against the inside of the door. She snapped the metal head off with her knee and left herself with an impressive bo staff.

Sophie did the math over and over in her head. It was her, a mentally exhausted kid way too over her head who knew how to swing around a blade. Then her brother, an idiot who wouldn't be able to find his ass if it wasn't attached to him yet was somehow proficient in killing. Then, of course, her deranged great aunt who still thinks she is the deadliest creature walking this earth and also has the soul of an immortal deadly god simmering in her body about to break loose.
And these three pinnacles of Inalian civilization are up against a small army of maybe 1,500 soldiers with a man who committed genocide of their entire family leading them.

Yeah, they were fucked. But they just needed to hold out long enough to get their message out and keep the artifact out of Esposita's hands for as long as possible.
"Amalia!" Sophie sprinted to the back patio and grabbed the trellis, climbing it like a ladder and swinging herself onto the tiled roof where her brother was waiting.
"They are lining up for the first wave of siege." Alexios murmured, handing her the eyeglass they found in the Pythia's massive piles of junk- or, uh, offerings.

Sophie scoffed as Esposita dawned his ceremonial armor that is too heavy to move in and too inefficient to really protect him. It was heavy plates with ancient Grecian influence matches with Renisanca decadence. A ripped red cape billowed behind him, but the rips were torn and zigzagged like they were made artificially. 

(By Ville-Valterri Kinnunen on Deviant Art)
But it wasn't like he was going to come barging in to actually bring out Sophie. No, no, that is his men's job. He would never dirty his own hands like that.

"I take your silence as your refusal to agree. Any blood that spills is now on your own hands, Morretti!"
Sophie panned the spyglass over the masses of Esposita soldiers. She recognized a few faces. She unknowingly swallowed back the bile at the back of her throat.

There was Jonas in the second line holding a shaking spear. She sat next to him in the schoolhouse when they were little. He once asked if her dad was a super hero. Sophie said he was.

Then Alice was atop a horse, a leader of a small squadron. Alice would often walk home with Sophie after school while they would talk about the cute boys in their grade. Alice once braided Luram Bak's hair when he was walking Amalia home once.
She would have to kill them. She could just imagine their parents' faces when hearing about their children.

"I don't know if I can do this, Alexios. We have already killed a lot of Vincenzo's men. Our people. I just want Vincenzo." She murmured, dropping the eyeglass a bit.

Alexios didn't respond, and when Sophie turned to him, she saw his hands shaking.

"It's more than just killing our people, Amalia. Look at all of them. Our people are going to have to kill us too. And they know they are going to win." Sophie panned the eyeglass over the crown once more, and Sophie had never seen a more hesitant army in her life. Her Spartans and pirates followed her with undying loyalty.

Alice's eyes met with Sophie's eyeglass, and both women froze. Alice's lip quivered. She made sure Vincenzo wasn't looking at her before turning back to Sophie.

"I'm sorry." Alice mouthed to her.

And then the fury of Vincenzo's army descended on the two siblings.

The Siege of Adonis's Isle had begun.

HOUR 1
He had been sneaking behind bookcases, around corners, and through secret passages they found along the way with no idea where his sister was. They had split up to cover multiple areas of the already small land. The gardens have been destroyed, trampled by the slowly dwindling army and Alexios's homemade bombs. When he was little, he would spend hours in his mother's workshop, peeping over the counter to watch her work with her masterful gadgets. And he picked up some rudimentary ideas.

He cringed as the second barrel of oil and powder began to hiss, only about 25 feet away. The soldiers heard it before he did, of course, the one leading the party realizing his foot had pulled against the trip wire.

"Get back! Get back!" They screamed, the one up front tripping over the other soldiers as they sprinted from the rattling vase.

Alexios pulled his head back behind the corner as the final crack erupted in a monsoon of smoke, smelling so foul it made even his own eyes watered. The explosion toppled over a column with a bust of Lucrezia, and another with Cyrah's, before Nikaloas's. They all shattered in front of Alexios's hiding spot. Cyrah's marble eyes met his, shattering and dusting the ground.

A bookcase toppled, and the books upon it soaked in the horrid smoke that now blanketed the library's tiled floor.
Alexios only had five more bombs, two of which were in Amalia's care right now. Sophie didn't want to leave the majority of the bombs with her adhd brother with poor impulse control, but the time called for it. And Alexios really needed to blow off some steam.

HOUR 3
Sophie swung her bo staff under her arm, the wooden staff smacking her assaulter's chin as he tried to grab her from behind. Swinging it around her neck to turn to the rest of her attackers, she spun it absentmindedly between her fingers. She had just blown her last bomb. The smoke was somewhat negated because of her cowl, but the brutal scent made her want to pass out still. But she willed herself to focus on the opponents in front of her.

These soldiers had to be her age. Maybe even younger.
"Why do you follow him?" She asked.

They all readied their stances, but there was hesitation in their eyes. Not just hesitation. Fear.

Was it fear of her or what would happen if they didn't deal with her?
"Alright, then," Sophie murmured, blinking back the tears as she readied her staff for round two.

HOUR 4
The exhaust had piled on. Alexios had blown through the last of his jar bombs, as Sophie with hers. They were now near the back of the main temple, shoving as much furniture in front of the door as possible.

"Shit. Amalia, is this where we die?" Alexios asked through a grunt as he hoisted the last chair against the large doors.

Sophie didn't answer. She didn't want to. She just focused on slamming her shoulder into the barred, closed windows, hoping one would crack open enough for both of them to squeeze through. But the windows weren't even big enough for them in the first place.

Finally, the board covering the windows cracked open. They weren't planning on exiting this way, but Vincenzo had figured out their plan faster than she hoped. He cornered the two of them into the storeroom at the very back of the temple. He had his men bar the windows with planks and secure them with nails. Sophie had no choice but to try and ram it open with her already aching shoulder. At some point, blood started dribbling down her arm. But she didn't stop.

"Alexios," She panted, sweeping the blood and debris off her shoulder.
Alexios had his hands planted against the door, shuddering with each swing of the battering ram outside.

Alexios glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes widened at the small window, "Amalia, I can't fit my thick ass through there! Neither can you!"
Sophie turned to the window in exasperation but froze as a bird landed on its sill.

The same funny-looking bird from her cell.
The bird hopped onto Sophie's shoulder, down to the barrels, and skittered across the dirty storeroom floor.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Alexios flew back as the battering ram cracked through the door; they were goners with a few more solid hits.
But Sophie's eyes were glued to the bird. It began to ruffle its feathers like it was wet, its whole puny body shaking. The feathers began to expand, morphing and rumbling as smoke began to peek from beneath them. The beak turned to a snout, the feathers to scales.

The final hit to the barricaded door did it in, and soldiers clamored in with blades raised.

And were face to face with a Lightning Fae dragon. The Lightning Fae Dragon. And he was pissed off. Alexios marveled at the creature as if seeing it for the first time, but Sophie grappled onto his neck and laughed a big goofy laugh.

"You found your other form!"
Ricin chuffed, shaking Sophie off as he slithered closer to the panicking soldiers.

"Wait, wait!" The soldiers all climbed over one another as Ricin's mouth lit with crackling blue and purple bolts, his pupils small slits.
He stepped back and roared, the whole building shaking at his anger. Almost all the soldiers were long gone now, but a few raised their swords at him with shaky hands. He looked down at them, his neck fully extended and smoke billowing out his slotted nostrils.

He just puffed the smoke at them, enveloping them in a cloud. When the cloud disappeared, the soldiers were sprinting down the hall.
Sophie and Alexios laughed in relief, and Sophie grabbed his snout. She placed a sloppy kiss on the tip of it, smiling wide.

"My big handsome man just scared away everyone, huh?! Oh yes, you did!" Ricin cooed, prancing on his paws at finally seeing her. His pupils dilated, and he slumped his neck over her shoulder.

"I'm happy to see you too, man, but how did you know where to find us?" Alexios asked.

The two assassins froze as the sound of a crane cranking got louder from outside, but Ricin just tapped his tail against the ground in excitement. The small alcove meant for a cooking pot rumbled before separating from the wall like a flower ripped from the earth.

Alexios grabbed Sophie, both turning away from the plume of dust coming their way. James and the other Spartans were waiting when they both looked up again. James had a big cocky smile As he gave Sophie an exaggerated bow. Behind them were hundreds of soldiers wearing damaged armor and chipped swords.

Kassandra poked her head in, just as confused as they were. "You didn't tell me you had friends coming?"
Sophie scowled, "I thought I told you to stay put."

"If you wanted me to stay put, you should've brought my cane with you. I wanted to see what all the commotion was."

A burly woman stepped forward, confidently carrying herself as she gave Sophie a strong salute. She slid her helmet off her head, and Sophie broke into a grin.

"Iphigenia of Ancient Inalia. I think you remember me, kid. Let me introduce you to the Inalian Resistance." She announced with pride.

Sorry this is so late y'all. I've been busy graduating, getting my license, trying to buy a car on minimum wage, dealing with my asshole parents, and trying to go to college while being a moron at the same time. Whoop di do da.
No original art this time around. SOWWY. Go follow my insta if ya'll want to see more of my original work.
Knowledge bear had his birthday btw! Everyone wish him a happy birthday!
Please remember to vote, comment, share and follow! We should be back on schedule from now on!
_Sibylline_