✓ | 𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, luke castellan

ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴᴛʏ-ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴ

All For Nothing.

🧶

The pit in Rory’s stomach grew heavier with every passing second, an unbearable weight of uncertainty pressing down on her chest. She tried to focus on the sounds of the battle, straining her ears for any sign of Luke’s voice, but it was chaos—an indistinguishable cacophony of pain and violence.

He has to be up there.

He had to be fighting, one way or another. Either as himself, if he had managed to stall long enough, or—more likely—as Kronos, leading the charge, cutting through demigods like they were nothing. That thought alone made her stomach twist, nausea creeping up her throat. But it didn’t change anything. It didn’t change her.

He would come find her when this was all over.

He would.

She clung to that thought, her fingers digging into the damp stone beneath her as if anchoring herself in place could somehow make it true. He had to be alive. The alternative was unthinkable. If he were gone—if Luke was dead—then what was the point of any of this? Of everything they had done?

Of everything she had done?

Her breath hitched, and her chest felt tight, constricted, like she was being crushed under the weight of a truth she refused to acknowledge. The image of him—Luke, her Luke—flashed in her mind. The way he smirked when he teased her, the way his eyes softened when he spoke to her in quiet moments.

She should have gone with him. She should have fought harder to stay by his side.

Chris whimpered in the corner, still rocking, still muttering. His voice was hoarse now, rasping, but the words kept tumbling out, looping over and over like a broken record.

"Mary’s dead. I killed her. I killed her. I killed her."

Rory barely registered it anymore. His words melted into the background, just another layer of noise in the storm raging inside her mind.

Luke is alive.

He had to be. She would’ve felt it if he had died, wouldn’t she? It couldn’t just happen—not like that, not without her knowing. He was the love of her life. She would’ve felt something. A shift in the air. A crack in her soul. A sign, something.

But there was nothing.

Just the gnawing, festering pit in her stomach.

The battle raged on above them. Explosions shook the ground, sending dust trickling down from the ceiling. Metal clashed, voices screamed—pain, rage, orders being barked—but Luke’s voice never rose above the rest.

Rory squeezed her eyes shut. Focus. She had to focus.

She pictured him as he had been the last time she saw him—being pulled away, retreating towards safety. His eyes finding hers in the chaos, full of something she couldn’t name. He had looked at her like he knew—like he knew it was the last time. But it couldn’t have been.

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Her nails dug into her palms, the sharp sting grounding her, keeping her from slipping too far into the abyss of her thoughts.

At some point, Rory had stopped trying to focus on any single noise, letting the sounds blur together into an indistinct, numbing backdrop. She zoned out, her mind drifting far from the battlefield, far from the blood and the screams.

She felt empty. Like a ghost walking through a war she didn’t quite belong to, a spectator trapped in a world that was moving too fast around her. There was no sense of urgency, no clarity of purpose. Just that gnawing thought repeating over and over in her head—Luke, Luke, Luke. He would come for her. He had to.