Found Light in the Shadow (Solangelo)

Chapter Twenty

Will

Once again, I'm back in a field on a nice summer day. The green grass stretched out for as long as I could see. I can feel the wind blowing through my hair and the heat from the sun on my skin. Only this time, something about this scene was different than before. When I looked to the sky, the blood moon was on the opposite side from the sun. I looked off into the distance where my father usually approached me from, but this time there were two figures coming toward me. As they got closer, I could tell that the shorter man was Apollo. It wasn't until they were almost upon me that I realized the other man was my Father-in-Law, Lord Hades.

Hades approached me first. "Will, it is a pleasure to see you as always. I'm sorry that we couldn't contact you sooner, Zeus has had all of us rather busy. I wanted to personally thank you for protecting my son."

"Thank you Lord Hades, I promised that I would take good care of him. Dad, I'm a little confused about the blood moon being in my dream this time."

"That's a little hard to explain," Apollo said, "but I will try my best. Normally we in the Apollo family draw our energy from the sun. Your husband gets most of his power from the dark and shadows. Together, in the reflected light from the eclipse, your powers had to merge. 'Day and dark must merge to return the light.' You pulled your husband's strength into you and activated your hidden power when you were most afraid of losing him."

"So I can do that whenever I want?"

Apollo hesitated a moment before answering. "That ability requires a lot of power, the conditions have to be perfect for it to work. Just think of how tired both of you were after that night and it had the ideal circumstances."

Dad was right, Nico and I didn't leave our apartment for an entire week.

Hades picked up where Apollo left off. "The blood moon is now in your dreams as a representation of your tie to my son. That event bonded your spirits together even more so than they were before. You both now share a connection that very few in this world will ever experience."

"That would explain why I have felt so close to Nico now. Did the Gods happen to find out who was helping Hyperion?"

My father and Hades looked at each other before Apollo responded. "No, we haven't. Whoever it was seems to have gone into hiding. The only thing that we are certain of is that it was a God, we're just not sure which. We're sure that this mystery God will appear again. In the meantime, just continue on with your lives. Will, we both hope that you and Nico have a Merry Christmas!"

They both disappeared in a flash and I was back in my bed.

...

When I woke up, Nico was sleeping spread out across my chest. It felt so good having my angel this close to me; I didn't want to wake him up. I just wrapped my arm around him and stroked his back. I started to think about the past few months, but it all still seemed like a blur in my mind. Moving to California, starting college, and most importantly, the battle with Hyperion. However, Dad was right about one thing, life moves on. More importantly, life moves on with my husband at my side. I had a feeling that something happened between us that night when my body gave off a light as bright as the sun. I just couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was. There were times that I could tell what Nico was feeling, even if we were nowhere close to each other. It's still kind of weird sometimes, but it's nice to know that he's not feeling pain all of the time.

Now it is Christmas morning and the sun was starting to shine through the blinds. When I was a kid, I was always up at the crack of dawn to open presents. Apparently, Nico wasn't a morning person even on Christmas either. Reyna had invited us over for dinner later in the afternoon. I was actually glad that we didn't have to cook a full meal by ourselves. I know that we could have pulled it off, but it would have been a lot for the two of us. We told Reyna that we would come over early and help them finish up the meal.