Sarpedon staggered back, his spear slipping from his grasp.
The divine glow around him dimmed, guttering like a flame losing its breath.
Yet even in that failing light, he stood tall — proud, unbowed.
Ariston lowered his spear.
He could have finished it with a single thrust…
But something in the quiet between them held his hand.
Something older than victory.
Older than war itself.
Sarpedon's breath rattled, but his voice rose steady through the clash around them.
"Glaucus…"
His eyes searched the battlefield.
"Glaucus… guard my body. Do not let the Greeks defile me… or my arms."
A cry answered him — Glaucus forcing his way through the chaos, bleeding but unbroken, shouting his commander's name.
Ariston turned.
Their eyes met.
No words.
Just a nod.
A warrior's mercy.
A god's farewell.
Sarpedon's knees buckled, bronze greaves carving shallow lines in the sand as he sank.
He looked once more at the mortal who had bested him — and a faint, weary smile touched his lips.
"Remember this field," he whispered.
"For here, a man met a god… and neither bowed."
Then he fell.
The light left his eyes.
And the sky answered.
The Greeks felt it first.
A ripple through the front ranks — not triumph, not joy… but awe.
Men lowered their shields.
Even the Myrmidons paused, breath caught in their throats, as the crimson rain slid down their armor.
"A god's son is dead…" someone whispered.
No one answered.
Not even the boastful.
Not even the proud.
They had won nothing.
Only survived a moment the bards would later lie about.
Across the field, the Trojans froze.
The line buckled inward, not from fear — but grief.
Lycians beat their shields in mourning, a heavy, rhythmic thunder.
Some fell to one knee.
Others struck their helmets with closed fists, howling up at the bleeding sky.
They had followed Sarpedon across the sea.
They would have followed him into Hades.
Now they watched his spirit slip from the battlefield like breath in winter.
The spear in his hand sagged just slightly — the first weakness he'd shown all day.
His one good eye narrowed on Ariston, standing over the fallen prince.
A long breath escaped him.
"By all the gods…" he muttered.
"This boy is carving a place in poetry he hasn't earned yet."
But there was no malice.
Only a grim respect… and maybe a flicker of worry.
He had once stood where Ariston stood now — with gods watching, choosing, wagering.
He remembered the cost.
He had seen the crimson rain the way others saw normal storms — as signs, omens, threads pulled from Olympus.
He stared at Sarpedon's body, jaw tightening.
"This is wrong," he murmured.
"Even for war."
Behind him, Automedon whispered:
"He died bravely."
Patroclus didn't blink.
"He died because Achilles still refuses to fight."
His gaze shifted to Ariston… and something unreadable moved behind his eyes.
Was it admiration?
Fear?
A warning the future would reveal too late?
Their shields rang.
Their feet carved trenches in the mud.
Their blows shook the very breath from the air.
Then — both men felt it.
A momentary lull in the world.
A breath caught in creation's throat.
Crimson rain.
Hector's shield dipped.
Ajax stepped back, confused for only a heartbeat, then his booming voice cut through the clash:
"Prince of Troy — withdraw. Your people are crying your name."
Hector frowned.
"What has happened?"
But even before Ajax spoke again, Hector knew.
He felt it in his bones.
In the weight of his sword hand.
In the twist in his gut his mother had always called a warrior's omen.
"A great man has fallen," Ajax said quietly.
"Go to them."
Hector drew a breath that trembled despite his will.
He lowered his spear.
The duel ended not with victory… but with necessity.
He turned from Ajax without another word and strode toward the center of the field — toward the place where the red rain fell thickest.
Hector pushed through lines of trembling Trojans, every pair of eyes turning to him with the same plea:
Make sense of this.
But he could not.
Sarpedon — Zeus-sired, honored by Apollo, guardian of the Lycians — dead?
A hero Hector admired.
A commander he trusted.
A guest-friend whose courage emboldened all who fought beside him.
Gone.
He felt the loss strike him like a hidden spear beneath his ribs.
He approached the fallen body.
Glaucus knelt beside it, blood mixing with the rain on his face.
He didn't look up.
Didn't need to.
"Hector…" he whispered, voice shaking.
"They took him from us."
Hector set a hand on Glaucus's shoulder.
"No," Hector said softly.
"He chose this. He always did. And we will honor him."
Then his gaze lifted.
And he saw Ariston.
Not a Greek.
Not a Myrmidon.
Not a villain.
Just a man — battered, trembling, half-kneeling in the red mud — who had somehow survived the wrath of Sarpedon and now faced Aeneas.
A stranger wearing destiny like a borrowed cloak.
Hector exhaled slowly.
"Who are you?" he murmured under his breath.
"Why does Olympus keep its eye on you?"
He did not yet move to intervene.
But he walked toward them.
Toward Aeneas.
Toward Ariston.
Toward the place where fate's next thread waited to be pulled.
Crimson rain swept over the battlefield, washing the blood from his armor, streaming toward the sea.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to pause.
To grieve.
Ariston bowed his head beneath the red rain.
Not in pride.
In respect.
The last drop had barely touched the ground when another spear whistled toward him.
Ariston twisted aside.
The bronze point screeched across his cuirass.
Aeneas had arrived.
The prince of Dardania strode through drifting smoke, shield lifted, eyes burning with grief sharpened into fury.
Behind him, Deiphobus barked orders, rallying the shaken Trojans — but Aeneas heard none of it.
His gaze locked on Ariston.
On the man who had slain Zeus's son.
"You should have fled while the heavens wept," Aeneas said quietly.
Ariston lifted his spear.
He answered with silence.
Sarpedon's body still lay behind him, crimson droplets hissing against the sand.
The air thrummed with divine sorrow.
The roar of battle warped as Ariston hit the ground, rolling through dust and shattered stone.
His ribs screamed.
His vision swam.
But his grip on the spear never faltered.
He pushed himself up just in time to meet the shadow falling over him.
Aeneas.
Broad-shouldered, bronze-clad, eyes burning with the steady, solemn fury only the sons of gods carried.
His men surged forward to rejoin the assault — but Aeneas stayed.
He wanted this fight.
Ariston spat blood and raised his spear.
Aeneas lowered his shield.
"Another Greek hero eager to die for a doomed king?"
Ariston's breath steadied.
"You talk too much."
They crashed together.
The first strike rattled through Ariston's spine, Aeneas's spear glancing off his shield with a crack like timber splitting.
Ariston countered low, quick, aiming for the Trojan's leg — but Aeneas twisted, his shield slamming sideways and nearly knocking Ariston off his feet.
Another hit.
Another.
Relentless.
Measured.
Deadly.
Ariston felt himself driven back, step by step, toward the broken rampart.
Aeneas forced him further still, voice rising even through the violence:
"You Greeks toss boys into the jaws of war and call it valor."
Ariston snarled and slashed upward, sparks skittering across Aeneas's helmet.
"I'm no boy."
Aeneas surged forward, shield-hook catching Ariston's spear and wrenching it aside.
For a heartbeat — one bare, terrible heartbeat — Ariston's guard opened.
Aeneas saw it.
Took it.
Drove his spear straight for Ariston's heart —
Ariston dropped.
Letting his body collapse into the rubble, the attack slicing over him instead of through him.
He rolled, grabbed a fistful of broken stone, and hurled it into Aeneas's face.
The Trojan staggered — not blinded, but provoked.
Ariston rose in a fluid motion, reclaiming his spear as he moved.
They reset.
Breathing hard.
Eyes locked.
The battle blurred around them.
Aeneas exhaled, voice low:
"You fight like someone with nothing left to lose."
Ariston's jaw tightened.
No… I fight like someone who refuses to lose anything more.
He raised his spear.
"Come find out."
They moved.
Spears clashed — and thunder cracked across the sky.
A bolt flared in the distance — close enough for both men to pause.
Gray clouds coiled above, swirling with unnatural deliberation.
Aeneas looked up first.
"Zeus watches."
Ariston swallowed.
Maybe he did.
Or something else did — something choosing between them.
The wind tugged at their cloaks.
The battlefield's noise dimmed, as if held beneath a heavy hand.
Aeneas stepped forward, voice reverent:
"Our duel is witnessed. Do not dishonor it."
Ariston felt his skin prickle.
The air hummed.
Something old had turned its gaze on them.
He lifted his spear anyway.
"Then let him watch."
The world tightened.
Bronze gleamed.
And they charged.
Aeneas struck first — a clean, disciplined thrust honed since boyhood.
The bronze point whipped toward Ariston's throat.
Ariston slid half a step aside.
Not fast.
Not superhuman.
Just precise — as if he'd seen the strike before.
The spear hissed past his cheek.
Aeneas blinked.
Confusion flickered — crushed beneath focus.
He struck again.
His shield crashed forward, a heavy Dardanian shove meant to break ribs.
Ariston braced, boots skidding through slick sand, the impact ringing through his bones.
He held.
Aeneas pushed harder.
Not wild.
Not consumed.
Just relentless — a prince answering a god's fallen son.
Above them, the crimson rain thinned to mist.
A drop touched Aeneas's cheek.
It slid… then angled away unnaturally, falling harmlessly to the earth.
Ariston noticed.
Aphrodite was here.
Not seen — but felt:
Aeneas's footing holding when it should've slipped…
His spear deflecting a corpse instead of catching…
A Myrmidon's javelin turning just enough to miss.
A mother's protection.
Aeneas struck again.
Bronze rang on bronze.
Sparks spat.
Pain flared along Ariston's arm.
But he smiled — a small, private smile.
Defiance.
Resolve.
Aeneas snarled.
"You mock me?"
"No," Ariston said, breath cooling.
"I simply don't fear your gods."
Aeneas stepped back, eyes narrowing.
Ariston rolled his shoulders, searching for rhythm — and felt the world align.
Sarpedon's last charge.
Paris's careful draw.
Ajax's shieldwork.
Diomedes' stance.
Not visions — memory.
Muscle.
Instinct.
The Cup stirred.
Not a flood — just a whisper.
Aeneas came.
High cut — deflected.
Low thrust — sidestepped.
Shield punch — absorbed.
The prince's focus tightened.
"You are no ordinary mortal," he growled.
"No man meets my spear twice with steady hands. Not today."
Ariston answered quietly:
"I told you. Your gods hold no sway over me."
Aeneas's jaw clenched.
He didn't understand — but he felt the imbalance.
Still, he fought on.
He fought as Hector would have wanted:
Disciplined.
Controlled.
Proud — each strike an echo of Dardanian honor.
Yet beneath it all burned the raw wound of Sarpedon's fall.
"Your spear will answer for him," Aeneas said.
His next attack — the strongest yet — hammered downward, meant to split shield and arm.
Ariston barely caught it.
The tip carved a groove down his shield, metal shrieking.
He staggered.
Aeneas pressed.
Another blow.
Another.
Each heavier than the last — fueled by legacy, grief, duty.
Sand churned beneath them.
The duel carved its own silence amid the war — a circle where gods whispered and mortals bled.
Ariston steadied.
His arms trembled.
His breath dragged harsh in his chest.
Aeneas came for the kill.
The spear flashed down —
— and the Cup's current aligned.
Ariston moved.
Not faster.
Not stronger.
Just right.
He caught Aeneas's spear by the shaft and twisted.
The bronze head sliced past his ribs, cutting cloth, grazing skin —
But missing the heart meant for it.
Aeneas froze.
Their eyes met.
For the first time, Aeneas saw something he could not name.
Not divine.
Not blessed.
Just… impossible.
A mortal who didn't belong — who moved as if he already knew the world he stood in.
Aeneas whispered:
"What… are you?"
Ariston didn't smile.
Didn't answer the fear behind the question.
He simply said:
"Leaving."
And turned Aeneas's spear aside.
Then he struck.
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End of Chapter 15