Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

3 MONTHS AND 14 DAYS — OLYMPUS; EMPIRE STATE BUILDING — NEW YORK

Olympus had never been in such chaos.

Never.

All the gods were accustomed to keeping their distance and leaving any god who happened to be arguing with Zeus to deal with their own problems, just as they had recently done during the last dispute between Poseidon and Zeus over the theft of the Master Bolt.

But that still fell within the realm of normal.

What was not normal was for every god to have been arguing for months over the same situation, to the point of even arguing with the Fates themselves.

Percy Jackson had been missing for three months and fourteen days, and no one knew where the demigod could be.

Each god had searched their own domain and every possible corner of the Earth, but the boy was nowhere to be found.

Now, Zeus did not care about or even particularly concern himself with demigods... but Percy was the son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three, and also a powerful demigod.

Where could a thirteen-year-old and extremely impulsive child possibly be?

Zeus could only think about the prophecy, but according to Dionysus, Luke and the other traitorous demigods had been quiet.

Which only drove him even crazier.

Not even his father's deranged fanatics had the boy.

That made him stop and think about one thing...

Ancient Valyria.

If there was one thing Zeus hated, it was his Valyrian counterpart.

He despised Aeksion with every fiber of his being, and Aeksion despised him just as much.

There wasn't a single Greek god who liked their Ancient Valyrian counterpart.

Aeksion had even devoured the flesh of Cronus, just like his siblings. Unlike him, Zeus had merely cut his father apart and cast him into the Underworld.

"I don't care, Clotho!" Poseidon roared, consumed by rage. "Perseus isn't that isopod's son! He's my son! Mine alone!"

"Ummon is your Valyrian counterpart, Poseidon." Lachesis paused as she examined the knitting her sister was working on. "You are the same person, with completely different ethnicities... but you remain the same god, regardless of the era."

"I don't look anything like that useless isopod."

Artemis placed a hand on Poseidon's shoulder, trying to calm him down.

Zeus stared at the Fates.

"You are you, and Ummon is also you. Just a better version," Atropos said with a smile on her cracked lips. "No matter what you say, Perseus is also the son of your Valyrian counterpart, just as he is the son of your Roman counterpart."

"He kidnapped my son, a demigod from our era!"

"Wait a moment." Zeus spoke the words, feeling his own anger taking over. "Are you telling me you already knew that our Valyrian counterparts were the ones who kidnapped him?!"

"Yes. I sensed Ummon in the waters a few hours before Percy disappeared." Poseidon stared directly into his brother's eyes. "It was as if he were saying, 'Hey, I'm right here, and I'm taking your son with me.'"

"And they have every right to take Percy with them," Lachesis said without showing the slightest concern.

Silence fell over the great hall.

There were a few murmurs, not very loud, but tense.

Athena was the first to stare at Lachesis.

"Then why would it be their right?"

"A soul that belongs to the past should never reincarnate in the future," Clotho replied several seconds later. "Hades kidnapped the soul of a prince from the past and, when he did that, a great mistake was created..."

"Hades did what?!" Zeus's roar echoed throughout Olympus with the force of a devastating storm, making the marble columns of the great hall tremble down to their foundations. The torches illuminating the room swayed under violent gusts of wind. "The soul you took and reincarnated in our time was Perseus's?!"

"How could you let this happen, Hades?!" Athena ran a hand through her hair as she ignored the Fates. "You were not supposed to let that soul reincarnate!"

"My Valyrian side had already neglected that soul for far too long. I was not going to do the same thing to such a pure soul!" Hades immediately defended himself. "I gave him a life and a family. I simply never imagined he would reincarnate as Poseidon's son."

"A soul belonging to the past will always seek a way to return to its time of origin," Atropos looked at her sisters and then at the face of each of the gods. "The boy died when it was not his time. The thread of his life was cut before the proper moment by Aeksion's interference, and now they want to fix that."

"They would have reincarnated him in that era when the mistake finally came to their attention. You, Hades, took the boy's soul, and meanwhile, all of you were more concerned with erasing the entire history of Valyria, the Targaryens, Westeros, and Essos from modern history so that no one would ever know about them," Clotho said as if it were nothing extraordinary.

"Athena, you were quite foolish with the burning of the Library of Alexandria," Lachesis said a few moments later, when Athena raised her eyes toward her. "Burning a library to prevent your past from catching up with you... Sometimes, I wish I could understand your hatred for your Valyrian side."

"We did not burn Alexandria out of hatred! We burned it for preservation!" Athena shot back, her voice as sharp as a celestial bronze blade.

For the first time in centuries, the gray eyes of the goddess of wisdom did not display their usual calculating calm, but rather a glimpse of pure panic.

"The narratives of Ancient Valyria were aberrant, deformed, driven by Blood and Fire! They defied the order of the civilized tapestry we had built. If humanity continued worshiping monsters who rode fire-breathing reptiles and proclaimed themselves living gods, Olympus would never have established itself as the seat of the Western world!"

"And look at what your 'preservation' accomplished, girl," Atropos murmured, pulling a golden thread and stretching it between her wrinkled fingers. "You covered the past in ashes and pretended the fire had gone out. But ashes only smother the ember, Athena. The fire of Valyria continued burning beneath the fabric of time. And now, the boy is the spark."

"I do not care about Alexandria! I do not care about the erased history of the lands of Westeros!" Poseidon stepped forward, and the air in the hall suddenly grew heavy, saturated with the smell of ozone and high tide. The trident in his right hand glowed with a dangerous blue-green hue. "I want my son back! If Ummon thinks he can cross the timeline, invade my domain, and steal my blood as if I were some lowly mortal, he will discover why the world learned to fear the name Poseidon!"

"You cannot face Ummon, brother," Hades warned, keeping his voice deep and restrained, although his robes stirred with the tension in the air.

"Perseus is Ummon's son, and he is also yours, Poseidon," Lachesis reminded him, as if he were nothing more than a simple nuisance.

"He is my son! My blood, not that damned god's." Poseidon pointed his trident at the Fates. "I will go get him."

"Ummon is you, Poseidon. Just a version of you who has no fear of the consequences, with far greater pride, as well as being cruel and manipulative. No matter what you say, Percy is his son too. His blood and Ummon's blood are the same. It does not matter into how many parts you divide that blood, any one of them would still be his father." Clotho spoke as though mocking him. "Whether Ummon, you, or Neptune, all of you are the boy's fathers."

"Now tell me: how are you going to get the boy? He does not belong to our time, and he should never have been born in it. His very existence disrupts the thread and destiny of every demigod who has been born and who will ever be born." Atropos smiled as though she had just trapped an insect in a spider's web. "You do not possess the power Ummon has. None of you possess the power your Valyrian counterparts possess. You cannot go into the past, but Ummon can."

Zeus stepped forward, and the ceiling of the great hall cracked beneath a burst of dry thunder, drying the air of Olympus as though the very atmosphere were about to catch fire. The eyes of the King of the Gods flashed with stormy fury, directed not only at Hades, but at the revelation laid bare by the Fates.

"Aeksion and the gods of Valyria were erased from the world's memory for a reason!" Zeus roared, his voice reverberating against the marble walls until Hera's statue trembled. "They were blood tyrants, devourers of empires!"

"Why did your Valyrian side eat the flesh of its own father instead of imprisoning him in Tartarus as you did?" Atropos questioned, a nearly provocative weight in her voice. "If you had done the same, you could, at this very moment, try your luck and bring back a boy who should never have lived in our time."

"Wait a moment!" Apollo shouted, making everyone turn toward him. "Are the three of you on the side of those bloodthirsty gods instead of ours?"

"Whether you like it or not, that boy belongs to our time. His thread belongs to our time." Ares spoke after receiving a look from Athena that clearly said: finally, something intelligent.

"His thread never truly existed." Clotho raised a bluish thread, partially golden, before them. "When a soul reincarnates in a time that is not its own, its thread is never actually woven. And even if it is, it gradually disappears, as is the case with his thread. He returned to his time of origin, so everything is where it belongs."

"So Perseus's thread disappeared from our tapestry..." Athena whispered, her gray eyes widening as she absorbed the impact of those words. For the first time in millennia, the Goddess of Wisdom seemed to have no plausible answer. "If his thread disappeared from our time, that means the Fates of the Valyrian pantheon wove a new existence for him in the past."

"No." The three answered at the same time, almost laughing. "We wove nothing. The moment he returned to the past, his original thread simply connected to him again, maintaining the balance."

"You! It was you!" Zeus roared, consumed by fury. "The three of you took the boy!"

"Zeus, my sisters and I are older than all of you, including the gods of the Valyrian pantheon." They answered, bored. "We did not kidnap anyone or take anyone to the past. That was the work of your Valyrian side. Our job is simply to maintain balance."

"Do not blame us for the choices of your own shadows, King of the Gods," Lachesis murmured without even raising her eyes from her knitting. "The Valyrian pantheon never disappeared. They simply waited for time to do its work."

A terrifying, heavy silence fell over the Throne Room.

Hermes, who until then had been leaning against one of the columns, staring at his own winged shoelaces with a lost expression, took an uncertain step forward. His caduceus glowed with a faint, almost extinguished light.

"Wait... if Percy returned to his time... if his thread never belonged to this century..." Hermes swallowed hard, his voice choked with the pain of someone who had lost the bravest messenger he had ever known. "What happens to Sally? What happens to the memories of all the mortals who knew him in New York?"

"It will be like every incompetent FBI investigation: a missing boy who was never found," Atropos answered coldly, with an almost imperceptible smile. "The pain of the loss will turn into a vague memory. Sally, at this very moment, will see that everything is fine with her son and that he is far away and safe from you... Besides, if he ever returned, he would no longer be a little boy."

"'A twelve-year-old child disappeared,'" Clotho said, mocking the situation. "But what if a child did not come back in his place?"

"What are you talking about?" Persephone asked beside Hades.

"Time passes differently there, my flower." Lachesis smiled at her. "Three months have passed here. There, Percy has already been living among them for a year. The boy is already almost reaching adulthood."

"A year?!" Poseidon stepped forward, and the shock in his voice instantly transformed into a roar that caused cracks to spread across Olympus's immaculate marble floor. "My son is only thirteen years old!"

"Correction: he was twelve years old when he left here," Atropos corrected him without bothering to raise her eyes. The scissors in her old hand produced a sharp metallic snap that echoed through the room. "Time in Westeros and Valyria is a raging sea, Poseidon. The tide flows differently. While you spend three months punching the columns of this hall and blaming Hades for reincarnating the wrong soul, the boy has already learned to live, fight, and breathe the smoke of Dragonstone."

"So he is..."

"He is fourteen years old now," Lachesis said as she observed the knitting her sister had made. "During the first two days he was missing from here, a week passed there, and shortly afterward came his thirteenth birthday. Now he has already turned fourteen."

"That is impossible..." Athena whispered, massaging her temples as she tried to reorganize the web of probabilities in her mind. "If a year has passed in the past, a child's mental structure cannot withstand that kind of dissociation. The overlap of Lucerys Velaryon's memories with those of Perseus must have already destroyed who he was!"

"And was that not exactly what you did to all the heroes of Olympus?" Hades's voice echoed, cold and sharp like the wind of the Fields of Asphodel. He looked at the Goddess of Wisdom with barely concealed contempt. "You molded the minds of boys so they could be pawns in your wars. The difference is that Ummon and the gods of Anorion are not using the boy to recover a toy stolen from Zeus. They are protecting him."

"Protecting him?!" Zeus took another step, the air around him crackling so violently that the smell of burning filled the great hall. "He is a demigod of Olympus! Bastard or not, he carries the blood of the Greek gods! If the Valyrian pantheon uses Perseus and his power over the seas to rebuild the empire we destroyed..."

"Your great mistake lies precisely in your ignorance. There is no such thing as 'Greek blood' when one of your counterparts decides to claim a demigod. The blood is the same, no matter the pantheon." Clotho took a deep breath. "Perseus also has the blood of the gods of Anorion and, at this moment, he is where he never should have left."

"He is my son! Mine! And Ummon had no right to take him," Poseidon said at the exact moment the Fates sighed together.

Within seconds, Hades and Persephone left, unwilling to participate in a meeting that would only give them a headache.

"How many times will we have to say that Ummon has every right to take Percy with him?" they said at the same time. "The moment you brought Lucerys's soul and made him be reborn in this time, you gave the gods of Anorion every right to take the boy back. That boy was never yours."

"That boy was my son before he was anything else!" Poseidon drove his trident into the ground, and the force of the impact sent the water from every fountain in Olympus shooting toward the ceiling, cascading down the marble staircases. "He wore my symbol! He prayed to me!"

"He prayed because it was the only name he knew," Atropos retorted, the sound of her scissors cutting through the air like a sentence. "But the tide he felt in his veins was far too ancient for your pantheon. You gave him a life of fear, running away, and monsters at his doorstep. The pantheon of Valyria gave him a throne, a family with dragons, and a mother who does not need to hide behind sacrifices to defend him."

"This is an affront to the authority of Olympus!" Zeus slammed his fist against the arm of his throne, and a lightning bolt tore across the New York sky outside, echoing down Fifth Avenue like thunder out of season. "Dionysus! Find a way. Invoke the Mist, use madness, open a temporal rift. We will bring Perseus back before his existence alters the history of our eras!"

"You are acting exactly like your Ancient Valyrian version: selfish and with your pride wounded." The Fates spoke at the same time. "You know perfectly well, Zeus. You know better than anyone that a soul that does not belong to this time, especially that of a demigod, means the end of you."

Then, like a soft and invisible wind, the Fates disappeared in the blink of an eye.

All the gods understood that they could not bring Percy back. Their only hope would be to convince the Fates to return the boy.

But they did not even have time to ask. And even if they had managed to, the Fates would never have done it.

The balance had been disrupted on the day Percy was born in the twenty-first century, and neither Poseidon nor Zeus knew what to do about it.

They could not travel into the past through their domains like the Valyrian pantheon. They did not even have a way to start a war between them.

Because, for the first time, the gods of Olympus had encountered something that neither their strength, nor their pride, nor their powers could resolve:

the past no longer belonged to them.

*********

*********

A year had already passed since the last time he had seen his mother, Sally Jackson.

And Percy could no longer remember her voice precisely, or even her face properly.

It was not because he wanted to forget. He was genuinely happy to be back with his family and his Muña.

But every time he looked at the sea, he saw the blue sweets the cooks of Dragonstone made for him while everyone searched for ways to please him, and that only made him remember her.

But even so, that was not enough.

Every time he tried to remember Sally's face, the image became more and more distant, and he felt like a sailor abandoned in the middle of the ocean.

He was forgetting his own mother, and it consumed him with an enormous guilt that seemed to settle in his stomach and rise all the way to his throat.

Simply because, no matter how much he missed her, he had already come to terms with it and accepted that he lived there.

He was home.

And he had already been fourteen for a few weeks.

He was almost entering adulthood, which meant he would have even more responsibilities as the heir to Driftmark.

Every time his eyes met the sea, he remembered how he had been taken into the past. A kidnapping that, whenever his father Ummon had the opportunity, he always made sure to point out had not been a kidnapping.

"I have every right to claim you and bring you here."

His father's voice was still fresh in his mind, making him huff as he felt the wet sand beneath his feet, walking with his chin slightly raised.

It was completely ironic and stupid that the Valyrian version of his father was more present than the Greek one.

In fact, all the gods were far too present in his life.

Even the nuisance that was Aeksion.

He knew he loved being spoiled by the gods of Anorion, but he understood that he was treated to such an absurd level of pampering simply because he was the only living demigod there.

And honestly?

He did not care.

Olympus always expected demigods to clean up or fix the messes they themselves had made.

But there, he had a family and gods who spoiled him and treated him well for the first time in years.

So yes, he was doing very well there.

He loved that place with every part of his soul.

And the vague memory of Camp Half-Blood, along with the only names that still remained in his mind, Annabeth and Grover.

He wondered what the two of them could be doing.

Percy believed that, by then, they were probably already heading back to camp, but he had no certainty.

"It was completely unexpected. Enormous waves and earthquakes that destroyed castles and homes without warning caused the awakening of the fourteen flames. Ancient Valyria, within a matter of minutes, lost its glory with every blink of an eye," Rhaena spoke calmly, a smile on her lips, as Percy walked beside her. "They say it was Aeksion who sent the vision to Daenys so she could save her family, something many say was pure luck, since even the gods did not foresee the disaster of Ancient Valyria."

Percy tightened his grip around the hilt of the Valyrian steel sword Ummon had given him during his first week there.

Before, it had been a dagger. Now, it was a sword.

For some reason, even though he had already heard the story of the Doom of Valyria once or twice, he always thought of the lost city of Atlantis. And the more he heard about it, the more certain he became that Valyria was, in fact, the legendary city.

The difference was that, in that time, the ruins of ancient Valyria still existed. In the future, no one even knew the exact location of the city.

"It was not luck," Percy murmured, his voice deeper and firmer than it had been a year ago, carrying the natural cadence of someone who had already mastered salt and wind. "And it was not simply an accident either."

Rhaena stopped walking across the dark sand. Her platinum hair, tied into elaborate braids, moved with the cutting breeze of the Narrow Sea. Her almond-shaped eyes settled on him, curious and analytical.

"What do you mean by that, Luke?"

Percy let out a low laugh as his fingers brushed over the dark engravings of the Valyrian steel blade sheathed at his waist. The weapon seemed to pulse faintly against his thigh, like a living extension of his own blood.

And, as a vague memory of Rhaenyra worrying about him surfaced in his mind, he made the sword return to being a simple dagger.

"The more I hear about it, the more I think Valyria was actually the lost city of Atlantis," Percy explained with a faint smile. "In the future, my other mother told me the legendary story of the city."

Rhaena stared at him for a few seconds before fixing her eyes on the sea.

"And what is the story?" she asked.

Percy mentally thanked her for the question.

Without a doubt, she could have been Silverwing's daughter.

"Was it like Valyria?"

"Yes, I believe so..." he replied, almost hesitantly, resuming his walk beside her across the black sand. "The story spoke of a grand civilization, more advanced and powerful than any other in the world. They commanded forces that ordinary mortals did not even dare dream of. But their arrogance and greed grew so great that they challenged the order of the universe itself."

He paused, kicking a broken shell toward the edge of the white foam breaking along the shore.

"The ancients said that, in a single day and one terrible night, the earth shook with unimaginable violence and fire emerged from the depths. The waters swallowed everything, dragging marble palaces, golden towers, and all the knowledge of that people into the depths of the abyss."

Rhaena listened attentively, and Percy noticed that she was fascinated.

"In the future, men called that land Atlantis... and they spent millennia searching for its remains, never finding anything beyond myths," Percy slowly whistled and looked up at the sky. "An entire history, culture, and its customs were erased from human history for one simple reason: the greed of a people. Everything in a single day."

Rhaena listened to him with an almost reverent attention, her steps measured and her lilac eyes fixed on the horizon, where the gray sky merged with the restless waves.

"An empire swallowed by ashes and the sea..." she murmured, her voice soft, filled with fascination and respect. "It sounds exactly like what the maesters try to describe about the Doom, although none of them have the courage to admit the gods' involvement. They prefer to call it a natural cataclysm."

She turned her face toward Percy.

"But you know the truth, don't you?"

Percy nodded slowly, feeling the cold Valyrian steel dagger against his hip, almost responding to the call of the tide.

"I have a slight suspicion," he said, staring out at the sea. "But in the future, according to Tessarion, Athena and the other gods of Olympus spent centuries erasing every trace of Valyria from the pages of human history. They burned libraries, distorted legends, and turned the empire of dragons into a tale about an island swallowed by the sea. They were afraid, Rhaena. Afraid that the world would remember that there had once been gods older, crueler, and more unrestrained than them."

Rhaena stopped again, turning to face him. There was a cunning and protective gleam in her eyes, the same one he had learned to recognize in Daemon and Rhaenyra whenever they spoke about their family's legacy.

"Then let them remain afraid," she said, with a proud half-smile, typically Valyrian, lightly touching his arm. "Their future may have ashes and lies, Luke. But our gods are not so cruel. They brought you back home."

Yes, he was finally home... but even so, it had been cruel. He had left an entire life behind.

"Yes," he smiled softly, a light smile that was almost sad. "They brought me back."

The salty wind whipped through his blond, wavy hair, messing it against his forehead. He took a deep breath, trying to push the suffocating tightness that always struck him whenever he spoke about the twenty-first century deep into his chest.

Rhaena watched him in silence for a few moments. With the heightened sensitivity of someone who also knew the pain of irreparable losses, she did not pressure him. She simply kept her gentle hand on his forearm, offering a silent and steady anchor as the icy foam of the waves reached the tips of his leather boots.

"You still feel as though half of you is anchored there, don't you?" she asked, her tone stripped of any judgment, carrying only pure, understanding affection.

Percy slowly exhaled, staring at the gray vastness of the Narrow Sea.

"Sometimes," he admitted, his voice almost swallowed by the roar of the waves crashing against the basalt cliffs. "It's strange, Rhaena. I spent twelve years believing my name was Percy Jackson. That my only purpose was to survive the next monster, avoid getting expelled from yet another school, and pray that Zeus would not decide to blow my head off on a whim. Now... I look at the sea and I don't see only water. I see the blood of the ancients. I feel Ummon's presence whispering in the depths with every breath I take. I love being here. I love our family with every fiber of my being. But forgetting the face of the person who bled for me in that other world... it hurts like a blunt blade."

Rhaena stepped forward, forcing him to tear his gaze away from the sea and focus on her eyes, violet, deep, and filled with the unshakable pride of dragonlords.

"You are not betraying her by living, Luke," she said with the firmness of a true princess of Valyrian blood. "Your mother from that other time... the woman who gave you blue sweets... she loved you. And any mother who loves her child would rather see him alive, safe, and protected by gods and dragons than sacrificed as a pawn in the hands of Olympus's tyrants. She would understand."

Those words slid down Percy's throat like a warm balm, dissolving some of the bitter knot weighing on his stomach. He nodded slowly, feeling the warmth of her hand through the thin fabric of his tunic.

"Maybe you're right," he murmured, offering a more sincere smile, although his sea-blue eyes still held the mysterious depth of the oceans.

"I am always right," Rhaena retorted, a mischievous glimmer in her eyes as she broke the tension of the moment. "But if that idea helps... how about leaving messages here in the past for the future? Letters or something that... Sally will look at and know it's you."

She suggested it, and Percy's eyes lit up.

"By Aeksion, Rhaena, you're a genius!" Percy grinned from ear to ear. "I can ask my father to deliver them too. This is amazing!"

Rhaena let out a genuine, crystalline laugh as she watched the dark expression weighing on Luke's features disappear almost instantly, replaced by the vibrant and mischievous spark of a true boy of the sea.

"No need to thank me, my prince," she teased, fixing a rebellious strand of his hair that insisted on falling over his eyes. "Now come on, before Muña makes Kepa come looking for us, and I do not want Caraxes roaring at us. I'm sure our Muña has prepared another one of those strangely colorful desserts for you."

"Blue sweets made with love are unbeatable," he replied, laughing genuinely for the first time in weeks.

As they climbed the stone stairs, one after another, amid light laughter, he did not know just how much he had missed that.

Throughout all twelve years he had lived as Percy, the demigod son of Poseidon, he had always felt that something was missing.

And now he knew what it was: his family. His entire being yearned and ached with how much he missed them.

And now, finally, he was with them.

One year still would not be enough to erase the longing he had carried for years, but the wound was already beginning to heal.

"You know, Rhaena, you remind me of a friend of mine," Percy said when they were already in the corridors of Dragonstone.

"Remind you?" she asked, curious but not evasive. "Who was she?"

"Annabeth Chase, one of the smartest girls I know." He smiled. "She's Athena's daughter. Here, she would be Silverwing's daughter... kind of like you. You fit perfectly as Silverwing's daughter."

"Silverwing's daughter..." she murmured thoughtfully, a soft smile playing on her thin lips as she savored the words as though they were an honorific title bestowed by the sea itself. "A goddess who values wisdom, cunning, and balance... I certainly accept the compliment, my prince."

She paused for a moment.

"Although I doubt your friend would enjoy being compared to a goddess whose mother, in the future, tried to erase her from the map."

"Annabeth?" Percy laughed, shaking his head as he dodged a lit torch mounted on the wall of dark stone. "She would probably spend three whole weeks buried in a library trying to prove, with scrolls and calculations, that I was wrong... only to admit in the end that the comparison made sense. She was like that. Stubborn, brilliant, and she never backed down."

"Sounds like someone who would get along very well with our grandmother Rhaenys," Rhaena commented, letting out a knowing little laugh as they turned down the corridor leading to the Great Hall. "Two minds far too sharp for the patience of any man in this court."

And Rhaena was right. Percy would have to agree.

Which made him wonder: what was Annabeth doing?

How were she and Grover after his departure?

After a year, had they already gotten over his disappearance?

As cruel as it was, he hoped they had.

He did not want to go back.

********

********

They were at a disadvantage. Everyone knew it.

A boy who had appeared out of nowhere and claimed to be the deceased prince possessed such power in his hands that he was capable of destroying several fleets without even a single Dracarys.

Since the usurpation, Aegon had never truly seen himself worried about anything. After all, they had Vhagar and the crown.

Rhaenyra only had the claim that she was the rightful heir, and that proved nothing before the people or the Faith.

But now that the supposed prince had returned a year ago with strange gifts, and rumors were spreading throughout the kingdom that the boy was being protected by the gods and was a son of the sea, it was beginning to worry him.

It was as if it were shouting for all the realm to hear that the gods were on his half-sister's side. And having a boy who looked like his late nephew being the One Touched by the Sea was certainly cause for concern.

And it bothered him.

What bothered him even more was the fact that the Faith was interested in the boy.

"I swear, my king," said the High Septon, a smile on his lips. "The Mother and the Maiden appeared before me in the Sept and told me they need the boy here... The Faith needs him. You must bring the boy to us."

Alicent looked at Otto, and he looked at his grandson.

Helaena searched for anywhere else to look. She did not want to pay attention to another failed attempt at kidnapping, just like the one a year ago.

On that occasion, only one had returned alive.

She wanted Aegon to leave her beloved nephews alone, but she doubted her voice would be heard among so many others.

"The Mother and the Maiden?" Aemond broke the silence of the Small Council chamber with a dry, almost venomous scoff. He kept one hand resting on the pommel of his sword, the sapphire eyepatch gleaming beneath the pale candlelight illuminating the Red Keep. "Does the High Septon now receive divine visitors demanding the presence of a bastard? Or is your Faith simply afraid that the ancient gods of Valyria might be a little too real for your golden sermons?"

Aegon had never imagined that something his uncle Daemon had said could spread so quickly. Corlys had also helped spread the rumors.

Stories about the many fleets the boy had destroyed simply by nodding his head, making the sea obey him and swallow every ship except their allied fleets, had already reached every corner of the kingdom.

Honestly, Aegon was intrigued by the walking ghost.

"Mind your words, my prince!" the High Septon snapped, although a drop of cold sweat trickled down the side of his wrinkled face. "The power the boy has demonstrated is not ordinary sorcery. The sea responds to his anger as though it were a trained hound. Warships from Oldtown were swallowed whole without a single fire arrow touching their sails! The prayers say that he must be purified and brought to our side. A young man with that kind of power must not remain in the hands of Rhaenyra Targaryen... She is using the boy's gift against the will of the gods."

"And if we do that, what will happen?" Alicent asked, looking at her father. "Every plan to invade and kidnap one of the princes has failed."

"If we try and fail again, my daughter," Otto Hightower interjected, his voice maintaining that cold and calculating composure, although his knuckles had turned white as he gripped the edge of the council table, "we will not lose only men. We will lose what little legitimacy we still have before the lords of Westeros."

Otto slowly walked toward the carved map of King's Landing, his eyes fixed on the engraved symbol of Dragonstone.

"For a year, we have tried to convince the kingdom that the prince's death at Storm's End was a judgment from the Seven against Rhaenyra's bastards," the Hand of the King continued. "But the boy returned from the depths. He did not merely survive. Now the tides obey his will. Every fisherman in Blackwater Bay, every merchant from Braavos, and every sailor who sets foot in this city whispers the same blasphemy: the heir of the tides cannot be drowned."

"He is not a god," Aemond spat, taking a step forward, his jaw so tense that the bones of his face seemed ready to tear through his pale skin. His remaining lilac eye gleamed with obsessive hatred. "He is the same weak and cowardly boy who took out my eye and ran beneath his mother's skirts. I do not care if the sea rises when he cries. Vhagar still breathes fire, and his flesh still burns like any mortal's."

"Oh, of course, little brother..." Aegon let out a mocking laugh, leaning back against the heavy wooden throne and lazily swirling a goblet of Arbor wine between his fingers. "Tell that to the three dozen ships from Oldtown that are now serving as a feast for crabs at the bottom of the sea. He does not even have his dragon anymore, Aemond. He simply looked at the water and the entire fleet became a broken walnut shell. If you want to go there and burn the sea, be my guest. I would rather keep my crown on my head and my castle far away from a tidal wave."

"Enough, Aegon!" Alicent scolded, her voice trembling with exhaustion and nervousness as her nails dug into the skin of her own hands. "Do you not realize the danger we are in? The common people are already calling your half-sister blessed. They do not fear dragons because they are already accustomed to fearing them... but they fear the fury of the waters. With every storm that reaches the shores of King's Landing, the people run to the Sept, believing that the gods of Valyria have come to drown us!"

The High Septon took a deep breath. He watched countless different people enter and leave the Sept in search of salvation.

But that family was the only one he tried not to help, along with their respective families.

The High Septon had a goal, and that goal was to get his hands on that boy. A power of that magnitude belonged in the Sept, in the hands of people who truly knew how to use it.

Not in the hands of a tyrannical woman who believed the gods were on her side.

"I do not care what the people think. The only thing that matters is what the Seven want... and they want the boy here, with us, among our septons," he declared, taking a deep breath. As the representative of the High Septon, he was the voice of the gods. "The Seven want the boy to become their next voice."

The High Septon's declaration fell upon the council table like a block of lead, causing even the sound of wine being poured by a servant at the door to cease at that very moment.

Aegon stopped his goblet halfway to his lips, staring at the religious man with a mixture of genuine disbelief and pure mockery.

"A septon?" Aegon burst into a loud laugh, so utterly devoid of elegance that it echoed beneath the vaulted ceilings of the room. He slammed his palm against the table, rattling the silver pitchers. "For all the hells! You want to put white robes on the boy, cut his hair, and hang a seven-pointed star around the neck of the boy who just sank half my grandfather's fleet with the snap of his fingers? Have you lost whatever shred of sanity you had left in that old carcass of yours?!"

"It is not mockery, Your Grace!" the High Septon shot back, raising his voice as he clenched his fists beneath the sleeves embroidered with golden thread. "It is the only way to neutralize the heresy Rhaenyra represents! If the boy is anointed by the Faith, if he swears his vows to the Seven before the entire realm, the blessing the people believe belongs to the princess's bastards will be claimed by the Crown and the Sept. The power of the waters will cease to be a Valyrian demon and become a miracle of the Maiden and the Mother!"

"And you think Lucerys Velaryon would simply kneel before your altar?" Aemond stepped closer, the sound of his leather boots striking the stone floor like the footsteps of an executioner. He stopped only a few inches from the holy man and leaned forward until the reflection of the sapphire in his empty eye socket gleamed menacingly beneath the candlelight. "The boy is no pious lamb, old man. He carries the blood of dragons and the rot of Daemon's bloodline. Do you truly think he would trade the Valyrian steel sword they say he wields for a handful of incense and useless prayers?"

"He is a child, Prince Aemond!" the priest insisted, taking half a step back beneath the imposing shadow of Vhagar's rider. "A fourteen-year-old child who was lost in the abyss and now finds himself surrounded by blood and war. If we rescue him from the corrupting influence of Dragonstone..."

"Shut up," Otto Hightower cut in, his cold, low voice slicing through the air with absolute authority.

The Hand of the King took a deep breath, massaging his temples as he stared at the map of Blackwater Bay. His perceptive eyes saw far beyond the Septon's religious hysteria.

"The Septon has foolish ambitions, but the fundamental problem remains untouched," Otto said, turning toward Alicent and Aegon. "We cannot march on Dragonstone with ships. No vessel from Oldtown or King's Landing dares approach the island's waters without the sailors threatening mutiny for fear of being dragged beneath the waves alive. And even if we sent Vhagar and Sunfyre through the skies..."

Otto hesitated for a fraction of a second, and the mere fact that the Hand of the King hesitated made Alicent's heart race in her chest.

"The reports that came from the spies in Driftmark are disturbing," Otto continued in a tense whisper. "It was not only ships that sank. The sea receded and rose in columns that nearly reached the clouds. If the Valyrian gods are truly responding to that boy, attacking the island head-on could mean losing our dragons to storms that no fire could ever contain."

"Call for a truce. Use Viserys to validate the truce," the High Septon suggested, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. Using a king who remained alive by a miracle to lure the prince to them was, indeed, a clever move. "Say that the king is beginning to respond again and that he has even spoken a little. Use that to ask for a truce. Rhaenyra will come with all her bastards in the hope that Viserys is well enough to legitimize her publicly. But that will be her downfall once the Sept has the prince in its hands."

"And what makes you believe Lucerys would willingly agree?" Alicent questioned, and there was genuine interest in her voice.

"My queen, he is a fourteen-year-old child. He is easy to manipulate," the High Septon assured her with a sharp smile. "Having the boy at our side, on your side, will be enough to legitimize Aegon's coronation."

"Easy to manipulate..." Aemond repeated the phrase, savoring every syllable as though he were spitting pure venom onto the floor.

"It will work."

Helaena said it suddenly, rising to her feet and moving away from Aegon.

"And, Mother, bring Daeron. The two of them will get along very well."

Then she left the room without offering any further explanation. She simply walked out.

And that was as good as a declaration that the Septon's plan would work.

They would have their truce.

And they would have the boy in their hands.

That same afternoon, Aegon sent a raven to Dragonstone.

**********

**********

_______________________________ ____________________________________________ _____________

My half-sister,

Over the past months, the skies and tides of our realm have been stained with the blood of our own subjects and with the relentless rumors of a war that will bring no honor to the memory of our Valyrian blood.

I write to you not only as the man who now wears the Conqueror's crown, but as the eldest son of the man we both called father.

King Viserys, who for so many years remained bedridden beneath the haze of milk of the poppy, has experienced a miraculous awakening. The maesters and, according to some, the gods themselves have granted him a brief glimpse of clarity and renewed strength. In his moments of lucidity, the only word to cross his dry lips was not war, but reconciliation.

Our father calls for the presence of the daughter he loved so dearly, her grandchildren, and above all, the young Prince Lucerys.

The miraculous return of your son from the depths of the sea has reached the King's ears and touched the heart of the entire court. Even the High Septon and the Faith acknowledge that the young prince's survival defies the natural order of mortals and demands a blessing before the eyes of the convalescing king himself.

Our father wishes to see him with his own eyes before his final breath carries him from this world. He wishes to grant him his blessing and speak his final words regarding the fate of our house and the future of Westeros, in the presence of all his heirs gathered together.

By royal decree and with the approval of the Faith of the Seven, I propose a sacred truce.

Swords shall be sheathed, and the dragons shall remain in the Dragonpit. You, your consort, Daemon, and your children, especially Lucerys, shall have absolute safe passage, guaranteed by the sacred laws of gods and men, to dock at King's Landing without a single drop of blood being spilled.

To refuse this invitation would be to deny the final wish of a father who is fading from this world. It would also be to openly declare, before all the lords of the Seven Kingdoms, that you would rather choose the ashes of war over the farewell bed of the man who gave you life.

We await your arrival beneath the banner of peace.

By the grace of the gods,

Aegon II Targaryen

King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men,

Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.

_______________________________ ____________________________________________ _____________

Rhaenyra burned Aegon's letter as though it were nothing more than an insect.

She had read it.

Yes, she had read it, and she considered it the greatest hypocrisy of them all.

After everything he had done, wanting to use their own father, who could die at any moment, as a reason to make her go to King's Landing was almost a form of torture.

The situation was complicated. The people were increasingly siding with her because of Luke, and that was precisely the kind of attention she did not want focused on her boy.

If she refused, Aegon and the Greens could use it against her, claiming that she had abandoned her own father on his deathbed.

And that would never happen.

No matter what the situation demanded, Rhaenyra would never abandon her father.

Her priority was protecting her children, especially Lucerys. The numerous mentions of him throughout the letter felt strange, and she could not simply turn a blind eye to them.

In the middle of a war, a truce was more than welcome. It would take Lucerys out of the spotlight and keep him from being so exposed to the dangers of war because of his powers.

Corlys never listened to her when she asked him not to expose her son.

Her gaze descended toward the training yard, where she saw her two eldest sons training.

Lucerys was improving every day with the sword. Little by little, his fighting style was beginning to blend with the teachings he had received in this era.

She smiled softly when Jacaerys had to correct Lucerys's stance.

Her boys were beautiful.

"Rhaenyra."

A voice as familiar as the wind that touched her face every morning.

"Syrax," she replied, smiling at the Queen of the Gods. "What brings you here today?"

"I came to see for myself how our boy is doing," Syrax replied, looking down at Percy.

Rhaenyra was still surprised every time she saw the gods show so much affection toward her son.

Ever since Percy's encounter with Silverwing a year ago, it had become almost natural for at least one of the gods of ancient Valyria to be on Dragonstone, talking with Percy or with one of his family members.

She herself had found a friend in Syrax.

"He is growing far too quickly," Syrax murmured. Her divine form shimmered with a soft, golden aura, ethereal features blending the nobility of a primordial queen with the incandescent gaze of Valyrian fire. "The blood of the sea runs freely through his veins, but the determination he carries in his eyes belongs entirely to you, my chosen one."

Rhaenyra sighed, resting her hands against the cold stone railing of the terrace. Her knuckles were still stained with the fine soot from Aegon's letter, which she had just burned.

"His blood is now both a gift and a curse," Rhaenyra confessed, her voice heavy with regal exhaustion. "King's Landing has sent a proposal for a truce. Aegon swears by the sacred laws and uses my father's fragile breathing as bait. He says Viserys awakens from his slumber only to call for Luke."

Syrax let out a low laugh, a sound reminiscent of the gentle crackling of embers in an ancient forge. Her golden eyes, which seemed capable of seeing through the mists of fate, fixed themselves on the courtyard below, where Lucerys had just dodged a thrust from Jacaerys, spinning with the graceful fluidity of water before returning a strike that sent his older brother's practice sword flying into the dirt.

"Usurpation is cowardly by nature, Rhaenyra," the goddess said, approaching with silent steps that left an almost imperceptible warmth upon the stones. "They fear what they cannot bend. The men of the Faith and the lambs in white robes feel the ground tremble beneath the power of Anorion. Otto Hightower and the worm they call the High Septon believe they can cage a wave with holy words and promises of absolution."

"They want my son," Rhaenyra said through clenched teeth, a glimpse of a dragon's fury flashing in her violet eyes. "The High Septon wants to use him to legitimize the abomination they placed upon Aegon's head. And I would rather burn the Red Keep to its foundations than allow them to touch a single strand of Luke's hair."

"But go, my daughter," Syrax replied with a smile upon her lips. "With Percy in King's Landing, your throne will be yours before long, and the Sept will cease to exist along with the lie they uphold."

Rhaenyra stared at her.

Syrax, however, fixed her gaze upon Percy, who, as soon as he noticed her presence, raised his head and waved with a smile.

"We are not using your son, my dear. But Percy is the only living demigod. The Sept venerates only some of us... and their actions are an insult to us, the gods of Valyria, and to you, descendants of the blood of ancient Valyria," Syrax said calmly. "Those gods, just like their septons, deserve to cease to exist."

Syrax's words echoed through the cold air of the terrace with a solemn and terrifying weight.

There was an implacable certainty in the goddess's voice that sent a shiver down Rhaenyra's spine, not from fear, but from the purest fervor of Valyrian blood.

"Cease to exist..." Rhaenyra repeated almost in a whisper, watching Percy laugh below as he helped Jace to his feet from the dirt. "You speak of a purification, Syrax. A war that will go beyond swords and dragons."

"I speak of restoring the natural order," the Queen of the Gods corrected, a serene smile upon her lips as she gently touched Rhaenyra's hand on the stone parapet. Divine warmth radiated from her skin, warming the princess's body and driving away the biting chill of the sea wind. "The Seven are nothing more than weak shadows, shaped by mortal fear and the lies of men who fear magic. They feed upon the submission of the weak. But Valyria never submitted to shadows. And as long as Percy walks through that city, no priest or false god will have the power to touch him."

"But this way... my son will be on the front line, in danger!" Rhaenyra cried, clutching her own gown.

At that moment, five-year-old Aegon III appeared, radiant as he ran toward them while holding a wooden seahorse in his hands.

"Syrax!" he exclaimed happily. Then he turned to Rhaenyra. "Come on, Muña! I want to see Grandfather again."

The innocence in little Aegon's voice shattered the rigidity of the moment like a ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds of a storm.

Rhaenyra blinked, feeling the burning in her eyes recede as she looked at the platinum-haired boy, who proudly waved the small wooden seahorse sculpture in his hands, certainly a gift carved by Corlys or Percy himself.

Syrax lowered herself with sublime grace, her ethereal dress rippling like golden flames without burning the ground. She gently stroked the little prince's pale curls with such tenderness that the boy merely laughed, hugging the toy against his chest.

"The blood of dragons has deep roots, little one," the goddess whispered sweetly before raising her fiery eyes back to Rhaenyra. "Children sense the truth before adults have even finished conspiring. And remember: your son is safe. The slightest scratch the Greens inflict upon Percy will be a declaration of war against the gods."

She paused and looked at Percy, who continued smiling below.

"And any scratch upon one of you, Luke himself included, will destroy that kingdom with water."

Then Syrax disappeared, dissolving into the air like tiny dandelion seeds carried away by the wind.

Rhaenyra took Aegon III's hand and left with him toward Percy.

There were certain things she did not want to do, but one thing was certain.

She trusted her son and her family. She trusted the gods.

And because of that, she could not refuse.

That same day, she sent a letter to her stupid half-brother.

*********

*********

3 Months and 20 Days Later, Princess Andromeda

He had a mission.

A mission he had failed miserably, without ever truly having a chance.

Cronos had been clear when he gave him that mission: he needed to recruit Percy Jackson to his side.

But his mission had failed when he attempted to kidnap Poseidon's son in that forest. It had failed without even giving him the opportunity to recalculate his course, when the demigod simply disappeared three months ago.

He needed to find the boy.

Percy was the genesis of everything, the turning point of his entire revolution, his only focus, his purpose, and his most dangerous obsession.

His focus was finding the demigod. Cronos had never ordered him to search for him.

He was quiet.

Far too quiet.

And Luke Castellan did not know what bothered him more: Cronos's silence or Olympus's silence in the face of the disappearance of one of the children of the Big Three.

Cronos had even made jokes a few times about his obsession, about how he was slowly losing his mind because he had received no news about the demigod.

But Percy was a very interesting boy.

Luke remembered the times the boy had woken up in the middle of Hermes Cabin, frightened, or the episodes when, while asleep, he seemed to be drowning.

"I don't know, Luke, but every time it feels like I'm falling from somewhere very high during a storm."

He remembered perfectly what Percy had said after waking from yet another one of those dreams in the middle of the night.

And that was when his focus and obsession began.

He wanted to understand that boy. He wanted to hear his thoughts, learn about his hopes and fears, see him vulnerable, see him beg, and, in the end, break down that indomitable spirit until Percy looked at him not as an enemy, but as the only person who truly understood him.

He wanted Percy, no matter the cost.

He was fully aware of the age difference. After all, he was about to turn eighteen, and he was willing to wait for the boy.

Of course, only if the boy chose to join his side in the war.

But Olympus's negligence in trying to find the demigod made him furious.

Three months.

One hundred and four days without a single trace, without a scent left in the Mist, without the slightest sign of the demigod who should have been the most valuable piece in his war.

At first, Luke thought Percy was hiding with his mortal mother in Queens. Then he searched every dark corner of Manhattan, believing the satyrs were keeping him under maximum surveillance.

But there was nothing.

Sally Jackson's apartment was silent, and the mortal lived as though a piece of her soul had been torn away without explanation.

He had visited the apartment more times than he could remember during those last three months, just like Annabeth.

The mortal was clearly shaken.

Luke was tired of watching her cry as she looked at every place and every corner of that apartment.

And he understood.

Every space in that apartment screamed the name of Percy Jackson.

A boy whose mortal mother did not know whether she would ever see again.

Missing-person posters appeared during the first seven days after his disappearance, after Annabeth herself disobeyed Olympus's order not to inform the mortal about what had happened.

She had made it clear that Sally had the right to know what had happened to her son.

It was obvious that her regular visits to Sally Jackson were serving as a balm for her. Every visit, whether from him, Annabeth, or even another demigod, such as Clarisse La Rue, helped the woman slowly recover.

But she was recovering.

She was incredibly affectionate toward each of them, and every demigod neglected by their divine parent saw in her what their own parents had never offered them.

Yes, Luke Castellan had started visiting his own mother again after that.

And he had the pleasure of seeing both her and Sally become friends.

"Annabeth, are you telling me Olympus is giving up on searching for Percy?" he asked, staring at the image of Athena's daughter through the Iris Message.

Annabeth had been staying at his father's house for some time, while Clarisse usually remained shut away in her own home.

Who would have thought?

The disappearance of a demigod within the domain of his own father and Olympus's negligence would lead him to gain two new allies.

Annabeth Chase and Clarisse La Rue.

Annabeth's trembling image through the rainbow Mist flickered, but the rigidity in her posture was unmistakable. Her eyes, once filled with that blind reverence for Athena's plans and the glory of heroes, now carried a cold bitterness, forged through sleepless nights spent remembering Sally Jackson's silent pain every time she returned to an empty apartment.

"They aren't just giving up, Luke," Annabeth's voice sounded sharp, stripped of any hesitation. "They're pretending he never existed. My mother hasn't answered my prayers in weeks. Poseidon Cabin has been locked with chains by Zeus's direct order, and Chiron has been forbidden from sending any search mission beyond the borders of Long Island."

A dry, harsh laugh echoed from the back of Annabeth's room.

Clarisse La Rue appeared beside the beam of light, cleaning a dagger with a worn piece of cloth. The daughter of Ares had deep dark circles beneath her eyes, but they burned with the untamed fury Luke knew so well.

"My father appeared in my dreams yesterday," Clarisse spat the words with pure disgust, slipping the blade into her boot. "He said I should stop wasting my time watching mortals and go back to training for 'true glory.' When I asked why the great god of war was so afraid to admit that a twelve-year-old brat had disappeared right under Poseidon's nose, he nearly incinerated my head. They're terrified, Luke. The twelve idiots at the top of that building are shaking in their boots."

Luke clenched his fist, feeling his pulse quicken with a toxic mixture of euphoria and hatred.

Olympus was cracking from within.

The arrogance of the gods was finally coming back to haunt them, and the spark that had ignited all that ruin was precisely the blue-eyed boy Luke could not get out of his head.

"They know who took Percy," Luke murmured, his voice low and dangerous, making both girls pay absolute attention. "And they know they don't have the power to bring him back."

"If you find any clue, Luke... anything," Annabeth took a step forward, her image flickering as her voice faltered for a fraction of a second, revealing the frightened girl who feared she had lost her best friend forever. "You tell us. We are not going to let Percy disappear into the hands of whoever took him. And if Olympus doesn't want to fight for him, we will."

"I promise you, Annabeth," Luke replied, with an almost hypnotic gentleness that masked the poison behind his intentions. "I will find Percy. And when I do, the three of us will make sure no god ever uses him as a pawn again."

With a gentle movement of his hand, Luke cut the Mist, dispelling the rainbow and leaving the cabin of the Princess Andromeda shrouded in silent darkness.

He leaned back in the dark oak chair, staring into the darkness of the sea outside through the porthole. The ocean seemed strangely calm, almost dead, as though Poseidon himself had been drained of his authority.

Luke closed his eyes and saw, with painful clarity, the memory of Percy in Cabin 11. The boy, sweaty and breathless after yet another nightmare about falls and ancient storms, clutching his blanket as though the entire world were collapsing beneath his feet.

"Wherever you are, Percy..." Luke thought, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fist with stubborn determination. "I will break the chains of time itself if I have to. And you will understand that the only safe place in this universe is by my side."

"Don't even try, boy."

Cronos's voice emerged within his subconscious.

"You are trying to wage a war against something you cannot defeat. Believe me, my Valyrian children are quite persuasive and possessive of whatever they consider theirs."

Luke blinked and looked at his great-grandfather's sarcophagus.

"Valyrian?" he asked. He had never heard of the existence of Valyrian gods, much less imagined that something like that could exist."

A frigid, cavernous laugh echoed directly through Luke's bones, making the air in the cabin grow so cold that his breath condensed into a thin mist. The golden sarcophagus in the center of the room seemed to pulse with a dull, sickly light.

"You are arrogant, young hero, and that arrogance almost amuses me," Cronos's voice rasped through Luke's mind, heavy as the grinding of ancient stones. "Do you think history began when my foolish children overthrew my throne on Mount Olympus? Do you think the world has always revolved around Greek mists and white marble temples?"

Luke took two steps toward the sarcophagus, his eyes narrowed and his hand instinctively resting on the hilt of Mordecoste.

"What are you talking about?" Luke's voice came out harsh, but there was a corrosive unease eating away at his composure. "Gods are gods. Olympus is the center of Western civilization. If these beings exist, why have they never been mentioned? Why did Chiron never teach us about them?"

"Because the Olympian gods are cowards who rewrite the past to hide their own defeats," the Titan mocked, and the shadow cast by the sarcophagus seemed to twist across the wall. "Long before Rome raised its arches or Greece established itself upon the blood of mortals, another lineage flourished beneath my gaze. While Zeus and Poseidon crawled to maintain control over barbarian tribes, my primordial children forged an empire of blood, fire, and raw magic beyond the boundaries of this realm. Valyria existed long before they ever even thought of defeating me."

The Titan paused theatrically, savoring the silent shock on his great-grandson's face.

"Anorion, Aeksion, Ummon, Balerion, Shrykos... They had no need for fragile temples or pleading prayers. They ruled through the blood of dragons and lords who commanded the tides and flames. When greed consumed that peninsula and the Doom swallowed it in a single day, Olympus took advantage of the ruins to erase their names from mortal history, fearing that humanity would discover that there were deities who were my greatest pride."

Luke could have sworn his great-grandfather was smiling with pride.

"You know, my Valyrian children did not imprison me the same way the Greeks did," Cronos continued. "They devoured my flesh piece by piece. That is why I cannot go into the past. But they can come here whenever they wish... Of course, only some of them are capable of it."

Cronos spoke with a calmness that bordered on pride.

Luke knew at that moment that, between Olympus and Anorion, Cronos would choose his children from the Valyrian pantheon, even if they had consumed his flesh.

"Wait..." Luke choked out. "Are you telling me Percy is in the past?"

"Smart boy."

Cronos laughed, amused.

The revelation struck Luke with the devastating force of a blow. The air seemed to vanish from his lungs as he stumbled a step backward, his eyes fixed upon the golden sarcophagus, which gleamed with mockery and primordial power.

"In the past..." Luke murmured, the word burning like acid on his tongue.

"Exactly, my foolish great-grandson."

Cronos's voice hissed, echoing directly through the demigod's bones like the crackling of a blazing forge.

"While you search through mortal garbage in Queens and the gods of Olympus lock themselves inside their halls in blind panic, the boy has been welcomed by the lineage that never feared my greatness. Anorion claimed what Poseidon believed belonged to him by right. And in the dragon's nest, he is not a frightened outcast burdened by forbidden blood. He is revered. He is loved."

Cronos paused.

"They, my great-grandson... They value demigods. They know they are nothing without you."

There was poison in his voice, but also a clear intention to plant within Luke a desire for something he could never have.

"You would like them. And Caraxes would like you."

Then came silence.

A silence as deep as a forest falling quiet in the presence of a predator.

"I may not be able to go into the past, but perhaps a message from me to my children of Anorion could reach them," Cronos said calmly. "I could make a suggestion. Perhaps they could show Olympus that they are a failure."

The Titan's voice became almost amused.

"But you will not get what you want so badly."

Luke wanted Percy.

And he would get him.

He would not give up so easily.

Olympus might give up on Percy, but he would not.

That made him remember the past few weeks, when he had visited Sally. She was sad, with deep dark circles beneath her eyes from the countless nights she had spent crying.

But the last time he saw her, she seemed to have... accepted it.

Her words made him wonder if she had already discovered, before he did, where Percy was.

"He is fine. He is safe."

Her voice carried profound sadness, but the relief was more than evident.

That made Luke wonder: Did she know?

Who had told her?

Olympus, certainly not. They never told mortal parents when a demigod died on a mission.

Then Luke remembered what Cronos had just said.

It had been the gods of Anorion.