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Golden dust. That was all that was left.
Percy couldn’t breath; his father was gone. Poseidon was dead. They’d never really had much time to grow close, but…Percy cared about him. Forgave him for leaving, because he knew why he had to. Loved him.
He was his father.
Was.
All that remained was his trident, laying in the dirt between Percy and Thoon.
Thoon, who roared victoriously, hefting his club in the air and shaking it. Golden dust stuck to the club, drifting down around the giant as he gloated, breaking Percy out of his reverie. He’d done it. Thoon had killed Poseidon. Thoon had killed his dad.
Thoon was going to pay.
All the years Percy wasn’t going to have with his dad weighed down on him. All the things Poseidon had promised: trips to Atlantis; fishing together; bonding like they’d always wanted to; all of it was gone, and it hurt. The agony killed Percy. He dove into the pain, latched onto it, turned it into rage, turned his rage into hate.
He took all of it, everything he felt, the rage and hate and pain and grief—gods, world-shattering grief—and let it explode.
Percy didn’t remember getting up. He just launched himself forward, lunged toward the giant, barely slowing to scoop the fallen trident off the ground.
The second he touched it, the world stopped. It was just Percy and the trident, and in the trident was the sea. The oceans, dead and still and grey without their king. Lifeless without their god. Percy couldn’t bring Poseidon back, but he could bring life back to the oceans. He breathed, and the currents flowed again. He pushed, and the waves swelled to life. He blinked, and as life returned to the seas, he returned to the fight.
Thoon turned to look at him, a cruel grin on his face. “What will you do now, demigod?”
Percy didn’t answer with words. Instead, he hefted the trident and began blasting the giant in the face with bursts of water. Thoon stumbled backwards, trying to regain balance. A thought, and the world beneath them erupted into tremors.
Percy laughed when Thoon finally toppled over. He was going to make this giant wish he’d never reformed. The look in Thoon’s eye told Percy he knew it, too. Good. The fear that came with anticipation would only help.
“Now?” Percy stood tall, staring the giant down. “Now, I have fun,” he snarled.
Percy reached out. Every liquid molecule in the giant’s body—he could feel them all. Letting Thoon be killed by a weapon was too easy, too fast. He deserved worse—a more painful death, a slower one, one that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Percy grabbed those molecules and strangled them. They curled in on themselves, moving faster and getting tighter and shrinking as much as they could, until they didn’t. They burst, and the scream accompanying the giant’s body boiling and exploding on him was music to Percy’s ears.
Distantly, Percy noted he couldn’t distinguish his father’s remains from the giant’s.
Surrounded by golden dust, Poseidon’s trident in hand, Percy slid to his knees and cried.
But of course, he couldn’t get more than a moment to mourn in peace. When he looked up, the Seven and the gods were around him, each one eyeing him warily. “This is…unprecedented. We must…we must regroup,” Zeus breathed, “to discuss how this loss will affect—“
“He’s coming back,” Percy interrupted. He stared his Uncle dead in the eye. “It’s not a loss. He’s coming back.”
It was likely Zeus’s own grief that kept him from lashing out. “Even still, we must discuss the coverage of his domain, Perseus.”
“What’s there to discuss?” Percy asked. “I’m holding the trident. The seas chose me.”
“They chose you?” Athena asked.
“Didn’t you feel it?” Percy shot back. “The second he died, they fell still. Completely, like a painting. I brought them back when I picked up the trident. They’d still be frozen if I wasn’t the right one.”
“And how do you know this?” Artemis asked.
Percy just shrugged. “It’s the ocean. And until my dad comes back? It’s my ocean.”