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Chapter Text

I had known Jason was almost certainly going to die from the moment I saw him in class. Even without being able to see him in-person, the thick possibility of death clung to him like a cloak. The prophecy foretelling his death only confirmed what I’d already suspected would occur, given that Piper’s possibility of death was far lesser. 

When Jason died, part of me had expected to feel some twisted sense of triumph, much as I had when my forces nearly killed Thalia, forcing Zeus to turn her into a tree in order to keep her alive. After he’d killed Maria in an attempt to disintegrate my two demigod kids, who hadn’t even been a result of breaking the oath, and then had the gall to be the first to break the oath himself, I could not help but take pleasure in knowing that Zeus now had some fragment of an idea of how I’d felt after he’d killed my lover.

I could not derive any such pleasure from Jason’s death. The boy had stood up to Zeus, in front of everyone, to tell him that he was unjust. In polite terms, but a brave – and reckless – move for a demigod to make. I had to respect that, even as foolhardy as it was. The only other demigod I’d known who’d been able to tell my brother off like that and live was Percy, and he…

“Just because I’m a nice person, I’ll let you go. But first, tell me about the trap!”

Well. Percy was a special case. Any demigod who could credibly threaten to gouge a hole in my face had far less to fear from Zeus than one who only had the potential to become a threat.

My brother was a pragmatic coward. Those who might possibly become threats later he did his utmost to… neutralize before such a thing could come to pass, but those who already were threats, he sought to placate in such a way as to avoid them coming after him. If they were “beneath him”, like demigods and the more minor gods were, he may still do things to try to “put them in their place”, humiliate them in small ways – but try to avoid doing something that the person would truly not be able to forgive.

Jason was not yet a threat. He did not have that protection. Yet he persisted in trying to reason with my brother anyway. 

I was not surprised at Zeus’s lack of mourning over Jason’s demise.

Nico, though… I feared what his friend’s death would do to him. He hadn’t gotten close to many people… well, ever. He hadn’t had much chance to do so before I had to hide him and his sister away in the Lotus Hotel. After Bianca’s death, he hadn’t wanted to get close to anyone again.

Jason’s death may well send him over the edge, retreating from everyone again. 

Apollo drove Jason’s hearse towards Camp Jupiter, Meg riding in the passenger’s seat.

Meg declared that she liked this place.

“We just got here,” Apollo reminded her. “What is it you like? The abandoned warehouses? That sign for Bo’s Chicken and Waffles?”

“Nature.”

“Concrete counts as nature?”

“There’s trees, too. Plants flowering. Moisture in the air. The eucalyptus smells good. It’s not like…” she trailed off.

Sometimes Meg reminded me of my wife and her sister, Persephone. She didn’t often talk about the surface world anymore, while she was with me at any rate, but I could hear a tinge of longing when she described her visits to Camp Jupiter. I often caught her sitting in my palace gardens after recounting such tales.

She and Meg would probably get along well together. Meg would be far more pleasant company than Demeter, at any rate (not that that was difficult to achieve).

Meg asked whether Apollo knew how to get to Camp Jupiter, since he hadn’t for Camp Half-Blood. He had some idea that it involved Caldecott Tunnel, but wasn’t clear on the details, since he usually descended from the heavens to camp, rather than entering from ground level.

“This is why you should deliver some things yourself,” Hermes grumbled. “Rather than always ordering delivery. Travelling around on ground level, getting the lay of the land, can come in handy later.”

“A good strategist always does their best to survey the terrain,” Athena added in. “I barely visit Camp Jupiter, and even I know the different ways mortals can enter and exit the camp.”

I had a feeling her determination to know of the passageways demigods could take to get to the Roman camp had not sprung entirely from altruistic reasons.

Some figure darted past the screen, landing with a “thump” on the roof. Apollo demanded that Meg do something to dislodge whatever it was.

While neither Meg nor Apollo could see it clearly, from the point of view of us gods, looking in from the front of the car, the identity of the hitchhiker was quite clear.

Zeus raised an eyebrow, shooting me a hard look. “What is one of your… clean-up crew doing here?” He curled his lip.

I grit my teeth. Few people appreciated the dirty, smelly, but necessary work of scavengers. They could only live in nice, pristine houses without needing to think about corpses because other creatures did away with them. 

Of course, I’d never expect Zeus, of all people, to appreciate such things. It was up to the little people to keep his palace gleaming, he’d never sully himself by learning how that task was accomplished. He liked for all the rot in Olympus to be hidden away out of sight, but that didn’t stop it from smelling.

That being said, what was the eurynomos doing here? I hadn’t sent any. While I’d never been close to Apollo, I did not particularly want him to enter my domain without having the option to leave again.

The rest of the gods turned my way, wanting to see my response.

“I don’t know,” I admitted through gritted teeth. While one of my followers going rogue reflected badly on my capabilities, pretending that I had purposely sent one of them to attack Apollo would likely have far worse consequences.

The corpse-eater ripped off the roof of the car. Meg demanded for Apollo to swerve, presumably to throw it off the hearse.

Unfortunately, that also threw the car off the road and into a canyon.

“Not Apollo’s smartest move,” Hermes noted.

“I do not think he had a choice,” Artemis pointed out. “I am betting that yelling ‘swerve’ counted as a command. He can’t disobey.”

“Well he could implement her commands a little more intelligently!” Demeter declared. “If he gets my daughter killed–”

“I am sure you’ll complain about it for the rest of eternity,” I grumbled. Demeter was impossible to please.

Chapter Text

As Apollo and Meg careened off the cliff, I found myself wondering what arrangements to make for Apollo if he died here. He’d been in more dire straits than this over the course of his punishment (Medea’s attempt to extract his essence was horrifying even by my own standards), but I still needed to be prepared in case he didn’t make it. 

Normally I wouldn’t have bothered, given that enough gods greatly cared for Apollo that someone would surely try to get him resurrected immediately and make him immortal, much as Dionysus did with his wife and mother, for instance. I wasn’t sure whether that would give Apollo all of his former powers back, given how doubtful it was that Zeus would release those back to him.

But given the purpose of these “trials” and Zeus’s insistence that no one intervene to help Apollo at all, and how far he was going to enforce those measures, I did not see much chance of him allowing Apollo to return to Olympus in any form. And while I had nothing against the former god, I was not going to stick my neck out for him, either. I would not allow other gods to decide on his fate within my domain, but I would not bring Apollo out of my domain and back to the mortal world, either.

I could have my usual judges decide on Apollo’s fate if he passed into the Underworld, but something about that made my stomach curdle. Those of such rank judging even a former Olympian by the standards that were normally used to judge mortals… that did not seem like a good precedent to set.

No. If he passed into my domain, I would judge him myself.

Trees bent around the car, leaping out to catch it, slowing its fall. It was still a bumpy ride, but did not look like it’d be a fatal one.

Sure enough, Meg and Apollo stumbled out of the hearse a minute later, retching.

“You suck at swerving,” Meg declared.

“Oh, my gods! You ORDERED me to– Wait. How are we alive? Was that YOU who bent the tree branches?”

“Duh.”

Demeter puffed out her chest. “Of course Meg did that! She’s my daughter, and one of the strongest demigods in existence. She glanced between myself and Poseidon. “I bet she’ll even be able to beat Big Three kids once she’s older.” She glanced back over at me. “Nico especially.”

I bit my tongue. Demeter never stopped trying to bait me into arguments. It wasn’t worth indulging in them.

Besides, Nico didn’t need me to fight his battles for him. He’d more than proven his strength already.

Meg summoned her scimitars, ready to throw down with the eurynomos when it recovered. Apollo grabbed his bow and arrows from the hearse.

The ghoul soon broke free, yelling that it’d kill and eat. After a minute of wracking his brain, Apollo remembered that it was a eurynomos.

“YES! FOOD SAID MY NAME!” the ghoul yelled happily.

“B-but you’re a corpse-eater!” Apollo stuttered out. “You’re supposed to be in the Underworld, working for Hades!”

“HADES GIVES ME OLD DEAD! THE MASTER GIVES ME FRESH!”

“I feed your kind well enough! I swear, my domain is made of nothing but complainers,” I grumbled. I still couldn’t believe that Charon was unhappy with his pay, just because it hadn’t gone up for three thousand years. He’d been okay with it at the start, why would that have changed? He was just being greedy.

Demeter tapped her finger against her chin. “Who is this Master?” She wondered. “He must be pretty strong, to steal your minions out from under you.” She shot me a sly smile. “Or you’ve just gotten weaker.”

I stiffened. “It’s not too difficult for weak, cowardly people to pick off those on the outskirts of my influence,” I said. 

“But to do it without alerting you! That takes some doing. Unless that is… you did know, and kept it a secret?”

“Hades?” Zeus asked, his fingers twitching towards his thunderbolt. 

He couldn’t get away with electrocuting me like he did the more minor gods, not without my retaliation, at any rate. I had asserted that well enough over the years. That didn’t mean my little brother wasn’t tempted.

“I have no idea who this ‘Master’ is,” I admitted reluctantly. “Rest assured, I will take care of this trespasser if they dare to set foot in my domain again.” I knew to be on the alert now. My realm may be large, but my subjects were many. This ‘Master’ would not be able to hide for long.

“If you mean Caligula, I’m sure he’s made you all sorts of promises, but I can tell you, Caligula is NOT-” 

“HA! STUPID FOOD! CALIGULA IS NOT THE MASTER!”

I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t really thought about who this ‘Master’ would be yet, but I suppose Caligula would have been on my list. It’d make sense for one of the Emperors to be involved. That still left Commodus and Nero, of course, though I doubted Commodus was smart or stealthy enough to have pulled this off.

The culprit could also be some complete wild card, but it seemed awfully coincidental for them to attack at the same time as the Triumvirate. Outsourcing was always a possibility I supposed, Caligula had shown a fondness for hiring mercenaries already. Though what mercenary group could break into the Underworld and tempt some of my Eurynomos away without my noticing, I had no idea.

The ghoul blustered about how its Master’s armies would rise and kill the food, all the usual drivel. Apollo warned Meg not to let the ghoul scratch her.

“My brother remembers the eurynomos’ abilities,” Artemis said, sounding relieved.

I nodded. I doubted either of them would wish to be touched by the ghoul anyway, but knowing you’d die and be reanimated as one of the enemies if that happened was a powerful incentive to stay away.

Apollo shot an arrow at the ghoul. It bounced off, leaving only a small mark behind. It yelped, but didn’t seem to be much more impactful than a bee sting.

The ghoul moved towards the hearse, where Jason’s corpse lay.

“It had better not defile Jason’s body!” Hera hissed. 

“Better someone who’s dead than my daughter,” Demeter said, shrugging.

“Jason DIED saving your daughter! Saving everyone!” Hera retorted. “He deserves better than to be desecrated like that!”

Meg moved to block the eurynomos’ advance. Apollo pushed her out of the way, placing himself between her and the ghoul as he fired arrows at it, the ghoul relentlessly advancing regardless, until it was close enough to reach out and–

“HEY!” an unknown voice shouted. That distracted the ghoul long enough for Apollo to fall on his butt and crawl away.

Ares sniggered. “Real courageous there, Apollo.”

I silently agreed, but sincerely. While he hadn’t put on the most successful display of force against the eurynomos, he had done so while subtly protecting Meg, ensuring that if one of them was injured by the ghoul, it’d be him. More altruistic than I would have expected of him – or any god, really – before these trials, but after watching him these last few months, it was hardly a surprise. He’d been doing this since the first day Zeus sent him careening to Earth.

The camera panned out enough to show who’d spoken – a teenage girl with bright pink hair, accompanied by numerous fauns and dryads. She held a manubalista in her hands, clumsily trying to work the device.

“Unusual choice,” Vulcan noted.

I winced as I, and many of my brethren, shifted to our Roman forms. I knew the time would come, given our proximity to Camp Jupiter and the effect Roman demigods had on us, but it didn’t make it easier.

At least I no longer felt torn in two, unlike when the camps were at war. If I was determined, I could keep to my Greek form, but I was not so disproportionately attached to it to be willing to expend that effort.

“A poor choice, in most circumstances,” Athena added. Unsurprisingly, she opted to keep her Greek form. I supposed being the goddess of war tactics as Athena was far more appealing and useful right now than being the goddess of crafts as Minerva. “With how difficult it is to aim and how long it takes to reload, most of its wielders would be dead before they had a chance to kill and enemy with it, especially if they were out in the middle of the battlefield like she is. In these circumstances, however, it may prove to be a better option than most.”

Vulcan nodded. “What the manubalista loses in accuracy and speed, it makes up for in power. If it hits the ghoul, it should be able to down it in one shot.”

“‘If it hits’ being the operative words,” Mercury muttered.

The girl tried to warn the ghoul away, but it didn’t care. “YOU CANNOT OPPOSE ME, ROMAN! I HAVE ALREADY TASTED THE FLESH OF YOUR COMRADES! AT THE BLOOD MOON, YOU WILL JOIN–”

She fired the manubalista, turning the ghoul to dust.

Mars let out a low whistle. “Maybe more people should take those things up. Sure, it’s risky and a lot of the users might die, but look at that carnage!” he gestured to the screen.

“I am more concerned with Camp Jupiter’s fate,” Vulcan said. “Leo confirmed that it’s still standing, but from how he described it and what the eurynomos is saying, I doubt that most of the demigods are alright. People cannot be repaired or replaced as easily as machines can.”

I had not been keeping close tabs on the Underworld lately, given how much time I’d been spending on Olympus. I had not thought to check on whether there’d been a bump in the number of demigods entering my realm. Perhaps I should do so next time Jupiter released us, maybe even find this “Master” if they were so moronic as to linger in my realm.

The girl (Lavinia, apparently) asked who Apollo and Meg were. Apollo told her their names and explained that they were transporting Jason’s corpse, which shook her. 

A loud wail sounded in the distance

“Um, hey, don’t those ghoul thing usually hunt in pairs?” one of the fauns brought up.

That snapped Lavinia out of it, and to trying to usher Apollo and Meg to camp, along with their cargo.

I raised an eyebrow. “I did not know that fauns, of all beings, were up to date on the hunting practices of eurynomos.” Truthfully I had forgotten that little factoid myself, not that I’d admit it when I didn’t have to.

“Well, they have to do something all day,” Mercury said, shrugging. “Maybe this one likes to watch documentaries about the undead?”

“I’d imagine that after they attacked Camp Jupiter, everyone suddenly became an expert on eurynomos. As tends to happen whenever there is a major event like that,” Diana noted.

Chapter Text

I was glad that as Demeter, at least, I’d gotten a child who could finally show off my strength, could cause the other gods to sit up and take note of the power of my children, and of myself. But why couldn’t I have that as Ceres as well? 

People always thought of me as being even weaker than I was in my Greek form, and THEN assumed that that carried over to my children. Why couldn’t Meg be from my Roman side, showing everyone that they’re wrong about that, that I am just as powerful as a Roman as I am as a Greek?

At least some Romans appreciated nature. The fact that this girl, Lavinia, had even managed to recruit fauns – beings often looked down upon as freeloaders – to her side, showed an interest in overlooked nature that few Romans possessed.

The fauns and dryads all scattered at the prospect of carrying Jason’s coffin, except for Don, who Lavinia grabbed before he could leave, guilt-tripping him by referring to some incident with Poison Oak, so that she could get him to stick around to help.

“Cowards,” Mars sneered.

“They’re just looking after themselves!” I defended. Truthfully, I wish they hadn’t fled. It was difficult to get Romans to take any being seriously who didn’t like to work and who refused to fight unless forced to do so. Which often meant that nature spirits at Camp Jupiter were looked down upon. 

I still didn’t understand why nature spirits at Camp Jupiter were often less courageous than their Camp Half-blood counterparts. Maybe if I did, I could encourage them to stand up and fight, to improve their standing in society, to make the Romans respect them, for once. 

This Lavinia girl seemed to be giving that a shot at least. I’d have to keep an eye on her. 

Apollo clarified to Meg that the “Poison Oak” Don had mentioned was likely a dryad that Lavinia had a crush on, similar to Meg’s crush on Joshua. Both Meg and Lavinia hotly denied their crushes.

“Besides, isn’t Poison Oak… like, poisonous?” Meg asked.

“Poison Oak is gorgeous!” Lavinia shot back. “Which is not to say I’d definitely go out with her–”

“She’d definitely go out with her,” Venus smirked.

“I think we all picked up on that,” Vulcan said drily. 

I huffed. That wasn’t the important part! Though I did love that this girl appreciated dryad beauty, the beauty of plants. “Poison oaks are not poisonous ! People just call them that because allergic reactions to them are very common, that’s all.”

Mars shrugged. “Hey, they cause people to get hurt when they touch them, doesn’t matter whether they technically are ‘poisonous’ or not,” he said, making air quotes with his fingers.

“Proper definitions for things are important,” Athena said stiffly.

Mars rolled his eyes.

Don, Meg, Apollo, and Lavinia carried Jason’s coffin, Lavinia worrying about whether someone would notice she wasn’t on guard duty. Eventually, they got to a tunnel, where they had to switch up the carrying configuration in order to fit the coffin through it.

Finally, Apollo told everyone to stop, his arms shaking as he and Don set the coffin down.

“We can’t rest long,” Lavinia warned. “My sentry shift must have ended by now. My partner’s probably wondering where I am.”

“Will your partner report you?” Apollo asked.

“Not unless she has to. She’s my centurion, but she’s cool.”

“Your centurion gave you permission to sneak off?”

“Not exactly. She just kinda turned a blind eye, you know? She gets it.”

Mars narrowed his eyes at Lavinia, respect and contempt warring across his expression. Ares would fully approve of that kind of rule-breaking, but Mars was a little more focused on discipline and everyone doing their part. 

Athena had no such uncertainty. She snorted. “Romans are becoming laxer, I see.”

That tipped the scales. “If she hadn’t snuck out, Apollo and Meg would be ghoul food,” Mars snapped. “Her centurion knows what she’s doing. Lavinia’s unorthodox, but if it works, it works.”

“We will see,” Athena said.

I held back a sigh. These two were always exhausting. I doubted it would get any better now that we were heading towards a place that worshipped Mars especially highly (for reasons I could not fathom), while giving Minerva little thought. 

At least Athena had her statue back, or she’d truly be intolerable.

Noises rang through the tunnel that weren’t the usual undead wailing that had been going on-and-off for the past several minutes. Hazel Lavesque appeared. 

Unfortunately, two of the eurynomoi showed up as well.

Pluto let out a low hiss. “More deserters?”

“Not keeping a good eye on your domain, I see,” Neptune noted.

Neptune was another one of us who had not fared well in the transition to Roman culture. I, at least, was better off than him – he’d gone from being one of the most respected and feared gods with the Greeks, to only being acknowledged by Romans when they wanted to not be killed by the sea, which they didn’t travel very often. He wasn’t quite as offended by it as Athena had been (NO ONE took the transition harder than she had), but he still wasn’t fond of how neglected his temple had been, though that did appear to be turning around somewhat with Percy’s feats improving his PR. 

“I’d like to see you keep track of everyone under your domain!” Pluto growled.

“I am not the one who’s having their employees sniped out from under them by some unknown entity,” Neptune pointed out.

Pluto scowled.

Chapter Text

Honestly, the nerve of Neptune! Just because my employees were being sniped instead of his, he thought that gave him license to accuse me of carelessness! He was just fortunate that so few of our enemies would want or need undersea minions. If they did, he’d have just as big of a problem on his hands. I doubt they were any more content with his wages or the work he gave them than my own workers were. Honestly, they could be so entitled. 

Though I would grant that Cerberus at least seemed a lot happier since Nico had begun playing with him and taking him out on walks, I hadn’t noticed much of an increase in his capability of doing his job – if anything, Nico taking him out meant that he had less chance to guard the Underworld. But playing with Cerberus made Nico happy at least. After everything he’d been through, my son deserved happiness.

Nico wasn’t the only one of my children who’d suffered. Hazel had arguably had it even worse, dying decades ago, only to be revived in a world she didn’t recognize, where everyone she’d ever known had long since died. At least Nico could relate.

I stared at Hazel, drinking in her appearance. Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t risk paying too close attention to my daughter. She technically wasn’t supposed to be alive, after all. 

I suppose that I could thank Jupiter in that respect – he’d given me an excuse to catch up on Hazel’s activities, without making it seem like I was breaking any rules. Not that I ever actually would thank my brother for that, he wasn’t exactly having us watch Apollo for altruistic reasons.

The demigods (and Apollo) readied themselves for battle against the ghouls. Meg managed to slice off one of their arms, but not before one of them scratched Apollo.

“...The Romans have ways of healing a eurynomos-infected wound… right?” Diana asked shakily.

I frowned. “They do, but it would be difficult, and they’d have to catch it early. If over twenty four hours passed without treatment, then only divine intervention would be capable of curing Apollo.”

“Then he’ll be fine,” Diana said, more calmly this time. “They’re not far from camp. If something delayed them that long… well, I doubt the wound would be their biggest problem at that point.”

I nodded. Unless everyone was killed, I couldn’t see how it would take them all that long to get to a medic. 

Hazel stabbed one of the eurynomos, turning it to dust.

Meg ignored an opening to slash at her own ghoul, running to Apollo instead. “You okay? You’re bleeding. You said don’t get scratched. You got scratched!”

“Yes, he did,” Diana murmured, a worried expression on her face.

I couldn’t blame her. Such a scratch wouldn’t kill Apollo immediately, but even with medical attention, he’d still likely be dead within a week unless the infection was purged completely. The medics at Camp Jupiter ought to be able to accomplish that, but it’d still be touch-and-go at first.

The eurynomos taunted Hazel as she alone defended the group, though judging by the change in its voice, it had been possessed. “Hazel Levesque. You of all people should understand the fragile boundary between life and death. But don’t be afraid. I will save a special place for you at my side, along with your beloved Frank. You will make glorious skeletons.”

Mars scoffed. “He really thinks Frank will fall to him? If he got scratched, he’d rather die a Roman than become one of the enemy. Besides, my son’s too stubborn to perish to that thing,” he gestured at the screen.

“You can fight as hard as you can and still lose,” Juno reminded him solemnly.

Mars rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah, Jason fought bravely, he had a hero’s death. But we’re talking about Frank here. His life has been hanging on a piece of wood since he was born. He’s stubbornly stuck around despite that, and I don’t see that changing now.”

I was less certain. Frank always had a thick possibility of death surrounding him, but it never felt like it could get at him, somehow. Perhaps Thanatos was reluctant to claim Frank’s life after he saved him. I certainly was not eager to see Frank in my realm, given how he’d gone above and beyond to rescue Nico from Triptolemus and heal Hazel. 

“Unless you intend to run and abandon that lovely coffin, you might as well surrender. We are strong underground, daughter of Pluto. Too strong for you,” the eurynomos boasted.

“Oh? Good to know,” Hazel told it casually.

The tunnel shook, rocks spiking out of the walls.

I grinned. Nico may be the child of mine who got the most attention – at least as far as I could tell, given how limited my observation of Hazel was – but she was no slouch in the power department either. The ability to control the ground, to summon minerals and crystals… that could be very powerful, especially when say, both you and your enemy were in a tunnel. 

Hazel ordered Don and Lavinia to carry the coffin away, and Meg to help Apollo to camp. “We have healers at camp who can deal with that ghoul scratch,” she told them.

“Perhaps your assessment of the incurability of such an injury is outdated?” Diana suggested hopefully.

I frowned. It was possible. Before Asclepius made his cure, I would have said that bringing the dead back to life was purely the domain of gods. 

Still, I doubted it. No one at Camp Jupiter was up to par with Apollo’s favorite son. 

The tunnel collapsed, Hazel catching up to the group moments later, asking about who was in the coffin. 

Hazel fell to her knees in shock when she heard the answer. She’d had nightmares about the fight, but hadn’t known what they meant. Apollo explained the whole story. 

After a few minutes she composed herself, offering to carry one of the sides of the coffin.

Eventually, they reached the camp, which looked remarkably intact given the battles it had recently been through. Then again, Romans were experts at quick rebuilding.

Hazel worked out a story with Lavinia to cover up that she’d left her post. Then, they headed down to the principia, so that Apollo could explain to everyone what happened to Jason Grace.

I did not envy Apollo. People did not tend to take the deaths of their friends well, especially if they were also a leader figure during a time of crisis. 

Then again, the Romans had always handled this kind of thing better than the Greeks had. Judging by Hazel’s and Lavinia’s reactions, they may not receive as negative of a welcome as might be expected.

Chapter Text

They’d all made it to camp without Jason being touched by a corpse-eater. That was a relief. The fact that Jason had died – that his own father had allowed him to die – was bad enough. Being turned against his former comrades would have been a desecration beyond measure.

Hazel led the group to the front of the principia, meeting up with the praetors, Frank and Reyna.

Mars snickered. “So Venus, are ya gonna smite him if Apollo looks at Reyna the wrong way?”

I held in a snort. I still wasn’t sure why Venus was so deadset on Apollo staying away from Reyna as to make a whole production out of it. If Reyna had been her own child, then sure, I could understand, but Bellona’s child? Why her?

“No, I will not,” she said, smirking. “I told him not to show his godly face around Reyna after all.” She arched an eyebrow. “Does he appear to have a godly face right now?”

Diana’s eyes widened in realization. “You anticipated this. You set a specific condition without anyone even realizing it.”

Venus shrugged. “I had a feeling.”

While we gods couldn’t see the future precisely – especially with Delphi blocked off – we still had some vague prophetic abilities, enough to have some clue what would happen, or needed to happen. It seemed like Venus’s prophetic sense had told her that she needed to lambast Apollo with her warning in front of an audience. Either that, or she just felt like humiliating Apollo. Hard to tell with her.

Hazel introduced Meg and Apollo to Reyna. Reyna asked who was in the coffin, much as Hazel had.

Apollo answered via song. A stirring song, gut-wrenchingly laying out everything Apollo and Meg had been through, from the time he fell to Olympus to being attacked by the eurynomoi, interweaving lines noting Jason’s bravery and sacrifice throughout. By the end, there was barely a dry eye in the room.

I was no exception to that. The Fall of Jason Grace was one of Apollo’s greatest masterpieces, born from his heart in a way that few others of his songs could match. Only the song he sang in the myrmekes nest could possibly compare, and this song had a far stronger message throughout it. A fitting tribute to my champion.

I glanced at Jupiter. His eyes shone with pride.

I saw no guilt in them. 

No acknowledgement of his own role in everything that had happened – everything that had gone wrong. 

Reyna and Frank declared that they would realize Jason’s vision of building temples to all the gods, that they’d accomplish it in a single weekend. But for now, Apollo and Meg needed a place to stay and rest.

Apollo must have agreed, because he promptly passed out, plowing face-first into the dirt.

“So how long do ya think we’ll have to wait for Sleeping Beauty to wake up?” Mars asked.

I frowned. The resident medic in our group was currently face-down in dirt, which complicated measures. Still, I could make an educated guess. “Apollo has been through quite a lot in the past few days.” What with nearly being flayed out of existence , I didn’t add. “Combined with needing to fight off the eurynomos’s curse, I would guess that it would be quite awhile. A day, minimum.”

Mars glanced over at my husband.

Jupiter sighed. “You may all take a 24 hour recess,” he stated begrudgingly. “No more than that. If Apollo wakes up earlier than that, I reserve the right to call you all back immediately.” He glared at Mars. “ No delays .”

Mars waved him off. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ll be back before Sleeping Beauty here wakes up from his nap.” He hopped off his throne, striding out of the room, no doubt to revel in a battlefield somewhere.

I walked off, disappearing to my own, private palace. I didn’t particularly feel like staying at my husband’s place at the moment.

A day later, we all shuffled back in, Mars only seconds away from the deadline Jupiter set. Turned out, Apollo was still asleep, tossing and turning and muttering as Meg watched over him. 

… for nearly twelve hours .

I was impressed by her patience, I hadn’t expected that from her. But I suppose that when you care about someone who was hurt, even watching them sleep was better than sitting around somewhere else, stewing, worrying about them and just hoping you’d hear as soon as they woke up.

Not that I had experience with that. Jason was the closest I’d ever come to having a mortal child, and most of my family would rather throw a party than worry over me when I was hurt. I had few people to either be concerned about or to be concerned for me. 

That was fine. I didn’t need anyone to care about my health or safety. I was the Queen of the Gods. I could take care of myself. 

Finally, Apollo awoke, screaming his head off. From nightmares or pain, I wasn’t sure. Meg informed Apollo that the healers had treated his wound to the best of their ability, that they were in a room above a coffee shop, and that he’d been asleep for a day and a half. And that she drank coffee now, which seemed to be the fact that disturbed him the most. From what I’d seen of her over the past few weeks, I couldn’t blame him.

Apollo looked out the window, where campers were busily constructing various temples. The sounds of hammering and large vehicles moving echoing faintly through the projection screen, now that I was listening for it.

“Wow. Those Romans don’t mess around,” Apollo murmured. 

“Tonight’s the funeral for Jason,” Meg said. “They’re trying to finish up work before then.”

I nodded, smiling slightly. I’d always liked Roman demigods. They were generally more dutiful than their Grecian counterparts, and better at working together as a team, allowing them to construct truly breathtaking monuments to us gods. 

Though in this case, I’d argue that their construction of the temples to all the assorted gods, fulfilling Jason’s promise, honored Jason even more than it honored those lesser gods. 

A raven fluttered into the room.

“Meg, are you seeing this?” Apollo asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, not even bothering to look up. “Hey, Frank. What’s up?”

The bird swiftly shape-shifted back into Frank Zhang.

“If I wasn’t completely certain that Frank was Mars’s son,” Diana said, sounding amused. “I would assume he was my brother’s. The door isn’t exactly hard to access, turning into a bird just to fly in was completely unnecessary. Very dramatic, though.”

“But he IS my son,” Mars said proudly. He couldn’t have preened more if he’d been a bird himself. 

“I’m more interested in how Meg knew that the bird was Frank,” Mercury asked, puzzled. “Does he fly around as a raven that often? She didn’t even really look at him, she just knew she was right.”

“My daughter’s amazing, what more reason is needed?” Ceres scoffed.

Frank waffled around Apollo, seeming a bit nervous. 

“You’ve been very kind to us, Praetor Zhang,” Apollo told him. “Thank you.”

“Erm, sure. It’s, you know, an honor, seeing as you’re… or you were–”

“Ugh, Frank,” Meg cut in. “It’s just Lester. Don’t treat him like a big deal.”

Mars rolled his eyes. “Why does Meg understand better than my own son?” he muttered. “Like she said, he’s just Lester , no reason to put up a fuss about him.”

“Frank initially assumed that he was Apollo’s son, given his own proclivity for archery,” Diana said. “He prayed to him constantly, wishing that Apollo would claim him. Of course, that never happened, but some of that yearning for recognition seems to have stuck around.”

Mars scoffed. “I don’t see why, I’m far more awesome than Apollo. The only person he could possibly be the kid of is this guy right here,” he said, pointing both thumbs back at himself. 

The three of them talked about the prophecy Apollo had received (and in part recounted) back in the Burning Maze. Frank seemed to have some clue about parts of what the prophecy meant, something to do with Ella and Tyson figuring something out. Frank offered to walk Apollo around New Rome.

I smiled. It’d been awhile since I’d seen New Rome. I’d only gotten glimpses of it when Apollo entered camp a couple days ago. It was likely to be in rough shape, given recent events, but I was looking forward to being able to assess the damage for myself.

Chapter Text

I let out a quiet huff. It’d been nearly two days, and there still hadn’t been any drama between Apollo and Reyna! Not romantic drama, at any rate. Honestly, Apollo napping for over a day was overkill. Just because he was slowly turning into a zombie didn’t mean he had to bore the rest of us to death watching him.

Frank and Apollo walked through New Rome. 

“So, what’s with you and Reyna?” Frank asked.

“What? Nothing. What?” Apollo stammered.

“It’s just that… when you saw Reyna. You froze, like… I dunno, you realized you owed her money or something.”

Apollo laughed bitterly. “There is nothing with Reyna and me. I don’t think we’ve ever exchanged more than a few words.”

Several of my compatriots smirked, no doubt remembering the dressing-down I gave Apollo that day. 

Like most Olympians, I had a minor prophetic sense, able to vaguely tell what might happen, or what needed to happen. With Reyna, I’d been able to tell she needed a bit of a push in the romantic department just from meeting her. She and Jason clearly had something between them, but it wasn’t the something she suspected it was, or even really wanted it to be.

As much as it rankled me, compulsive amatonormativity could be a problem at times. Even if someone was able to be romantically attracted to others, the pressure to enter a relationship before they were ready could scupper any chances they had of achieving a happy, stable relationship. Now, I liked my share of dramatic breakups and heartache, but contrary to popular belief, I was sometimes invested in nurturing positive outcomes. Especially if, like in this case, the best way to do it involved some delicious drama first. 

Reyna just needed to realize that she was simply craving companionship and support, not romance. I had a feeling that Lester would provide the perfect vehicle for that.

Not that I was consciously aware of what would happen to Apollo. I just knew he’d be involved with Reyna somehow, in a way that’d make her come to the realization she didn’t need a romantic partner. And that the best way (or the most fun way) to set Apollo up for that role was to yell at him not to show her godly face around her.

I originally assumed that it’d just be reverse psychology, attracting him to Reyna more. I hadn’t anticipated that he would literally lose his godly face.

Apollo realized that Frank and Reyna had been taking shifts, making sure one person was always on duty, what with the massive battle Camp Jupiter had just been through, and the promise of more strife to come. Frank reassured him that without Apollo sending Leo to warn them, it would’ve been even worse. As it was, Leo had been able to give them a heads up, and then the entire camp lined up to punch him for worrying them so much.

Frank described the battle with the undead. “There were hundreds, along with dozens of those ghost things, eurynomoi, acting as herders. We cut them down. They just kept coming. You’d think having a fire-breathing dragon would’ve been a game-changer, but Festus could only do so much. The undead aren’t so flammable as you might think.”

Pluto rolled his eyes. “I’ve never understood why humans are so convinced that fire will decimate the undead,” he complained. “It’s not like most of them are doused in oil, and they may not even be wearing any clothing to catch on fire! Sure, it’s possible to destroy them via fire if it’s hot enough to cremate them, but that’s far more likely to be harmful to the living than the dead. Anything short of fire hot enough to completely disintegrate their bodies is unlikely to bother living corpses much. You’d be better off crushing them beneath a giant rock, then they’d have to manage to pry themselves out of there.”

Frank explained that they’d turned the army back at the river, but that “bodies beyond count” didn’t mean what it sounded like it meant. He was interrupted by Terminus before he could explain further. 

I hummed, looking Terminus over. Not that there was much to see, being just a plinth from the armpits down. The part of him that was more humanoid looked fine, but could have used a more fashionable presentation - perhaps a hat and a scarf? He was no Galatea, but he was still a handsome statue.

Terminus, evidently in a terrible mood (not that that was unusual, from my few interactions with him), demanded ID for Apollo. He protested, but eventually showed off his Zeus-provided driver’s license.

“Very well, Lester,” Terminus crowed. “It’s unusual to have a mortal visitor to our city – an extremely mortal visitor – but I suppose we can allow it. Here to shop for a new toga? Or perhaps some skinny jeans?”

Mars let out a bark of laughter. “Seems Terminus is feistier than usual! Not often he gets to give as good as he gets.”

I nodded, smirking as I remembered the times Mars and Apollo would tease Terminus over his inability to wear pants, or more commonly in Mars’ case, his inability to hold the weapons he was so fond of confiscating. My boyfriend loved to waltz into the city with fifteen different weapons strapped to him as Terminus threw a fit in the background, unable to do a thing about it. 

Now that the shoe was on the other foot (not that Terminus could wear one), it seemed that he was taking advantage of his newfound power.

Terminus finally allowed Apollo through, congratulating him on his upcoming birthday, something which confused both Apollo and us watchers.

“Apollo’s birthday isn’t coming up yet,” Diana said, confused. “Not for awhile yet. Why would Apollo’s – or, I suppose, Lester’s – driver’s license say that?”

I turned to look at Jupiter. He had, presumably, created the license. He ought to have an explanation.

He stared back, silently daring one of us to ask.

No one did.

Maybe he didn’t even have a reason. Maybe he just chose something random that he KNEW wasn’t Apollo’s actual birthday just for an extra level of petty revenge. I would not put that past him.

Apollo was just as flummoxed as the rest of us. At first, anyway. A moment after staring at his driver’s license, he paled. “I- I think my father left me a warning,” Apollo said. “Or perhaps a threat? And Terminus just pointed it out to me.”

“How can your birthday be a threat?” Frank asked.

“I’m mortal now. Birthdays are always a threat.”

“Father?” Diana asked carefully. Not wanting to anger him more than she already had, I supposed. She’d already been electrocuted several times and still, even now, remained chained to her throne. 

“You will understand in due time,” he replied imperiously.

I suspected that by that, he meant that he, himself, would understand in due time. He may pretend to have a better grasp of our godly prophetic powers than the rest of us, but I doubted that was actually the case. He probably just put it on there because he had some sense that it would be meaningful later.

Either that other was actually bluffing and the date was completely random. That was still a distinct possibility.

As they continued walking, Apollo asked how many people they lost. At least twenty five out of the two hundred and fifty troops they normally had, as it turned out, a decimation.

Frank explained the meaning of “bodies without count” – it didn’t mean that there were too many bodies to count, it meant that a lot of those who died or disappeared were dragged away by the undead or swallowed by the ground, so they couldn’t be counted.

“Those missing troops will not stay missing for long,” Pluto said grimly. “Though the next time they’re seen, they’ll almost certainly be fighting for the other side.”

 A little girl who often accompanied Terminus, Julia, had both of her parents killed in the fight. She was staying with a foster family at the moment.

Apollo was glad that at least the city didn’t burn, given the prophecy.

Frank laughed. “Yeah, funny thing about that… prophecy lines don’t always mean what you think they do.”

They entered a bookstore, where Tyson the cyclops was… getting a tattoo?

I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t known that cyclopes liked such things, or could even get them – cyclopes skin was quite tough. Then again, Romans were quite determined. If they really wanted to tattoo a cyclops, they’d find a way. 

Hm… that presented some fascinating opportunities for Cyclopes body art and fashion statements…

Chapter Text

I wrinkled my nose. I could practically smell the burning Cyclopes skin from here. Why Frank thought it was necessary to have Apollo meet up with Tyson and Ella while they were having a tattooing session, I did not know. 

As Tyson turned around, leading them back into the bookshop, I squinted. For some reason he’d chosen to have lines of… squiggles all over his body?

Wait… no way… was that…?

Tyson and Apollo made small talk, Tyson showing him around the bookstore (whose original owner had evidently died), and escorting him to Ella – though not before running into a feline friend. 

“That’s Aristophanes,” Tyson informed Apollo as the cat pushed its face against Apollo’s leg. “He’s harmless.”

Diana leaned forwards as much as she could considering those chains my husband had confined her with, her eyes sparkling. “He’s gorgeous…”

Ah, of course. As much as she loved her hunting dogs, Diana had always had a soft spot for cats as well, one she rarely got to indulge in thanks to the aforementioned dogs. Not that she was comfortable talking about such frivolities in my presence, but Apollo liked to loudly complain about how Diana was more interested in paying attention to any cats she ran into on Olympus than him.

Frank explained that the only way to record the words in the correct order was on living skin – “words that memory wrought are set to fire” referred to Ella needing to heat up the tattooing needle in order to pierce Tyson’s skin.

Mars raised an eyebrow. “How’d they figure that out? What, did a bunch of ink and needles get thrown at Tyson during the battle and Ella realized that something felt right about that?”

“Maybe Ella was doodling the words on a piece of paper, Tyson got in the way, she accidentally scribbled on him and she suddenly realized the words were coming to her in order?” Mercury suggested. 

“Well I think that Ella just wanted an opportunity to show everyone that Tyson was taken, to claim her as his, and have an excuse to rove her hands all over his body and examine him intimately for ‘work’.” Venus said smugly, making air quotes with her hands.

After a bit of back-and-forth, Ella was able to find a reference to Tarquin’s Tomb in the Sibylline books, though nothing about Bellona or a soundless god. “A wildcat near the spinning lights,” she recited. “The tomb of Tarquin with horses bright. To open his door, two-fifty-four.”

Frank and Apollo concluded that the tomb it referred to was probably that of Tarquinius Superbus. He hadn’t died anywhere near the US of course, but a lot of those sorts of locations had traveled to the US in recent decades.

Apollo asked whether Ella had any more information for them. 

“Hmm. Firewood. Something. No. That’s for later,” she replied.

“Um, Ella? We don’t talk about the firewood,” Frank said nervously.

“Nah, let’s talk about the firewood,” Mars said, turning to me. “So Juno, why did you tie my kid’s life to a piece of kindling again?”

I huffed. Not this misconception again. “I did no such thing. The Fates were the ones that connected that piece of wood to his thread. I merely saved him from burning up early.”

Pluto nodded. “Only the flames of life could free Thanatos from his chains. I suppose the Fates knew that something like Frank’s firewood, something flammable connected to a mortal’s life essence, would be necessary in a few years. So they made sure it was available.”

I nodded, grimacing slightly. I didn’t like reminders of how much clearer the Fates’ visions of the future were than of even the most accomplished Oracles – or just how much sway they had over everyone’s, even gods, eventual fates.

Frank and Apollo left, heading to Jason’s funeral.

“Apollo. Are you prepared?” Reyna asked.

“For…?”

“For you to launch into an epic song and dance number, obviously,” Mars rolled his eyes. “Idiot. They’re obviously waiting for you to start officiating, you’re the closest thing to a priest the camp has right now.”

“I would not have worded it quite like that, but yes,” Pluto said. “Which is a situation they will need to rectify quickly, I might add. There are likely to be many more deaths on the horizon.”

After a moment of the legion staring at him expectantly, Apollo seemed to grasp what they wanted. “Come, my friends. Let us escort our brother to his final feast.”

Apollo continued leading the funeral well enough, though he appeared a bit glazed, his heart not in it like it was when he sang about Jason’s life a few days ago.

At one point though he paused, a flash of realization crossed his face. 

Apollo? Apollo,” Reyna said insistently. 

“I’m fine,” he continued with the ceremony.

“You are not fine, brother,” Diana grumbled. “You have not been fine in a very long time.”

“I just hope he does not forget whatever it is he seems to have put together,” Athena commented. “It may well be important.”

Once they’d gotten to a stopping point, Reyna and Frank asked what was up with Apollo’s pause, worrying about his wound. Apollo clarified that he’d stopped because he’d remembered something, and he’d tell them later, moving instead to asking about Jason’s family. “I don’t suppose you guys had any luck notifying Jason’s family? Thalia?”

“We tried, of course,” Reyna sounded frustrated. “Thalia’s the only earthly family he had. But with the communication problems…”

“I wish we could wait for Thalia.”

“I know. Let’s begin,” Apollo started reciting the ritual to lay Jason to rest.

“He doesn’t need her,” I grumbled. “Jason was never even supposed to see Thalia again, she doesn’t need to come to his funeral.” 

“Thalia deserves to be here!” Diana insisted. “She thought Jason was dead for years and only just reunited with him last year, she ought to be able to send him off!”

Of course Diana had tried to get Jupiter to allow her to leave, to at least inform Thalia of her brother’s death, but had been denied as punishment for her earlier insolence. I wondered whether her current affirmation that Thalia should be present was a subtle jab at Jupiter for preventing her from informing her lieutenant.

If so, she’d be disappointed. Jupiter was really good at not noticing slights if it didn’t suit him, and talented at inventing them when it did. Subtlety was often lost on him.

They finished Jason’s funeral, leaving him to his final rest. 

Lupa appeared, beckoning Apollo away. 

“Looks like the wolf goddess wants to have a private word,” Reyna informed Apollo. “We’ll get the feast started. You go ahead. Hopefully Lupa isn’t angry. Or hungry.”

“That would be some end,” Mars snorted. “Survived stabbing himself in the gut and being flayed alive, only for Lupa to eat him.”

“She would do no such thing,” Diana told him stiffly. “He’s a member of her pack, even if he’s never been through her usual training. She is not going to harm him, unless he does something stupid.”

“Seems likely, then,” Mars commented airily.

 Diana rolled her eyes.

Chapter Text

I’d never been a fan of Lupa.

She was an integral part of Roman culture and Camp Jupiter, a fantastic trainer for Roman demigods and legacies who made sure new recruits were up to snuff before they ever had a chance to join. 

But she freaked me out.

She just liked to glare, growl, and flip her ears in ways that I was sure meant something unkind. Even though she was a goddess, she either couldn’t make herself speak a normal godly language, or refused to, instead only speaking in Wolf – a language that I had never learned, and refused to study up on just because of one ornery wolf goddess. 

I avoided her as much as I could. Her glares always felt like they were looking straight into my soul, and even though I was her king, I never got the impression that she appreciated my authority.

‘

Apollo followed Lupa into my temple, stopping in front of my statue.

I let my eyes flick to my statue for a moment. The Romans knew how to do me justice, making sure the statue would strike fear and awe into whoever saw it. With my lightning bolt raised in my hand, any visitors would recognize that I was not a force to be trifled with.

Lupa stood there, making some sort of gestures.

“My time, for what exactly?” Apollo asked. 

She bit the air.

“Fine. I know what you mean,” Apollo continued. “The last lines from the Dark Prophecy. I’ve reached the Tiber alive, et cetera, et cetera. Now I am supposed to ‘jive’. I assume that entails more than dancing and snapping my fingers?”

Lupa’s stomach growled so loudly it was audible through the screen. She glanced at the funeral pyre, flicking her ears.

“Tarquinius Superbus. He’s the one who sent the undead. He’ll attack again at the Blood Moon,” Apollo said.

Mercury groaned. “Great. Just great. The telepathic arrow wasn’t bad enough, now we have to watch a one-sided conversation with the moody wolf goddess as well. Such a thrill, only knowing half of what’s going on.”

“It’s not Lupa’s fault that none of the rest of you deigned to learn the great and noble language of the wolf!” Diana complained.

Athena coughed.

“Okay, most of you refused to learn it,” Diana amended. “At any rate, the complex language she’s using can’t be fully appreciated through the screen, we’re losing out on the rich subtext of the pheremones she’s releasing.”

“This is why Smell-O-Vision is necessary,” Vulcan announced. I had a feeling he’d happily have latched onto any reason to shill his beloved, ill-fated accessory. “It can provide a world of context that is simply missing otherwise.”

“Dude, no one needs the context of a skunk spray,” Mercury complained. He wrinkled his nose. “I’ve smelt it enough on earth, I don’t need that stench to permeate the room when I’m just trying to relax with a fun movie.”

“Perhaps you should have had the foresight not to choose Over The Hedge as the movie to test out the feature with,” Vulcan retorted.

“Once I explore this tomb and get out alive… what then?” Apollo asked.

Lupa twitched.

“Defeat the silence. You mean the soundless god? The doorway that Reyna’s supposed to open?”

Apollo stared upwards at my statue.

I smirked. Right now, Apollo was probably regretting defying me, ready to throw himself at my feet if he thought it would lighten his punishment, if I would show mercy to him. Of course, I wasn’t going to, I said he would need to complete his trials and I was going to stick to that. But him getting a reminder of his place in the hierarchy didn’t hurt.

Apollo closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating my greatness no doubt. Moments later, his eyes snapped open. “Help. As in godly help. You mean if I survive the tomb and– and defeat the soundless whatever-it-is, I might be able to summon godly help?”

Wait, what?

What had Lupa been saying?! 

Summoning a god? Who? And how? I’d forbidden everyone from helping him. Granted, that didn’t stop Britomartis, but Artemis had sent her, and even then her help was limited.

I glanced at Diana, still chained to her throne, as she had been for the past few days. She would not be able to pull that stunt a second time.

Lupa snarled.

“No.” Apollo looked her in the eyes. “No, I will succeed. I won’t allow any more losses. There has to be a way.”

Lupa sniffed, before vanishing.

“Thank you,” Apollo told the empty room.

“Well, that conversation was clear as mud,” Mercury complained. “Is he finding animals and inanimate objects to talk with just to annoy everyone watching? Because if so, it’s working.”

“Even with the unfortunate lack of one of the senses, Lupa’s intentions, what she wanted to convey, are clear to those of us who know what to look for,” Diana insisted. “She needs Apollo to step up, to gain confidence, to lead the pack. Otherwise, more pups will die.”

“Summoning help though… how will that work?” Mercury pondered. 

Diana shrugged as best she could with my chains, carefully not looking at me, I noticed. “I do not know.”

I narrowed my eyes. She shouldn’t be able to help Apollo at all with my chains around her, but still… 

Well. Diana had experienced my displeasure at her interference many times at this point. Hopefully she knew better than to chance it again, while already under punishment, no less.

Apollo told Reyna and Frank that he’d gotten Lupa’s blessing, but frustratingly, nothing more detailed than that. Afterwards, Apollo had a picnic with Meg where she regaled him with tales about her times in the unicorn stables, picking up their poop.

“Meg fully appreciates what wonderful creatures unicorns are it seems,” Neptune said, stroking his beard.

I rolled my eyes. Neptune never shut up about his magnificent creation of horses. Yes, they were useful, but no one else was as enamored with them as he was. Such narcissism! He only boasted about them to try to improve his own social standing.

I was surprised he didn’t go on about what a magnificent specimen of horsekind Incitatus had been more than he actually did, he’d seemed to be eating the stallion with his eyes. I supposed that he decided that it was a good idea to restrain himself from going on about how talented he was for creating the species, what with Diana (or rather, Artemis at the time) as well as Apollo himself acting as fine examples for what could happen to those who irritated me too much. He’d felt the sting of mortality himself, after all.

Tomorrow, Apollo would have to present his plan to the Senate. Meg was more confident that Apollo had such a plan than Apollo himself was. She refused to allow Apollo to actually talk out ideas for it however, not wanting “spoilers”. So she just ordered Apollo to sleep, which he promptly did.

Athena let out a frustrated sigh. “Not wanting to know or be involved with coming up with a plan because of ‘spoilers’ is not an effective battlefield strategy.”

“It’s funny though!” Mars grinned.

Chapter Text

We all shuffled back in the next day. I glanced at Diana, still chained to her throne. 

When would Jupiter finally release her? It had been days. Though perhaps it would be for the best if she remained like this until Apollo was out of immediate danger. There was little she could do to violate his orders while constrained, little trouble she could get into. Being chained up was bad, but at least she wasn’t being electrocuted or thrown into a wall.

That bit about Apollo being able to summon help though…

I glanced at Diana again. I knew exactly who Apollo would most wish to call on. Question is, would she be allowed to answer?

Vesta started up the screen again, showing Apollo’s room at Camp Jupiter. I sighed. I may have forgiven the Romans for their slight with stealing my statue, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed seeing them all the time. Though Reyna was pretty alright. If more Romans were like her, I may grow to not only tolerate their presence, but to enjoy it.

At last Apollo woke up, donning the senatorial toga Meg threw at him, and making his way to the Senate.

Lavinia decided that now was a good time for a chat. “So you’re really Apollo, huh? You must know my mom.”

“I– what?”

“My mom? Terpsichore?” 

Lavinia wanted to know about her. Apollo paused, before responding. “She had your color hair.”

“Pink?”

“No. I mean… dark. Lots of nervous energy, I suppose, like you. She was never happy unless she was moving, but…” Apollo trailed off.

“But Terpischore doesn’t look like a drunk baby giraffe?” Mars mused.

I sniffed. “I highly doubt that was Apollo’s line of reasoning,” I said drily. “More likely, he’s just missing her. He’s quite close with all of the muses, after all.”

“He can miss Terpischore and ALSO wonder how her child ended up with none of her coordination,” he retorted.

Lavinia questioned why Apollo was being so weird about Reyna, a line of questioning which he managed to avoid having to answer due to Reyna not liking people talking during announcements. 

“Lavinia Asimov!” Reyna called out. “Did you have something to say?”

“No, ma’am. I’m good.”

“I notice you’re chewing gum as well. Did you bring enough for the whole senate?”

I nodded approvingly. Treating Lavinia like an unruly student seemed appropriate, given how she was behaving. Talking during a formal meeting, chewing gum while making a ruckus, honestly . If she didn’t learn to behave herself, it’d be a wonder if she didn’t end up with a dishonourable discharge from the Legion.

Reyna had more patience with her than I would have had.

Lavinia checked her pockets, pulling out multiple packets of gum. “Er, I mean… maybe?” 

Reyna looked up at the ceiling. I’d like to think she was praying that I would smite the girl, but alas no such prayer came through to me.

Mars sniggered. “I like this girl.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course you do.” 

Apollo announced that Caligula and Commodus were sailing towards Camp Jupiter and would arrive on April 8, a blood moon and also, incidentally, the birth date on Lester’s driver’s license.

I frowned. I still wasn’t sure why Jupiter had decided to make Lester’s birthday a warning of an attack, if that was even intentional. It could have been a coincidence I suppose. Few days since Apollo had been tossed into that dumpster had truly been peaceful, after all.

Then again, perhaps Jupiter’s prophetic sense had told him something special would happen on that date, so he decided to make it Lester’s birth date just in case it was important. If nothing happened, then it was some random date he decided on off of the top of his head, and if it was in fact important, he could pretend he’d foreseen all of this and had planned it all along.

“Also, I’m not sure what a blood moon is,” Apollo continued.

“Really, brother? Really? ” Diana muttered. “You don’t know about a common astrological phenomenon like a Blood Moon?”

“Hey, it’s not as bad as him not recognizing what a pregnant woman looks like,” Mars grinned.

Diana grunted as if she didn’t even want to recognize that bit of incompetency as having occurred.

A girl raised her hand. 

“Go ahead, Ida,” Reyna said. “Centurion of the Second Cohort, legacy of Luna.”

“Seriously?” Apollo asked.

“I have to admit, I am curious how they tracked bloodlines so far back,” I said. “Normally such a thing would be forgotten by the tenth generation removed from the deity. For her to be a legacy of Luna, a deity who faded millennia ago… her family must have kept records for a hundred generations.”

Diana just stared at Ida, her eyebrows knit together. I supposed she hadn’t expected to encounter a legacy of Luna here – I certainly hadn’t. She and Luna had gotten along pretty well before she vanished.

Ida informed Apollo that the blood moon made the undead more powerful, while Ella clarified how blood moons come about.

I nodded approvingly as Ella recited the Farmer’s Almanac. She may not be great at rephrasing information, but she stored a lot of it, and was able to pull out the relevant info pretty effectively, given that she didn’t have as much processing power to work with as a divinity like myself did. 

Perhaps I should lend her some books from my personal library. She’d certainly appreciate them more than most of my brethren did.

Apollo informed the Senate that the Emperors had allied with Tarquin, who was now some sort of undead creature, and that he was the one who caused the attack on the new moon, and was also the ruler who originally purchased the Sibylline books. He gave a bit of Tarquin’s backstory, how even the Romans had despised him and abolished the monarchy after ousting him, leaving Tarquin to die in exile.

After that, Apollo went into his plan to deal with the coming attack. “So. The Sibylline Books are basically like emergency recipes, right? Sacrifices. Ritual prayers. Some are designed to appease angry gods. Some are designed to call for divine aid against your enemies. I believe… I’m pretty sure… if we’re able to find the correct recipe for our predicament, and do what it says, I might be able to summon help from Mount Olympus.”

I frowned. That might work, assuming that Jupiter wanted to maintain at least a semblance of fairness. He wanted demigods to be seen, not heard, wanted to be worshipped and feared. A god being summoned using proper channels, with the weight of prophetic approval behind them… I doubted even Jupiter would put up much of a fight against such a thing. 

Senator Larry questioned what kind of help it would be. “Do you mean like… battalions of gods charging down here in their chariots, or more like the gods just giving us their blessing, ‘Hey, good luck with that, legion?’”

“Demigods should be grateful for our blessings,” Jupiter complained. “Insolent, irreverent mortals. Our approval is all the help they should need.”

I disagreed, though not out loud. The past few years, with our dependence on demigods’ strength to keep from being killed ourselves, showed that even pure self-interest dictated that we should try to keep our children happy and alive.

Alas, Jupiter’s pride could get in the way of even his interest in his own well-being. 

Apollo laid out the steps for his plan.

First, find and explore Tarquin’s tomb.

Next, find the soundless god (who he still didn’t know the identity of).

That… seemed to be about it.

Luckily, the prophecy Ella recited earlier gave a hint about the tomb’s location. Even more fortuitously, Lavinia was able to decipher the lines, concluding that it was under a carousel at a park she was familiar with.

I eyed Neptune wearily. I just knew that somehow, he’d find someway to extol about equine greatness, even with fake horses for a children’s ride. That god was far too proud of their creation.

Meg immediately declared that she and Lester would go on this quest, which Apollo agreed with surprisingly easily. “This is part of my greater quest to regain my place among the gods. I’ve brought this trouble to your doorstep. I need to make it right. Please, don’t anyone try to talk me out of it.”

“Somehow, I don’t think anyone’s going to try to talk him out of it,” Mercury commented wryly. 

“He may wish someone would protest, but from everything I’ve seen my brother do these last few months, I believe he’d go regardless,” Diana said. 

I nodded. The way he’d thrown himself into trying to find his kids when they were kidnapped, his determination to save Meg in Trophonius’s cave, even if it killed him… if he felt responsible for someone, if he felt close to them, then he’d throw himself into danger to save them, regardless of the consequences. This situation wasn’t quite as acute as those, but I didn’t doubt that he’d still do his best to help keep Camp Jupiter safe regardless. Especially after what happened with Jason.

Hazel also volunteered, since the tomb was presumably underground. 

“That’s three questers, then,” Reyna declared. “The correct number for a quest. Now–”

“Two and a half,” Meg interrupted.

“Sorry?”

“Lester’s my servant. We’re kind of a team. He shouldn’t count as a full quester.”

Mars laughed. “Oh, I like Meg.”

Ceres nodded. “My daughter is right. Apollo’s not useful enough to count as a full quester anyway, and he’s just her help. He shouldn’t fully count.”

Diana bit her lip. I could tell that she wanted to defend her brother, but on the other hand, it sounded like this might allow Apollo to have one more person in the party when exploring Tarquin’s Tomb, which may, hopefully, increase their chances of survival.

Frank tried to offer, but Reyna shot him down, since he was needed at camp. As Frank was looking for someone else to join the quest, Lavinia’s bubblegum bubble popped loudly.

“Lavinia. Perfect. Thanks for volunteering,” Reyna said primly. 

The Senate unanimously voted to send the four of them on the quest to Tarquin’s tomb before Lavinia could object.

I let out a faint chuckle. Once again, Reyna had showed why I gave her my blessing, even though she was a Roman. She knew exactly how to deal with unruly audience members who refused to be quiet and take situations seriously. 

Chapter Text

I would get to watch my daughter go on a quest. Granted, a short one, but it was more than I’d gotten to see of her since… ever. 

At least my brother’s insistence on making an example of Apollo had some positive consequences.

The questers sat down to have lunch together, Lavinia complaining about being forced onto this quest for the crime of chewing gum, Hazel complaining about Frank trying to throw himself into danger by volunteering for this quest, Meg complaining about not having a unicorn, and Apollo begged Meg to be more careful with her cartwheels so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

After awhile of this, they started actually planning what to do when they got to the carousel, namely when to enter the tomb. Hazel suggested that they enter at night, so there’d be no kids around, and it wasn’t like it being night or day made a difference once underground anyway.

Meg decided it was a good time to ask about Hazel’s ability to summon gems and precious metals.

“I can summon precious metals, yes,” Hazel confirmed. “Riches of the earth. It’s a Pluto thing. But you can’t spend the stuff I summon, Meg.”

I nodded appreciatively, “That is not what they’re for.”

Not that there weren’t exceptions, such as with Leo’s grandfather starting up his shop. But for the most part, those gems were not meant for generating wealth. They were a gift from my realm, but only one meant for specific purposes, such as feeding Arion.

Ceres and Neptune did not need to know that, however. Granted, Ceres didn’t care all that much for her son, but Neptune would excitedly start praising how fast his son could gallop and how silky his coat is and all sorts of things that I did not want to be subjected to. I’d heard enough of Neptune’s gushing when it came to Percy, I didn’t need to hear about Arion as well.

Apollo asked whether the gems were cursed, having recalled something about that.

I huffed. “They’re not cursed! They just have some magic on them that makes it so bad things happen to those who use the gems in ways they’re not supposed to.”

“So, a curse,” Mercury said.

“It’s not a curse!”

Hazel went into how I’d told her that a descendant of Poseidon would wash away her curse, and what a nice person Frank was, how the two of them were able to relate to each other, since he also had a curse to deal with. How they’d supported one another, helped each other be happy, despite their problems.

Hazel’s true “curse” wasn’t about summoning gems, or bad things happening to people who spent them. It was difficulty finding her place, feeling happy and secure, getting to a position where she would feel right, no matter what obstacles cropped up in her life.

My prophetic sense had told me that a descendant of Poseidon would help her somehow, would make things better for her. I wasn’t entirely sure who, but I dearly hoped it wouldn’t be Percy Jackson. Poseidon didn’t need more reasons to brag about his demigod son.

Both Frank, and from my understanding, Arion, helped Hazel. Feeding Arion was one of the few worthy uses of the gems Hazel summoned, after all. (It had to be, I didn’t need to give Ceres more of a reason to nag at me about supposedly mistreating one of her children).

Meg sulked about not being able to spend gems, and became even more annoyed when she found out this was going to be a stealth mission, so she couldn’t just run in and start hacking at enemies.

Mars pouted. “Come on, the best way to be stealthy is to just kill anyone who would report back to a boss! Just let Meg loose!”

“That doesn’t work when the boss themselves is actually around,” Athena pointed out.

“So? Just stab him too!”

“Somehow, I don’t think it’ll be that easy,” Athena commented drily.

I rolled my eyes. This was why I had the Helm of Darkness, and Mars did not. I understood the value of stealth, while he tried to make himself the biggest target in the area under the assumption that he would, naturally, be able to best all his enemies. You’d think that being trapped in a jar for months until you almost withered away into nonexistence would make you more cautious, but if anything it seemed to make him even louder and more reckless.

Hazel called a rest break. Which for Apollo, meant just laying down, tossing and turning on his cot for hours, until he finally gave up and headed out to do… something.

“Finally!” Mars said, who’d been fidgeting like mad for the past couple of hours. “Please shoot someone. Or several someones. Just DO SOMETHING.”

Chapter Text

How could Apollo have made hanging out at Camp Jupiter, one of the few places that appreciated my awesomeness, SO BORING?! He’d been here for days and barely anything had happened, he just slept through everything, walked around, then went back to sitting around some more! 

Ugh, and Hazel had scuppered my chance of watching my son inflict some carnage too. I’d been looking forward to watching him turn into an elephant and stomp on people, or change into a dragon and bite zombies in half while setting them on fire. Hazel was okay I guess, but her kniving enemies just wasn’t as impressive to watch, and collapsing tunnels on opponents could be useful, but all the rock and dust blocks view of the crushed corpses. 

Lavinia hadn’t shown much capacity for combat either, beyond being willing and able to use a manubalista. 

At least Meg was always up for slicing enemies to ribbons, I could always count on her for violence.

Apollo pulled out the Arrow of Dodona. “I need help.”

Pause.

“I- I am supposed to show strength. According to Lupa, I’m supposed to save the day somehow, or the pack – New Rome – will die. But how do I do that? I crossed the Tiber alive, just like the prophecy said. Now how do I ‘start to jive’? Does this mortal body have a reset switch?”

“What would a reset switch even do?” Mercury asked. “Turning him back into a god? Purging his body of injuries?”

“Even if there was such a thing, I doubt it would do Apollo much good,” Athena said. “I doubt that his mortal body is actually his immortal one in any meaningful way. Though I suppose such a switch could burn off his mortality, leaving his soul free to craft his energy into ichor and flesh.”

“That may be difficult to do in a way that wouldn’t kill my brother outright,” Diana pointed out. “Though if a god was overseeing the process…” she glanced at Jupiter. “It’s possible at least.”

Neither of them had ever actually experienced what it was like to be reduced down to mere essence, to have only a few sparks of divinity to use to shakily craft a body. This was a purely academic exercise for them. 

Of course, for me no fire had been involved. Which was a shame. I mean c’mon, if you’re gonna trap the hottest god in the pantheon, the least you could do was make it awesome with some fire and explosions, right? Trapping someone in a boring, cold, dark jar is just lame. 

Pause.

“That’s it? No advice? No snarky comments?”

Pause.

“But I don’t HAVE time! We’re leaving for Tarquin’s tomb, like, basically now!”

Pause.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Pause.

“Did you just use the term ‘skeddadleth’?”

“Skedaddleth is not a word,” Athena said immediately.

“Oh I don’t know,” I said casually. “I know what it means.” 

“Being able to figure out what it’s supposed to mean doesn’t make it a word!” Athena insisted.

“It kinda does,” Mercury said. “Or it could? I mean, if it’s used enough…”

“It’s not in the dictionary yet, so it doesn’t count,” Athena said, crossing her arms.

I grinned. I loved making her pout.

Pause.

“I appreciate a good boon as much as the next person. But if I’m going to contribute to this quest and not just cower in the corner, I need to know how– how to be me again.”

I snickered. “Oh, you mean something different than what you normally do?”

“That’s not fair and it’s not true,” Diana countered. “My brother may not be as powerful right now as he normally is, yet he’s still charged into fights, done his best to help. He’s not a melee fighter, he’s a ranged attacker, so he needs to stay back from the front lines, but that doesn’t mean he’s kept out of the fighting. Even way back at Camp Half-Blood when he was still getting his feet under him, he charged into the forest to save his kids, and charged back in a second time to save Meg. He doesn’t cower away from danger and battles, he just doesn’t enjoy it like you do.”

I gave an exaggerated sigh. “Which is a shame. Meg’s far more interesting to watch.”

“I’m more interested in what Apollo means by learning how to be himself again,” Mercury mused. “Like he hasn’t been himself?”

“His normal self has eight-pack abs,” Venus pointed out. “I’m sure he’s mourning their loss, he’d be a lot more useful with more muscle mass.”

“While that would probably help, I doubt that’s what my brother means,” Diana said drily. “He probably needs to regain confidence, he’s been very subdued lately, especially since Jason died.”

“Eh demigods die all the time, he’ll get over it,” I waved her off.

“Jason should not have died!” Juno hissed. “He did not need to die.”

I snorted. “Few people in combat need to die. But that’s just what war is. You don’t have to like it.”

Pause.

“What do you mean? That’s the whole point! Everything I’m doing is so–”

“Are you talking to that arrow?” a familiar voice asked.

The camera panned, showing Frank a short distance away.

“Hi,” Apollo squeaked, obviously not expecting an audience. “I was just… This arrow gives prophetic advice. It talks. In my head.”

I laughed. “Well if my son didn’t think Apollo had a few screws loose before…”

“I doubt that the Arrow of Dodona’s situation is that difficult to believe, considering everything demigods typically experience,” Diana pointed out. “It may sound a little odd at first, but it’s no weirder than being able to shapeshift at will, or having your life tied to a piece of firewood.”

I grimaced. I’d thought Juno did that deed, but it seemed good ol’ mom had nothing to do with it. Just the Fates screwing with people, as usual. But hey, at least when Frank went out, it’d be in a blaze of glory!

Frank didn’t react much, just asking if Apollo wanted him to leave. Apollo denied that, instead asking what Frank was up to. Apparently he was walking Hannibal, which explained why he had an elephant with him.

Apollo asked my son what he’d do while they were gone on the quest. Frank’s reply was pretty standard, focusing on maintaining defenses and keeping everyone doing what they’d already been doing, and keeping morale up.

“I don’t know how you do it. Staying positive all the time,” Apollo said.

“What’s the alternative?”

“A nervous breakdown? Running away? But I’m new to this mortal business.”

I snorted. “Don’t underestimate mortals. People can adapt to anything . You think this is bad? Millions of people grow up in war zones. I’m not gonna say it’s good for ‘em, but people are good at developing coping strategies, including unfounded optimism.”

Good ol’ humanity. Great at killing each other, and even better at surviving attempting to kill each other.

Frank worried about the strain on Reyna, since she’d been dealing with the pressure of leadership longer than he had. When Apollo appeared concerned, he reassured him that Hazel would keep him safe. Which allowed Apollo to segue to Hazel’s worries about Frank. 

“Hazel seems more worried about you,” Apollo pointed out. “She mentioned some crazy stunts in the last battle?”

“It wasn’t like that. I just did what I had to.”

“And your piece of tinder? You’re not worried about what Ella said…? Something about fires and bridges?”

“What, me worry?” he grinned, pulling out the charred firewood from his pouch.

I grinned along with him. “That’s my boy! Don’t let any stupid prophecy or destiny drive you into hiding. Face your death head on!” Honestly all the whining some people did because they might die if certain things happened. All mortals faced death constantly! Especially during war. Sure, Frank might die if his stick burns to a crisp, but come on, he could die just as easily from being skewered with a spear. Just live with no regrets and if an enemy takes you down, make sure to take ‘em down with you.

Frank clarified that he wasn’t being as reckless with his firewood as it seemed, since the pouch was fireproof. He and Hazel had talked about different safety measures, but he’d ultimately decided on this set up. “I’ve kind of learned to accept the danger. You know how it is with prophecies. The harder you try to avoid them, the harder you fail.”

Athena nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a healthier approach than most take with prophecies concerning their demise,” she noted. 

I snorted. Athena would know something about that, wouldn’t she? She didn’t have a mom anymore because good ol’ dad swallowed her because of some prophecy about how Athena’s younger brother would replace him as King of the Gods. So of course, down the gullet she had to go, just like granddad tried to prevent being ousted by swallowing his own children, and look at how well that turned out!

Jupiter had kept from getting kicked out of his big fancy chair, so I guess subverting the prophecy worked out great for him, somehow.

“I promise you, I don’t have a death wish,” Frank told Apollo. “It’s just… I can’t let fear hold me back. Every time I lead the legion into battle, I have to put everything on the line, commit to the battle one hundred percent. We all do. It’s the only way to win.”

“That’s a very Mars thing to say,” Apollo noted. “Despite my many disagreements with Mars, I mean that as a compliment.”

I nodded emphatically. “See, Frank gets it! No pussyfooting around, just throw yourself in full force, or else you’ll definitely lose.”

Apollo got it as well. Though as far as those disagreements went, I was always right. Everything could be made better with explosions, and no it didn’t matter whether it was 4 am or not, whatever the rest of Olympus might think.

“I can’t believe I used to think–” Frank continued. 

“That I was your father? But we look so much alike!”

Frank laughed. “Just take care of yourself, okay? I don’t think I could handle a world with no Apollo in it.”

My stomach clenched. He didn’t think he could handle a world with no Apollo in it? Apollo, who he’d only met a handful of times, who wasn’t even his father? And yet, he cared this much about Apollo’s continued existence?

Would Frank have cared as much if I was the one facing down death, if what happened with the jar–

NO.

Shut down that line of thought.

I.

Am.

Fine.

“Mars…?” Venus questioned, shooting me a concerned look.

I let out a bark of laughter. “How stupid was it, for Frank to think he was Apollo’s son? Plainly, he’s more like me. It’s so obvious!”

“Right, of course,” Venus said, her mouth twisting into a fake smile. I’d been with her long enough to tell the difference between the two.

Lavinia, Hazel, and Meg chose that time to reappear. 

Hazel and Frank got to talking, Lavinia complaining that the two of them liked to mother-hen each other, wanting to encase each other in styrofoam to keep anything bad from happening to them.

At last, Hazel announced that their group was all going to head into the Tomb now.

“Encase each other in styrofoam peanuts? Oh please!” I laughed. “My children were made for danger. They crave it. They don’t need anyone looking after them or being worried about them. That’s the way they like it!”

My laughter felt empty to my ears. 

I didn’t stop laughing.

Chapter Text

I glanced over at Mars. Had I detected a hint of jealousy towards Apollo? While Mars was revered by Romans (of course they were the ones to revere him), he was rightfully disliked by most Greeks and gods. Naturally, he’d downplay the notion that people needed to care about each other, it’s not like anyone would care about him that way. Except Venus, I guess, for some reason, and maybe Mercury if he felt guilty enough.

Lavinia seemed to be enjoying the hike out to the carousel, which fit with her wandering tendencies. Apollo complained about all the hiking, but Lavinia and Hazel just pointed out that this wasn’t as bad as most quests were.

“Does he always complain this much?” Hazel asked Meg.

“He used to be a lot whinier.”

Hazel whistled.

“I know. Big baby,” Meg agreed.

An hour of walking later, Apollo was looking significantly more exhausted and clammy than everyone else, on the verge of hyperventilating. 

“You don’t look so good,” Hazel noted.

“What gave it away?” Apollo snapped. “The cold sweat? The rapid breathing?”

“How’s the gut wound?”

“Better,” he muttered. 

My eyes narrowed, training on the wound. Apollo might freely complain and whine about needing to walk a lot, but his actual worsening injury? Now that was something he wanted to downplay. He was only whining about something that he knew others wouldn’t worry about him over, that they’d laugh off. 

He didn’t actually want them to be concerned for him. Or maybe, he was just trying to lie to himself that it was looking better. 

Apollo had always been good at deflection.

Hazel inquired about Tarquin’s history and weaknesses, what they were up against. Apollo recounted how Tarquin was a stubborn tyrant who was overthrown by the Roman people, but kept on trying to attack and reclaim his throne, to no avail.

The conversation turned to the battle at the Little Tiber, and Frank’s exploits during it specifically. 

“Frank turned the tide of battle, almost single-handedly,” Hazel said. Demigods were falling all around him. He just kept fighting – shape-shifting into a giant snake, then a dragon, then a hippopotamus. He makes a terrifying hippo. By the time Reyna and I managed to bring reinforcements, the enemy was already in retreat. Frank had no fear.”

“Of course not,” Mars said, as if it were self-evident. “He’s my kid, battles are his element.” He smirked. “I bet Apollo would have crapped himself if he’d been around to see Frank turn into that snake.” He rubbed his hands. “Hey, with the upcoming battle, there’s a second chance! Apollo hasn’t pissed himself for a few days, he’s due.”

Hazel worried about losing Frank, especially after what happened to Jason.

Right about then, they finally got to the carousel. It was a grotesque contraption, the horses looking twisted and terrified. If I couldn’t clearly tell they were plastic, I would have thought they’d been petrified by Medusa.

“Whatever sculptor designed these animals needs to be fired!” Neptune declared. “They are an affront to the wonderful form of equines.”

I rolled my eyes. Neptune and his horses, I swear. You didn’t see me getting this fussed over olive trees, even though they were an objectively more amazing invention.

“There are other animals on there besides just equines,” I pointed out. “The rooster isn’t even a mammal.”

“That doesn’t stop the majority of them from being horrifying caricatures of some of the most amazing creatures to exist!” Neptune declared. His eyes flicked to the hippocampus on the carousel. “My poor hippocampus, what did they do to you?” he murmured.

Meg touched the grass near the carousel, sending the plants rippling. “Something’s wrong with the soil here,” she noted. “The roots don’t want to grow too deep.”

“You can talk to plants?” Hazel asked, surprised.

“It’s not really talking, but yeah. Even the trees don’t like this place. They’re trying to grow away from that carousel as fast as they can.”

“Which, since they’re trees, is not very fast,” Apollo noted.

“Then help them!” Ceres declared. “Either move the trees – between my Meg and Roman construction prowess, they ought to be able to dig up and transplant all of them – or get rid of Tarquin’s tomb. Don’t just leave them to his mercy. He has none.”

“So long as they don’t start a battle near the trees, they’ll probably be alright,” I pointed out. “Tarquin may be awful, but there’s no reason for him to destroy the trees right now. Trying to move them would only make them more of a target.”

She looked away, muttering indistinctly, but didn’t protest further. Even Ceres would occasionally bow to logic.

Hazel detected a massive network of tunnels underground, a massive structure that was both ancient and new, which Apollo noted tracked with their supposition that the tomb had relocated to beneath the carousel. Hazel commented that the place felt like death, which was disturbing even to her, a child of Pluto.

She singled out a piece of concrete that she identified as a passcode entry system. 

“To open his door, two-fifty-four,” Lavinia recalled from the Sibylline books.

“Wait!” Apollo called out before Hazel could write anything. “There are lots of ways to write two-fifty-four.”

Mars groaned. “Is this gonna be like those crossword puzzles again?” he whined. 

“There’s only one passcode here, so probably not,” I said, irritated. “Unless Tarquin’s really paranoid and has multiple of these.”

I wished that was likely. Watching Apollo and co. try to solve puzzles was far more entertaining than watching them walk for an hour, even if it was also frustrating with how long it could take them to get to the obviously correct conclusions.

Apollo noted that writing 254 in Roman numerals was different than in Hindu-Arabic numerals, which in Roman numerals, was different from “II” and “LIV”. He had to get into Tarquin’s head to figure out what he would have been intending when creating the passcode, in order to select the correct option. 

I nodded sagely. Figuring out a puzzle was often less about coming up with answers that fit the actual puzzle, and more figuring out what the puzzle maker would have intended to be a solution. In this case, at least, they knew who the puzzle maker was, which gave them a leg up.

Apollo decided to look for some significant date to Tarquin that could be written as one of those terms. He concluded that for his tomb, it would probably be his death date rather than say, his birthday. But that didn’t fit, since he would have died around 500 BCE, nowhere near any of the target dates.

Meg pointed out that in the Roman system, years were dated from the founding of Rome, not from Jesus’s birth. When Apollo adjusted Tarquin’s death date to account for that, it ended up in the target range. 

Apollo told Hazel to write CCLIV, which the stone accepted, revealing the entrance.

I raised an eyebrow. I had to question Apollo’s initial quick dismissal of Tarquin’s birth date as a possible code, considering that most tombs displayed both the birth date and the death date. Plus, honestly, I would have expected Tarquin to use the date he ascended to the throne as a passcode anyway, rather than the year he died. But I couldn’t argue with results.

Meg had also impressed me once again, pointing out a flaw in Apollo’s logic that would have prevented him from solving the puzzle. Granted, that was only due to her having grown up in Roman culture, but we all have our faults.

Chapter Text

I held back a growl as my daughter navigated Tarquin’s tomb. That man was an affront to death and good taste. There was a reason kings were abolished after his reign, he’d tainted the position too much simply by holding it.

At least he was giving Hazel a reason to be included on this quest. I’d been able to see more of her in the past couple of days than I had the entire rest of her life. And with this particular mission being underground, she should be able to show off aspects of my children’s powers that often get overlooked.

Death masks were plastered around the walls of the tomb, wearing the same sort of agonizing expressions that the carousel animals had held. Hazel diligently guided the group through the tunnels, past all manner of disturbing paraphernalia. Apollo let out a whimper as they passed a group of boxes hung on the wall. 

“Ugh, those things,” Mars sneered. “Of course he’s still using them.”

“I would have thought you, of all people, would enjoy such devices,” Athena said drily.

“There’s no honor or excitement in watching rocks being poured into a basket on a guy’s head!” he complained. “There’s no violence or explosions or gore, everything interesting is hidden from view. I mean, you can bet on how long it takes for someone to be unable to hold their head up above the water, but that’s it.”

Mercury perked up at that.

As they wandered through the tunnels, they came across two skeleton warriors. Apollo motioned that they should retreat, but Hazel shook her head. 

Suddenly the two skeleton guards snapped to attention and left.

“How?” Lavinia asked.

“Hazel may not be quite as proficient at controlling the forces of the undead as Nico is, but she’s still my daughter,” I said proudly. “Of course she can exert authority over creatures like the skeleton warriors. They don’t have souls anymore, so they’re really just automatons obeying their master. As my daughter, she registers as having authority over them.”

Hazel guided them to Tarquin’s chamber, where he was holding court. Currently, he was yelling at the two skeleton guards Hazel had sent away. 

“Did I call you? No, I did not. So why are you here?”

The skeletons looked at each other.

“Go back to your posts!” Tarquin shouted.

The skeletons marched off.

“So Hazel’s order got interpreted as Tarquin’s, huh?” Mercury mused. “I guess they don’t distinguish between different masters, so they just assume all orders come from the same one. That could be very useful for manipulating intel.”

“Which is why, if Tarquin’s smart, he won’t rely on brainless followers like the skeleton guards for intel,” Athena said. She snorted. “But of course, that necessitates him being smart. He always had more cruelty than actual intelligence.”

A eurynomos shuffled in, informing Tarquin that the fleet would arrive in three days, in time for the blood moon.

“Good, it is imperative we take the city first,” Tarquin declared. “When the emperors arrive, I want to already be in control! They can burn the rest of the Bay Area if they wish, but the city is mine. And the silent one?”

“He is well-guarded, sire,” the eurynomos told him.

“Hmm. Double the flock, nevertheless. We must be sure.”

“But, my king, surely the Romans cannot know about Sutro-”

“SILENCE!” Tarquin shouted, cutting him off.

Mercury perked up. “The silent god’s here?”

“Bad news for you,” Mars joked. “If Apollo succeeds, you’ll have to actually get back to doing your job.”

Mercury scowled.

“I’m more concerned about this ‘Sutro’ thing that the eurynomos mentioned,” Athena said. “I am not sure what he’s referring to.”

“Athena not knowing something?” Mars mock-gasped. “Stop the presses!”

Athena joined Mercury in scowling at Mars. Mars simply grinned back at both of them.

Tarquin detected Hazel, Lavinia, Meg, and Apollo, shouting for them to come out and join him. Lavinia and Hazel attempted to surreptitiously head to the exit. Meg, meanwhile, decided to take up Tarquin’s invitation, leaping over the railing, Apollo running after her. Hazel and Lavinia joined up, trying to help cover Meg and protect themselves, now that any semblance of cover was blown.

For his part, Apollo was shockingly effective, firing off a dozen arrows in thirty seconds, killing an undead with every shot. His fingers were smoking by the end.

I raised an eyebrow. Only a week ago, Apollo had struggled to hit a defecating cyclops at close quarters. Yet now, he was taking down a dozen undead without breaking a sweat. And that smoke… humans didn’t normally start smoking unless something was very, very wrong. Yet Apollo looked fine, energized even. 

His godly powers seemed to be returning once again.

I glanced at Jupiter. His lips thinned as he studied Apollo’s movements. 

I doubted many of us in the council had actually bought Jupiter’s excuse that Apollo’s powers returning sporadically was due to his mercy. No, Apollo’s godly powers returning, even briefly, was due to some other cause. I’d thought that whatever the reason for that, Jupiter had stopped it. With the distress he’d gone through when Jason died and while being flayed, he would have exhibited those powers during at least one of those events, if it was possible. 

And yet, the smoking from Apollo’s fingers showed otherwise. Whatever allowed Apollo to access his godly powers had opened up again.

Judging from Jupiter’s expression, he wasn’t happy about it. Not that that was surprising, my brother was rarely happy.

Meg charged at Tarquin. A flick of his hand sent an invisible force to throw her against the wall.

Apollo growled, throwing himself at Tarquin… and landing on one of his already-fired arrows, making him slip and fall on his butt.

Mars let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, I am never letting him live this down.”

I didn’t see much point in that. There was so much potential blackmail material in what we’d all seen, I doubted pointing out any one particular event would cause much impact.

Meg struggled to her feet, the rest of the questing group taking a moment to gather themselves. Tarquin was unperturbed, as reinforcements would arrive soon.

“Fight or run, guys?” Meg asked.

“Oh, child,” Tarquin said, as condescendingly as ever. “You can try to run, but soon enough, you’ll be fighting at my side with those wonderful blades of yours. As for Apollo… he’s not going anywhere.”

Apollo screamed in pain.

“Stop it! What are you doing to him?” Lavinia shouted.

“Why Lavinia, I’m calling Apollo home!” Tarquin cheerfully revealed. “Poor Lester would have been compelled to seek me out eventually, once the poison took hold of his brain. But getting him here so soon – this is a special treat!”

“So that was why Apollo wasn’t healing.” I said. “He inserted a piece of his poison into Apollo. Normal means can’t clear that out.”

“Like a cordyceps fungus taking control of an ant…” Athena muttered.

“There has to be some way to save my brother!” Diana insisted. She turned towards me. “There is a way?” I suspect she meant it as a statement of fact, but it came out more like the question it truly was.

I frowned. “Not through normal means. Certain artifacts would have a chance, such as the Golden Fleece, but barring something at that level… only divine intervention can save him now.”

Diana shot a pleading look at Jupiter. He resolutely ignored it, as I expected.

“Apollo is MY servant now, Meg McCaffrey,” Tarquin declared. “You really shouldn’t mourn him. He’s terrible to the people he loves. You can ask the Sibyl.”

I hadn’t kept up with all of Apollo’s misadventures and cared little about his Sibyls (unless one of them had spoken a prophecy that led to one of my lovers’ deaths, of course), so I was unsure what Tarquin was referring to specifically. Still, I was unsurprised by Tarquin’s assertion. Most gods had a track record of leaving a string of broken hearts behind, along with a lot of more literal body parts breaking, and Apollo had already sung about many of his worse experiences and actions back at the myrmekes mound. 

I doubted that Apollo was any worse than, say, Jupiter or Neptune though. My brothers had had many relationships over the millennia, many of them not ending well for their lover. Or beginning well, for that matter.

Ceres huffed. “No half-rotten glorified zombie could take Apollo from Meg’s service!” she declared. “She is much too powerful for the likes of him to tear Apollo away from her.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course that’s what Ceres was focusing on. I doubted there was anything Meg could do about the poison running through Apollo’s veins, unless she managed to pull divine healing skills or a capacity for poison control out of nowhere that I’d never heard of any of Demeter’s children possessing.

…then again, Meg had manifested other abilities without preamble that did not make sense, such as her ability to share memories with Apollo, and her apparent teleportation powers that she’d only ever used once, off-screen, and never again, even when they might have been useful. Perhaps Ceres was on to something, as much as it pained me to admit it.

Hazel collapsed one of the tunnel walls, crushing Tarquin and his minions. Not that I expected that to stop them, but being crushed could still slow them down at least.

Apollo, Lavinia, Hazel, and Meg escaped, Hazel hobbling along, Lavinia half-carrying Apollo, and Meg guarding their rear.

At an intersection of two corridors, Hazel paused. “I- I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean?” Meg asked.

“I can’t get a read. There should be an exit here. We’re close to the surface, but… I’m sorry, guys.”

“Any idea what happened?” Mercury asked me. 

“I suspect that the pain from her injured ankle and the deleterious effects of inhaling monster dust are impacting her abilities,” I posited. “Notice how Hazel’s corneas – the outer layer of the eyes,” I specified for those gods who might not be proficient in anatomy, such as Mars (unless that anatomical knowledge was related to hacking off limbs), “are grey? That’s a symptom of overexposure to undead monster dust. It’s easily treatable, but can interfere with some demigod abilities.”

“You don’t seem worried,” Mercury noted. 

“Hazel does not need the abilities she inherited from me to be powerful,” I noted. “Especially with three others to help her out. I do not see an aura of death around her.”

Meg touched a wall. Roots cracked through the ceiling, forming an opening to the outside

“Smells safe,” Meg noted. “Let’s go.”

“As I’ve said a million times,” Ceres said. “Do not underestimate my daughter!”

“I don’t think any of us are so foolish as to do that,” Diana replied.

I wasn’t sure whether she was being sarcastic or sincere.

The group emerged into the night, somewhere far away from the carousel they’d entered at. Luckily Lavinia had explored so widely, she knew where they were and how to get back to camp.

Meg scowled at Apollo. “I thought you were getting better.”

“I guess I was too optimistic.”

“You should have healed,” Hazel said, worried. “I don’t understand.”

“If it was an ordinary eurynomos scratch wound, he would have,” I said grimly. “Tarquin must have projected some of himself into that zombie, like how we saw him speak through one earlier. His poison’s more potent than theirs. The regular healing methods Camp Jupiter employs could slow it down, but not stop it.”

They came to a nearby stream, which Lavinia knew was close to camp. 

“I’m sensing maybe a dozen behind us, closing fast,” Hazel informed everyone.

“Go. You’ll move faster without me,” Apollo told them.

“Not happening,” Meg said flatly.

Mercury snorted. “He acts as if he’s never met a hero before. There’s no way they’d leave one of their own behind, not if there’s a chance that everyone could survive.”

“He’s probably going off of his godly experience,” Mars muttered, so quietly I could barely hear it.

I frowned. As far as I was aware, Apollo had never been abandoned by another god while in major danger, though I was on the surface so rarely, it was possible I’d just never heard of it. Mars sounded strangely bitter about it. Perhaps both he and Apollo were left behind? Though I’d have expected Diana to rescue her brother at least, even if she didn’t care as much about Mars.

Lavinia volunteered to draw the undead away instead. A terrible idea, as Apollo noted, but since Lavinia somehow survived all her terrible ideas, Hazel let her go, leaving Meg to help Hazel and Apollo get back to camp.

“She’s got the survival instinct of a lemming and the hardiness of a cockroach.” Mars grinned. “I like her!”

“Lemmings don’t actually throw themselves off cliffs,” Athena informed him. “A supposed ‘documentary’ made that up. They just had humans toss several lemmings off cliffs and to their deaths, filming it in such a way that it looked like they jumped.”

“I’d like to find those filmmakers and show them what it feels like to be tossed off a cliff,” Diana grumbled.

Chapter Text

Watching Hazel half-carry Apollo back to Camp, my mind wandered back to my sweet Incitatus. Or at least, he might have been sweet if I’d gotten a chance to woo him. Alas, he had been taken from this world far too soon. 

I forced my eyes back to the screen. Dwelling on what-ifs and could-have-beens would only hurt me. 

As soon as they got into camp, Apollo was rushed into the medical tent, where Pranjal, Camp Jupiter’s best healer, tended to him for most of the day. Near the end, in an attempt to heal him enough to get him to awaken at least, he had Meg fetch a unicorn for fresh horn shavings.

I frowned, watching Buster calmly stare into space as he allowed Meg to apply a cheese grater to his horn. Something about this unicorn was just… unsettling. The way he barely moved, barely even seemed to breathe or acknowledge his surroundings…

I shivered. Most horses invigorated the space around them. This unicorn, however, seemed more like a prop, a cardboard cutout, than an actual living creature, much less one of the most wondrous creatures on Earth (in the ocean was another matter).

Meg didn’t seem to care. I wasn’t sure whether to applaud her for her bravery, or shake my head at her obliviousness. I knew for a fact that she’d seen horses before, with her encounters with Incitatus. Couldn’t she tell how creepy Buster was in comparison, how Buster almost seemed like the living dead himself rather than giving off the vitality and vigor that Incitatus had before he–

I sniffled, cutting off that line of thought. It’d do no good to break into tears here.

After most of the day had gone by, Apollo finally woke up. Meg explained to him that everyone else was fine, Lavinia getting back shortly after they had. Apollo, however, was in bad condition, as he wasn’t responding to treatment and Pranjal still wasn’t sure why. 

“It could be your godly side,” Pranjal speculated. “I’ve never had a patient who was a former immortal. That might make you resistant to demigod healing, or more susceptible to undead scratches. I just don’t know.”

“I doubt that’s it,” Pluto said. “With how Tarquin was behaving, I still believe that he did something special with Apollo’s wound to prevent it from healing and make him more susceptible to control. Though I cannot completely discount Pranjal’s hypotheses, given how rarely this happens.” He glanced over towards me.

I didn’t have anything to add. While Jupiter had revoked my divinity once before, I had been fortunate enough to not be harmed while in that form. As much as the two of us clashed and as upset as my brother had been at my participation in the coup, he didn’t want me dead. I could not say the same for Apollo this time around.

Nevertheless, Apollo DID look better. The unicorn horn shavings, combined with the magical chickweed Meg helped grow (much to Ceres’s delight), helped to treat his symptoms. But it wasn’t a cure. If things progressed, he’d still die. 

“That’s going to take more powerful healing than I’m capable of,” Pranjal clarified when Apollo asked him about a cure. “GOD-level healing.”

Diana bit her lip. As things were, there was no way she’d be able to sneak out to heal her brother, and while I would like for Apollo to live, I wasn’t quite ready to risk Jupiter’s wrath over him – not so long as godhood revocation was on the table. I doubted that any of my other brethren would be willing to risk themselves to that extent either, though I wasn’t sure about Mercury. He’d been close to Apollo since he was a baby after all, and had been the one to rescue Mars from his embarrassing jar confinement, seeming distraught over his state afterwards. 

Hopefully whatever divine “help” was summoned would be able to heal Apollo. I doubted anyone outside of them would be allowed to cure the poison.

Apollo washed up and changed clothes, Meg escorting him to the praetorium shortly afterwards. Frank and Reyna were already there. Apollo and Meg let Reyna know that while his wound was still bad, it was better than it was before.

Frank and Reyna filled Apollo in on what they’d been working on – namely, deciphering the prophecy. They found the recipe, but unfortunately it required a death sacrifice – the death of a god.

I sat there, stunned. Why would that be in the recipe? Why would any of us want that? And what would a “death of a god” even mean in this case? A god fading? A god being scattered? We couldn’t die, we’re immortal. Do former gods count? 

Diana glared at Jupiter. I frowned. I doubted he’d had any involvement with the Sibylline books – that seemed more like Apollo’s territory, or more likely, the Fates. This seemed above even his pay grade.

Still. It would be awfully convenient for my brother if Apollo sacrificed his life to help the Roman demigods. He could praise Apollo for being a hero while not acknowledging his own role in putting Apollo in that position to begin with. Combined with my brother choosing the date of the next battle (which was presumably when the god sacrifice would have to happen) as Lester’s birthday, it all felt a little too convenient to write off as being purely coincidental.

Chapter Text

Ugh. Of course a Roman summoning ritual would require killing someone, even though we’d moved away from death sacrifices long ago. And of a god , no less. I suppose that might please Jupiter or perhaps Mars, but I doubted even a Roman version of any of my other compatriots would be happy about such a thing. 

Frank read out the prophecy, as much of it as they’d been able to decipher. Thankfully, most of the ingredients were ordinary items they had around camp. That still left the sacrifice, however. “Add the last breath of the god who speaks not, once his soul is cut free, together with the shattered glass. Then the single-deity summoning prayer (see appendix C) must be uttered through the rainbow,” Reyna recited.

“Welp, it ain’t talking about Apollo,” Mars quipped. “He’s about as far from a ‘god who speaks not’ as you can get.”

“I suspect it’s talking about the ‘soundless god’ from the earlier prophecy,” I said. “Which means this god is likely to be under the emperors’ control. Perhaps they need to scatter this god permanently in order to stop them from providing aid to the Triumvirate?” That would be no easy feat, at least for Apollo alone. With Meg and some other camper however, it might be possible. Especially if that other camper was one of the Seven. Or Reyna. They were powerful enough, and some minor gods were weak enough, that they might be able to scatter even a god, without dying themselves like Leo had.

They tried to figure out who the “soundless god” was, but as Frank noted, there was no Greek or Roman god of silence.

“No Greek or Roman god…” I murmured, an idea itching at the back of my mind.

There may not be a Greek or Roman god of that sort… but those weren’t the only gods in existence. Why a Roman prophecy would bring up a non-Roman god, I wasn’t sure, it’s not like a lot of other mythologies interacted with–

Wait.

Wait, there was one other major mythology I could think of that had intersected with Greek mythology at least, without being completely adopted into our pantheon. One that had generally been regarded as a failure, but had still yielded a few gods, albeit not very powerful or well-known ones, ones that were likely to be on the edge of fading, if they hadn’t faded already. In fact, my favorite daughter had encountered a deity from that pantheon. 

“A Ptolemaic god,” I breathed. “They could be a Ptolemaic god.”

Neptune frowned, but nodded. “Could be. I would have thought they’d all faded by now, but…” he trailed off.

I was once again reminded of the fact that Percy was involved in most of Annabeth’s quests, which meant Neptune was aware of them as well. Why my daughter had gone for him, I could not guess, but I’d long given up on swaying her from her path. 

“Is there a Ptolemaic god of silence?” Mercury asked.

I frowned, delving into my memory. I hadn’t interacted much with the Ptolemaic gods – no one I knew of had been fond of them – but I’d known of their existence at least. “There was a god of silence, wasn’t there?” I ventured. “Or secrets, at least? I remember him always having a finger to his lips.”

Mercury gave a sharp intake of breath. “Harpocrates.” Something in his voice sounded… off . Fearful? Guilty? I wasn’t sure. 

“Looks like Mercury’s a more knowledgeable god than you are,” Mars grinned.

“Mars,” Mercury gritted his teeth. “Shut up.”

Mars frowned. “What? I’d have thought you’d be happy to get one over on Ms. Know-It-All,” he jerked his thumb towards me. 

“I don’t blame her for not remembering him while I did,” Mercury forced out. “I had a lot more involvement with him than she did, as did Apollo.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” 

“Let’s just say that I doubt Harpocrates would need any incentive to attack Apollo,” Mercury said grimly.

“What did you and Apollo do?” Diana asked, her voice taking on a dangerous edge.

He took a deep breath. “We played a bunch of pranks on him. But looking back, I don’t think he had as much ‘fun’ as we did.” 

Diana groaned. “Brother, what have you gotten yourself into…” she muttered.

The group got started on deciphering the rest of the instructions, since the “soundless god” part stumped them. The broken glass part was easy enough to fulfill if need be, though it seemed like an odd ingredient. Since it was a single-deity summoning spell, it seemed that they’d only get to ask for one god’s help, but as Apollo noted, even just one god could make all the difference.

I glanced towards Diana. She was the obvious choice. While a healer god may be more useful for Apollo, I doubted he’d want to risk trying to summon Asclepius, given how tightly confined he normally was. As was Diana at the moment, but Apollo had no way of knowing that. 

Plus, whatever god he summoned would likely need to be able to help out with the actual battling as well. Asclepius had never been fond of such things. I suppose that he could be an effective enough battlefield medic that he wouldn’t need to fight himself, simply providing enough support that the Roman demigods could win the battle on their own. 

Still, I suspected he’d jump to his sister rather than his son. They may not always get along, but they had each other’s backs when it counted. He was more used to relying on her than he was on Asclepius.

The last line about the rainbow was easy enough to figure out, as it obviously referred to Iris-messaging. Though why a Greek communication method would be in a Roman book, I did not know.

Frank noted that communication was down, so they wouldn’t be able to iris-message.

“This soundless god, whoever he is…” Apollo stated slowly, thinking things over. “What if he’s the reason our communications don’t work? What if the Triumvirate has somehow been harnessing his power to prevent us all from talking to one another, and to keep us from beseeching the gods for help?”

“So what I figured out as soon as we heard that prophecy,” Mercury muttered. “Glad Apollo agrees with me at least. I’m sure Harpocrates leaped at the opportunity to get back at the two of us. Even if for me, he could only disrupt my domain.”

Reyna wondered whether this meant that the “soundless god” was in cahoots with the Triumvirate, and they’d have to kill him to open up communication. Apollo speculated that the god may not be a willing participant and they’d have to free him, though freeing him by killing him seemed extreme, as Frank noted. 

Conversation turned towards the “Sutro” thing that Tarquin’s minion mentioned earlier, which Reyna and Frank thought referred to either Mount Sutro or Sutro Tower.

Apollo noted that wherever the soundless god was, he’d be heavily protected.

“That could be a way of determining which area the god is in,” I said. “Assuming that Tarquin isn’t smart enough, or doesn’t have enough troops, to send some to guard a decoy location.”

“Considering how close it sounds like Sutro Tower and Mount Sutro are to each other, it would probably be best for him to order troops to only protect the area with the actual god,” Diana conjectured. “Apollo and the rest of the group would probably be able to travel to both of them quickly enough that it’d be more advantageous to keep all his troops where they need to be, rather than attempt a fake-out.”

I nodded. While I admired clever, complicated schemes, sometimes the wisest course of action was the simplest, most obvious one. There was such a thing as being too clever by half.

According to the instructions, they’d need to save finding the soundless god for “the day of greatest need”, April 8, the day the camp was set to be invaded, which left the rest of this day and all of tomorrow to prepare. Frank was going to lead the camp in running war games and constructing defenses while Apollo and Meg rested up. As for who would accompany the two of them on this quest, Frank and Reyna determined that it would have to be Reyna, given that the prophecy called for Bellona’s daughter to open the doorway to the soundless god. Reyna didn’t much like that, given how useful her power was for leading troops, but Frank assured her that she could do that as soon as she was back from the quest. He’d take over in the meantime.

Reyna’s eyes shone with excitement at the prospect of the quest.

I frowned. Reyna seemed oddly eager, given how hesitant she was to hand over her duties to someone else. Then again, Frank had mentioned earlier how much pressure Reyna had been under as leader… perhaps going on this quest would be a break for her, in a way, even if a short one. 

I glanced at her, worried. Reyna was strong – she’d impressed me, after all – but everyone has their burnout point, and I was beginning to suspect that she was approaching hers.

Chapter Text

Apollo was doing okay for now. His wound may need divine healing, but with the summoning ritual, he would get that healing. Jupiter couldn’t argue with such a formal plea for help and such a great sacrifice, he’d have to let the god go – or goddess. 

I would almost certainly be my brother’s first pick. He knew I’d help him and the campers in whatever way I could. Besides, I knew how much he must miss me. It was rare for him to go more than a couple months without showing up at my camp to bother me and my Hunters. It’d been longer than that, now, since he’d last seen me, even without counting the six months he couldn’t remember. 

I glanced down at my chains. I doubted even a summoning ritual would be able to get rid of them – only Jupiter could do that. 

He’d let me free to help my brother. He had to. 

Apollo and Meg returned to their room in the attic.

“It’s still light outside. You slept all day,” Meg told Apollo accusingly.

“Not turning into a zombie is hard work.”

“I know! I’m sorry!” she snapped.

1. That’s why Meg had so recklessly attacked Tarquin before. It wasn’t just Meg being Meg, she must have thought that doing so would help to alleviate my brother’s wound somehow. 

Meg may not be very open in her affection, but she cared for my brother deeply.

Meg started crying.

“Meg,” Apollo said. “Meg, you’re not responsible for me getting hurt.”

“I just thought… if I could kill him… Like in some stories. You kill the master, and you can free the people he’s turned.”

“Not a terrible idea,” Pluto mused. “But that only applies to specific kinds of undead, like vampires. I doubt it would work with Tarquin.”

“But is it possible?” I asked.

“There’s a small chance,” Pluto admitted begrudgingly. “Considering that I do not know exactly how Tarquin’s wound infection works. But I wouldn’t place my hope in such a plan.”

“You’re talking about Tarquin,” my brother realized. “You jumped into the throne room because… you wanted to save me?”

“Duh.”

Apollo assured Meg that things would be okay, since Pranjal’s healing skill and Meg’s own efforts with the magical chickweed had bought him some time. He’d be able to summon a god to heal him up the rest of the way. He’d be fine.

Meg was doubtful. “How can you know? Is this god going to give us three wishes or something?”

“I don’t know, Meg. You’re right. I can’t be sure everything will be okay. But I can promise you I’m not giving up. We’ve come this far. I’m not letting a belly scratch stop us from defeating the Triumvirate.”

“I don’t want to lose somebody else.”

I appreciated Apollo being honest with Meg, even as he tried to downplay the danger he was in. Some of my Hunters had come from households where the parents, believing it would be better for their kids, just told them that things would be okay, that the banks wouldn’t repossess the house, that their grandma would recover, that they were just having a little argument with their spouse and nothing worse would come from that. Sometimes that optimistic view panned out… but sometimes it didn’t, leaving the child unprepared and untrusting of authority figures’ reassurances’.

Given how Meg had already lost her father, and everything Nero had put her through, absolute assurance that Apollo would be alright when that wasn’t guaranteed would be disingenuous. Still, my brother struck a good balance, promising her that he wasn’t giving up. That was something that both I and Meg could believe wholeheartedly, my brother was as stubborn as they come.

The fact that Meg was being so open about her feelings, about her fears… it demonstrated how much my brother had been able to get through to her. Just a few weeks ago, Meg would have been ordering him to “shut up” rather than confessing everything. He’d always had a way of getting through to people.

Apollo asked for a hug, which Meg tearfully indulged him in. I wasn’t sure who needed it more, her or him.

After a few moments more, Meg shoved him off. “Okay. Enough of that. You sleep. I’m– I’m going to get dinner or whatever.”

“Apollo’s not sleeping,” Mercury noted. 

“Not everyone is as good at falling asleep immediately as you are,” Athena replied, a hint of warning in her voice.

“Yeah but…” Mercury trailed off, his eyes widening a little. 

I guessed he’d picked up on the message Athena had been trying to send, the same thing I had noticed. 

Meg gave Apollo an order, and he’d disobeyed. Granted, that order didn’t have a lot of strength behind it – I doubt she’d even thought of it as an order when she gave it – but it was more than he’d been able to do in the past. Between that and Apollo’s unusually good archery while confronting Tarquin, the way his fingers had been smoking… was his godhood returning? Not just in the spurts he’d demonstrated up until now, but in a deeper, more consistent fashion?

Apollo did at last shut his eyes, drifting off to sleep.

Mars sighed. “Great! Can we leave now? He’s just gonna sleep all night. Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept through most of tomorrow too, he’s been dozing more than Hypnos.”

“That does tend to happen when you’re trying to survive a mortal wound,” I rolled my eyes.

Mars scoffed. “That’s all the more reason to stay awake! Live what little life you have left! Go out with a bang!”

“I’d rather Apollo survive for millennia longer rather than dying within the week,” I said dryly. 

“You may be dismissed,” Jupiter announced to the council. “Be back by daybreak tomorrow, or I will be very displeased.”

“He’ll probably still be napping then,” Mars grumbled, but left the room.

Within a few minutes, all the other gods had filed out, leaving me alone, still chained to my throne, for yet another night.

In the morning, as dawn broke, everyone came filing in. Mars was predictably the last to enter, the sun spilling its first rays moments after he crossed the threshold.

It seemed wrong, the sun still shining even though my brother wasn’t at the helm of the chariot. He may not have always been the sun god, but he’d long since made the mantle his own. Not that I’d been able to direct the moon the last few days either. In a way it seemed fitting, that neither of us were fulfilling our celestial duties. 

Several hours later (and after much complaining from Mars about how boring watching Apollo sleep was), my brother finally woke up. His gut wound looked nearly as bad as it had before the most recent treatments. He’d better succeed at summoning a god during the attack. I doubt he’d survive long past that.

After getting dressed, Apollo headed out to get lunch. Lavinia waved him over to where she and Meg were sitting.

“So, is it true?” Lavinia asked him.

“Is what true?”

“The shoes.”

“Shoes?”

“The dancing shoes of Terpischore! Meg was telling us what happened on Caligula’s yachts. She said you and that Piper girl saw a pair of Terpischore’s shoes!”

Apollo was annoyed that Meg chose to tell Lavinia about the shoes, of all things, but confirmed that yes, the ship had held a pair of those shoes.

“We have to figure out a way to get aboard that ship and rescue those shoes,” Lavinia announced.

“A worthy cause!” Venus proclaimed.

“One that’s worth dying for?” I questioned. Caligula had proven how dangerous he was the first time Apollo had pilfered shoes from him. I doubted that Lavinia could defend herself from him more effectively than Jason had.

Venus waved me off. “You have to be prepared to make sacrifices for fashion!”

I rolled my eyes.

Apollo told the surrounding campers about far more important news than some misplaced footwear – his dream, which had given him some useful intel on the Emperors’ capabilities. There were fifty ships in the coming fleet, each with a top-of-the-line mortar capable of launching a green flaming ball of death.

Vulcan let out a low whistle. “They’ve been busy.”

Mars’ face lit up. “Finally! Time to see stuff burn!”

“Was Helios setting California on fire a week ago not enough for you?” I asked dryly.

“No! Nothing even burned down!” he complained. “I want to see some buildings collapse.”

“In camp?” Vulcan questioned. 

Mars shrugged. “There’s a reason Romans have gotten so good at building fast and building well.”

Apollo gave a little pep talk, reminding the campers that at least they knew what the secret weapon was now. It didn’t have much effect.

“Keep it together, legionnaire,” Hazel reminded one of the demigods. “This is what we signed up for. Defending the legacy of Rome.”

“From its own emperors,” the demigod replied miserably.

“I’m sorry to tell you, but the biggest threat to the empire was often its own emperors,” Apollo informed him.

I resisted nodding. Sometimes the biggest downfall for the grandest, most powerful empires, was its leadership. Not only in terms of starting fights that even with all their power, the empire couldn’t win, but even more importantly, in ignoring the wellbeing of the actual people the empire was meant to protect, until the citizens finally had enough and overthrew the tyrants, replacing them with someone who actually represented their interests, rather than only representing themselves and keeping everyone else down. 

Chapter Text

I frowned, looking Apollo over. He looked a little tired, but not like he was on death’s door. Judging by how nasty the wound was, looks were probably deceiving here. As much as Apollo liked complaining about minor inconveniences, he was really good at clamming up over major problems. 

Hazel asked Apollo how the wound was. He downplayed its seriousness, telling her he was okay. 

“I should have realized earlier,” Hazel fretted. “Your death aura is getting stronger by the hour.”

“Can we not talk about my death aura?”

“Sorry, it’s just… I wish Nico were here. He might know how to fix you.”

“Nico would not be able to help much more than Hazel could,” Pluto said. “He may be able to hold Tarquin off from having any premature influence over Apollo’s actions, but he cannot remove Tarquin’s poison. Will may have been able to help Apollo slightly more than Pranjal was able to, but even then, I doubt he could do more than buy his father an extra day of life.”

I suspected that Hazel mostly wanted her brother’s comfort. He’d been the one to bring her back to the land of the living, and was one of the more powerful demigods alive right now. Even if he couldn’t help much with Apollo’s particular problem, he could still be of great help in the coming battle, perhaps even wresting control of the undead away from Tarquin. 

Lavinia was arguing with Don and conspicuously NOT heading to the Field of Mars, as she was supposed to . Hazel decided to pay attention to her legionnaires that were actually where they were supposed to be, albeit not doing what they were supposed to do. Her group had apparently decided that this was a great time to go sledding down dirt hills on their shields.

“That would be my group of delinquents,” Hazel sighed. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to teach them how to slay ghouls.”

“Sled right into them!” Mars advised. “Blunt force trauma is a great way to take down zombies. Leaves a lot of carnage.”

“I’m not sure the hills will be this good for sledding tomorrow,” I noted.

“Are you kidding? They’ll be slick with blood and viscera! They’ll be able to get up to way higher speeds!”

“If there’s so much spilt blood that the dirt turns to mud, I don’t think there’ll be enough demigods left to actually fight,” I said dryly. “Even if the vast majority of the casualties are on the undead side, if there are that many ghouls, Camp Jupiter is likely to be overwhelmed.”

“Don’t underestimate the Romans,” Mars’ eyes gleamed. “There’s a reason they were able to conquer such a vast empire.”

“And lost it all, don’t forget that,” I retorted.

Meg told Apollo that he would be the archery instructor.

“But – I can’t teach as Lester, especially in my condition!” Apollo protested. “Besides, Romans never rely on archery in combat. They think projectile weapons are beneath them!”

I snorted. Fools. Taking some of the most effective long-range weapons off the table because of a misplaced sense of pride… how they’d lasted so long was beyond me. That refusal showed how little Romans valued their soldiers' lives. With a long-range weapon, you could take out the enemy without putting yourself at much risk. Probably why they considered it cowardly, but if that “cowardice” resulted in more soldiers being able to fight in the next battle, then it was well worth it.

“Gotta think in new ways if you want to beat the emperors,” Meg quipped. “Like me. I’m weaponizing the unicorns.”

Neptune leaned forwards, eyes sparkling. I had the feeling whatever Meg cooked up was likely to pop up again in Neptune’s palaces, and in his many, many diatribes about how wonderful horses were and by extension, how smart and wise he was for creating them.

Ugh. Why’d Meg have to be a horse girl?

Apollo got started working with the morning class. It was immediately evident that they knew nothing about archery, as one of them didn’t even know what a sight pin was.

Apollo demonstrated his archery skills, firing off twenty shots, two per a target, all of them in the bulls-eye. He didn’t even look winded afterwards.

Mercury let out a low whistle. “Seems like his shooting earlier wasn’t just a fluke.”

Diana smiled softly. While this archery display was nothing special compared to Apollo’s usual godly standard, when compared to a mortal standard? It’d be hard to find someone who could beat what Apollo had just done.

“I have decided to allow Apollo a small measure of his divine skill back,” Jupiter announced. “As you saw earlier when fighting against Tarquin’s forces. While Apollo still needs to learn his lesson, Camp Jupiter should not pay for his folly any more than they have already.”

This second display of godly archery skill, so close to the earlier example, must have convinced Jupiter that Apollo was likely to continue displaying his divine talent, requiring Jupiter to come up with a face-saving excuse for it, as he had with the other instances when Apollo displayed surges of godly power. He could not stop it, so he would take credit for it, so as not to appear impotent.

“Your mercy is boundless,” I said, careful to keep my tone sincere. I assumed most of the other gods were thinking the same thing, but in a far more sarcastic manner.

Apollo attempted to teach the recruits to shoot, but without much success. Perhaps in a few months some of them would be ready to put their training to the test on the battlefield, but in a day? They’d be more likely to injure themselves than their enemies.

As Apollo was heading for dinner, Lavinia grabbed him, telling him to come with her and Don.

“Lavinia. I’m tired. I’m hungry. And I have no spare change. Can’t it please wait–?”

“No. Because tomorrow we might all die, and this is important.”

Apollo wanted to know why, but Lavinia just told him “you’ll see.” Which led to his next question: “What if we get caught?”

“Oh! I know this one!” Don perked up. “For a first offense, it’s latrine duty for a month. But, see, if we all die tomorrow, it won’t matter!”

“That’s looking on the bright side!” Mars cheered. 

“Apollo might be on his first offense, if he’s even held to the same rules as everyone else, but I highly doubt Lavinia is,” Mercury noted. 

Mars stared at him. “What about Lavinia makes you think she gives a shit about getting caught?”

“She definitely cares, or she wouldn’t bother sneaking out,” I noted. “It’s just not enough to stop her from actually breaking the rules, especially with her Centurion covering for her as much as she can.”

I wondered what was so important that Lavinia was willing to mess around this close to a major battle.

…then again, this was Lavinia. She may have just wanted Apollo’s help setting up a picnic for her totally-not-a-crush Poison Ivy.

This was why I kept to more intellectual relationships. Romantic love just made people act foolish.

Chapter Text

Why couldn’t Lavinia recruit Meg for this… whatever this was as well? I’m sure she’d be far more helpful than Apollo could be. I’d barely gotten to see her these past few days, Apollo had spent most of the time lazing about napping, and instead of following someone who was more interesting and important like Meg, we’d just been stuck looking at him snoring. 

At least if Don was interested in whatever Lavinia was cooking up, it was likely to involve plants. Or free food. One of the two.

It was surprisingly easy to sneak out of camp without detection. Don explained that Camp Jupiter was designed to keep armies out, not individual legionnaires and fauns in.

They hiked for hours in the darkness, until at last they got to a park. It’d seen better days. Plastic littered all around, tree stumps commemorating fallen dryads.

“Those awful… how DARE they…” I muttered. Trees fell down or needed to be cut down all the time, naturally. The empty space opened up room for smaller plants to take hold, and the old tree trunks would rot and return nutrients to the soil for a new generation.

But this? No new life was springing up due the trees’ destruction. It was just… left like that. 

The litter was even worse! Though more of a problem for the animals than my beloved plants. I doubted much of it would remain in place long enough to kill off the plants underneath them. They’d better not stay in place that long.

A large group of dryads and fauns were gathered on a nearby stage. Including a familiar face.

“Peaches?” Apollo asked.

“Peaches!” Peaches replied. The poor dear looked the worse for wear, brown tinging the ends of his leaves, what leaves remained, at any rate. 

Lavinia translated for him. “Peaches filled us in on what he saw in Southern California, but he arrived there too late to help. He busted his wings to get up here as fast as he could. He wants you to tell the group firsthand what happened in SoCal.”

Mercury scratched his head. “Like what? I mean, a lot happened, but not much I’d think they’d be that worried about. They shouldn’t know any of the dryads from there personally, and I wouldn’t think they’d be that concerned about Jason’s death. I mean, I guess they might want to know that the thing setting everyone on fire was stopped, but aside from that, I don’t know why they’d care?”

“Because the Emperors are coming here, to this place!” I shouted. Of course he didn’t get it. Most of the other gods didn’t. To them, dryads were either hookups or background noise. They didn’t realize that even if they weren’t participating in most of these grand battles, they were still affected by them. 

In war, those who are not fighting are often hardest hit. That goes even moreso for my poor dryad friends, who are rarely considered in the first place. 

“They’ll wreak havoc on the plants of this place, just like they did up north!” I continued. “Even without Helios to burn them up, I doubt the Emperors will show any more care for the dryads’ lives than they did before. Don’t tell you already forgot the state Agave and Money Maker were in?”

“True…” Athena murmured. “And they’re not able to truly leave, either. They can only do their best to weather the storm.”

I nodded. “They can survive a lot. They haven’t had much choice in the matter. It’s not like anyone will go out of their ways to protect them, or even realize they have a stake in this.”

Except for Lavinia, apparently. She may not be one of my children, but I was beginning to think that adoption would be a good idea. She might as well be my honorary child, especially since I didn’t have that many children in my Roman form.

Lavinia presented Apollo with his ukulele, freshly repaired and restrung by one of her friends. 

Apollo launched into song, recounting all that the dryads had been through back in Southern California, the good and the bad. By the end of it, there wasn’t a dry eye amongst the audience. 

“Okay. You heard him,” Lavinia said. “The emperors will be here by tomorrow evening.”

“But that gives us no time,” a redwood dryad protested. “If they do to the bay area what they did to L.A…”

“The legion will fight them though, right?” a faun asked. “I mean, they might win.”

“C’mon, Reginald,” a different dryad spoke up. “You want to depend on mortals to protect us? When has that ever worked out?”

“Jason, Piper, Meg, and Apollo were instrumental in stopping Caligula’s destruction and quelling the fires in Southern California,” Diana retorted. “So I’d say they were pretty successful.”

“True, but what about all the carnage before that? All the nature spirits who died? Piper and Jason tried their best to help, but did any other demigods care? Did they even know? And even with their help, so many were killed or hurt!”

Demigods were good at killing monsters and tyrants, but protecting? Especially groups that they barely thought twice about? The nature spirits had best make their own protection plans, because no one else was going to do it for them.

Lavinia defended Camp Jupiter, noting that groups of demigods were being sent to try and intercept the fleet before they arrived. She wasn’t optimistic about their chances of success, however. She also noted that Apollo would attempt to summon a god to help, but seemed skeptical at how much that would help the plant spirits’ situation.

As the dryads and fauns talked things over, Lavinia escorted Apollo back to camp.

“What will they do?” He asked.

“You mean what will we do. ‘Cause I’m with them,” she declared. Apollo was nervous, wondering what she meant by that. She explained that after seeing Tarquin’s tomb and hearing about what they were gonna face tomorrow, she couldn’t just fall into line, march off to die. That it wouldn’t help anyone, and it was best that Apollo not ask for more details, or tell anyone what he saw tonight.

“She’s my daughter now.” I announced. “Terpischore hasn’t done anything for her anyway, clearly. But what she’s doing here?” I gestured at the screen. “She’s shown that she’s my daughter in spirit, if not in ichor.”

“I think Terpischore might have something to say about that,” Mercury muttered.

I sniffed. Terpischore was fine, I suppose, I’d never had a problem with her, but I couldn’t understand how she could find dancing to be more important than helping dryads. “If she wants to contest my claim, she can go down to Earth and talk with Lavinia personally about what realm she’s more interested in – dancing and music, or nature. Judging by everything we’ve seen of her, I doubt Lavinia would have any issue with being favored by the supreme goddess of plants.” 

Besides, I was sure Lavinia knew what would get her further in life – support from a mere Muse paled in comparison to that of one of the original six Olympians like myself. If any had doubted my power, Meg’s fighting and plant prowess had surely rectified that questioning.

Chapter Text

The other gods filed in. I, myself, had remained chained to my throne for all night, yet again. 

Today was the day of the Emperors’ attack.

The day that Apollo would summon a god.

The day he would likely die if he didn’t get that divine assistance.

It all depended on today.

Reyna and Meg arrived to start the quest, Reyna in civilian clothes for the first time that I’d seen for her. It wasn’t truly going to just be the three of them however, Reyna’s loyal metal dogs were accompanying her.

Hazel and Frank drove up in a Chevy for the questing group to drive, Hazel at the wheel.

“All gassed up, Praetor!” Hazel announced. 

“Thank you, Centurion. How are the driving lessons going?” Reyna asked.

“Good! I didn’t even run into Terminus this time.”

“Progress.”

“I didn’t know Hazel was old enough to learn how to drive,” Mercury frowned. “I thought she was fourteen?”

“They are probably fudging her age a little to get around California’s particular driving laws, as for that state, you have to be fifteen and a half to get a learner’s permit,” Athena explained. “That being said, her age doesn’t need to be altered by much. She should be fifteen now, biologically speaking.”

“She told me she was thirteen, though?” I questioned. I’d talked for several minutes with Hazel and Frank while Leo persuaded Apollo to help him with Asclepius’s cure, and it’d come up off-handedly during the conversation.

“Hazel turned thirteen on December 17, 1941. She died about six months later, during midsummer of 1942, so she was already about thirteen and a half when she died. She was brought back to the land of the living a little over a year and a half ago, around the end of September or beginning of October,” she glanced over at Pluto, who nodded imperceptibly. We all knew he had approved of Nico bringing her back, but given who he was, he chose to maintain some distance from any acknowledgement of what had happened to Hazel, that she’d been in his domain and been set free from it.

“Add that year and a half to Hazel’s thirteen and a half years when she died, and she’d have just turned fifteen!” Athena concluded smugly. 

Frank and Hazel informed Reyna that the strike force had set off, and the zombie pickets were in place. Camp Jupiter was as ready as it could be.

“Your sword’s in the trunk. Don’t you want to take a shield or something?” Hazel questioned Reyna, concerned.

“Nah. I’ve got my cloak. It’ll turn aside most weapons.” She unfurled her sweater wrap. It turned into her usual purple cape.

“Does my cloak do that?” Frank asked.

“No, it does not,” Athena stated. “Reyna’s cloak only has that capability because I blessed her with a piece of my aegis.”

“I’m still surprised any Roman was able to endear themselves to you,” Mercury muttered.

Athena raised an eyebrow. “What did you say?”

“Nothing! Nothing.”

All of us had been urging Athena to let go of her grudge for years . Even with the original slight mended, Athena taking a liking to any Roman was pretty stunning. 

Then again, Reyna was pretty stunning, persevering under all that pressure. Though it couldn’t be good for her. Perhaps she’d like a change of scenery when this was over. There was only so long that anyone could function with that much stress on their shoulders.

Reyna decided to be the driver for this expedition. She announced that they’d have to park at the base of the hill Sutro Tower was on and hike to it.

“You’ve decided the tower itself is our target, and not Mount Sutro behind it?” Apollo questioned.

“Can’t be sure, obviously,” Reyna replied. “But I double-checked Thalia’s list of trouble spots. The tower was on there.”

“Thalia’s what?”

“Didn’t I tell you about that? So, Thalia and the Hunters of Artemis, you know, they keep a running list of places where they’ve seen unusual monstrous activity, stuff they can’t quite explain. Sutro Tower is one of them. Thalia sent me her list of locations for the Bay Area so Camp Jupiter can keep an eye on them.”

“I’m surprised a system like that isn’t in place for Camp Half-Blood,” Mercury commented.

“Reyna’s the one who came up with it,” I explained. “And she’s the one Thalia sends the list to. Thalia’d floated the idea of arranging a similar system with Chiron so he could send campers to investigate disturbances at Camp Half-Blood as needed, but we haven’t gotten around to setting one up yet.” Because I’ve been confined here , I didn’t say. Not that my Hunters needed me to hold their hands, but they’d also been rather busy the past few months.

Athena frowned. “How up-to-date is that list? I’d assumed that Thalia wouldn’t have been able to get any messages to Reyna for months, since communication was cut off.”

“My Hunters went through the Bay Area recently, just after communication started cutting off,” I explained. “Not in detail, or they would have found the culprit, but enough to point out some areas of concern. It won’t be up-to-date, but hopefully it doesn’t need to be. Depends on whether the Emperors have had reason to move the silent god.”

Or the silent god chose to move on their own. If Athena’s hypothesis of Harpocrates being the silent god was correct, then he might well be willingly helping the Emperors out of spite. Though Athena could still be wrong. While Harpocrates being the silent god seemed most likely, we didn’t have hard evidence to support it. 

Personally, I hoped she was wrong. My brother didn’t need to run into more powerful entities with grudges against him.

Apollo was curious about how Reyna knew Thalia. She recounted their shared experience fighting against Orion, seeing him decimate both the Hunters and the group her sister led, the Amazons. 

I shuddered. I may not be scared of what Orion could do to me directly, but what he could do to the people I cared about? That was another story. Being trapped on Delos, unable to leave without fearing father’s wrath, while my followers were being slaughtered… it was one of the worst experiences of my long, long life. 

I glanced down at my chains. Not as much had changed from then as I would have liked. I was still trapped by my father’s wrath, the people I loved were still in danger. But this would have a happier outcome. It had to.

Apollo questioned how Reyna and Thalia could remain in touch, given that communication lines had been down for months. She revealed that letters apparently still went through. It was a slow method, but it worked.

“Letters? Circumventing the blockage is that simple?” Mercury asked disbelievingly.

“Presumably since this is the silent god, they only block verbal communication,” I theorized.

“That’s most electronic communication nowadays,” he deadpanned. “And we’ve seen how those have been blocked from working in the hands of demigods. No, I suspect that they just overlooked such an old and slow communication method.”

“Classic mistake,” Athena agreed. “Only considering the newer, shinier, more advanced ways your enemy has of doing things, and forgetting about the older, obsolete methods that still work just as well – better in fact – in absence of the appropriate countermeasures.”

Reyna wrote to Thalia about what happened to Jason as soon as Apollo arrived in camp, but she wasn’t sure when she’d get the letter.

My brother seemed more interested in something else involving them, awkwardly inquiring whether they were romantically involved.

“Seems like Apollo’s sticking his not-so-godly face where it doesn’t belong,” Mars chuckled. 

I sighed. I wished I could say that he was just making conversation, but I knew my brother. Reyna was the type of person he’d go for. Though why he’d chosen now, of all times, was beyond me. 

Reyna sighed. “If I had a denarius for every time I got that question… Aside from the fact that Thalia is in the Hunters, and thus sworn to celibacy… Why does a strong friendship always have to progress to romance? Thalia’s an excellent friend. Why would I risk messing that up?”

I smiled proudly at Reyna. “Spoken like a Hunter.” 

Many people thought that the oath of celibacy my Hunters took meant that they couldn’t have close bonds, that they were being robbed of something precious and intimate. 

Reyna, though… she understood. Relationships could be strong and close without being romantic or sexual. Friendships weren’t “lesser” than romantic relationships. People could stay as close platonic friends. That was enough.

Perhaps I should see whether she’d be interested in joining my Hunters…

Apollo had little to say for that, and after some awkward mumbling around, the three of them sat in silence for the rest of the car ride.

Chapter Text

I shifted in my seat, barely able to contain my excitement. Reyna and Apollo were about to go through a big romantic upheaval, I could feel it! The seeds I’d planted so many years ago would finally bear fruit.

…I've been spending too much time around Ceres lately.

The group arrived at the hill Sutro Tower was located on. As they hiked up, Reyna confronted Apollo about his strange behavior around her.

“Ever since you showed up at camp,” she started, “you’ve been acting jumpy. You stare at me like I’m the one who got infected. Then you won’t make eye contact. You stammer. You fidget. I do notice these things,”

“Ah,” Apollo replied, seemingly lost for words.

“Look, I’m not going to bite you. Whatever is going on, I’d rather not have it hanging over your head, or mine, when we go into battle.”

“Anyone want to take bets on whether he’ll fess up?” Mercury called out, already bringing out his notepad.

Neptune shook his head. “Too much variability in what he might say, I don’t think there’d be an easy way to decide on who the winner would be. Besides…” he gestured at the screen, where Apollo had started answering her.

“It’s about Venus,” Apollo admitted.

“I see.” Reyna looked displeased.

“”She told me–”

“Her little prediction,” Reyna spat. “No mortal or demigod will ever heal my heart.”

Diana side-eyed me. “Did you make it sound that bad on purpose?” she asked accusingly.

I scoffed. “I simply told her the truth.”

“There are ways to tell her such a thing without making her think her heart will always be broken!”

“But they wouldn't be as fun.”

Diana grunted, looking away. She’d never seen the value in manufacturing drama and strife. Just one of the many ways that she was missing out on life’s pleasures.

Reyna explained her thoughts on my pronouncement. “I went on that quest with Jason, what, two years ago? Venus took one look at me and decided… I don’t know. I was broken. I needed romantic healing. Whatever. I wasn’t back at camp a full day before the whispering started. Nobody would admit that they knew, but they knew. The looks I got: ‘Oh, poor Reyna’. The innocent suggestions about who I should date. The thing is, I’m not broken.”

“Of course not.”

“So why have you been acting nervous? What does Venus have to do with it? Please don’t tell me it’s pity.”

“N-no. Nothing like that.”

“Of course she’s not broken!” Diana burst out. She glared at me accusingly. “How dare anyone make her feel that way.”

I huffed. “It’s not my fault how my words were interpreted.” 

“It’s your fault when you word it like that!”

I waved her off. “She’ll be okay.”

“She shouldn’t have had to go through this to begin with!”

“But then we’d have missed this juicy confrontation.

“So–?”

I shushed her as Reyna and Apollo continued talking.

“ You see, back when I was a god, Venus gave me a warning. About you,” Apollo explained. 

“Go on, Lester,” Reyna urged.

“Um… Well I walked into the throne room one day, and Venus was studying this hologram of you, and I asked – just completely casually, mind you – ‘Who’s that?’? And she told me your… your fate, I guess. The thing about healing your heart. Then she just… tore into me. She forbade me to approach you. She said if I ever tried to woo you, she would curse me forever. It was totally unnecessary. And also embarrassing.”

“It was awesome!” Mars chuckled. “Apollo looked like he was ready to crap his pants!”

“He looks nearly ready to crap his pants now,” Mercury observed.

Mars waved him off. “Eeeeh, this is mild compared to his look of fear back then. Venus can be terrifying when she wants to be.”

I laughed. Apollo knew as well as any god how scary love could be, and what a bad idea it is to piss off a love god.

Reyna tried to figure out what Apollo was getting at, given that Venus wasn’t there, he wasn’t a god anymore, and he wasn’t trying to woo her. Apollo fumbled through his thought process, telling her that maybe I had been specific about the ‘godly face’ part because he was supposed to heal her heart as a mortal, and he could be her boyfriend if she wanted it. 

Reyna stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter. “Oh… my… gods…” she wheezed. “You? Me? HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.”

The entire council room guffawed, with the exceptions of Diana and Juno, the spoilsports. 

“I– I think that’s the most emphatic rejection Apollo’s ever gotten!” Mercury laughed. 

“If she’d been any harsher than that, the burn would have killed him!” Neptune chuckled. 

“Well, at least Reyna isn’t settling for dating Apollo just because he asked,” Diana muttered.

“You don’t think highly of your brother’s wooing prowess?” I asked teasingly.

“I couldn’t care less about his ‘wooing’, as you put it,” Diana shot back testily. “But I don’t want Reyna to force herself into a relationship just because she thinks it’s what she’s ‘supposed’ to do. Too many young women are pressured by society to form romantic relationships already. I do not wish her to be one of those casualties.”

“You just want her for your Hunters,” Ceres guessed.

“And so what if I do?” Diana retorted. “I’m betting she’d be much happier with us than she is at camp, especially since she already gets along so well with Thalia.”

“Hmm, real well…” I mused.

“Don’t you start on that,” Diana said tiredly. “Haven’t you messed with Reyna enough already? Besides, she just launched into a whole speech about how she and Thalia are just friends less than an hour ago.”

“Sure, but feelings have a way of changing when two people are in close proximity for years, watching each others’ backs, sharing near-death experiences…”

Diana let out a long groan. “Just stay away from my Hunters.”

I grinned, but made no promises. 

Reyna managed to breathe just enough to clarify how she would have responded if Apollo had been a god when he asked her out. “That would have been a solid, absolute, hard-pass NO.”

“I am astonished!” Apollo gasped. 

“And as Lester,” she continued. “I mean, you’re sweet and kind of adorkable at times.”

“Adorkable? At times?”

“But still a big-time NO. Ha ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“She would reject even a god?” Jupiter questioned, sounding perturbed. 

“I’m sure if it had been you that she would have said ‘yes’ in a heartbeat,” Athena soothed. 

I highly doubted that. Jupiter didn’t seem like Reyna’s type. But it was probably for the best that Athena distracted Jupiter through flattery, making him believe that the problem was only Apollo. If he got to thinking too hard about why she would reject Apollo as a god… Jupiter was known to be able to become very ornery very quickly. Best that Athena just sidestep that entire meltdown.

After several minutes, Reyna finally finished laughing, moving on with the actual quest: finding the soundless god.

“I am never going to let Apollo live this down!” Mars declared happily. Judging by the smirks on several other gods’ faces, he wasn’t the only one.

Chapter Text

I suppressed a chuckle at Apollo’s disgruntled look as he, Reyna, and Meg continued hiking up to the tower. I didn’t need to give Venus the satisfaction. While I didn’t mind my brother being brought down a peg on the romance angle, Reyna hadn’t needed the strife Venus put her through. No one should feel broken for not wanting a romantic relationship, no one should be pressured to enter one.

So many people saw romantic relationships as the most intimate and supportive relationship a person could have, and thus that if you lacked one, you must be lonely. But romance wasn’t required for such things – personally, I thought it got in the way. Platonic companionship could be just as deep and rich.

I had the feeling that was what Reyna truly needed – peers to watch her back, who she wasn’t in charge of, people who she could count on.

 People like my Hunters. 

Reyna worried about why they hadn’t seen any security, given that Tarquin had called for ‘the flock’ to be doubled. She went ahead to check out the situation, leaving Meg and Apollo behind.

“How come you made her laugh?” Meg asked Apollo.

“That wasn’t my intention,” my brother replied, miffed. “Besides, it isn’t illegal to make someone laugh.”

“You asked her to be your girlfriend, didn’t you?”

“I– what? No. Sort of. Yes.”

“That was stupid.”

“On that, we agree,” I said, bemused. Offering Meg a place in the Hunters was also tempting, but judging by her reactions to Percy and Joshua, I doubted she’d stay with us for very long. 

Mars snickered. “Even the twelve-year-old’s burning him now!”

“I’m amazed she guessed what he did, I wouldn’t think she’d have had the life experience to discern when someone had swung at bat and missed,” Mercury noted.

“My brother isn’t exactly difficult to read,” I replied dryly. Plus, society was really good at teaching even children about the signs of romantic relationships, even ones that petered out before they had the chance to get off the ground. If Meg had ever watched a romcom (which I unfortunately had, due to my brother’s pestering), that would have given her all the education she needed to guess what had occurred.

Apollo let Meg know that he’d seen Peaches last night. This wasn’t news to her, as she’d been able to sense the karpos. She was already aware that he was working on a plan to help the nature spirits. 

“And… if that plan is to help them run away?” Apollo asked.

“Would that be so bad?” I questioned. “To have an evacuation plan in place for those who never wanted to fight, who were never included in the fight to begin with? Though I’m not sure how they would all leave, given that trees aren’t the easiest things to move.”

“I doubt they’ll run away,” Ceres sniffed. “Don’t underestimate nature spirits.”

“You think that’s what he wants? Or what the nature spirits want?” Meg questioned. 

“They live here too. They don’t want to be displaced or to be subjected to the emperors’ tyranny,” Ceres declared. “Demigods aren’t the only ones who will fight to protect their homes.”

I nodded. There was no shame in the nature spirits leaving if they didn’t want to risk the fight, but I knew as well as anyone how formidable such spirits could be when they did try to protect their homes. My Hunters had protected many such spirits from encroachment by monsters, and been protected by them in turn. A handful had even joined with us, becoming some of my most trusted Hunters.

Meg also already knew that Lavinia was with the nature spirits. She’d gone missing that morning. Meg concluded that whatever she and Peaches were planning, there wasn’t much she could do about it right now anyway.

“Well, I’m glad we had this talk, so I could unburden myself of all the things you already knew,” Apollo huffed. “I was also going to say that you’re important to me and I might even love you like a sister, but–”

“I already know that, too,” Meg grinned. “‘S’Okay. You’ve gotten less annoying, too.”

It’d been evident for quite awhile now that Apollo had pretty much adopted Meg as a little sister. If he wasn’t going to consider her to be a younger sibling, then I would. 

Maybe Apollo considering Meg to be his younger sister would finally stop him from insisting that he was the older twin, he could get out all his “older brother”ness on her instead of attempting it with me. I’d literally delivered him into this world, it was pretty galling for him to claim that he was somehow older than me.

Reyna came back, asserting the place was empty, but evacuated in a hurry - probably by Tarquin using the Mist to his advantage to get the mortals out of the tower. It meant they were in the right place at least. 

Apollo, Reyna, and Meg started climbing up the ladder of the tower, Apollo at the top, followed by Reyna, and lastly Meg.

While climbing, Meg started smelling roses, for some reason.

After awhile they got to the first crossbeams, at which point Meg decided to do a cartwheel, because she enjoyed giving my brother heart attacks I guess.

They looked around for some sort of door, since that was what the prophecy said Reyna was supposed to open. Since they didn’t see one, they decided to keep climbing, especially since Meg claimed the smell of roses was stronger higher up. Reyna was the first one up this time around, followed by Apollo, and lastly Meg. Perhaps Reyna just didn’t want to smell my brother’s shoes anymore.

A bird divebombed Apollo, barely missing him. A raven, to be precise – and it had a lot of friends.

“A flock of ravens,” Meg noted. “Those are the guards? They’re pretty.”

“They’re here because of Koronis,” Apollo replied miserably. “This is my fault.”

I grimaced. “Oh. That.” I’d been furious at the time for her cheating on my brother like that, for hurting him that way, but killing her may have been an overreaction, especially as she was pregnant at the time. I was reconsidering a lot of my more brutal reactions towards women who’d done wrong these days. 

I knew Apollo had regretted his demand for me to kill her almost immediately, with how he’d made sure to save Asclepius before he could die in his mother’s womb, and how he’d punished the ravens who had told him of Koronis’s cheating in the first place. Sadly, my brother had always had a habit of punishing others, people who were safer to hurt, rather than the person he was truly angry with. Though in this case that might have been better. The person he’d been angry with was himself.

Of course this was coming back to bite him. It seemed everyone he’d wronged (or who believed Apollo had wronged them, at any rate) were coming out of the woodwork now that they knew my brother was vulnerable.

I frowned. Then again, could I say I was that different? I’d been the one to actually kill Koronis after all, and… well, I had been rethinking a few of my worse punishments. 

Apollo had great regretted Koronis’s death. While I was the instrument by which she died, and nowadays I thought that I might have gone too far, hers was not a death I truly regretted – I hardly knew her, and she had, in fact, wronged my brother.

No. In my case, the person I truly regretted punishing as harshly as I did was one of my own Hunters. 

I discovered one day that Kallisto, one of my favorite Hunters, was pregnant. She broke down, confessing that Jupiter had assaulted her, and she had tried to get away, but couldn’t, and she had been too ashamed to tell me what happened.

At the time, even though it hadn’t been her fault, I felt like I needed to punish her for not telling me what had happened, for not letting me know that, even against her will, she was no longer a virgin. I turned her into a bear, leaving her to shuffle off into the wilderness, still pregnant.

The reason I had sentenced her to life as a wild animal hadn’t entirely been a sense that I had to punish her for unintentionally breaking her oath, had it? I’d been angry, too. Not just at her, but at myself at failing her, and most of all at Jupiter for doing this to her in the first place.

But I couldn’t punish Father for what he’d done, not really. He was stronger than me – always had been. So I took it out on his victim instead. 

I was no better than my brother had been.

A few years later, I’d started to regret being so harsh towards Kallisto, when even at the time I’d known it wasn’t her fault. I emphasized to every new Hunter that if anything happened, whether by their own will or not, wherein their oath had been violated against their will or where they wished to leave because they wanted to no longer be bound by their oath, they needed to tell me, and they would not be punished, they would have my blessing. It was why Emmie and Jo were so comfortable telling me they wished to leave together. 

But… while part of this had been in an effort to let my Hunters know they could tell me these things, part of it had been so I’d never be in that position again. So I’d never have another Hunter who’d been impregnated against her will, who hid the circumstances behind it, and so I’d never have to choose whether to rebut my earlier reasoning I’d used for Kallisto. 

If such a thing happened again… I do not think I’d have the heart to mete out the same punishment I had back then. 

As the birds attacked the three of them, Reyna demanded Apollo tell her what the deal was with the ravens, and more importantly, how to stop them. 

“One time I was dating this girl, Koronis,” Apollo explained. “The ravens found out she was cheating on me, and they told me about it. I was so angry, I got Artemis to kill Koronis for me. Then I punished the ravens for being tattletales by turning them black.”

Reyna stared at him. “That story is messed up on so many levels.”

“I don’t get it,” Mars complained. “Sounds normal to me.”

Athena hummed. “Mortals tend to judge things by different standards.”

“Demigods these days too often believe that they have the right to judge us gods,” Jupiter huffed. “They help out with defeating a Titan or Giant or two, and suddenly they think they’re so high up, they have the capacity to judge those above them. This is why we don’t coddle them. The familiarity leads them to forget their place.”

I fought to keep from rolling my eyes. My Hunters knew me very well, and though they were informal with me, they were also very respectful – but they also knew that they could talk to me if they thought I was doing something wrong. I’d made certain, in more recent years, that they felt more comfortable talking to me about anything, even uncomfortable subjects.

Having no one you considered to be on your level, no one who was allowed to be frank with you, to have everyone tiptoe around you instead… that seemed far worse to me than risking your ego potentially getting bruised.

Reyna and Meg were not pleased about Apollo’s actions, especially how they’d led to the current predicament with the crows. Naturally, he just dug himself deeper. “Listen, I was angry! Yes, I took it out on the birds, but after a few centuries I cooled down. I apologized. By then, they kind of liked being nasty-tempered flesh-eaters. As for Koronis – I mean, at least I saved the child she was pregnant with when Artemis killed her. He became Asclepius, god of medicine!”

“Your girlfriend was pregnant when you had her killed?” Reyna yelled.

“You suck,” Meg said.

“Can we talk about this later?” my brother pleaded. “Or perhaps never? I was a god then! I didn’t know what I was doing!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mars asked, wrinkling his nose. 

Most of the other gods looked just as confused as Mars, though they didn’t all voice it. Gods rarely liked admitting to their own ignorance. 

Jupiter was not one of the confused. He glared at Apollo, his eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I should leave him down there, mortal, since he seems to have a misguided notion that he’s better, smarter now than he was before.”

I took a deep breath. Jupiter was just venting. He had to be. If Apollo passed his trials, he’d restore Apollo’s divinity fully. He just didn’t like hearing that Apollo’s perspective on mortal matters had changed.

I understood what Apollo was talking about, even if the rest of my family did not, or at least tried to convince themselves they didn’t. As gods, it was easy to just… not think about the fact that any harm toward mortals was hurting real people, with thoughts and emotions just as vibrant as yours. Of course, a lot of gods would then try to pretend that mortal thoughts and emotions were lesser than theirs, especially with how short their lifespans were. While they were happy to court mortals, they rarely considered them beyond those sorts of relations. 

But when you were actually with mortals all the time? When you had to depend on them, and help them in turn for the sake of everyone’s safety? That forged bonds deeper than any romance.

Of course Apollo was rethinking his previous actions now. 

Reyna and Meg took a break from being mad at Apollo to try and figure out how to drive off the ravens. Reyna concluded that if Apollo sang a song the birds hated, that might work. If he could charm a crowd, he could probably repulse one as well.

After thinking for a moment, Apollo shouted, “‘VOLARE’!” Apparently it was a song he thought birds might not like. I wasn’t sure why he believed that, but I hoped he was right.

Sadly, once he started singing it, I could see why it drove off the birds.

I winced. I wasn’t the only one. Most gods covered their ears, though I doubted even that would be able to fully block out the horrible sound. Sadly given how my arms were chained to my throne, I was subjected to the full, off-pitch monstrosity of Apollo’s singing. I fervently hoped that this was Apollo purposely butchering the song and not its intended melody, for the sake of the musical world.

At last, the last of the raven’s flew off. 

“APOLLO, ENOUGH!” Meg shouted.

“My ears,” Reyna whimpered. “Oh gods, my ears will never heal.”

“You’re not the only one,” Mercury groaned.

I grimaced. At least he’d been able to mute the sound a little. 

The only one who seemed entirely unaffected was Vulcan. Either he really liked Volare (or hated it, if my theory about Apollo butchering it was correct), or he’d just gotten so used to making a racket while working in his forge, that not even my brother’s most concerted effort to sing the worst song possible could bother him.

Chapter Text

I really hoped the silent god wasn’t Harpocrates. 

The fact that I really didn’t want it to be him, meant that it almost certainly was.

Even if he hadn’t joined with the Emperors willingly – and that wasn’t guaranteed, he certainly had motive – I had my doubts as to how amenable he’d be to helping Apollo with… well, anything. 

I hadn’t thought Harpocrates was even still around. I’d heard so little from any of the Ptolemaic gods over the past millennium, I’d been convinced they’d all faded. 

If they were faded, it meant there was no reason to feel guilty about how I, or any of the others, treated any of them. There were plenty of currently ongoing tragedies to feel bad about where the victims were still around.

But if he was the silent god, then Harpocrates had been around the entire time.

I didn’t remember whether Apollo or I had first gotten the idea to “prank” Harpocrates. Both of us were drunk off Bacchus’s wine at the time. I barely remembered what happened, just Apollo and I laughing at Harpcrates’ stupid appearance, formed from a mistaken impression that Greeks got of what Horus looked like and what his abilities were. Taunting the new god just seemed like good fun, a bit of friendly hazing. 

He hadn’t seemed to find it so funny, and even I thought twice about what we were doing after Apollo tied Harpocrates up and threw him in with his fire horses. I’d found it kinda funny at the time – it reminded me of when Vulcan had gotten Mars and Venus tied up in a net for all of us gods to point and laugh at – but afterwards, when I thought back to why confining Harpocrates like that was so funny… I just couldn’t figure out what the joke had been. 

I’d quietly regretted my role in Harpocrates’ torment even just a couple centuries after I’d last seen him. I may not have been the primary instigator – Apollo had always been more involved in the actual humiliation – but I had been perfectly happy to goad him on whenever I was bored, and to laugh at whatever he did to the god. But since Harpocrates seemed to have disappeared, I chalked it up to yet another regret to bury. Even if I’d known where he was, Harpocrates must have forgotten about what’d happened by now, so bringing it up would only open old wounds. And even if he hadn’t forgotten, I wasn’t his main tormentor, so my apology would hardly mean much. Such an apology probably wouldn’t make him feel better anyway. No, it was better to just drop the entire matter.

I was beginning to regret my cowardice. 

The trio arrived at another catwalk, this one with a shipping container at the end. The three of them took a break to give each other medical attention, before looking over towards the box. They didn’t have much clue on what was inside, not even knowing enough to speculate. Apollo proposed that they open it.

Meg approached the container, summoning her swords. She stopped abruptly about twenty feet from it. “Guys, is… me or… feel weird?” she asked, her words cutting in and out.

“Vesta, can you fix the audio?” Jupiter asked, sounding irritated.

“Nothing is wrong with the audio,” she said calmly. 

“What are you talking about?” He demanded. “You can hear how it’s cutting out!”

“The fault is not that of the audio,” she said mildly. “But that of the sound itself.”

“What does that mean?!” he asked. “Stop speaking in riddles!”

Luckily, Reyna, Apollo, and Meg were still speaking during this.

“What, Meg?” Apollo asked.

“I said… wrong, like… cold and…”

He looked at Reyna. “Did you hear that?”

“Only half of her words are getting through,” Reyna observed. “Why aren’t our voices affected?”

Jupiter stopped interrogating his sister at that. He didn’t apologize for antagonizing her in the first place, of course, but it was as good as I could expect.

Apollo decided to test something out, walking nearer to the box than Meg had been. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He walked back to the other two, the silence lifting becoming obvious when his muttering “No, no, no, no,” became audible. He told them what he’d figured out: that there was a Ptolemaic god in the box, though he didn’t know which one. He vaguely remembered some things about the god they were dealing with: that his symbol was a rose, and that he was in charge of secrets.

“Definitely Harpocrates,” Athena asserted.

I swallowed thickly, nodding. I could see no way around it. 

Harpocrates was the silent god.

Apollo concluded that the Arrow of Dodona might be able to point him towards who, precisely, the silent god was. After Meg made fun of him for accidentally grabbing the wrong arrow the first time, he pulled out the correct arrow, and retreated into the sphere of silence to talk to it. 

“Will he be able to talk to it within that sphere?” I asked. 

“The Arrow talks to Apollo telepathically. Perhaps the connection has been two way the entire time, and it simply wasn’t obvious because my brother was thinking the same words he was saying out loud,” Diana suggested. 

“If it doesn’t actually work that way, Apollo’s going to look very stupid,” I noted.

“For what, the third time today?” Mars laughed.

Judging from how long Apollo stood there, mouthing words to the arrow, then stopping while it silently buzzed, the arrow did in fact have a two-way telepathic connection with Apollo.

After a few moments, Apollo emerged from the sphere, telling Reyna and Meg that he’d remembered who the silent god was: Harpocrates. “He might have… er, sworn that someday he’d see me vaporized,” he confessed.

“Vaporized,” Reyna said, as if trying to comprehend the term.

“Yes.”

“What did you do to him?” Meg asked.

“Nothing!” Apollo protested. “I may have teased him a bit, but he was a very minor god. Rather silly-looking. I may have made some jokes at his expense in front of the other Olympians.”

“So you bullied him,” Reyna summarized.

“No! I mean… I did write ‘zap me’ in glowing letters on the back of his toga. And I suppose I might have been a bit harsh when I tied him up and locked him in the stalls with my fiery horses overnight–”

“OH. MY GODS!” Meg yelled. “You’re awful!”

Mars laughed. “Oh yeah, that was a good one! He struggled and cried so hard while Apollo tied him up, the big baby.”

I felt sick. I’d laughed just as hard as Mars was now, at the time. The “Zap Me” sign had originally been my idea, though admittedly even I’d thought that tying Harpocrates up and throwing him in with the horses had been a little much.

But I didn’t say anything. 

Now Harpocrates would be able to take his anger out on Apollo. 

I couldn’t even help my oldest friend. There was nothing subtle I could do that would be worth the risk.

It probably wouldn’t work, at any rate. I’d tried to keep Luke from his destiny. He'd ended up dead, all the same. 

Apollo admitted he’d been a bully, and promised to apologize to him. After Reyna asked for some intel, he described who Harpocrates was and what he looked like. They were not impressed by the fact that he bullied someone who looked like a ten-year-old.

Next, they had to figure out how to open the box, and what to do afterwards, considering that the ritual required cutting his soul free. “We don’t really have to… you know, do we?” Meg questioned uncomfortably. “I mean even if this Harpo guy is working for the emperors…

“I don’t think he is. It looks like he’s being kept in. He’s a prisoner,” Reyna observed.

Apollo concluded that there must be another way, that the prophecy couldn’t mean they had to kill Harpocrates. They just needed to talk to him to figure out what it was. Assuming that it was possible to talk to him, considering the silence he radiated.

Harpocrates was being contained in the box. He appeared to be a prisoner of the Emperors, not a willing ally. 

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad? Maybe Harpocrates had gotten over the “pranks”. It had been a very long time, after all, and while he’d sworn revenge, he might have let it go in the interim. He’d been around for all this time, and yet had never attempted to bring any harm to Apollo or anyone else involved. It might not have been as big a deal to him as I’d been thinking. His form was based on a child, after all, and children bounced back quickly, right? He might have just shaken it off and forgotten about everything we did. Apollo might apologize for having been a bully, just to have Harpocrates stare at him, confused, because he didn’t even remember who Apollo was.

Next, they had to figure out how to open the box. They concluded that Apollo should use godly strength to wrench open the doors, with Bellona’s power enhancing him, as per the prophecy. 

Reyna and Meg channeled their energy into Apollo. He looked great, but them? Not so much. 

Quickly, Apollo yanked open the doors, stepping inside.

I held my breath, waiting to see what was inside. How Harpocrates was doing.

Everything would be fine.

The trickle of dread in my stomach disagreed.

Chapter Text

What was the big deal about Harpocrates being pranked? Sure it was humiliating, but that’s just how it was when you were low in the pecking order, no use whining about it. No one would come to help you, even if you did. Not for a very long time.

He hadn’t even been locked in those stables all that long, it was only what, twelve hours? Maybe sixteen? Absolutely nothing. He was a Ptolemaic god, he was lucky he was even allowed on Olympus at all!

Reyna and Meg collapsed, writhing on the ground silently. Harpocrates floated in the middle of the room, chained and fettered to various devices, unable to move.

It was bigger than the jar.

Sure, I hadn’t been chained up, but that hardly mattered when I didn’t have room to move anyway.

At least Harpocrates wouldn’t be suffocating from the tiny space. This storage container was practically expansive in comparison.

This was fine. This was the normal way lowly gods like him should expect to be treated. The thudding in my chest was just me anticipating bloodshed and violence before it happened. I had to get revved up for it, what was going on right now was so dark and quiet and boring , my heart needed to remind me not to fall asleep. 

“So it seems Harpocrates is indeed the one causing all the communication difficulties,” Athena commented. “I hadn’t known a god’s powers could be broadcasted like that.”

Vulcan stroked his chin. “I hope they find the schematics for that machine. Something like that could be very useful in the future.”

“What, some old humans have your engineering beat?” I taunted. “Maybe whoever made the machine should be god of the forge instead. They’d be less of an eyesore, that’s for sure.”

Vulcan didn’t take the bait. “Engineering is a collaborative field, based on many different peoples’ contributions.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” I sneered. 

The pounding in my chest had gone away. I’d known that as soon as I was less bored, it’d stop. And hey, whaddya know? I was right. 

Harpocrates glared at the group some more. Judging by the pained expressions on Apollo’s, Meg’s, and Reyna’s faces, whatever was going on between them was likely a dramatic and deeply emotional conversation. Which would have been a lot more interesting if it wasn’t all taking place telepathically. But hey, at least I got to enjoy some funny facial expressions!

After awhile more of them making faces at each other, Reyna and Meg destroyed the fasces that were chained to Harpocrates. The fetters around his arms disintegrated.

“Those fasces looked unusual…” Athena mused. “I doubt they were just floating there for decoration. Especially with the way Harpocrates’s chains fell away once they were destroyed. Perhaps they symbolize the Emperors’ power?”

“They may even hold their immortality,” Diana speculated. “They might not even be minor gods after this.”

Athena shook her head. “I would not go that far. They symbolize the Emperors’ power, certainly, but I doubt they’re completely reliant on them. They probably function similarly to our thrones and Symbols of Power. They’re tied to the Emperors and help to enhance their power, but aren't the sole source.”

“Idiots,” I scoffed. “Who leaves something that vulnerable behind with an enemy?”

“It was probably the only way they could constrain Harpocrates while also using his powers, considering how the chains had connected to him,” Athena pointed out. “While I could believe that Commodus would be stupidly confident enough to leave his fasces vulnerable unnecessarily, I can’t say the same of Caligula.”

The golden ax blades from the fasces flew into Harpocrates’ hands, where they melted. He picked up the glass jar in his lap that I’d only just now noticed. He glared at Apollo some more, causing Apollo’s knees to buckle as he grimaced from the pain. 

Somehow, Reyna and Meg were able to fight through whatever Harpocrates was doing, standing in front of Apollo.

“Are they trying to protect him?” Mercury asked.

“You spent more time with Harpocrates than I did, you tell me. Would physically standing in front of Harpcrates enable them to shield Apollo from his mental assault?” Athena questioned.

Mercury winced. “I don’t know. I never paid much attention to anything he said, or how the telepathy he used to speak worked,” he mumbled, looking away.

“Enough,” a voice spoke after a moment. 

As in, actually spoke out loud. From the sphere of silence.

“This is what I have foreseen,” the voice continued, seeming to emanate from the jar. “At last, we will rest.”

A voice in a jar. That’s all the Sibyl had been reduced to. She’d been left to rot, to wither away, until that was all that remained. 

Just a voice in a jar.

“Sweetie, are you okay?” Venus asked, glancing at me worriedly.

I laughed uproariously. “I’m just fine. Why wouldn’t I be? This is hilarious! A voice in a jar being friends with a silence god, you can’t get more ironic than that! Bet the Sibyl wishes she’d taken Apollo up on his offer now, Harpocrates is such a downgrade!”

No one else laughed.

That was fine, I could laugh enough for everyone.

Harpocrates kissed the jar, before unscrewing the lid. 

The Sibyl spoke, her voice more clearly audible now without that barrier between her and the outside world. “Good-bye, Apollo. I forgive you. Not because you deserve it. Not for your sake at all. But because I will not go into oblivion carrying hate when I can carry love.”

Harpocrates glared at Apollo before giving him one last smirk. He crumbled to dust a moment later, as his last breath entered the Sibyl’s jar.

Reyna caught the jar before it could smash on the ground.

I stared at the screen, uncomprehending. I couldn’t understand. Just… up and dying like that? Willingly? When Harpocrates had seemed ready to destroy Apollo a moment ago?

And the Sibyl… she’d ended up withered away in a jar because of Apollo. She had more reason than anyone to be angry at him. And she just let that go? What did she mean, that she wasn’t forgiving him for his sake? She acted like letting go of anger was easy, like it was better for her.

Anger and hate kept you going, kept you fighting! Sure, love could do that as well, but love and hate were really similar, anyway. They both filled a person with passion, with drive, with power. Why would the Sibyl give that up? Why would Harpocrates give that up? 

Eh, they must have just wanted to give up. Hard to do that when holding onto something as powerful as hatred. Love wasn’t much better, but Ptolemaic gods and Sibyls thought about things weirdly, anyway.

I huffed. Somehow two people had managed to die with no bloodshed or violence, or even any noise! Of course even a god dying during Apollo’s quest still managed to be boring.

Apollo declared that both the Sibyl and Harpocrates were truly gone.

“How could they…?” Reyna asked. “Can a god do that? Just… choose to stop existing?”

Unbidden, I remembered back to when I’d been confined in that cursed jar. My voice growing hoarser and hoarser, no food or water, no one even seeming to care about my whereabouts. Just waiting to wither away into nothingness, no one even noticing my absence, much less caring when I was gone.

I shook my head, dislodging those thoughts. 

No, I couldn’t at all comprehend a god willing themselves to not exist anymore.

Chapter Text

Harpocrates was gone.

I couldn’t even hear his last words, given the whole “sphere of silence” thing. But judging by his facial expressions and the reactions of everyone around him, he hadn’t forgotten about the pranks Apollo and I played on him. He’d still held a grudge, and if not for the Sibyl…

I shivered. The idea of Apollo being killed by a god in retaliation for something I helped encourage Apollo to do, and even participated in it at times… just the thought of it made my gut churn. 

But it was over now. Apollo was… not exactly safe, but not in immediate mortal danger. And with Harpocrates’ last breath, he’d be able to summon a god to help cure him and defeat the emperors. 

Things were looking up, as much as was possible in these circumstances, anyway.

Reyna gave Apollo the jar while she and Meg fended off the ravens. Apollo shoved the jar in his backpack and started shooting. After a dozen or so lay dead on the ground, the rest backed off.

Meg decided that the group should use her own Meg-type exit from the tower, namely making a sort of tunnel of plants for the three of them to slide down, instead of attempting a climb. 

I stared in amazement. “She managed to make all those plants grow that large without any soil or water?” Of course I’d known for quite some time that Meg’s powers were very strong, that’d become evident over the past few months of watching her. But this was a lot, even for her.

Ceres puffed out her chest. “Never underestimate my daughter!”

I couldn’t argue with that. Meg was likely the strongest demigod child Demeter had ever had. She might be the strongest demigod ever once she got a little older, while Nico and Percy were currently top contenders for that title, they were a lot weaker when they were Meg’s age.

Meg collapsed from exhaustion after sliding to the ground. Apollo and Reyna somehow carried her to the car to sleep it off. Which she’d have plenty of time to do, considering they got stuck in some of the worst traffic I’ve ever seen.

Reyna decided now was a good time to talk with Apollo. “You did good back there. You stepped up,” she said, giving him a rare bit of praise.

“I’m holding the last breath of a god I bullied, in the jar of a Sibyl I cursed, who was protected by birds I turned into killing machines after they tattled about my cheating girlfriend, who I subsequently had assassinated,” Apollo replied miserably.

“All true, but the thing is, you recognize it now.”

“Recognize what?” Mars asked. “That Apollo’s gotten more boring in the past few millennia? I don’t think he’s killed someone in vengeance in over a century!” He shook his head. “He’s gone soft.”

“I think he’d take that as a compliment,” Diana replied drily.

So did I. Considering how much guilt he was harboring over his previous actions, he’d wear it as a badge of honor.

“I think there was an implied sentence in there that neither of them actually said,” Athena observed. “It’s not clear from the sentence construction what, exactly, Apollo recognized.”

My voice spoke without my conscious decision. “He’s recognized that he messed up in the past. That he didn’t even realize how screwed up the things he did to others were. Not even just mortals, but other gods. How he inflicted pain on them far past they deserved, if they even deserved any .” 

Percy had urged all of us to do better, had truly believed that we gods could change, and change permanently. I’d been skeptical. I’d seen too many gods break promises, resume old habits. 

Yet, with how much Apollo had changed, on such a deep level… I had trouble believing he could go back to who he was before this punishment. 

I wasn’t sure whether any of us could. I doubted that any of us would make it out of this without changing at all, as much as some might pretend to. What we’d been shown… it was a lot to think about.

“It feels horrible,” Apollo said.

“That’s kind of the point,” Reyna replied. “You do something evil, you feel bad about it, you do better. That’s a sign you might be developing a conscience.”

I frowned. Reyna was on the right track, but not quite there. Apollo had felt bad about his previous actions before – we’d felt how deeply he regretted some of them when he sung to the Myrmekes. Even when it just came to those he’d encountered more recently, he’d repeatedly apologized to the ravens for millennia. He had a conscience. He’d had one for a long time. He just hadn’t always paid much attention to it, nor had he always thought about a situation deeply enough to develop guilt about it. Or at least, not guilt that he’d consciously acknowledge.

“I-I appreciate what you’re saying,” Apollo stammered. “But my past mistakes almost got you and Meg killed. If Harpocrates had destroyed you when you were trying to protect me…”

“All we did was show Harpocrates how much you’ve changed. He recognized it. Have you completely made up for all the bad things you’ve done? No. But you keep adding to the ‘good things’ column. That’s all any of us can do.”

It was like Percy had advised after the Titan War had ended – after Luke had died. The best way to honor him was to do better with his other siblings, to be the father to them that I couldn’t be for him. 

There was no fixing the past. But doing better in the future… that was more possible than I’d once thought.

They continued driving. Reyna had Apollo bring out a communication scroll so she could talk to Frank about the Emperor’s fleet’s approach, but the lingering effects of Harpocrates’ powers caused Frank’s words to cut in and out. He also seemed alarmed by their proximity, and unsure what had happened to the people they’d sent to take care of them. Reyna told Frank to get things ready for the god-summoning ritual, but with all the static, it didn’t seem like he understood her. The scroll caught fire, definitively ending the conversation.

“Finally! Why can’t all long calls end with the thing catching on fire? That’d be a great way to cut off long, rambling conversations! People would have to get to the point!” Mars grinned.

“It wasn’t even that long, that conversation only lasted a few minutes,” Athena countered irritably.

“Yeah but the static was just painful!” Mars complained. “At least the fire helped make up for the torture my poor ears went through.”

Athena rolled her eyes.

They ran into emergency maintenance in the Caldecott tunnel, which Reyna presumed was connected to whatever Frank was doing. Apollo hoped that the traffic would slow down the assault, but Meg pointed out that the Emperors were approaching via boats, so that seemed unlikely. One of the lanes on the bridge they were crossing was blocked off for some reason, but as the maintenance truck that had been blocking the path moved out of the way, Reyna made the highly illegal maneuver of speeding into the shut down, completely traffic-free left lane, much to the maintenance worker’s annoyance. She proceeded to smash through a lot of other warning signs as she broke about a dozen different traffic laws in her mission to get back to camp quickly.

“Awesome!” Mars cheered.

I had to agree. I hadn’t thought of Reyna as much of a rule-breaker, but then again, she normally made the rules. And her helping to lug Athena’s statue back to Camp Half-blood had gone against the rules Camp Jupiter was operating off of…

I might have underestimated her. I’d assumed she was a stickler for rules and order. But it seemed she was only a stickler for them when they weren’t impeding a goal she cared about more.

Those were the most effective rule-breakers. If someone managed to give off the impression that they’d always follow the rules no matter what, they were often considered above suspicion once some misdeed was discovered. 

Something landed on the roof, feet-shaped indentations giving a pretty good idea of what it was.

“Eurynomos!” Meg yelled, in case it wasn’t obvious.

“Where do they come from?” Apollo complained. “Do they just hang around on highway signs all day, waiting to drop?”

“That wouldn’t be the worst idea,” Athena mused. “Leaving a few eurynomoi at the most useful entrance and exit points from camp to pick off any reinforcements or attempted escapees… that’s good tactical planning. I didn’t think that eurynomos were capable of the self-control necessary to keep from wandering off after several hours of waiting.”

“They’re not zombies,” Pluto muttered. “They’re far more intelligent than those creatures. Everyone assumes they’re slower and stupider than they actually are because they can’t comprehend undead that aren’t zombies or vampires.”

“Apollo, take the wheel!” Reyna ordered. “Meg, the gas pedal!” Reyna didn’t wait for Meg and Apollo to figure out her orders, letting go of the wheel (which Apollo immediately grabbed) and reaching behind her for a weapon (Meg putting her foot on the accelerator in Reyna’s stead.) 

“Nobody messes with my truck,” Reyna declared.

That was when the eurynomos ripped open the roof, crying “FOOOOO-.” It didn’t manage to finish the word, as Reyna stabbed it where the sun don’t shine. It toppled off the truck. Unfortunately, right then Apollo lost his grip on the wheel, causing the group to careen off the road, smash through the guardrail, and crash.

“If I had a nickel for every time Apollo crashed a car because of a eurynomos tearing open the roof, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice,” I said. That Phineas and Ferb meme came in handy a lot more often than you’d think. Athena may not have appreciated the show, just dismissing it as a kid’s cartoon, but even she was coming around on the subject. A kid’s cartoon it may be, but its cultural impact was undeniable, and she was not one to be left behind when it came to any kind of knowledge, including cultural knowledge.

“The Romans need to armor their cars better,” Vulcan observed. “Specifically the roofs.”

“To be fair, the hearse didn’t belong to the camp,” Diana reminded him. “I agree with the principle though, they should make sure they have better armored cars. While I doubt they’ll run into that many eurynomoi after this,” she glanced at Pluto, silently saying ‘so long as you do your job more competently’, though of course that wasn’t the sort of thing she’d ever say out loud, “there are plenty of other enemies that might land on the roof to try to get at the demigods inside. It would pay off to have some defence against them.”

“Just throw Harley at the problem!” Mars suggested cheerfully.

“Please no,” Athena groaned. 

Vulcan stroked his beard, seeming to think about it.

Chapter Text

“What are Apollo and Meg doing?” Mercury asked, amused.

“Obviously Meg’s planning everyone’s next move! You just don’t understand her brilliance!” I declared.

“You sure? Because it looks to me like both of them have gone a little…” he swirled his finger in a circle near his head.

I flushed, glancing at the screen, where Apollo was pushing my daughter around in a shopping cart while she waved one hand around, her eyes periodically falling shut. Apollo was singing some random ditty I couldn’t hear very well. 

Unsurprising. I doubted Apollo would shut up even if he died. He’d probably annoy Pluto into bringing him back to life. My infernal brother had never tolerated noise well, unless he was the one making it, at any rate.

Huh. Maybe Apollo dying wouldn’t be so bad. At least Pluto would have to suffer from having Apollo as an unwanted guest. And since I had Proserpine back right now, she wouldn’t have to suffer from Apollo’s attempts to serenade her (granted, he hadn’t tried that in a long time, for some reason). A shame, really. I’d prefer him to Pluto at least. If she was with Apollo, I’d get to be with her year-round.

I shook my head. I was getting off track. “Meg’s fine!” I insisted stubbornly. Even if she wasn’t fine, she would be eventually. “Besides, do you see Bacchus down there? No? Then I doubt they’ve gone mad.”

“Reyna!” Apollo shouted, leaving Meg’s shopping cart by the mangled remains of the truck while he tended to the praetor. 

I was no healer god, but that break in her leg didn’t look very good.

“I’m alive,” she confirmed to him, rather unnecessarily I thought. “Meg?”

“She’s conducting,” he replied.

“See!” I said triumphantly. “Obviously Meg was conducting everyone’s movements for the upcoming battle!” Of course she’d be a master tactician as well as an amazing fighter. Her eyes lolling like that was probably just her visualizing all the different factions fighting so she could better plan their next move.

“Or she was conducting Apollo’s song,” Mercury suggested.

I rolled my eyes. “Like he needs encouragement. He’ll sing at the drop of a hat. Besides, he wasn’t making music in time with her waving.”

“I never said that Apollo was actually following her directions.”

I scoffed. “How could he not? My daughter’s amazing!” Besides, if he disobeyed her, she could just force the issue. He was bound to obey her orders, after all.

One of the mortals had called nine-one-one, whatever that meant. But Apollo yelped out that he was a doctor and she’d be fine.

A different mortal let him know that Meg’s cart was rolling away.

“Lousy slave,” I muttered. Honestly, he couldn’t even make sure to park her so that the wheels were perpendicular to the slope? 

Apollo grabbed the cart, leaving it closer to Reyna, who was attempting not to pass out. Which was when Lavinia showed up with her army of nature spirits.

I smiled. I wasn’t sure what Lavinia was up to, but it would definitely be good. She actually appreciated and cared for nature spirits after all. That was more than I could say for most demigods (aside from my children of course).

Lavinia took control of the scene, radiating authority. She asserted to Apollo that she was here on a secret mission, which Reyna called cacaseca on. She swiftly ordered some of the fauns to keep Reyna’s leg stable while helping her, Apollo, and Meg to get to the woods.

The fauns did a decent – if painful – job of splinting Reyna’s leg.

“I didn’t know fauns knew how to splint legs. Or do anything besides panhandle,” Mercury mused. 

“I suspect they’ve learned to be fairly self-sufficient. I doubt most demigods besides Lavinia would care enough to spend time healing faun injuries when there are legionnaires in need of similar help,” Diana said.

“Fauns and dryads are natural healers,” I noted proudly. “I doubt any of the ones here are up to Aloe Vera’s level of course, but don’t write them off. Apollo’s children and grandchildren aren’t the only doctors around!”

Two of the nature spirits sent to check over Apollo’s injuries had less-than-great news, not that they told it directly to Apollo, but they didn’t hide it from him, either. 

“Once it gets fully dark…” one said.

“I know. With a blood moon tonight? Poor guy,” the other replied.

“He’ll be fine,” Diana muttered. “Apollo will do the summoning, he’ll be healed, and everything will be fine .”

I held in a snort. I never understood Diana’s level of fondness for her brother. My own brothers were… well, I was glad I usually only had to see them at Council meetings. 

Now if she’d had a daughter like my own lovely Proserpine, I could completely understand, but merely a brother? If Pluto had been the one dying, I’d have summoned some oats to eat while kicking back in my throne (popcorn was alright, but oats were better).

Reyna and Lavinia argued some more, with Lavinia insisting that Reyna relax so she could heal, and Reyna wanting to get back to the Legion. I doubted she’d be much use in a fight right now in the state she was in, but Reyna appeared to be stubbornly trying to ignore her injuries, as expected for a praetor. She especially wasn’t happy that Lavinia appeared to have deserted her post, which Lavinia protested against. “Remember, Reyna, this was your back-up plan. Plan L for Lavinia! When we all get back to camp, you’re going to thank me. You’ll tell everyone this was your idea.”

“She seems rather confident about that,” Athena said. “Romans aren’t known for their appreciation of spontaneity and breaking away from the group, however. I am not sure her confidence is earned.”

I waved away her concerns. “I’m sure Lavinia’s got something up her sleeve.” She was one of the few demigods who seemed to properly appreciate nature spirits after all. And she wasn’t even one of my children! Athena just didn’t like that her precious Reyna was being played.

One of the fauns played a lullaby, sending Reyna to sleep. Lavinia left her behind, guarded by her metal dogs and a couple of fauns. She let Meg and Apollo leave, however, presumably because my daughter had come up with a brilliant plan that she needed to tell all the campers about so they could follow it. Not that Lavinia said as much, but I could read between the lines.

Lavinia and her army of fauns and dryads left, leaving just Meg and Apollo to attempt to march back to camp. Or not, since Meg concluded, “we need wheels.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Mercury smirked. “Because last I checked, your track record with vehicles wasn’t very good.”

“I’d happily lend any car I had to Meg,” I said loyally.

He rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t mean anything, you don’t HAVE a car.”

“Have you seen the emissions those things produce?!”

“It was electric,” Vulcan muttered.

“The process to create electricity still produces emissions!”

Vulcan sat back, muttering about cleaner power plants. That was one area both of us had cooperated on, if reluctantly. I may not like how some of the inventions he’d inspired humans to create, especially during the industrial revolution, had polluted the planet, but some of the newer inventions were helping to mitigate the damage, though it wasn’t enough to reverse what had already been done.

Chapter Text

Bicycles? Seriously? When Meg said they needed wheels, she meant BIKES? And not the cool kind like my motorbike (not that Apollo could ever have a bike as cool as mine, or look as awesome while riding it, even when he was still a god), but like, the kind you have to pedal. Sure, they were ELECTRIC bikes at least, but they were also canary yellow, which negated any possible coolness that might have been imbued into them. 

They biked past several pandai and other enemy combatants who either didn’t notice them (somehow) or were preoccupied, disappointingly enough. I wanted to see some more carnage! The eurynomos attack earlier was exciting, but then I had to watch Apollo and the others just wander around for several minutes. I couldn’t even record Apollo singing while pushing Meg around as blackmail material! 

At least, until they got to the tunnel into camp.

“Myrmekes. Meg, those are myrmekes–” Apollo said, seeing the giant ants accompanying the armored vehicles that were blocking off the tunnel.

“I see them,” Meg noted, not slowing down her pedaling at all. “It doesn’t change anything. Come on!”

“Yes!” I cheered. “Go for it!”

“Last time Meg encountered those things, they nearly digested her!” Ceres screeched.

I shrugged. “So?”

“So they could hurt her!”

“She doesn’t seem too worried about that.” Not that I was that concerned about her staying safe. I liked the kid, but staying safe was for boring mortals, not fierce demigod fighters. I just hoped that if she went down, it was in a blaze of glory. Death by ant cocoon was one of the dullest deaths to watch.

Apollo didn’t think they’d get through the enemy lines. He was probably right, but it would’ve been a blast to see them try. Meg had a plan, however – instead of going through this tunnel, they’d go through Lavinia’s secret tunnel. 

“It collapsed!” Apollo protested.

“Not that tunnel. A different secret tunnel.”

“How many does she have?”

“Dunno. A lot? C’mon.”

“I don’t know why the Emperors waited this long before invading if the legionnaires are so incompetent that they missed multiple tunnels leading back towards camp,” Athena said derisively.

“Lavinia seems to have found them at least. Perhaps she can locate and fortify any secret passages or weak points in the camp’s defenses in the future?” Diana suggested.

“Honestly, she should just be a Centurion at this point! Or even a Praetor!” Ceres huffed. “She seems to be more competent than most of them.”

I grinned. Lavinia the Praetor… I’d love to see how she ran camp. Alongside Frank, of course. My son was doing a bang-up job. Reyna though… she could go. I smirked. She might be out of commission for awhile with the injuries she’d gotten. 

I glanced at Athena. She’d made Reyna her champion, in a way. For her to be supplanted by someone more chaotic, someone she didn’t like as much, like Lavinia, someone who I favored more… Oh I’d enjoy rubbing that in her face for the next few centuries.

Meg pedaled up to a generator station, slashing the chains around the doors heading into it, revealing a rather steep tunnel heading vaguely towards camp.

“Why is that even there?!” Athena questioned, her face screwing in consternation.

I loved when she couldn’t figure it out, she couldn’t just go with the flow like I did, she just had to know the reasons behind anything like the know-it-all she was.

“How could such a thing be built without the camp’s knowledge?” she continued questioning. “The equipment needed to move all that dirt is rather conspicuous and not exactly quiet.”

“It might have been built decades ago, maybe even with Camp Jupiter’s approval, and just been forgotten,” Vulcan suggested. “Camp Half-Blood forgot about Bunker 9 after a measly two hundred years, and that was the size of an aircraft carrier. Something out of the way like this? Could’ve been built and forgotten within a few decades.”

The bikes literally glowed as they rode through the dark tunnel, which gave them a few new cool points, but not enough to offset their inherent dorkiness.

After a few minutes, they finally got to the end of the tunnel, where they ran into a bunch of Kromandae.

“Looks like The Emperors recruited some of your children,” Vulcan jibed.

I let out a groan. When Bacchus first started recounting his attempts at invading India back before he became a god, he mentioned some tribe of humanoid monkey-people with luscious blond pelts who communicated solely through screeches. Naturally, Apollo jeered about how they were probably mine and Venus’s secret love-children. 

Naturally, Venus made sure he couldn’t get a date for the next hundred years.

Not that such a threat would do anything to sway Vulcan. I couldn’t understand how he got anyone to love him in the first place. Venus had certainly never understood what all his lovers saw in him. 

Meg summoned her swords, charging and slashing at the humanoids. Apollo, meanwhile, shot six of them within only a few seconds.

I smiled, rubbing my hands together. “Finally! Some carnage!”

The other gods seemed mostly interested in watching Apollo. Which, sure, it seemed like his godly powers were coming back, but Meg’s display of brutality was far more entertaining. Archery was just so boring compared to the visceral violence of slashing someone’s head off. The Romans understood how much more awesome swordplay was over something as cowardly as archery. 

I mean, come on, picking enemies off from a distance like that? Before they can pose any danger to you? Where’s the fun in that? 

Someone shouted “TESTUDO!” It became clear a minute later it came from the Third Cohort, who were attempting (not very successfully) to hold a testudo formation in the face of a swarm of cynocephali. Meg and Apollo helped the way they had before: Meg throwing herself into a frenzy of slashing and stabbing while screaming, as Apollo fired off a handful of arrows.

The centurion ordered his legionnaires to assume a new formation, “OFFENSE ROMULUS!”. The defensive formation immediately uncurled, all the legionnaires skewering the remaining dog me with their spears.

I cheered. That was more like it! Sure the Testudo formation may, sadly, be necessary sometimes in order to not die (dying in battle was honorable, but dying before you could inflict any carnage was just a waste), but the Romulus formation? Now that was truly Roman! And awesome!

The Centurion asked about Reyna’s whereabouts, with Apollo telling him that she was alive. He passed on that Frank wanted to see them.

“Hey, Larry. How’s it going?” Meg asked him.

“Terrible!” Larry said, grinning in delight.

Hmm… I’d have to look into this “Larry”… It seemed he also appreciated how battlefields get the blood pumping, and he didn’t sound like he was put off by the possibility of dying. Kill or be killed, the fight for survival… it was primal on a level few humans experienced anymore. Maybe I should take him under my wing, so to speak, or take him to a few more battlefields at least. Camp Jupiter didn’t get into nearly enough battles to satisfy the bloodlust of someone similar to myself.

The group dodged past most of the fights between them and Frank, sadly. Though at least I could watch the battles taking place in the background. And the foreground. And to the sides. Just about everywhere except exactly where Apollo and the others were at, actually.

Apollo briefly told Frank and Hazel (who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere on a horse, did she learn how to Shadow Travel?) about everything that’d happened in the last few hours. Except Reyna laughing in his face, which was obviously the most important part.

Frank declared that they’d buy Apollo enough time to do the summoning ritual, with Hazel offering to escort Apollo and Meg to Temple Hill.

“Arion looks healthy,” Ceres noted with satisfaction. “He must’ve stopped insisting on eating those awful gems and finally embraced the health benefits of cereal.”

Neptune rolled his eyes. “Just because cereal’s healthy for some horses doesn’t mean that it’s healthy for our son. If he wants to eat nothing but gems, well, I’m sure he knows his own needs best.”

Ceres scoffed.

Apollo asked where the Fifth Cohort was. Hazel informed him that they were protecting New Rome, and the city was secure.

Naturally, Terminus popped in a second later to proclaim that New Rome was not secure, and that Tarquin was currently attacking via the sewers. 

Frank sent the Fourth Cohort to help fight off Tarquin, an idea Hazel wasn’t thrilled about since it would leave only three cohorts with Frank.

“Eh, I’m sure it’ll be fine.” I mean, had she seen him in battle?! Sure he might get stabbed a few times, but he’d take the enemy down with ‘im! You couldn’t ask for a better death!

Frank declared that they’d try “the Wakanda thing”, taking down defensive barriers strategically in order to funnel the enemy into one location. He’d concentrate the three cohorts at the tunnel and hold them off there.

“Decent strategy,” Athena stated begrudgingly. “But ‘the Wakanda thing’?” Really? The only thing he can think of is something he saw in a Marvel movie?”

“Soooo you watched it.” Normally Athena refused to watch them or most action movies, proclaiming them to be too low-brow and idiotic, more spectacle than substance.

Of course Athena’s pretentiousness was a sham. Even she couldn’t resist the lure of explosions and violence and lasers in the sky.

She rolled her eyes. “Hardly. But between you, Apollo, and Mercury, I have learned far more about the things that happened in those movies than I would have liked.”

“For the record, Black Panther is one of the better movies in the franchise,” Vulcan chimed in.

She snorted. I doubted it’d matter whether he proclaimed it a masterpiece of cinema that made him fall to the ground weeping. Her pride was on the line now, she couldn’t admit to liking a Marvel movie without being viciously mocked. By me specifically. C’mon, you think I would pass that opportunity up?

Hazel moved to pull Apollo and Meg onto Arion, which he wasn’t too pleased about. But he agreed once she reminded him that he’d get to trample some undead along the way.

I laughed. I hadn’t gotten to know my cousin all that well – I didn’t usually go out of my way to get to know most of my cousins, much less a horse cousin – but maybe I should change that. We had more in common than I thought!

Chapter Text

Apollo was making good time in getting to Temple Hill. Arion was as swift as ever. He’d get there well before he was in danger of keeling over.

My brother would be fine. I’d make sure of it.

Apollo, Meg, Hazel, and Arion were able to meet up with Tyson and Ella on Temple Hill within minutes. 

Tyson seemed more delighted at Arion’s arrival than anyone else’s. “Yay! Zoom Pony!” he cried, smiling. For some reason, Arion allowed Tyson to pet his snout.

“Really? Zoom Pony? Does he have no respect?” Ceres questioned, looking scandalized. “Arion is a great and noble stallion!”

“Tyson loves his brother and he loves horses, even if he doesn’t know all the proper terminology and etiquette,” Neptune told her tiredly. “So long as Arion is fine with it, shouldn’t you be as well?”

“Yeah well, sometimes even my own children don’t know what’s best for them,” Ceres muttered, crossing her arms.

Of course she couldn’t abide by Arion’s choices, it’s not like she’d ever been able to truly accept that Prosperpine was happy being Pluto’s wife, now at least. It’s not like she’d ever been terribly fond of Arion in the first place either, he’d always gotten along better with Neptune than with her. She and him just had so little in common. At least with Neptune, they both had fun racing each other in horse form. While Ceres could shapeshift into a horse as well, she didn’t enjoy it the way Neptune did.

Meg left, declaring that she wasn’t needed for the summoning and would instead go and unleash the unicorns, a prospect that Neptune seemed way too interested in. She and Hazel left on board Arion, with Tyson lamenting “Zoom Pony’s” departure.

Apollo, Ella, and Tyson got to work on the single-god summoning. Apollo stared at Jupiter’s statue for a moment.

Apollo wasn’t going to summon Father, was he? It’s possible he might decide to help, true, especially since Apollo choosing him would show humility and deference on Apollo’s part, conceding that even with Father punishing him, he was too powerful to pass up over someone else. But while there was a decent chance Father would act to save Camp Jupiter under those circumstances (it was named after him, after all), choosing to save my brother… that was something else entirely. He might choose to leave Apollo to his slow demise.

For Camp Jupiter to be saved, but Apollo to die in the process… that would be no victory at all. Though Jupiter would still celebrate it, perhaps acknowledging the tragic loss of Apollo, same as he did with Jason’s death, but act as if it was inevitable, merely the will of the Fates.

I would not accept that the Fates had decided that Apollo would die. If they said that was his destiny, then his destiny was wrong .

“Follow me,” Apollo told Ella and Tyson, as he ran to my temple.

I let out a sigh of relief. If he was doing what I was assuming he’d be doing, I’d get to see my brother soon. 

I glanced at Jupiter. Assuming Father would let me, anyway.

No. He had to let me help. Even he couldn’t argue with an offering conducted in this manner… right?

Apollo set about attempting to light a fire while Ella mixed the ingredients for the summoning together and Tyson launched into a dance routine. Not a very GOOD dance routine, but I appreciated the enthusiasm at least.

Apollo gathered some kindling into a pile, pulled out an arrow, and used a bowstring to spin it quickly.

So Apollo did know how to make a fire the old-fashioned way! After millennia of just snapping his fingers to create it, I was afraid he’d forgotten.

Me? I made sure all my Hunters knew how to do it, so that if they ever got separated and isolated from the rest of us, they’d still be able to cook and eat any animals they killed, or keep warm in frigid conditions. While using lighters or matches was acceptable most of the time for their ease of use, I’d retest all of them from time to time to make sure they could use the more traditional method of lighting fires as well. I did not exempt myself from those tests. 

I’d even made Apollo participate in them on occasion, though he’d gotten good at telling when one was coming up and finding an excuse to not be around while I was retesting everyone. As such, it’d been centuries since he’d last made a fire the old-fashioned way. He might have complained about it at the time, but he kept the knowledge of how to make sparks even centuries later. 

Not that he was particularly skilled in lighting it – it took him several minutes, while most of my Hunters could have a fire lit using just their bowstring and some wood within thirty seconds.

Apollo pulled the jar of Harpocrates’ breath from his backpack. Ella had Tyson show him the summoning ritual, which she’d apparently decided to tattoo on his armpit because “that’s where it goes.” 

Mars burst out laughing. “Guess the Fates decreed Apollo had to get a whiff of sweaty Cyclops’ armpit!” He gasped.

“I’m sure Tyson doesn’t stink that badly,” Neptune defended his son loyally.

I’d had the misfortune to be in a Cyclopes’ locker room before. Don’t ask why. I was sure it did, indeed, smell that badly.

Apollo began the prayer part of the summoning ritual. “O protector of Rome! O insert name here!”

Mercury snorted. “I don’t think he’s paying quite as much attention to this as he should.”

“Nah, this is just as much attention as he pays to anything,” Mars scoffed.

I suspected that Apollo’s mix-up was most likely caused not by a lack of caring, but general exhaustion from everything he’d gone through in the last few hours mixed with being on the verge of turning into a zombie, but I doubted that a reminder of Apollo’s condition would do much to dissuade Mars from mocking my brother for this in the future.

“I will start again,” Apollo announced. “O protector of Rome! O goddess of the hunt! Hear our plea and accept our offering!” 

He dropped the Sibyl’s jar into the fire, causing a silver cloud to waft up.

I felt that summoning. I could hear prayers from all my followers but this… this was on another level. It was as if my essence itself was being called to Temple Hill. 

“Father,” I said carefully. “The Sibylline invocation-”

“You may go,” he announced, snapping his fingers. 

The chains around me vanished. I stood up slowly, resisting the urge to break into a run, to swing my arms, to enjoy freedom of movement for the first time in days.

I bowed deeply. “Thank you, Father. You are most kind.”

“Do not dawdle,” he warned me. “You have been called for using all the proper rituals and incantations, and I will allow you to answer that call. But no more than that. If you stay beyond what is necessary, I will be quite displeased.”

I nodded. “I understand.” 

My heart raced. He was allowing me to leave! Under restrictions, sure, but still… he was allowing me to save Apollo.

Maybe he cared about my brother more than I’d thought. Even if he wouldn’t intervene himself. Even if he didn’t want to be seen as helping Apollo at all… he was still letting me go, knowing that I’d heal my brother and help fend off the Emperors. He was not set on ensuring my brother’s death. 

I turned into silver mist flying towards Camp Jupiter, hoping that I’d make it in time to make a difference.

Jupiter was allowing me to intervene. I had to make good use of the chance he had given me.

Chapter Text

It had pained me to let Diana go. I’d forbidden interference from all the gods, but a Sibylline invocation… there were things even I dared not trifle with. The Fates could cut short even the life of a god, after all.

I’d sensed some of the appropriate gratitude from her when I’d let her go at least. She was not as insolent as her brother. Surely she’d recognized my mercy in letting her leave. I was not some evil tyrant who needed to be opposed, unlike my own father. I merely expected my subjects to follow my rightfully given orders. I even allowed others to give their input, that was why I’d started up the council meetings in the first place, so everyone would feel heard and I could hopefully nip any major complaints in the bud before they could fester and turn into rebellion. And if I couldn’t nip them… well, hopefully I’d find out who I needed to keep an eye on at least. 

Apollo jogged to the top of a hill, where he surveyed the battlefield below.

It was utter chaos. Though the Legion had succeeded in whittling down the number of opponents from thousands to hundreds, their own troops were declining as well. Frank seemed to be doing the most damage of anyone, plowing through soldiers and monsters as a giant bear. Not that it had come without a cost, he’d sustained a few arrow wounds, and most likely had more injuries that would not be discovered until he’d had a proper examination.

Mars grinned. “That’s my boy!”

Of course he was enjoying this. He always enjoyed a good war, and getting to show off one of his more powerful children helped to boost his own status as well. Ultimately, however, while the Romans had latched onto Mars as one of their most important deities, it was still my temple that prophecies were received at, and the Camp was still named after myself. I’d shown him mercy after the debacle a few years ago with my Masterbolt. I’d made it quite clear to him that if he pulled anything again, I would not be so lenient. 

Mars had never been one of my particularly ambitious children, and even if he’d had grand designs, he was not known for being particularly charismatic, at least on his Greek side as Ares, so there’d been little risk of any possible rebellion from him becoming something more. I am far stronger than him. Without allies, I’d crush him easily.

As Mars, he was slightly less hotheaded, far better able to get people to see things from his perspective, to acquire allies, if he so chose. However, with his decrease in impulsivity in this form, he’d also gained the perspective to realize that treading on my space, attempting to rise above me, would be a losing endeavor – one that I’d ensure he’d never dare to repeat. If he’d been in his Roman form when he’d run into Luke, I was sure he’d never have been swayed by Luke’s offer.

Commodus and Caligula arrived on the field in a chariot pulled by… wait those weren’t horses, were they? The scars on their sides–”

“HOW DARE THEY!” Neptune rumbled. The throne room rumbled with him. “THOSE MONSTERS!”

“They– they cut the wings off of those pegasi–” Mercury said shakily.

Tears fell from Neptune’s eyes as he clenched his fists. “THEY’LL PAY FOR THIS.”

“Not by your hands,” I reminded him sharply. “You were not the one summoned.” I had to accept Diana giving her assistance to Apollo, but Neptune as well? No. 

Neptune growled. “If one of them manages to ascend, I will rip them apart with my bare hands.”

I nodded. It would save me the trouble of smiting them, though I may let loose a couple of lightning bolts to scatter their essence after Neptune had already ripped them to shreds. Make sure to have the last word, to be the one to officially destroy them.

Neptune calmed down, but his eyes never wavered from the pegasi – not so long as they were on-screen anyway.

“NO!” Apollo howled at the sight, as disturbed by the pegasi’s plight as Neptune had been. He trudged towards them, though what he hoped to accomplish, I was unsure. He’d been unable to beat either of the Emperors alone, I doubted he could do so with them together.

“Excuse me, could someone caption this scene for me? What’s going on?” Commodus asked.

“I wish I could describe it,” Caligula replied. “The mighty god Apollo has come to the rescue, and he’s never looked better.”

“That was sarcasm?” Commodus questioned. “Does he look horrible?”

“He certainly could use a shower, a change of clothes, and some acne cream,” Venus commented, wrinkling her nose.

“I am more concerned by the fact that Commodus can’t tell what shape Apollo’s in just by looking at him,” Neptune observed. “I believe that Apollo’s light show a couple of weeks ago did lasting damage to his eyes,” he noted with no small amount of satisfaction.

That was…concerning. To be able to cause long-term damage to even the eyes of a false god like Commodus… that was far more than he should have been able to do. I’d known he’d managed to claw back some of his divine power at that time, but that much?

I had little hope of Apollo dying today sadly, given that Diana had a knack for appearing in the nick of time. But after everything he’d been through, after knowing that being put through all of this was the price for his insolence, he ought to know that any defiance or rebellion on his part would not be tolerated.

“Yes,” Caligula replied to Commodus’s query. 

“HA! Ha! Apollo, you look horrible!” Commodus jeered.

Athena rolled her eyes. “What did Apollo see in this buffoon?”

“I think you answered your own question,” Venus remarked, eyes roaming over Commodus’s sumptuous form.

If I’d been aware of Commodus back before he took up the reins of emperor, I may well have gone for him myself. His looks gave even Ganymede a run for his money.

Caligula switched to negotiating with Frank. “Well, Frank Zhang?” he asked. “You have a chance to surrender with honor. Bow to your emperor!”

“Emperors,” Commodus corrected.

“Yes, of course,” Caligula said soothingly.

I snorted. Commodus really believed he was still in power? Caligula was only keeping Commodus at his side in order to swing the balance of power in his own favor and away from Nero. But on his own, Commodus was no longer a pole of power, if he ever had been.

“Praetor Zhang,” Caligula continued, “you are duty-bound to recognize Roman authority, and we are it! Together, we can rebuild this camp and raise your legion to glory! No more hiding. No more cowering behind Terminus’s weak boundaries. It is time to be true Romans and conquer the world. Join us. Learn from Jason Grace’s mistake.”

“Reminding the opposing group how you killed one of their favorite people is not a good way to persuade anyone to surrender and join you,” Athena commented drily. “Unless your aim is to get backstabbed.”

“That is a time-honored Roman tradition,” Mars reminded her.

Athena muttered something that sounded vaguely like “Can’t believe they beat the Greeks,” and “How did they survive this long?”

I doubted Frank would have been tempted by Caligula’s offer, even if he hadn’t invoked Jason’s name. Flying under a couple of false gods’ banner, when they currently enjoyed myself as a patron god? Why would they ever take a downgrade like that? It’d been stupid when Apollo got the notion that he could become their patron, but at least he was my son and an Olympian, so it wasn’t that crazy. But this? Why would they ever want to follow someone as inferior to myself as Caligula?

Apollo howled, shooting an arrow at Commodus, which he swatted away with ease. 

Frank turned back into a human, injured and without a helmet, but the fire in his eyes showed that he had no intention of giving up without a fight. He proposed an alternate method of deciding who should be in charge: Spolia Opima. Single combat between leaders. Frank offered to take on both Caligula and Commodus himself. If they managed to make it through the tunnel, he’d order Camp Jupiter to surrender. 

Commodus was thrilled with the idea, though Caligula was a lot warier. However, he couldn’t refuse without losing face in front of his troops.

I nodded. Clever thinking on Frank’s part, so long as he actually had a plan to defeat both of them. Even if you were powerful, you couldn’t depend entirely on raw intimidation to keep your own forces on your side – you had to have some measure of respect from them as well, especially if your power was mostly gained via your physical strength. If you showed any weakness, well, they had little reason to follow you from that point forward.

I would have to keep an eye on Frank Zhang. He understood dynamics between leaders and their followers, and how to exploit them, a little too well for my liking. 

Not that he’d ever be a threat to me. On a demigod scale he was powerful, but he simply wasn’t in my weight class. 

Apollo declared that he’d fight along with Frank, two against two, which Commodus was delighted by. Frank was not so pleased, but Apollo refused to back down.

Apollo taunted Caligula. “Well, Baby Booties? Your colleague emperor has already agreed. Are you in, or do we terrify you too much?”

“We have lived for thousands of years,” Caligula proclaimed. “We are gods.”

“They are no gods,” I reminded everyone. “Merely false gods pretending.” They may have some small measure of divine power, but they were still mortal at heart. They weren’t even fit to serve me wine, much less be key members of a pantheon of their own.

Caligula agreed to Frank’s terms, ordering his own troops not to interfere while he and Commodus killed Frank and Apollo. Frank sent his own troops off to defend the city against Tarquin.

Frank whispered something into Apollo’s ear, which I didn’t catch, annoyingly enough.

“Caligula, you take Zhang,” Commodus ordered. “I’ll take Apollo. I don’t need my eyesight to find him. I’ll just follow my ears. He’ll be the one whimpering.”

Mars laughed. “Accurate.”

I nodded in agreement. Apollo couldn’t be silent if it killed him.

Chapter Text

I wasn’t sure how Apollo planned on taking out Commodus. His light show last time, while more powerful than I would have thought it possibly could be (or that he could enact at all ), was hardly enough to kill even a false god. And he wasn’t exactly in top condition (not that he’d been last time, either.)

Commodus dodged the arrow Apollo shot at him, moved in close, yanked his bow from his hands, and broke it.

“RUDE!” Apollo yelled.

“Well, there goes Apollo’s only actual weapon,” Mars commented airily. “Off to a great start!”

“A bow and arrow is of little use against a close-range fighter at any rate,” Neptune noted. “He’s likely to get more use out of his combat ukulele that he would have with that bow.”

“Or Commodus will just yank his ukulele out of his hands and break that as well,” Mars surmised.

Commodus punched Apollo. While it hurt, it didn’t appear to do irreparable damage. Which was surprising, given how strong that punch had looked.

“You see? He’s always the one whimpering!” Commodus laughed.

Apollo grabbed his combat ukulele, accidentally twanging its strings, alerting his enemy to his position.

Commodus drew his sword, attempting to bring it down on Apollo and cleave him in two. Apollo instead dodged the attack, poking him in the well-armored gut. What he thought that would accomplish, I wasn’t sure. 

Commodus used the opportunity to attempt another strike against Apollo, but he again managed to dodge out of the way, leading Commodus to bury his sword where Apollo had been standing. Apollo slammed into him while he was distracted, knocking him off-balance.

“He’s doing better than expected,” Mercury noted, sounding impressed. He glanced over towards Mars. “Then again he managed to wrestle even you into submission, so maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.”

“He cheated somehow!” Mars argued. “There’s no way he’s stronger than me, he did something!”

Mercury rolled his eyes. “Suuuure he did.”

I wouldn’t put it past Apollo to have cheated, or for Mercury to have helped him in such an endeavor. Even something with very little concrete stakes like the Olympics was still crucial in cementing Apollo’s power early on, in giving him the initial boost needed to gain clout and influence. 

Apollo managed to back away from Commodus. He bumped into Frank, who’d managed to get away from Caligula for a moment. 

The two of them had a quick conversation, with Frank telling Apollo that this battle was buying time for divine help to arrive, and that if that help didn’t arrive, then to trust him and get out of the tunnel on his cue.

“Is he going to collapse the tunnel?” Athena asked. “Clever trap, that might be why he wanted the battle here. But it’s unlikely to be enough to kill Caligula or Commodus, or to stop their armies permanently. Though it would likely buy them some time.”

“That should be all that’s needed,” Mercury observed. “Diana should arrive within the hour. If they can buy that much time, they’re golden.”

“I don’t think Frank’s going to be able to drag this out that long,” Athena noted. 

Mars waved off her concern. “Eh, I’m sure he’s thought of something. Besides, you shouldn’t count out one of my kids in a fight. Ever. No matter how outmatched they appear to be. They have a way of surprising ya.”

Caligula growled about Frank throwing gravel in his eyes, pushing the praetor back towards the mouth of the tunnel… or allowing himself to be pushed in that direction, given what he’d just said to Apollo.

Commodus, meanwhile, managed to tug his sword free, charging at Apollo, who ran straight into the tunnel, screaming.

“Hah! Wuss!” Mars mocked.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Athena noted, tapping a finger against her chin. “Commodus is mainly using sound to track Apollo. Within the tunnel, sound echoes so much it’d be hard to pin down exactly where he is, and with the racket he’s making it’d be even more difficult to listen closely enough to discern that information. He might even be able to make enough noise to hurt Commodus’ ears.”

“Or he’s just scared and running away screaming because he’s a wuss,” Mars doubled-down.

I suspected that Mars was correct. Athena tended to assume that others were as smart with plans as well thought-out as her own. Sometimes a useful quality, but it could lead to her thinking too much of her opponents.

Commodus caught up to Apollo, though not before he was able to swing his ukulele into the emperor’s face. Commodus caught the instrument, wrenching it out of his hands before crumpling it up and tossing it aside.

“Heresy!” Apollo roared.

“Apollo appears to be out of weapons now,” Mercury observed.

“He still has his fists,” Athena noted. “Along with anything else he’s able to scrounge up.”

Mercury hummed, summoning his ledger. “How about some bets?” He suggested. “On whether Apollo will manage to kill Commodus, and if so, then how. Ten golden drachmas per bettor.”

“You may proceed,” I told him. This little bet would give me insight into how strong the other gods perceived Apollo to be, and what they believed his greatest weapons were. Could be useful info for the future.

“Who here does not believe that Apollo will kill Commodus today?” Mercury asked. Ceres, Juno, and myself raised our hands. 

“Meg is far more likely to kill Commodus than Apollo is,” Ceres huffed.

“If one of the emperors could take down Jason that easily, I doubt that Apollo could take another down, even the weakest one, without any weapons,” Juno asserted.

“Apollo is not powerful enough without divine power to destroy a false god,” I said simply. Granted, he may have regained a little of it, and I may not have been able to stop its trickle into his mortal body from resuming, but still. The idea of him outright killing an immortal in his state was laughable, even with Commodus’s fasces destroyed.

“I believe he will be able to pick up a discarded weapon on the battlefield somewhere to use to kill Commodus,” Vulcan guessed. “A sword or lance or dagger or such that someone’s dropped in the tunnel. Always pay attention to the things others have discarded or left behind, they may be more powerful than you think.”

“So I’ll put you down for ‘traditional weapon lying around on the ground,’” Mercury said, chewing on his pen before writing down the bet. “Anyone else?”

“I bet he’ll punch Commodus to death!” Mars let out some evil giggles at the thought.

“I didn’t think you believed Apollo was that powerful,” Athena retorted. “You alleged that he cheated during wrestling.”

Mars waved her off. “Sure, sure, but I want to see a guy punch out another guy’s internal organs!” he asserted enthusiastically. 

Athena rolled her eyes.

“While that would be a sight to behold, I suspect that Apollo will lead to Commodus’ death in a different way,” Venus said. “The first time he killed him, he held Commodus underwater until he drowned. I suspect he will kill his former lover the same way this second time. It would be a poetic death.”

“Death by drowning,” Mercury wrote down. He looked up. “What other murder methods do the rest of you propose?”

“I will join in on Venus’s drowning death,” Neptune asserted, glaring at Commodus on the screen for a moment.

“You are not allowed to do anything to actually try and make that happen,” I reminded him. “You are not allowed to interfere at all.”

“How could I forget, brother, ” he hissed.

Ah, still upset from the pegasi’s fates, I see. I had a feeling he more hoped than actually believed that Commodus would die by drowning, as some sort of way of claiming karmic justice against the guy for his actions against the descendants of his child Pegasus.

“I believe that Apollo will use his wits to destroy Commodus,” Athena declared. “Frank appears to have some sort of trap set up in this tunnel. Apollo has shown a great capacity to improvise what he needs from the material around him. I believe he will use Frank’s trap to kill Commodus.”

“Use already set-up trap to kill Commodus,” Mercury wrote. “Anyone else?”

“I believe that Apollo will make such a racket that he’ll kill Commodus via noisiness,” Pluto said wryly. “He’s certainly loud enough for it.” 

I nodded. He’d woken me up in the wee hours of the morning often enough playing some infernal instrument, I had to agree with him on that, even if I didn’t truly think he was powerful enough to kill a false god that way.

“Vesta? What about you?” Mercury asked. 

“I am abstaining, I have no wish to make any wagers on such things,” Vesta said calmly, moving a few cinders around.

Mercury nodded. This outcome was hardly unexpected, Vesta almost never joined in on any fun activities.

Apollo turned to punching, like Mars had proposed, his first blow cratering Commodus’s metal breastplate, but doing little to harm the emperor himself.

Apollo managed to block Commodus’s next attack and punch him in the nose, giving him a nosebleed.

“U duh strike be? I kilb u!” Commodus blubbered through the broken nose and blood.

“You won’t kilb me! I have my strength back!” Apollo shouted.

“HA! I nebbeh lost mine! And I’m bigger!”

“I decided to give Apollo some of godly strength back temporarily,” I announced loudly. “As he is currently helping to protect Camp Jupiter.”

As much as I hated that I still hadn’t figured out how Apollo was regaining his power, it did allow me to present myself as being merciful when the situation called for it. I was helping Camp Jupiter by allowing Diana and Apollo to do so, fulfilling my role as camp patron. No one could ask me to do more.

The other gods nodded, believing my assertion as they always did. This was why I was in charge, I was able to enact ruses and to recognize them when I saw them – I wouldn’t have been able to infiltrate Kronos’s court otherwise and rescue my siblings.

Apollo dodged Commodus’s next attack as well, using his own momentum against him to kick him into a guardrail. Not that it slowed down the emperor much.

One of Caligula’s guards worried about him getting too far away, but Caligula just shouted for him to shut up. 

Frank turned into a small bird, using his agility to stab Caligula in the eye and meet up with Apollo quickly. “If you really want to help,” He told Apollo quietly, “hobble Commodus. I don’t think I can hold both.”

“He’s underestimating himself,” Mars scoffed. 

“And if Frank’s assessment of his own abilities is more accurate than your own?” Athena inquired.

“Then he dies a glorious death!”

“I think he’d prefer to remain alive,” Mercury muttered.

Commodus charged Apollo again, but less noisily than his previous attempts. This time Apollo wasn’t able to dodge, instead getting slammed in the gut, making him collapse onto the ground in a heap.

The emperor’s troops cheered, Commodus taking a moment to bask in their adulation. As Commodus strutted by, Apollo nabbed the dagger he kept sheathed to his calf, using it to stab the false god in the knee.

“Didn’t know he had it in him!” Mercury muttered, impressed. “His stealing skills are far above what I would have expected in his state.”

“This is why you always have to be careful when choosing a weapon to carry around with you,” Athena lectured. “Sure, you can use it to fend off attackers, but attackers may also be able to steal it and then use it against you .”

I wasn’t afraid of that happening to me. While even a demigod could handle my Masterbolt when in sheathed form, only I could attack with it effectively. No other god had the skill or power to handle such an awesome weapon.

Apollo dropped the dagger, appearing utterly spent. He still had enough energy to turn his head towards Frank and Caligula, however.

Frank was not doing well. He’d resumed his small bird form. While he was a fast dodger, Caligula managed to score a hit on him with the flat of his blade, sending him flying into the wall before turning back into a human.

“Are you watching Apollo?” Caligula taunted, grinning. “You remember what happens next?”

He pointed his sword at Frank’s back.

“NO!” Apollo screamed.

Juno turned her head towards me. Even beneath her veil, I could sense her accusatory glaring. She didn’t demand I interfere at least. She’d learned her lesson it seems.

Caligula stabbed his spear into Frank’s back. Or he would have, if it hadn’t bent in half at the attempt, Frank’s cape stopping it cold.

I glared at my wife.

“What. Did. You. Do.” I ground out. 

“What you wouldn’t,” she said, moving her head in such a way that I could see her piercing eyes. 

I glanced around the room. Mars’ eyes were on the fight on-screen, but everyone else’s were squarely on myself. I needed to regain control of the situation, and to do that, I needed to punish Juno.

But I wasn’t sure that I could.

I chose Apollo as the main one to blame in order to not raise suspicion over not punishing her more severely. I was able to intimidate her, throwing lightning at her as she ran during the months before Gaia fell. But if she had fought back… I suspected I would still be the winner, but at no small cost. I couldn't just tie her up and dangle her above Chaos like I had all those millennia before. I’d been able to assert my power over hers back then to the point that she was unable to shapeshift or destroy or otherwise escape from her bonds.

Now, with being unable to even wrench Apollo’s power from him… 

I couldn’t afford to fail like that in front of the rest of the Council. Especially not with my brothers here.

I cleared my throat. “In light of how disastrous it would be if the emperors won, I will show mercy this time.” 

I flicked a small piece of electricity towards Juno, not enough to count as an attack, no more than a really bad static charge, but enough to send a message.

“But know that my patience is not infinite,” I concluded. “Do not force me to take… extreme measures . Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” Juno muttered. I detected a hint of impudence in her tone, but not enough to cause major problems if I let it go.

I may need that army of automatons I’d had Vulcan create sometime in the near future. Without being able to properly assert my power over the stronger gods when they disobeyed me, I couldn’t be sure how much longer I’d be able to keep them from making a bid for my throne. Automatons at least could be programmed to be loyal to me no matter what, though I doubted they could do more than buy time against say, my brothers. No matter how much care Vulcan put into his creations, they’d never be able to best the strongest gods for long, merely delay them.

But delaying was sometimes enough. 

I’d have to pay even closer attention to the rest of the Olympians, especially my brothers. Knowing their weaknesses would put me at an advantage for any ensuing fight, especially with ample time to prepare.

Frank stood, slamming Caligula to the wall by his throat. “Time’s up!” he roared.

“That’s the signal to get out,” Athena reminded us.

Frank pulled a piece of firewood out of his pouch – the one connected to his life force.

“Frank!” Apollo yelled.

“If I’m going to burn,” Frank declared. “I might as well burn bright. This is for Jason.”

The firewood caught on fire without any visible spark, seemingly reacting to Frank’s determination alone. The flames spread down Frank’s body, alighting the oil spilled all over the tunnel – most notably, the channel of oil leading to a bunch of barrels and crates.

Frank incinerated, taking Caligula with him. Apollo leaped out of the tunnel just in time to avoid the brunt of the attack. Commodus, who had been further from the explosion than Caligula, but closer than Apollo, was nowhere to be seen.

I felt a twinge of satisfaction. I doubted that Juno’s little protection spell had been made powerful enough to withstand such an explosion, certainly not from all around. And even if it had, Frank had burnt up the wood the Fates had tied his life to. He’d be dead no matter what.

Juno’s whole stunt had been pointless.

The Fates had made their intentions known, showing their displeasure with Juno’s defiance of my order, rendering it moot within a minute of her impudence.

Perhaps I would not have to fear a rebellion – not with fate itself rightfully on my side.

Chapter Text

Apollo had survived that explosion, seemingly with minimal damage. At this point I wasn’t sure whether he was majorly lucky or unlucky. He’d been in a major wreck and a huge explosion, both within the last couple of hours, and been able to walk off both of them – though judging by the large burn across his back and the grimace of pain on his face, he’d rather not be waking right now.

As Apollo staggered out of the tunnel, a gurgling noise came from right behind him, its producer soon making himself known – Commodus. He was in far, FAR worse shape than Apollo, needing to pull himself along on his elbows, his body one huge burn – but he was alive.

“The bet’s still on,” Mercury announced.

Oh, right. That thing. If Frank had killed Commodus, then I, Ceres, and Juno would have split the pot. Since the emperor was still alive, there was still some possibility that Apollo would manage to kill him by some method. He’d never been more vulnerable than he was right now.

“SHIPS!” Commodus shouted. “FIRE!”

One of his officers responded with his own orders to his subordinates. “SIGNAL THE YACHTS!”

“Well, that’s not good,” Mercury muttered.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Athena said thoughtfully. “Commodus is not a great strategic mind, especially right now. This decision seems to be based more out of a desire for revenge than it actually being advantageous to fire. It may well be that it’s better for Camp Jupiter for the yachts to fire now than if they’d held their fire for later.”

“It will still lead to a lot of death and destruction,” Mercury reminded her.

Athena bowed her head. “As is sadly the way of war. While those things need to be minimized, they can rarely be avoided, and sometimes it’s better to take losses sooner rather than later.”

Commodus grinned wickedly at Apollo. Apollo responded by tackling him to the ground, wrapping his hands around the emperor’s throat, and screaming in his face until he crumbled to ash.

The throne room was dead silent for a moment. 

Mercury was the first to speak. “Looks like Pluto won the pot,” he noted faintly. 

How? 

How had Apollo done this?

Even as a god, I doubted he’d have been able to disintegrate a false god with just his voice, even with the false god’s claim to immortality destroyed.

In the state Apollo was in, barely even conscious… how could he do this?

I checked in with the piece of myself I’d left in the Fates’ room, surveying Apollo’s thread. According to my memories, Apollo’s string had suddenly flared a brilliant gold while he was shouting, brighter than even my own, before fading to the drabness of a mortal string.

That… that shouldn’t be possible. None of this should be possible, but Apollo somehow having a power flare stronger than even my own divinity… I could not even make sense of that. Apollo being able to somehow temporarily regain the power he’d normally had as a god I could understand, even if I didn’t know how he did it. But gaining MORE power than he’d had before?

But this wasn’t the first sign of Apollo experiencing a surge in divine power. Somehow in recent days, his string had become strong enough that it wouldn’t submit to my own power, would not permit even the tiniest fragment of Apollo’s remaining divinity to be pried off.

Dread trickled into my stomach. If this was Apollo’s power when he was half-dead and still ultimately mortal… how powerful would he become if he regained godhood?

“I leant Apollo some of my own power,” I declared to the rest of the Council. Figuring out what to do about Apollo would have to wait. The more urgent issue, and the one I could act on immediately, was to establish that Apollo only regained this level of power through my mercy. That it wasn’t his own doing. “With the ships firing on the camp and Diana still in transit, it seemed best to get Commodus out of the way immediately.”

I surveyed the other gods. Was it just me, or were they not buying my story as readily as usual?

Green fireballs hurtled upwards from all fifty ships.

Straight upwards.

Then crashed right back down onto the deck they came from.

“It was Lavinia!” Ceres declared smugly. “Her secret mission must’ve been to sabotage the catapults! She was right, Reyna will have to thank her after this.”

“I agree that sabotage is a likely cause, but you do not know that Lavinia was behind this,” Athena said. “There is little evidence to support that.”

“Of course there is!” Ceres huffed. “She was certain that what she was doing was very important, even involving many nature spirits in her plans.” She swept her arm towards the bay. “Well, this was clearly a very important mission, so she must’ve been behind it.”

“You are assuming that Lavinia succeeded, and that her assessment of her mission’s importance was accurate,” Athena said flatly.

“Of course it was! She’s one of the few Romans around here who knows how to properly appreciate plants! She knows what she’s doing!”

Apollo shot one of the commanders a cruel, smug smile. “BOO!”

The commander, along with his troops, ran off.

Had Apollo somehow been responsible for the misfiring? He’d wanted to stop it, badly, but I’d seen no sign of any power shooting off from him and towards the ship. How could he possibly have influenced them from this far away?

It had to be a bluff… right?

Had my hands always been this clammy?

The army left the mutilated pegasi behind. With the way the chariot was fashioned, they physically could not bolt, as much as they strived to.

Apollo fell to his knees, staring off into the distance, as some other vessels, presumably ones unconnected to the emperors, started cleaning up the naval mess.

The pegasi, apparently unafraid of Apollo, snorted and glared at him.

“He’s right,” Neptune said suddenly.

“Who’s right?” Mercury asked.

“That pegasus!” Neptune gestured to the screen. “This is no time for Apollo to be feeling sorry for himself, he needs to free them. I assure you, these two have had it worse than he has, and THEY haven’t given up.” He turned to Vulcan. “Could you create two pairs of prosthetic wings for them?”

Vulcan stroked his chin. “Seems doable. I’d have to measure them though. I can eyeball some of those from here, but I can’t see everything I’d need to see to make them fit comfortably.”

“No one is going down there besides Diana, until Apollo’s long gone from camp,” I reminded both of them.

“Of course, My Lord,” Vulcan said.

Was it my imagination, or was there a hint of sarcasm in his voice?

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Apollo told the pegasi as he staggered towards them. “You are beautiful creatures and you deserve better. I’ll free you now, if you’ll let me.” He cut off all their restraints, leaving them free for the first time in who knows how long.

Neptune nodded approvingly. “Commanding his fire-horses has done wonders for Apollo. He knows how to treat equines properly.”

Of course Neptune cared about that. He was always getting on me for yanking too hard on the reins of the four wind gods whenever they pulled my chariot into battle.

“There,” Apollo said once he’d finished setting the pegasi free. “I have no right to ask anything of you, but if you could see your way to giving me a ride over the hills, my friends are in danger.”

The two pegasi whinnied at each other, clearly having an argument which Neptune was raptly attentive to, but which I couldn’t care less about. 

One of them, the one with docked ears, snorted and trotted off somewhere. The other one, who only had one eye, stayed.

Apollo took a moment to shout Frank’s name into the tunnel. I didn’t know why he bothered, even if he hadn’t been immolated, his stick of wood had gone up in smoke. There was no possibility of survival for him.

After hearing what I’d expected – nothing – Apollo turned and got onto the remaining pegasus.

“And once again, Apollo’s a Disney Princess,” Mercury declared.

“I’d rather he didn’t,” Neptune muttered. “Both these pegasi deserve peaceful lives far away from anyone who might want to hurt them.”

Chapter Text

I forced myself to keep staring at the poor mutilated unicorn carrying Apollo. What that equine must have gone through… I couldn’t look away. I had to see. To know the evil of the emperors, and the strength of those who survived their brutality. They may have taken away this pegasus’s wings, but not who he was.

I would ensure both pegasi made it back to a pegasus herd (after Vulcan outfitted them with prosthetic wings of course, they wouldn’t be able to keep up otherwise). Pegasus would look after them. My son had always been good at helping all who were under his care.

The pegasus dumped Apollo close to Temple Hill before running off into the woods after his fellow captive. Luckily, Apollo still had enough strength to run towards the Forum. 

Along the way, he came across an unusual sight: Meg running besides a herd of unicorns, all decked out with battle gear, weapons attached to their horns which they were gleefully using to run through any undead they came across.

“I need to recruit some unicorns,” Mars mumbled.

Judging by the pure joy in these unicorns' eyes as they stomped and pierced the unlife out of their foes, I might need to ask the unicorns in the herds I maintained whether they might be interested in an offer from Mars. Either Camp Jupiter housed unusually bloodthirsty unicorns, or I’d been vastly underestimating pegasi’s desire to kick undead ass for millennia.

“Hey, it’s working great!” Meg called out to Apollo. “Unicorns are immune to undead scratches and bites! The emperors?” she asked.

“Dead. But…” With the way his voice cracked, it was easy to tell that something had gone horribly wrong.

“Okay. Grieve later,” she declared. “Right now, we should find Hazel. She’s somewhere. So is Tarquin.”

“I doubt Apollo is all that eager to meet up with Hazel again anytime soon,” I said. “Considering how things went with Piper…”

“Death is a part of life,” Pluto declared solemnly. “Many may dislike that fact, but it is, nonetheless, a fact. I doubt it will go as badly as you surmise.”

I noticed that Pluto refrained from saying his daughter’s name, though he clearly alluded to her. It was the closest he dared come to acknowledging her.

Apollo and Meg ran aimlessly alongside the herd of combat unicorns as they searched for Hazel and Tarquin, until Apollo realized that they should check the bookstore.

As they headed in that direction, they ran into Terminus, who’d definitely been in better shape. The impromptu nose job he’d gotten was not flattering. A little girl hid behind him.

“Oh, it’s you,” he greeted Apollo, if you could call that a greeting. “My borders have failed. I hope you’ve brought help.”

“Ah… maybe?” Apollo replied.

“I see. Well, I’ve concentrated the last bits of my power here, around Julia. They may destroy New Rome, but they will NOT harm this little girl!”

Jupiter frowned. Which wasn’t unusual, my brother was hardly ever happy. “I suppose he wants to protect his loyal follower,” he noted begrudgingly. “Personally, I would have chosen someone a bit more capable than a young child, but Terminus’s tastes have always been odd.”

My brother only seemed to understand relationships such as the friendship Terminus had with the little girl on a purely transactional level, as he did with all relationships. It was almost sad. 

Terminus, at least, was such a minor god that it seemed Jupiter didn’t care much how close he’d gotten to a mortal. I doubted my brother considered Terminus to be much better than a mortal himself.

“We’ll win today, I promise,” Apollo declared. “Where’s Hazel?”

“Over there!” Terminus glanced to the left, which I guess was his version of pointing. Apollo and Meg promptly ran in that direction. The two of them caught up to Hazel and Arion fending off zombies. The unicorns with Meg and Apollo took the opportunity to kick some more undead posterior, running through them all with gusto.

I couldn’t help but smirk at Mars’ enraptured expression. I hadn’t expected him to gain newfound respect for equines through shared bloodlust, but whatever worked, I supposed. 

Arion seemed to be doing well, thankfully. Not that I thought he wouldn’t be, my son was perfectly capable of looking after himself. Something as weak as a horde of zombies wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

Hazel laughed in relief at the sight of Meg and Apollo, but seeing Apollo’s dour expression quickly quelled her joy. “What happened?”

“I… Frank… the emperors…” Apollo stammered.

That was enough.

She bent over Arion, murmuring something to him before he galloped off. Judging by the direction he headed in, she’d probably sent him to retrieve whatever remained of Frank’s body, though I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. He needed a proper burial for sure, but I doubted she’d be able to handle the sight of his charred remains.

Hazel turned to Apollo. “Where can we find Tarquin?” she demanded. Apollo promptly started walking towards the bookstore again, Hazel, Meg, and the unicorns following his lead.

When they finally arrived at the store, they found two eurynomoi standing guard. Who probably wished they’d kept my brother as their employer, as Hazel shot gems out of the ground at them so fast, they acted like bullets, returning both of them to dust.

Mars let out a low whistle. 

Pluto beamed. Of course he couldn’t say anything to praise Hazel or acknowledge her existence (which must’ve been killing him), but judging from his expression, I was glad of it. He talked up how great Nico was enough, if he could recount Hazel’s skills and fighting prowess to anyone in the vicinity as well, he’d probably never stop talking about his kids. Mostly so he could imply that they were more powerful than anyone else’s, as if either of them could take on Percy. Granted, I’d never want Percy or Nico or Hazel put in a situation where they’d have to fight to the death against each other – Percy would never forgive himself if he permanently injured one of them, much less killed them – but if it did happen, I was sure my son would be the victor.

Meg sent the unicorns off to find other enemies to stomp. Probably for the best, I doubted they’d do well fighting in close-quarters.

The bookstore was crawling with undead, the most notable of which being Tarquin himself, who’d apparently decided to scream at a cat. “Answer me, beast! Where are the books?”

The cat licked his nethers.

“I will destroy you!” Tarquin proclaimed.

“I think dying knocked a few screws loose,” Mars observed.

“If he had any to begin with,” Athena muttered.

I had to concur. Why he thought the cat could speak, or that it had any knowledge of the books, was beyond me. Sure he might not have ever seen a house cat – they’d only just started being introduced to Romans when he died – but he should still be able to tell that this was just an ordinary creature and most likely not capable of human speech.

Apollo distracted Tarquin from the cat. Unfortunately, having Tarquin’s attention seemed to aggravate Apollo’s cursed wound, driving him to his knees.

“Well, good!” Tarquin said cheerfully at the sight. “Killed the emperors, did you, my faithful servant? Speak!”

“Dead. They’re dead,” Apollo answered.

“Excellent! So many lovely deaths tonight. And the praetor, Frank–?”

“Don’t,” Hazel pushed past Apollo. “Tarquin, don’t you dare say his name.”

“Ha! Dead, then. Excellent. The city is ripe with fear. Agony. Loss. Wonderful! Apollo, you’re mine now, of course, I can feel your heart pumping its last beats. And Hazel Lavesque… I’m afraid you’ll have to die for collapsing my throne room on top of me. VERY naughty trick. But this Mccaffrey child… I’m in such a good mood, I might let her flee for her life and spread word of my great victory!”

“He’s only saying that to disguise his fear of Nero. He probably contacted Tarquin at some point and made it clear to him that he still believed he could get some use out of Meg,” Athena said disgustedly. 

As much as it pained me to agree with Athena on anything, that did seem most likely. He hardly needed Meg to spread word about his conquest of Camp Jupiter, anyone dropping by the camp would find that out soon enough. Plus while Meg was a great fighter, she wasn’t the best speaker. Tarquin seemed to believe that even a cat could speak though, so maybe he was just really bad at judging speaking ability in general.

“That is, if you explain the meaning of this,” Tarquin said, pointing to the cat. 

“It’s a cat,” Apollo responded.

Tarquin snarled.

“Leave him alone!” Meg declared. “There’s no way I’m fleeing anywhere.”

“Where are the Sibylline books? They are none of these!” Tarquin asked Meg, gesturing at the books on the bookshelves. “And this creature will not speak! The harpy and the Cyclops who were rewriting the prophecies – I can smell that they were here, but they are gone. Where are they?”

“He really is convinced the cat can speak but is choosing not to,” Mercury said. “Amazing.”

“It would not surprise me if all cats could speak and just chose not to because they believed all other lifeforms were beneath them,” Vulcan said. “It’d fit.”

I hummed. “More likely, Tarquin ran into Bast at some point, and from that encounter got the impression that all cats could speak, not realizing that she could only do so because she was the goddess of cats.”

“Is Bast even still around anymore?” Mercury asked.

I shrugged. I hadn’t seen her in millennia, but as Harpocrates and the Sibyl had proven, just because I hadn’t run across her in thousands of years, didn’t mean she was gone. Especially with how many different entities had been popping back up after extended absences lately, Egyptian gods included. I still couldn’t believe that one vulture goddess had actually managed to convince Percy to let her possess him, even if only briefly.

Meg taunted Tarquin, saying that he was stupid and the books weren’t even books.

Athena rested her head in her hands. “This girl…” she shook her head.

“That girl is my daughter, and she’s amazing!” Ceres said.

“That girl just revealed some crucial information to Tarquin, information that might allow him to get his hands on the books’ info,” Athena replied testily.

Tarquin demanded Apollo to explain what Meg had meant. Judging from how the words seemed forced out, he hadn’t had any choice but to respond. “Tyson. Cyclops. Prophecies tattooed on his skin. He’s on Temple Hill with–”

Meg ordered him to be quiet, but the damage was already done. Tarquin’s army had been holding back so as not to accidentally damage the books with their rampaging. Now that he knew where they were, he didn’t need to worry about that anymore.

“Tyson…” 

I hoped my son would be okay. He may be adept at taking out enemies with his big stick, but I doubted even he could fend off the most powerful of Tarquin’s forces. If Tarquin caught him…

I shuddered. I didn’t think I’d be able to bear seeing Tarquin’s attempt to make the Sibylline books more transportable and convenient to read. It’d been bad enough watching Apollo be magically flayed.

Chapter Text

I raced towards Camp Jupiter. I would be fast enough. I had to be. And in the impossible circumstances that I wasn’t… it’d been awhile since I’d paid Uncle Pluto a visit.

With the shape my brother was in, I wouldn’t be able to afford spending time on the battlefield routing the emperor’s armies. Fortunately, it didn’t seem I’d be needed. Even from several miles away, I could sense my Hunters moving towards Camp Jupiter. At their current pace, they’d arrive at the same time I did. As much equipment and as many soldiers as Caligula and Commodus possessed, they didn’t stand a chance against my followers. Commodus may have captured one of them while she was alone, but he wasn’t able to do much of anything to the full group.

I could trust in Thalia to lead them in my place. I just needed to get to my brother. I could feel him, but his lifeforce was so weak, almost seeming to sputter out repeatedly before relighting, but dimmer each time. He only had moments left.

Silently I commanded the wolves amongst my Hunters to run to the bookstore. Thalia and the rest of the Hunters knew by now to trust their hunting companions instincts, or trust that I was guiding them to where they needed to be. They’d let the wolves go where they needed to.

At least the Camp was in good hands, between my Hunters’ intervention and what Lavinia had been up to. I’d been able to watch her and her compatriots’ actions even as I was flying speedily towards camp, how they’d sabotaged every ship in the emperors’ fleet.

As Apollo’s life force was sputtering and dying again, for what I feared would be the last time, the fastest of my wolves breached the door of the bookstore. I was only seconds behind her, quickly changing to my normal humanoid form.

My brother sat, gray as concrete, staring at nothing with the Arrow of Dodona in his hands, as Hazel stabbed Tarquin in the chest. For a moment I’d thought that I wouldn’t need to intervene in this battle, but he recovered. “I have lived for millennia,” he snarled. “You could not kill me with a thousand tons of stone, Hazel Lavesque. You will not kill me with a sword.”

I swiftly nocked an arrow, aiming it straight at the undead king’s forehead. “Foul undead thing. When a good woman puts you down, you had better stay down.” 

I let the arrow fly.

He disintegrated, fire running down his form, destroying him utterly.

Pluto could deal with him now. Considering how displeased he’d been at Tarquin recruiting eurynomoi, I did not expect him to be merciful.

“Hey, Sis,” Apollo called out, before promptly keeling over and passing out.

“He’s almost gone,” I noted. But “almost” meant that he wasn’t yet.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I muttered. My brother wasn’t going anywhere. I refused to lose him.

I leaned down, setting a glowing hand on his shoulder. I may not be a healing god like him, but I could deal with a simple cursed wound easily enough. Color returned to his form, the gray leeching away.

His eyes fluttered open. “H-how long was I out?”

“Roughly three seconds,” I informed him. “Now, get up, drama queen.”

I purposely slowed down my heartbeat. That’d been close, but Apollo was fine now. Back to his usual dramatic self.

I helped my brother to his feet. With my healing, it wasn’t too difficult – his legs were back to their normal strength, he just needed to actually feel that his body was working normally again. I’d had to heal some of my other Hunters from the brink of death before, they’d always taken a couple of minutes to reorient themselves afterwards.

Apollo beamed at me. “I love you.” 

Normally if he said something like that, there was a hint of eye-rolling or sarcasm. This time? Nothing but raw sincerity.

I blinked, uncertain of what to do with that. I’d always known he really did care for me, but him saying it out loud, meaning every word? That was rare. “You really HAVE changed.”

“I missed you!”

“Y-yes, well. I’m here now. Even Dad couldn’t argue with a Sibylline invocation from Temple Hill.”

But he could have tried harder, if he really wanted to. He must’ve wanted Apollo saved. He just knew that he couldn’t show favoritism by doing so without appearing to have been forced into it. That was all.

“It worked, then,” Apollo grinned. “It worked!”

“Yeah,” Meg responded. “Hi, Artemis.”

“Diana,” I corrected her. A common mistake for demigods to make. Even some of my newer Hunters would call me by the wrong name occasionally. “But hello, Meg. You’ve done well, young warrior.”

Under different circumstances I would’ve offered her a place with my Hunters right away, but considering the quest my brother was on and how he was bound to the young woman, that would unfortunately have to wait. Perhaps by the time I was in a position to properly make her an offer, she’d have gotten over whatever fleeting inclination towards romance she may possibly have possessed. 

“So… I’m healed?” Apollo asked, looking at the small scar on his stomach, the only remaining sign of his nearly-lethal wound.

I raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not the goddess of healing, but I’m still a goddess. I think I can take care of my little brother’s booboos.”

“ Little brother?”

I smirked. Honestly, I didn’t know who he was trying to fool. I’d delivered him into this world, there was no doubt who the older twin was.

“And you, Centurion?” I asked, turning to Hazel. “How have you been?” 

Apollo may have nearly lost his life, but someone she was very close to had just lost his life. I’d comforted enough of my grief-stricken Hunters to know to check in on someone after receiving such news. 

At least I was certain all of her fellow legionnaires would comfort her and grieve alongside her. It always helped to have others to talk to who were going through the same thing.

“I’m… I’m heartbroken and exhausted, my lady,” she responded. “But thank you for coming to our aid.

That was about what I’d expected. “Yes. I know it has been a difficult night. Come, let’s go outside. It’s rather stuffy in here, and it smells like burnt cyclops.”

Not a smell I enjoyed in the slightest. I had to fight to keep from wrinkling my nose at the scent of it.

Thalia and many of the other Hunters and remaining survivors of the attack had all gathered around the bookstore. My entrance had not exactly been subtle. Thankfully, my faithful chariot of deer had also arrived. I’d be able to head back to Olympus in a slower manner than I’d arrived, but still one I was certain Father would approve of. He always liked us gods to travel in grand fashion, befitting our role in the world.

My lieutenant had seen better days. Not surprising. Her brother had just died, after all, and while she hadn’t actually known Jason all that well, it was still a lot. If Apollo had actually died…

No. That would never have happened. My brother may come to the brink of death, but he would not die. He may be being punished, but Father didn’t want Apollo gone. He’d proven that. He wouldn’t have allowed me to save Apollo otherwise. He’d have found some other excuse to ensure Apollo got the help he needed to survive, even without the Sibylline invocation.

I’d have to leave soon. I didn’t want to test Father’s generosity more than I had to. But first, I’d have to clear the gaggle of people out of my chariot. 

“Lavinia?” my brother asked, peering at the people packed into my vehicle.

She grinned. “This ride is so cool! I never want to get out.”

If she really wanted to spend more time in my chariot, there was an easy way to allow her to do that. “Well, Lavinia Asimov, if you want to stay on board, you’d have to become a Hunter.”

“Nope!” She hopped out so fast you’d think she’d just been burned by my brother’s sun chariot. “No offense, my lady, but I like girls too much to take that vow. Like… like them. Not just like them. Like–”

I sighed. Did this young woman really think I didn’t know about lesbianism? Joining the Hunters caused many young women to discover their unacknowledged attraction towards other women, I’d seen more budding romances between girls than between a girl and a guy. Many of my Hunters had left over the years due to wanting to pursue relationships with each other. Emmie and Jo were just some of the latest to have done so. “I understand. Romantic love. It’s a plague.”

“Lavinia. H-how did you… Where did you–?” my brother stammered out.

I rescued him, as usual. “This young woman was responsible for the destruction of the Triumvirate’s fleet,” I informed him.

“Well, I had a lot of help,” Lavinia replied humbly. Always good to see a young demigod acknowledging that they didn’t accomplish their great feats alone. Those that didn’t… well, I’d taken in more than one young maiden who’d been used and discarded by such “heroes”.

Meg and Peaches happily reunited as Lavinia explained how she had sabotaged all those siege weapons, apparently motivated largely by the desire to “rescue” the pair of Terpischore’s shoes from one of Caligula’s ships.

I rolled my eyes. I’d never understand the fuss over such things. So long as a pair of shoes was quiet, didn’t stand out too much in the wilderness, gripped the ground well, and was comfortable to walk in for long periods of time, little else mattered.

When Hazel confronted her over abandoning her post, Lavinia declared that it was on Praetor’s orders. Thankfully, Reyna was in the nearby crowd, her leg in a cast while she used crutches to get around. Otherwise she appeared alright. 

Hazel confronted her about Lavinia’s assertion. Reyna lied that she’d ordered Lavinia’s actions, though her expression was pained as she did so. I doubted Reyna’d fooled many people with her lie, but to be willing to back up such a bold lie as that… no wonder the crowd seemed amazed at her words.

I noted to never count on Reyna to win a Poker match. Her poker face was nonexistent.

“There were many heroes today,” I declared. “And many losses. I’m only sorry that Thalia and I couldn’t get here sooner. We were only able to rendezvous with Lavinia and Reyna’s forces after their raid, then destroy the second wave of undead, who were waiting in the sewers.”

Well, “We” in a manner of speaking. My Hunters met up and provided the backup. I was too busy attempting to get to my brother in time to prevent him from dying. If I’d arrived even a minute later…

No. No need to think about that. I hadn’t arrived a minute later. My brother was fine. 

Everything was fine.

“You also saved me,” Apollo noted. “You’re here. You’re actually here .”

I grabbed his hand, squeezing it. Many of my Hunters could use that sort of tactile reassurance, and right now, it seemed my little brother could as well.

“Let’s not celebrate quite yet,” I warned everyone. “You have many wounded to attend to. The camp’s medics have set up camp outside the city. They will need every healer, including you, brother.”

I wished I could spend more time with him, but I was risking a lot even just being here right now. I would not be able to linger past when Apollo was done helping to heal all the injured patients he’d have. 

The people here would have to take priority. I’d be able to see my brother all I wanted (more than I wanted more than likely) once Apollo’s punishment was over and Jupiter rightfully reinstated him as a god. 

That was when Arion chose to come trotting over the hill. He had a flare for drama befitting of… most gods, really, but Apollo especially.

The human form draped across his back drew my attention. My eyes narrowed. Was it just me, or did the person move slightly on their own?

And why were they steaming?

The form slipped off Arion’s side, but not by accident. Frank Zhang landed on his feet, mostly naked except for his underwear and his praetor’s cape, everything else appearing to have burnt away – yet without any sign of a single burn on his body. 

“Hey, guys,” he croaked, before passing out.

My brother immediately rushed over to help him. I just stared. I’d caught a few people saying that Frank had died. I supposed they must’ve been mistaken. Easy enough to get confused on such matters in the heat of battle, though it wouldn’t explain why Frank appeared like Leo did after Festus belched fire at him. To my knowledge, Frank was not fire-resistant like Hephaestus’s child was. Quite the opposite.

I’d have to sort all that out later. For now, I needed to ready my chariot. I had best not delay leaving for any longer.

Chapter Text

HOW?!

How could Frank have possibly survived that? 

The Fates themselves had declared he’d die! They’d set up his life specifically to end. They’d even arranged it in just such a way to demonstrate how futile any unsanctioned interference to protect him was. 

And yet, he lived. He didn’t appear to be in the best shape – he had several wounds – but absolutely no trace of the fire that should have killed him. No trace on his flesh, at any rate, his hair and clothing were still singed, his clothing even having been entirely burnt off. Which meant that he was definitely in the fire…

I glared at Juno, but she appeared as shocked as I was. And even if she’d done something, she couldn’t have defied the Fates’ decree. Not even I could do that. 

I’d seen Frank’s stick, the one his life force was tied to, burn up. And yet, here he was.

Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was some secret trap laid by the emperors, a monster in disguise, ready to kill anyone who came too close. With “Frank” conveniently in the most vulnerable part of camp, he could show his true colors at any moment, killing anyone in the vicinity, showing why it’d been foolish to believe a demigod could defy the Fates.

As Apollo and the other medics worked on him, I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“Frank” twitched and groaned a few times, but nothing more dramatic than that.

“How’d he survive?” Mercury murmured absently.

“He’s my kid, he’s just that awesome!” Mars boasted.

“If that was enough to stop a demigod from dying, then Jason would have survived,” Juno hissed. 

I nodded. Jason was my son, after all. If Mars’ son could survive through sheer determination or courage or whatever qualities constituted “awesomeness”, then mine would have as well. 

After Frank’s life was out of immediate danger, Hazel and Apollo began speculating on how Frank could have survived, with Apollo postulating that since Frank willingly sacrificed himself, knowing he would die, accepting his destiny instead of running from it, he broke free from his fate. Either that, or Juno let him off the hook.

I immediately turned to Juno.

She flushed. “I had nothing to do with Frank’s survival. If I’d had that kind of power, I would have used it to save Jason, as you should have ,” she asserted, glaring at me.

“The Fates–” I started.

“The Fates decreed that Frank would die, but look!” she said, sweeping her arm towards the screen. “He’s alive!”

“DO NOT INTERRUPT ME,” I bellowed, thunder booming above Olympus. “I suspect that the Fates were not defied at all. This may not be the real Frank.”

“Seems pretty real to me!” Mars called out.

Athena, however, looked thoughtful. “That is possible,” she conceded. “The most likely explanation that’s been brought up, even. Of course you, my Lord, are the one to come up with it.”

I smiled. Athena was clever enough to recognize my own intelligence. Most of the other gods were far enough below that they didn’t realize how inferior they truly were. Which was why I had to be on guard against them – they weren’t smart enough to realize that I was clearly the best choice to lead everyone, as the most adept decision-maker of the gods. So I was forced to use my raw power to keep myself in my position, for the good of everyone.

The other gods squinted at the screen, attempting to examine Frank more closely. They would not find anything. I’d already looked as closely and thoroughly as I could, yet I saw no hint of what sort of creature this Frank-imitator may actually be, or what their plan was.

Finally, “Frank”’s eyes fluttered open. Hazel promptly hugged him. 

He asked for water, and whether the camp was alright. Once he’d had a drink and Hazel had confirmed the camp’s survival and the invaders’ deaths, he changed subject to a lighter subject.

“Did I miss the cake?” he asked Apollo.

“What?”

“Your birthday. Yesterday.”

“If Frank was an impostor, he would not have known about Apollo’s birthday,” Juno declared. “He must be real.”

“I am sure that if this is a fake in disguise, that the masterminds’ have planned through how to fool those around the impostor regarding things Frank should remember,” Athena noted. “There may have been a scout of some sort around when Frank and Apollo had that conversation about Lester’s birthday.”

I nodded. Frank’s injuries would also provide a convenient excuse for any lapse in memory. It would not be unreasonable to assume he’d sustained a head wound or two.

“How did you survive the fire?” Hazel demanded, at last asking what I most wanted to know, though I suspected I knew the truth.

“I don’t know. I remember Caligula burning up. I passed out, thought I was dead. Then I woke up on Arion’s back. And now I’m here.”

“How convenient,” Athena noted, “That Frank remembers exactly as much as what Apollo’s seen, and nothing more.”

“Frank” passed out again a couple minutes later, with Apollo leaving now that his wounds were tended to, instead visiting all the other injured, doing his best to help them. Some survived, some didn’t.

His last visit was Don the faun, who’d gotten burnt to a crisp by the Greek fire from the redirected siege weapons. Looking at how much of him was bandaged, it was incredible he’d held on even this long.

“I wanted to ask,” Don said as he took what I was sure would be his final breaths, “Does it hurt? Reincarnation?”

“I- I’ve never reincarnated, Don,” Apollo sputtered out. “When I became human, that was different, I think. But I hear reincarnation is peaceful. Beautiful.”

The other gods glanced at me, most likely to get hints as to whether the process I used to turn Apollo mortal really was different from reincarnation.

I maintained my stony expression. Best not to reveal any hints to the process.

Don wished to come back as a hemlock, since that seemed like an action hero plant. Lavinia assured him he would, and that he was a hero.

“Cool…” Don choked out. “Hey, Apollo, you– you know the difference between a faun and a satyr…?”

He stopped breathing, collapsing into soil a moment later. A sapling sprang up from it.

“A laurel…?” Ceres murmured.

I narrowed my eyes. Had Apollo used his powers again somehow? I’d never seen him influence what plant a satyr or faun turned into, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he could.

“Did you do that…?” one of the dryads asked Apollo.

He shook his head.

I believed that he hadn’t meant to do anything. I’d seen no outward sign of him using any sort of power to affect Don. But that didn’t mean he didn’t influence the plant form Don took. He’d seemed so stricken by Don’s condition… it hardly seemed like a coincidence that Don took the form of a laurel, one of the two plants Apollo cared most dearly for.

“The only difference between a satyr and a faun,” Apollo declared, “is what we see in them. And what they see in themselves.” 

Something about Apollo’s declaration made me uneasy. Satyrs were satyrs and fauns were fauns. It had nothing to do with how others saw them or how they saw themselves, it was just what they were. Dangerous things happened when you mixed categories of things.

After Apollo went to bed that night, I ventured through the Fates’ room, trying to find Frank’s thread – or rather, the snipped remains of it. That would be the last bit of proof I needed to affirm my suspicion of his being an impostor.

I found his thread.

But it wasn’t snapped.

Somehow, it was still intact.

As I turned away from it, I thought I caught a faint shimmer of gold emanating from it.

No. That had to be a trick of the light, my imagination. Nothing more. 

My footsteps quickened. No reason to stay around here any longer. 

Chapter Text

I arrived back at the Council room just after the meeting had adjourned for the day. Jupiter vaguely waved me off, telling the entire Council that they could leave, but that they must come back before Apollo woke up, as usual. He seemed distracted, barely even glancing at me when I arrived. 

At least it meant he didn’t try to chain me up again. Though he might also have just decided I’d followed his orders well enough that he didn’t need to anymore. I’d made sure to hurry back here after fulfilling my duty, after all, however much I wanted to stick around and spend time with my Hunters and, unbelievably enough, my brother.

I still couldn’t believe how open he’d been about missing me. Sure, I’d known he would, but we never said anything like that. It would be unseemly and embarrassing. 

Then again, with everything my brother had been through these past few months, I doubted much could embarrass him anymore.

Things went smoothly at Camp Jupiter for the next several days, especially with my Hunters helping out with reconstruction efforts – and, sadly, with the funeral pyres for all those who’d been lost.

At the funeral, Thalia made her way over to my brother. I had a feeling that unlike the previous times they’d talked over the last few days, it would be a heavier subject than just asking for certain supplies or where to put things.

“I don’t blame you, Apollo,” she announced. “My brother… Jason made his own choices. Heroes have to do that.”

I nodded. Sometimes, heroes willingly, knowingly went to their deaths to protect the people they cared about. Jason had done that, Frank had tried to do that (I was still a little unclear on how he’d survived, but that seemed to be the case for everyone), and Zoe… Zoe had done that as well. Apollo hadn’t been able to stop Jason from meeting his fate, but Jason at least met it under his own terms. He hadn’t wanted to die, but between him and Piper, he’d rather it have been him who didn’t come back. He’d perished, but succeeded at his goal.

Thalia told Apollo how she’d gotten Reyna’s letter just hours before I’d been summoned, an aura risking life and limb to deliver it. Thalia’d apparently screamed and cried and thrown things even as she and the other Hunters ran over to Camp Jupiter. 

I snorted. If anyone could manage to multitask well enough to violently grieve while traveling at breakneck speeds, it was Thalia. Fighting an army would have been a treat for her at that point, safe targets that she could vent her anger at.

“It seems so cruel,” Thalia continued. “We lose someone and finally get them back, only to lose them again.”

A lump rose in my throat. Was she talking about herself… or about me? 

I’d known Thalia lost Jason when she was merely a young child, believing him dead, only to unexpectedly run into him alive and well over a decade later… and now he was dead for real.

I’d been reunited with Apollo only days ago after having to watch him almost die several times… if Thalia’s experiences were a portent of what was to come…

No. They weren’t. If Apollo was about to die, Father would find some excuse to send him the help he needed to survive. He’d proven that. 

Apollo WOULD return, alive and well.

“The goddess has been beside herself,” Thalia continued. “I mean that literally. Sometimes she gets so worried she splits into two forms, Roman and Greek, right in front of me. She’ll probably get mad at me for telling you this, but she loves you more than anyone else in the world.”

Before Apollo had been sent on this quest, before I’d had to worry about not only his life, but his continued existence as a whole, I may have gotten annoyed with Thalia if she’d told my brother how much I cared for him.

 But after all of this, especially with how sincerely Apollo’d told me he missed me… I couldn’t. I wanted him to know that I cared for him just as much as he did for me.

Thalia continued, “Diana didn’t want to leave camp so suddenly like that, but you know how it is. Gods can’t stick around. Once the danger to New Rome had passed, she couldn’t risk overstaying her summons. Jupiter… Dad wouldn’t approve.”

I glanced over at Jupiter. He didn’t look at me at all, nor did he seem all that focused on the screen. He still seemed pretty out of it, even with being mentioned directly.

I saw no sign of anger in his expression at least, which was the truly important part. Jupiter had always had a soft spot for Thalia, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop him from punishing her if she stepped out of line. Nothing she’d said appeared to have crossed any boundaries, any of his boundaries at least.

The funeral party slowly broke up. Reyna made her way over to my brother, pulling him aside for a chat of her own.

Apparently she wanted to thank him, I guessed for being a good sport about her laughing in his face. “My whole life, I’ve been living with other people’s expectations of what I’m supposed to be. Be this. Be that. You know?”

“You’re talking with a former god here,” Apollo replied. “Dealing with people’s expectations is our job description.”

I nodded. Other people’s expectations not only weighed on us mentally and emotionally, they changed who we were, as people, as discomforting as that could be. I’d tried to insulate myself from the process in part by assembling my own followers and spending all my time with them, meaning that their view of me was something that could easily be brought back into line with who I was simply by talking with me regularly, reminding them of what kind of person I was.

Reyna talked about how she’d been many different things over the course of her short life, but lately, as a praetor, expectations had centered around her dating. “Everybody was always trying to ship me with somebody,” she complained. “Thalia. Jason. Gwen. Even Frank. ‘Oh, you’d be perfect together! That’s who you need!’ But I was never really sure if I WANTED that, or if I just felt like I was SUPPOSED to want it.”

“Amatonormativity,” I nodded. “It ensnares many of the girls I meet.” Before they join my Hunters, at any rate. I provide a retreat away from society’s expectations.

I glanced at Venus. I’d expected her to protest Reyna’s speech, especially since she’d hinted a few days earlier that she also shipped Reyna with Thalia. Yet, she was strangely quiet. Perhaps Reyna’s words had gotten through to her.

Reyna continued her speech, including lambasting Venus for causing her distress, to my delight. When Apollo’d proposed dating her, she’d finally re-examined the situation, seen how those expectations about destiny and love were ones she wasn’t obligated to meet. “I don’t need another person to heal my heart. I don’t need a partner… at least, not until and unless I’m ready on my own terms. I don’t need to be force-shipped with anybody or wear anybody else’s label.”

I smiled. “She’d be a perfect addition to my Hunters.” Lavinia may not have been willing to give up romance for the chance, but Reyna? It sounded like for her, spending time with my Hunters would be a welcome reprieve. And judging by the amount of time Thalia and Reyna had been spending together, there’d been plenty of time for her to make her pitch. 

Reyna thanked Apollo for his role in her realization, laughing after he accepted the thanks. “Don’t you see, though? Venus put you up to the job. She tricked you into it, because she knew you are the only one in the cosmos with an ego big enough to handle the rejection. I could laugh in your face, and you would heal.”

Venus preened. “Sometimes you just need to pick the right person for the job.”

I glared at her. I doubted she’d foreseen this to the extent she was pretending, and if she had, she’d been operating off of a very flawed understanding of my brother, especially in light of what we’d seen in recent months. Apollo’s ego was not impervious. He was as hurt by rejection and humiliation as anyone else, he’d simply learned to stuff it down. Venus’s little stunt, while it’d eventually led Reyna to a valuable conclusion, had required creating much emotional turmoil and pain for both her and my brother first. 

Reyna told Apollo to come with her to the Senate House for some surprises.

Normally I’d be wary of surprises, but with the tone of Reyna’s voice and the expression on her face, I doubted these would be bad, which I was grateful for. Apollo needed some positivity and happiness after the misery he’d gone through the past two weeks.

Chapter Text

I’d welcomed many legionnaires into my kingdom over the past few days – too many. Contrary to what some people think, I am not eager for massacres. All will end up before judges eventually, I do not need a sudden glut of premature entrants.

At least I didn’t have Diana breathing down my neck this time. During the previous two years many of her Hunters had died, and she’d made very certain that they were quickly processed and granted entrance to Elysium. This time all of her followers had survived, remarkably enough. 

The Senate meeting began. Frank praised everyone’s efforts in their fight against their enemies, saying that they’d fought like true Romans. Typical feel-good morale-boosting speech. He noted he himself was live and well, though he asked people to forget seeing him in his underwear. 

Mars and Mercury laughed. I suppressed a smile. Injecting a bit more levity into proceedings after a very hard week – Frank may only have been Praetor for a short amount of time, but he excelled in the role.

Next were personnel change announcements, with Reyna informing everyone that she was stepping down in order to become a Hunter, pledging herself to Diana on the spot.

Diana beamed. “I will be proud to welcome her into my ranks.”

Athena smiled as well. “She is far better suited for the Hunters than Camp Jupiter.” She wrinkled her nose.

I rolled my eyes. Even now, Athena still had a grudge, though at least she wasn’t fomenting civil war between the camps anymore. I imagined that while Diana was still Roman, Athena was pleased Reyna would be part of a group that was a little less solidly Roman than Camp Jupiter was. The Hunters didn’t change between Artemis and Diana, after all.

Now that Reyna’s spot was empty, someone new needed to ascend to the rank. The Senate promptly nominated Hazel.

I beamed. My daughter was the obvious choice. My children were at last being recognized, uplifted, and accepted. 

No one other than Hazel was nominated, nor were there any objections, so she won the seat on the spot.

Of course this left the Fifth cohort without a centurion, so someone new had to arise to THAT rank as well. 

They already knew exactly who they wanted. “LAVINIA! LAVINIA!”

Lavinia couldn’t believe it, thinking it was a joke. But no, they were serious – Hazel had actually intended to promote Lavinia herself, given the heroism she’d displayed during the battle. Frank had no objections, so Lavinia became the new Centurion for the Fifth Cohort.

Ceres smirked. “She fully deserves the spot!” she declared. “She’s proven her worthiness ten times over! She’s the only one who really looked at the nature spirits, considered what they wanted, recruited their help to improve their futures.”

Reluctantly, I had to agree with her. That stunt with the siege weapons on the boats… if not for Lavinia’s intervention, many, many more people would have died, and I would’ve had to put up with Diana breathing down my neck due to most of her Hunters being annihilated again.

Frank moved on to honoring Meg and Apollo for their own role in the battle.

Ceres beamed, pleased that her daughter’s efforts were being recognized.

Meg had apparently decided for them that they’d be leaving camp in the morning, visiting Ella and Tyson at dawn to get some prophetic help. All of which was news to Apollo.

Frank presented them with gifts to help on their quest: a new bow for Apollo, which apparently was one of his old godly bows, and a pouch of mysterious seeds for Meg, collected by the camp’s gardeners and given by one of Ceres’s daughters.

I noted Apollo’s easy drawing of his bow. Mortals could almost never do so, but Apollo drew it as easily as any regular bow. Despite my brother’s best efforts to make us believe otherwise, Apollo had regained a large portion of his divine power. By what method, I did not know, and judging by his poor efforts to anticipate or cover up Apollo’s godly exploits, I suspected that neither did Jupiter.

“A great gift!” Ceres declared, referring to the seeds Meg had received, I assumed. “She will be able to put those to phenomenal use, I am sure.”

Judging from what I’d seen of Meg so far, I didn’t doubt it.

The camp held a feast after the meeting, including a birthday cake for Apollo (or rather Lester, given that it was his human form’s birthday being celebrated.) Apollo retired for the night after dinner.

“You may leave,” Jupiter told us, as we all shuffled off to our domains until Apollo woke. 

I promptly teleported to my castle, and winced.

“AAAAAAAH EEEEEEEH AAAAAAH!”

What was that infernal wailing?

At first I assumed it was coming from the Fields of Punishment, as most such screams did, but no – instead it appeared to be emanating from… Tartarus?

The voice… it sounded familiar, too… could it be…?

I did my best to ignore the screaming for the rest of the night, to little avail. At least Prosperpine wasn’t here. For once, her being gone was a blessing. I could put up with the racket, but making my wife do so… I didn’t want her to suffer like that, and I doubt she would have been willing to, either.

I almost welcomed returning to Olympus a few hours later. I was the first to arrive, a fact that had Jupiter raising an eyebrow when he walked in minutes later, but he did not ask. He almost never did. The only time he wanted to know how any of us were doing was if he thought it pertained to a threat, either from the other Olympians or from something threatening us.

Meg and Apollo said their goodbyes to everyone, including Reyna, Thalia, and Lavinia, before at last arriving at the bookstore to chat with Tyson and Ella. 

Ella recited the prophecy:

O son of Zeus the final challenge face

The tow’r of Nero two alone ascend

Dislodge the beast that hast usurped thy place

I waited for the rest. That didn’t sound like the end of the prophecy. I could just feel that there was more.

Apollo noted that it didn’t make poetic sense, before realizing that this was merely the first stanza of a terza rima style poem – the rest of the prophecy was still out there.

The tower of Nero part was clear at least – Nero resided in New York, so that was where they’d have to go.

Back to New York – and most likely, back to Camp Half-Blood. I doubted they’d head to that area without stopping by.

I’d get to see Nico again soon. I hoped he was doing better than he had before. Physically better at least – last time I’d seen him, I hadn’t seen him so mentally and emotionally well since his sister’s death. But with Jason’s death since then… I wasn’t so sure he’d still be in such good shape.