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Connor Stoll was twelve when he learned of Luke’s betrayal. It had been an early morning in late June, so early that the almost suffocating heat that summer brought hadn’t settled in the air yet. Connor had been half awake and way too focused on his hair, which was sticking up in every direction. He had run his hands through it several times and still hadn’t managed to get it to lay flat against his head. His half-asleep state and need to not look like an idiot caused him to completely disregard the fact that something was wrong. He hadn’t picked up on the pitting looks from Chiron or any of the other head campers or the fact that if the centaur had called a meeting this early, something was wrong. Only when Chiron’s words settled him did he take that all into account; suddenly, looking like an idiot was the last thing on his mind.
“Luke Castellan of Hermes Cabin is no longer welcome here at Camp after he attempted to end the life of Percy Jackson.”
All eyes fell onto Hermes Cabin. Connor wasn’t quite sure what to do or say. By the looks of his siblings, they were just as conflicted and confused as he was. Travis, who seemed to be the only one of Connor’s siblings able to find their voice, leaped up from his seat. He pointed an accusing finger at Chiron, his voice shaking in a way Connor had never heard before. “You’re lying! Luke, he would…he,” Connor grabbed Travis’s shirt, pulling him back down into his seat. They didn’t need to give anyone else around camp a reason to think they had more traitors living in the walls of their cabin.
Drew Tanaka was fifteen when she learned of Silena’s betrayal. She had been helping out Apollo’s cabin, using her charmspeak to calm some of the younger campers while they were stitched up. In front of her currently was a young boy from Demeter cabin, Silas, whose fear was almost palpable. Molly, one of the children of Apollo, was trying to put his broken arm into a cast with Drew’s help to have him listen to her. Drew’s attention though started to drift away from Molly and Silas as she listened to two girls from Athena cabin speaking. “Silena was the rat they had been talking about,” one of them told the other. Her heart dropped and suddenly she wished that ease dropping wasn’t a self-proclaimed skill of children of Aphrodite.
“Drew?” Molly asked, softly.
Drew shook her head, pulling her attention back to Molly and Silas. She gave the young boy a soft smile. “It’s okay, honey. Just keep your eyes on me,” Drew told Silas, watching him visibly relax.
Connor had been hurt when he had found out. Luke was his big brother; he was the person Connor went to when it felt like the world was falling apart, that would let him know everything would be okay. Now, when he needed Luke the most, he wasn’t here because the world was falling apart and it was all Luke’s fault. It didn’t make sense in Connor’s head; how could Luke do that to Percy? How could he betray his friend? Betray their dad? Their siblings? How could he betray Connor? He just didn’t understand, and the one person who always made everything make sense was the reason why he was so confused. The world was falling apart, and Luke wasn’t there to help Connor put it all back together.
Drew had been hurt as well, but she had always found it easier to be angry than to be sad. So over time, that sadness that had stemmed from Silena’s betrayal had rotted, shaping into something deeper and darker, something so deeply rooted into hatred and anger. How could her sister do this? Silena was the one who had welcomed her into Aphrodite Cabin without arms; she had always spoken so highly of their mother. When she told the tales of Aphrodite, shaping them into bedtime stories for her younger siblings, she always left out the parts that shaped their mother into the vain and manipulative woman everyone viewed her as.
Now, here Drew was finding out that the same person never believed or thought any of those things because if she did, she would have never joined Kronos. Now, Aphrodite Cabin was an embarrassment all because of Silena. How could she do this? How could she betray all of her friends, all of her siblings, and their mother? How could she betray Drew? Drew, who admired and loved her big sister more than anything in the world. Silena was her best friend, her idol. How could she do this? Drew just didn’t know.
Connor had five long years before Luke died. He spent those years learning how to live without his big brother and learning how to grieve the person he once knew but had lost to Kronos. He had five years to cope with Luke’s betrayal, to cope with losing him for the first time before he ever lost him for real. When he did find him for real, he had been aimlessly wandering New York, helping where he could. “Connor?” a voice called out, pulling him from where he had been assisting an Ares camper. He didn’t even get to turn around fully before Travis came colliding into him, wrapping his arms around Connor tightly. Travis’s hand cradled the back of his brother’s head, swaying them from side to side.
Connor knew Travis better than he knew himself. This hug wasn’t driven by relief or anything of that manner. “He’s gone,” Travis’ voice cracked as he whispered Luke’s fate into his brother’s ear. Connor let out a shaky breath, hugging his brother back just as tightly, burying his head into the other boy’s shoulder.
Drew had five minutes to cope with Silena’s betrayal before learning of her death. The news of her betrayal spread faster than that of her death. When Drew found out about her betrayal, her older sister was long gone, and she had no clue. Mitchell had been the one to tell her, his voice spitting venom as he yelled at his sister, “You can’t be mad at her, Drew! Silena died for us, she died to fix her mistake.”
Mitchell’s words seized Drew, holding onto that one word he repeated, ‘died.’ Silena was dead. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Drew was supposed to get angry, and Silena would apologize. Then, two months from now, they would be on the beach giggling because at the end of the day, they were sisters, and nothing else mattered but that. Now, there was no making up. There was no Silena to apologize. There was just Drew and her anger. “She’s dead?” Drew asked, the words ripping themselves from her throat without her even realizing. The sound of her own voice surprised her. Mitchell’s anger washed away, replaced by pity, and that made Drew’s anger so much worse.
“You didn’t know?” Mitchell asked, his voice softer this time. He reached forward towards his sister, but she shoved him away, scoffing as she did so.
“No. I didn’t know Mitchell,” Drew seethed, pushing past her brother.
Connor had learned to shrug off the looks from the other campers. The ones that told him that they were suspicious of him, that they thought he was just like Luke. He had taught himself to not care about the things that people said about him and his siblings when they thought he wasn’t listening. They could say that they thought he was just like Luke or that he and his siblings were waiting for the right moment to show their true colors, Connor didn’t care, it didn’t affect him. Connor knew he wasn’t like Luke and neither were his siblings, none of them would dream of hurting anyone at camp so why did it matter what anyone else said?
Drew was the opposite. When she learned of the things that were whispered by the other campers, she did everything in her power to prove them wrong. Her siblings and she were nothing like Silena. They would never betray each other or their mother. Drew did everything she could to show them that.
Connor made sure that his brother’s legacy of a hero lived on because in the end that was what he was: a hero. Connor would tell anyone that would listen about his big brother and how he died for his siblings. He told people that wouldn’t even understand the length that Luke went to keep his siblings alive about how Luke was a hero.
“Whose that?” his college roommate, Noah, asked. Noah had pointed out one of the Polaroids of Luke and Connor that he had hung on the wall. This one was Connor’s favorite; it was taken the second summer that Connor and Travis had spent at Camp Half-Blood, after Hermes Cabin had won Capture the Flag. Luke was seventeen, staring at the camera, smiling so brightly with an eight-year-old Connor on his shoulders, flag in hand, smiling just as wide as Luke.
“My big brother, Luke,” Connor answered, a smile slowly slipping onto his face as the memory of when the photo was taken replayed in his head.
“I got siblings all over the place too. You must miss him a lot, huh?” Noah replied.
Connor bit his lip, the smile on his face fading into one way more bittersweet. “More than you know, he died a few summers ago. He was, uh, fighting in a war. He was a hero,” Connor explained, his voice shaking a little as he spoke.
“I’m really sorry, Connor. He’s probably really proud of you,” Noah told him, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently.
Drew made sure that everybody focused on the traitor part of Silena’s legacy. She might have died a hero, fighting that stupid monster that had taken Drew’s big sister away from her, but Drew knew she wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t been a traitor in the first place. If Silena hadn’t been betrayed by the camp, she would have still been here and not felt the need to charge into war like an idiot dressed like Clarisse La Rue. If Silena hadn’t been a traitor, she would still be here with Drew.
“This isn’t what Silena would have wanted,” Mitchell told her, shaking his head. They had been close before the war, inseparable, and now they couldn’t be in a room together without fighting. Drew would do anything in her power to bring that back, but she couldn’t.
“I don’t give a shit what Silena would have wanted!” Drew exclaimed, slamming her fists down onto the table before standing up her. The sound of her chair abruptly scraping across the floor of the mess hall echoed, “She betrayed us Mitchell! She betrayed me. Now, she’s dead, she’s dead because she was a tratior and I’m the only one who even remembers!”
Drew and Connor aren’t that different when the sun begins to slide down towards the horizon, painting the sky with oranges and pinks. They both lost their siblings to Kronos; they held that one of a traitor rough and raw, but they died trying to live the life of a hero. What will always set Drew and Connor apart when the sun finally goes down and the sky is black, shining with stars, is how they react. Drew found herself lost in anger, one that burned bright and awful as it was aimed at her big sister. Who she will always remember as a traitor lost at war before she remembers Silena as a hero who died for the good of the world. Connor will always remember his big brother as a hero, someone who shaped his life into something great and good, but also someone who wasn’t able to shape their own life that way until they took their last breaths. To Connor, Luke will always be a hero.