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The snow never stopped falling on that quest.
Percy would remember that later—the way it clung to Zoe Nightshade’s dark hair like fallen stars, the way it softened the sharp lines of her immortal face. At the time, he told himself he only noticed because he was trying to stay alive. Monsters lunged from every drift. The cold bit through his coat. The sky felt too wide, too heavy, like it was waiting for something terrible to happen.
He didn’t know that something terrible would be his own heart.
It started small.
Zoe walked ahead of them most of the time, her silver bow slung across her back, her posture rigid with centuries of pride. She spoke sharply, especially to Percy. “Foolish boy,” she would mutter whenever he did something reckless—which was often.
He should’ve been annoyed.
Instead, he found himself watching the way her expression softened when she thought no one was looking. The way she helped Bianca over a fallen log without a word. The way her voice changed—just slightly—when she spoke about the sky, about the stars she had known when they were new.
She carried loneliness like armour.
One night, while the others slept in a cave warmed by a reluctant fire, Percy found Zoe awake at the entrance, staring out at the mountain range. The wind howled, carrying ice crystals that glittered under the moon.
“You should sleep,” he said.
She didn’t look at him. “I do not require sleep as mortals do.”
“Yeah, well. You look exhausted anyway.”
She huffed faintly. “Impudent.”
He stepped beside her, ignoring the sting of cold against his cheeks. The sky was clear. The stars burned with a distant, indifferent light.
“Do you ever get tired of it?” he asked. “Living so long?”
Zoe was silent for a long time. Percy wondered if he’d gone too far.
“At times,” she said at last. “To watch all you care for turn to dust… It is a cruelty even the gods pretend not to see.”
Percy swallowed. “Then why stay?”
She turned to him then, and in her silver eyes he saw something fragile. “Because someone must remember.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
Instead, he did what he always did when words failed him. “Well,” he said awkwardly, “if you ever get tired of remembering alone… you could, I dunno. Share it.”
Zoe stared at him as if he’d spoken a foreign language.
But her voice was quieter when she replied. “Sleep, Percy Jackson. You speak nonsense.”
Still, she did not move away when he stood beside her a little longer.
—
Feelings crept up on him between sword fights and near-death experiences.
He noticed the way her lips twitched when Thalia argued with her. The way she tilted her head when considering a plan. The faint scent of pine and frost that followed her like a promise of winter.
He told himself it was admiration.
Then one afternoon, when a manticore’s tail lashed toward her unguarded back, Percy moved without thinking. He threw himself between them, deflecting the strike with Riptide. The force knocked him off his feet. Pain flared along his side.
Zoe dispatched the monster with three swift arrows.
When it dissolved into dust, she knelt beside him.
“You are reckless beyond measure,” she said, but her hands were steady as they checked his wound.
“You’re welcome,” he managed through clenched teeth.
Her fingers lingered a second too long against his arm.
“Do not do that again,” she said softly.
And Percy realized, with terrifying clarity, that if it meant keeping her safe, he would do it again. A thousand times.
That night, as the others slept, he lay awake and stared at the cave ceiling.
He was in trouble.
—
He tried to ignore it.
He told himself she was immortal. Untouchable. Bound by vows to Artemis and her Hunters. She had lived for thousands of years. He was a scrawny fourteen-year-old who still struggled with algebra.
But love doesn’t care about logic.
The closer they drew to their final confrontation, the heavier something pressed against his chest. Every time she walked into battle, his pulse spiked. Every time she returned unharmed, relief washed over him so powerful it was almost painful.
He started imagining impossible futures.
Zoe laughing freely.
Zoe without that constant shadow in her eyes.
Zoe looking at him not as a foolish boy, but as—
He didn’t dare finish the thought.
The night before they faced Atlas, Percy found her alone again. The air was thin this high up. The sky felt close enough to touch.
“Zoe,” he said.
She didn’t call him foolish this time.
“Yes, Percy Jackson?”
His heart pounded so loud he was sure she could hear it.
“I need to tell you something.”
She studied him, wary. “Then speak.”
He opened his mouth.
And froze.
Because what was he supposed to say? I know you’ve lived for millennia and sworn yourself to a goddess and probably see me as an irritating child, but I think I’m in love with you?
He almost laughed at himself.
“After this,” he blurted instead. “When we get back… can we talk?”
A faint crease appeared between her brows. “We speak now.”
“No. I mean. Just—promise me.”
She regarded him for a long moment. The wind tugged at her hair, silver threads glinting in the starlight.
“I promise,” she said at last.
It felt like hope.
—
Hope is a fragile thing.
Atlas rose from the mountain like a nightmare given form. The battle was chaos—steel against stone, arrows streaking like comets, the sky itself trembling.
Percy fought with everything he had.
But it wasn’t enough to stop fate.
He saw it happen in flashes.
Zoe, standing defiant before her father.
Atlas’s voice, cold and terrible.
The poisoned blade.
He was too far away.
“Zoe!” he shouted.
Time fractured.
She fell.
Percy reached her side as the world seemed to tilt. The others blurred into noise and movement, but none of it mattered. The snow beneath her darkened with blood.
Her breathing was shallow.
“You promised,” he choked. “We were going to talk.”
Her eyes found his. They were still fierce, but dimming.
“Foolish boy,” she whispered, though there was no bite to it now. “You have grown… brave.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t you dare.”
A faint smile touched her lips.
“The stars call me,” she murmured. “I am tired of remembering alone.”
His vision blurred.
“Then stay,” he begged. “Let me remember with you.”
Her hand lifted weakly, brushing his cheek.
“I think… you would have been a great hero, Percy Jackson.”
Would have been.
The words shattered something inside him.
The sky flared with divine light. Artemis knelt beside her fallen Hunter. There were words spoken—ancient and sorrowful—but Percy heard none of them.
He only watched as Zoe’s body dissolved into silver light.
A new star burned above.
And she was gone.
—
Percy did not speak of what he had meant to say.
He carried it like a stone in his chest.
The world did not pause for his grief. There were wars to fight. Prophecies to fulfil. Titans to defeat.
He fought them all.
But something in him had frozen on that mountain.
He laughed less. Smiled less. When his friends celebrated victories, he stood at the edge of the crowd and looked up at the sky.
He learned the shape of her constellation by heart.
At night, he whispered words he had never said.
I love you.
The confession dissolved into starlight, unanswered.
Years passed. The Great Prophecy loomed. The weight of it pressed down on him like Atlas’s burden.
When the final battle came, Percy understood something with terrible clarity.
Heroes were meant to sacrifice.
He stood on the edge of ruin, Olympus trembling behind him, his friends battered but alive.
If he chose survival, he could have a future.
If he chose sacrifice—
He thought of snow falling like stars.
Of silver eyes softening in moonlight.
Of a promise never kept.
He smiled faintly.
Maybe, he thought, he was tired of remembering alone.
When the moment came, he did not hesitate.
He gave himself to the sky.
—
Death was not darkness.
It was light.
Percy felt himself unravel, pain dissolving into something vast and gentle. The roar of battle faded. The weight he had carried for years slipped from his shoulders.
He opened his eyes.
The stars surrounded him—not distant and cold, but warm. Alive.
And there she was.
Zoe stood before him, no longer bleeding, no longer burdened. She shone like the constellation she had become, silver and eternal.
For a moment, she simply stared.
“Percy Jackson,” she said, wonder threading through her voice. “What have you done?”
He laughed softly. It felt different here—lighter.
“Hi.”
She stepped closer. “You were meant for great things among the living.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I figured I’d try something new.”
Understanding dawned slowly in her eyes.
“You chose this,” she whispered.
He met her gaze.
“I was tired,” he admitted. “And I… I never got to tell you something.”
Her expression gentled.
“Speak, then.”
No fear now. No freezing.
“I loved you,” he said. “On the quest. Before. After. I was going to tell you that night. But I waited. And then it was too late.”
Silence stretched between them.
The stars hummed.
Zoe’s breath caught—not from pain, but from something softer. “You foolish, brave boy,” she murmured.
“I know.”
She reached for him, her hand warm and solid in his.
“I did not understand,” she said slowly. “I thought my heart long turned to stone. But when I fell… I remember wishing for one thing.”
He swallowed. “What?”
“That I might have stayed a little longer. To see what you would become.”
Emotion swelled in his chest, bright and fierce.
“You’re still remembering,” he said gently. “You don’t have to do it alone anymore.”
For the first time since he’d known her, Zoe Nightshade smiled without sorrow.
“Then stay with me, Percy Jackson.”
He looked at the endless sky, at the world far below, at the life he had left behind.
And then he looked at her.
“I will.”
Two stars burned brighter that night.
And for the first time, neither of them remembered alone.