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But [the ghost of Achilles] replied,
“Odysseus, you must not comfort me
for death. I would prefer to be a workman,
hired by a poor man on a peasant farm,
than rule as king of all the dead.”

—The Odyssey, Homer, translated by Emily Wilson. Book 11, lines 487–491

“Do not do this,” he said. “It will make you powerful. But it will also make you weak. Your prowess in combat will be beyond any mortal, but your weaknesses, your failings will increase as well.”

“You mean I’ll have a bad heel?” I said. “Couldn’t I just, like, wear something besides sandals? No offence.”

He stared down at his bloody foot. “The heel is only my physical weakness, demigod. My mother, Thetis, held me there when she dipped me in the Styx. What really killed me was my own arrogance. Beware! Turn back!”

He meant it. I could hear the regret and bitterness in his voice. He was honestly trying to save me from a terrible fate.

—The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan, Chapter 8

“Do you think we’ll have a happy ending?”

Annabeth startled at Percy’s question, but when she tried to smile reassuringly at him, it didn’t meet her eyes. They were having a picnic up by Thalia’s tree, Peleus snoozing in the October sun. Smoke puffed in rings from his nostrils. Silence had fallen between them, as it so often had since their one-month anniversary date in Paris, and Percy had blurted out the thought before he could reconsider.

“What do you mean?” Her gaze sharpened—the same way it did whenever she latched onto a problem she thought she could solve. “That thing Hermes mentioned? I’m sure there must be trouble on Olympus. Especially if he’s staying away—I mean, he hasn’t left you alone since your birthday, with all his kids he wants taken to camp…”

“No. Well, yeah,” Percy admitted. “The whole thing with Cacus, about someone giving him the idea to steal the caduceus and cut off the gods’ communications… That was weird. And the comment about the gods having other enemies. But I’m trying not to think about the possibility of another war.”

He said it so flippantly and regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. From the way Annabeth winced, she didn’t like having it spoken into being either.

“I wouldn’t be able to turn away from it if it came.”

Another sentence he immediately regretted. Annabeth’s gaze turned to him, searching and concerned.

“I wasn’t just talking about that!” he hurried on. “I mean… us. Do you think we’ll have a happy ending? I mean, it feels like… sometimes… we’re best at fighting, you know?” He winced. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, Seaweed Brain.”

Annabeth’s expression had shuttered, but her tone was softer than he expected. He never knew what to say to her, even now that they were dating. But sometimes, that didn’t matter. Sometimes, she could just read his mind.

“I’m struggling with the domesticity too,” she admitted. “It’s hard to relax and just… enjoy being with you.”

“To be fair, this is the first picnic we’ve had that hasn’t been crashed by a monster. Or, worse, a god.”

She smirked. “You’re not thinking about Hermes, are you?”

“I’m thinking about that time I lost my pants on a quest for Apollo’s stupid celedon, yeah.”

She laughed, and it was the best sound he’d heard all week. But she sobered up pretty quickly.

“We’re demigods,” she said. “We can’t have happy endings. We can’t ever relax. Even you, now you’re invincible. Especially now that you’re invincible.”

“What do you mean?”

She drew her knees up to her chest and leaned against his arm. “I think you know, Percy. You’re the one who told me what Achilles said to you before you bathed in the Styx.”

Unfortunately, he did know. “He said I’d be great in combat,” he said bitterly, “but all my weaknesses would be magnified as well.”

He still wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. If you’d asked him, his weaknesses were the fact he wasn’t smart enough, he spent so much time being scared, and he didn’t have the fortitude or hunger for glory that heroes needed to survive. Loyalty didn’t come into it, no matter what Athena said. Maybe he was too trusting, couldn’t tell when someone would betray him, but… personal loyalty? He didn’t understand.

One day soon, he would.

“You’re built for battle,” she said. “You’re a warrior through and through. You can’t leave the war behind. That’s what Achilles’s choice was. He could die in war and be remembered forever, or he could live a happy, peaceful life, forgotten as soon as he died. As soon as he chose to go to war, he could never go home.”

Percy tangled his fingers together, counting the smoke rings from Peleus’s nostrils as something to ground him. “Did he ever regret it?”

“Oh yeah. There’s a scene in the Odyssey where Odysseus talks to his ghost, and Achilles admits he’d rather be alive and a peasant.” Her gaze was heavy on the side of his face. “How much time do you spend wishing you were normal?”

“Too much.” He let out a breath. “I don’t regret it, though.”

She didn’t look convinced. “Don’t you?”

“No. Taking the Curse of Achilles meant we could save Olympus. We could protect our friends and family. You said that a demigod’s life is dangerous. We’re always at war. If I just have to fight a little longer and a little harder so that another demigod can go home… I’m okay with that.” He hoped his words came out stronger than they sounded.

Annabeth smiled softly at him. “I love you,” she said. It was a little mournful, but it was sincere. “For as long as we have. Happy ending or not.”

He kissed her, and it helped him forget.

Bold words were one thing. But when Percy and Annabeth lay in the stables of the Argo II, whispering long into the night of everything they’d missed, the news that he’d lost the Curse made them both cry. They just had to get through this war. Then, maybe, there was hope.

They might have a future after all.

He should have known better. Nothing good lasts—not when you’re Percy Jackson. But he hadn’t expected this.

Who would have expected the arai?

So many curses have been levelled at you, Percy Jackson. Which will you die from? Choose, or we will rip you apart!

At least it had the decency to be useful. At first.

There hadn’t been much choice to begin with. When Annabeth was wandering through the forest of arai, blind and alone, Percy knew there was no choice at all. His ribs still glowed with pain like someone had shoved a hot poker through them—thanks, Geryon. And as soon as he attacked the arai, drawing their attention away from Annabeth, he was hit with more.

Burning, all over him. The oppressive sense of being crushed. A chill in the blood. And then pain—the worst pain he’d ever felt, revisited upon him all over again—boiling his skin in battery acid, until he felt to his knees, gasping. Blisters bubbled. Except they weren’t blisters. He could feel them, they were invisible, but his skin kept growing them, thickening itself, until there was something wrapped around him. Something he recognised.

When one of the arai tried to swipe at him, her claws bounced right off his skin.

They hissed in unison. Their collective voice crowed, though in dismay as much as triumph. The Curse of Achilles! It has returned it to him!

“What?” Percy gasped. He’d forgotten it was a curse. So often it had felt like a blessing—albeit a blessing typical of this mythos, where it came with as many cons as pros.

It was a blessing now. Arai shrieked and lunged at him, but none of their attacks found purchase. They couldn’t hurt him, he realised. Not unless he attacked them and invited a curse on himself.

But they could still hurt Annabeth. And it became rapidly clear that he could not protect her without fighting back.

Gorgon blood didn’t care about iron skin, and the Curse of Achilles didn’t give him an iron digestive system. When Phineas’s curse hit him, he fell as if nothing significant had changed at all.

But it had. Even Percy could tell that.

Someone was watching him.

Gaia had wanted it to be Percy’s blood spilled on the Acropolis, so the Giants looked gleeful at the fact that he’d been captured along with Annabeth. But the Seven had discussed this. There was a reason they’d sent Percy, Annabeth, and Piper. If Gaia needed the blood of a male and of a female demigod to wake, then it made sense that their advance party would only contain two girls and a boy who could no longer bleed. Annabeth’s blood might have soaked the earth, but unless something went very wrong once the rest of the team showed up, they would be fine.

And they were.

Not that the Giants didn’t try. Percy had never felt so winded in his life. The gods had shown up at the end of the battle, of course, because why would they have ever shown up any sooner? Still, it felt good to fight side-by-side with his dad. It had been less than a year since Percy had begged Poseidon to let him fight Oceanus with him only to be sent back to the surface world, but this was a pretty good way to make up for that disappointment. He was trying very hard not to grin.

Poseidon was staring at him. Now that the fight was over, Percy realised several gods were staring at him. So were his friends. He supposed that, other than Annabeth, no one had seen him fight at the Battle of Manhattan. They definitely hadn’t expected him to launch himself at Otis, jump up about ten feet, scalp him, rebound off his skull, and drive his sword into Ephialtes’s jugular, all in one smooth motion.

Hera was the one who broke the silence. “I see you regained the Curse of Achilles, Perseus.”

Hermes looked confused. “When did he lose it?”

Jason mouthed, Dude, that was awesome. Percy could only grimace in response. Adrenaline pounded through him. He’d almost forgotten what this was like. Hephaestus had complained to him once that human beings had had shoddy craftsmanship, but being cursed like this made Percy feel like a well-designed killing machine.

That wasn’t always what he wanted to feel like.

“That is of no concern,” Zeus insisted. “We are healed. These demigods did not spill their blood, and Gaia did not wake.”

I can still hear you, she murmured.

“Fully,” Zeus amended. “She did not wake fully. I am confident that in time, without her children to revere her, she will not have the power to remain this lucid for long.”

Percy wanted to say something about how little confidence he had in Zeus’s predictions. In fact, considering he’d spent the whole war sitting on his throne complaining, maybe he should change his sacred bird to an ostrich. But Poseidon seemed to sense where his thoughts were leading him and gave him a warning look. He shut his mouth.

Gaia’s chuckle didn’t fill him with confidence, either. Percy shivered. He could still feel her intangible gaze on the back of his neck; he focused on looking at Zeus to overcome the urge to look down. If she was shaping herself a face out of the earth of the Acropolis, he didn’t want to know.

But she wasn’t the only one watching him. He could feel another gaze—and this other gaze was colder, more powerful. It scared him a lot more. The kiss of it was familiar. Something he’d felt a few times before…

Zeus was still talking. No one noticed as Percy gripped his sword tighter, turning Riptide over and over in his hands.

Poseidon spoke to Percy after Zeus was done monologuing. Gaia was still half-asleep, unable to do much more than sling insults. There was no imminent threat to rush off to, so, with more grace than Percy could ever remember any of them showing, the gods stayed and deigned to answer the demigods’ questions about what the heck had been happening to them for the last few months.

That was when his dad pulled him aside and into his arms. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Percy lied.

His dad very obviously did not believe him. “You were in Tartarus,” he said.

“Yeah.”

Poseidon just hugged him tighter. They talked about other things, meaningless platitudes, how many stupid arguments Neptune and Poseidon could get into in the span of a minute. It didn’t matter. Percy just liked being able to grip his dad’s hands.

Finally, he admitted: “I think I’m being watched.”

Poseidon frowned. He did… something. Maybe the godly equivalent of a scan? How did gods watch demigods when they weren’t in the immediate vicinity, anyway? Could they tell when another god was watching?

Whatever it was, he clearly didn’t find anything. His frown deepened. “Since when?”

Percy swallowed. It had been for a long time—longer than what he was about to confess—but he needed to say it to someone. Annabeth had been struggling and had told Piper, but Percy had struggled to even mention it to Jason, even at the bottom of the sea.

But his dad would understand, right? He’d loved Percy even when he was prophesied to destroy him. What he had done to Akhlys—what even Annabeth’s panicked voice hadn’t been able to stop him from doing—was terrible. Disgusting. A blight on the universe. But surely his dad could still love him through it?

No. Percy didn’t really believe that. But maybe he wanted to find out—one way or another.

“Since I killed a goddess.”

Annabeth didn’t want to talk about Tartarus, but he was pretty sure she was thinking about it. Still, the only time she admitted it was when she asked: “How did you do it?”

He blinked. “Do what?”

“Get across the Acheron,” she said. “You said it was too far to jump. But you picked me up and jumped, then we were on the other side. How did you do it?”

Percy winced. “I controlled the Acheron. Like I did the Lethe and the Styx and the Cocytus. I jumped with you in my arms, and when it looked like we wouldn’t make it, I used the water to push up on my feet and carry us to the other side.”

Annabeth hadn’t looked uncomfortable with his stunts with the other Underworld rivers, but she did now. “How did you manage to wrest control over it? The same way…” She didn’t finish the sentiment.

He shook his head. “It didn’t take much effort,” he admitted. “Usually there’s more of a fight. But the Acheron just… let me.”

“Why?”

Percy wished he had an answer to that.

It took weeks for the Argo II to safely sail back to Long Island, even with some godly protection magic on it to finally let the demigods relax. Leo had raced on ahead on Festus to share the good news, leaving the ship unmanned, so Percy controlled it instead. He didn’t mind not getting to sleep as much as the others did. Every time he closed his eyes, he was back in Tartarus.

Well, not always Tartarus. Sometimes it was just the Underworld. And a spot of the Underworld he knew, at that. The banks of the Styx, where he’d first bathed, and then when he’d overwhelmed Hades in a sudden show of force.

The sensation of being watched was so much stronger here. But when he tried to tiptoe toward the edge of the river and peer into its waters, as soon as he caught a glimpse of a face, he woke up.

Time stretched like nylon. Even their roaring welcome back to Camp Half-Blood couldn’t dull the terror that lacerated Percy’s chest with every passing moment. It didn’t help that when they got back, they learnt that there had still been a fight between the monsters Octavian had gathered to his cause and the gathered demigods. A fight that had seen Leo and Festus, newly appeared, go out in a blaze of glory.

He tried to smile and celebrate with people. It was easier once they had Leo’s magical scroll promising that he was still alive—looking for Calypso. The campers didn’t know that Percy had ever lost the Curse of Achilles. They saw it as just another part of the Percy Jackson story—part of the power that had saved them all. His friends remembered his actions during the Battle of Manhattan too kindly. Percy had laughed, once, as he cut down demigods.

And when Akhlys had turned on them, he’d done so much worse.

Achilles had warned him that the curse would accelerate his fatal flaw. Strengthen it. It didn’t just sap his energy reserves, making him eat and sleep like a newborn puppy, but it drained his self-control as well. His ability to do anything except fight. It hadn’t been this bad before, but before, he hadn’t been to Tartarus. During the Battle of Manhattan, his loyalty had been the only thing that kept him going.

With Akhlys, it had kept him going too far. It didn’t matter how much Annabeth had begged and pleaded for him to stop. She was his mortal anchor, but she couldn’t fight the waves of who he was. Akhlys had threatened his loved ones, so Percy would fight until there was nothing of her left. And if he had no other weapons to fight with, he would do it with her own domain.

Percy had seen Pan fade. He’d felt how heartbreakingly wrong it was. And he’d felt it with Akhlys as well, no matter his rage. No matter that he was the one doing it. His dad hadn’t reacted beyond a raised eyebrow and a, “I’m surprised that you could do that, but glad that you did before she destroyed you.” But that didn’t make what Percy had done any less monstrous.

The Curse of Achilles sat on his skin like an invisible weight. It reminded him of the power he wielded. It reminded him of the terrible things he would do with it.

And someone was still watching him. He thought he knew who it was, but even when he prayed to her, she didn’t answer.

When Lady Styx finally appeared to him, splitting the crowds at the post-victory celebration on Olympus, it was like something out of Sleeping Beauty. Clad in black and proceeding through the throne room with a smooth, languid grace, she even looked the part of Maleficent. Did that make Percy the baby? He hoped not.

Hera, in the middle of her self-congratulatory speech, stopped talking immediately. Her mouth snapped shut. Poseidon and Zeus cringed back, shrinking on their thrones by several feet. Even the other Olympians shifted uneasily.

The rest of the attendees—nymphs, minor gods, demigods representing both camps, and of course the Seven being celebrated—turned to look at her. She looked like a mortal woman, if mortal women were made of shadows that dripped like running water from a blank canvas. A pale, bleary face; dark eyes and hair; a dress or robe that pooled onto the shadows on the floor; white hands that seemed to dart and flash out of the darkness suddenly, too late for you to spot where they were headed…

“Apologies for interrupting,” Lady Styx said, and her voice was the silky burble of a river, with the undercurrent of screaming souls. “I wished to speak with Perseus.”

She raised her gaze to him. Percy stiffened where he was standing with the other Seven, amid the U-shape of the thrones. Annabeth gripped his arm, but when Lady Styx looked at her hand, Percy pried himself from her grasp.

He glanced up at his dad, who, if anything, looked even more ill than he had when she first appeared. Zeus recovered before Poseidon could object.

“Take him,” he grunted. “We can continue without him.”

“We cannot,” Poseidon tried. “He was an intrinsic member of the…”

Lady Styx turned her gaze on him, and he quailed.

Percy stepped forward. “Of course, my lady,” he said.

She didn’t smile at him, but she didn’t glare either. He followed her out of the throne room. Even with her back turned, he knew by now how to tell when she was still watching him.

“I know what you did,” she said.

Percy balked, taking several steps away from her. But there wasn’t far to run. She’d led him to a side corridor, and his arm brushed the walls when he tried to flee.

“What?” he whispered.

“I know what you did in Tartarus,” she continued. Her dark eyes followed him, pinning him in place like a harpoon.

“When?” Percy tried to stall. She didn’t take the bait, just fixing him with that horrible gaze. “Oh. With her.”

“You stole her domains.” Lady Styx’s skin seemed to glitter with excitement. Percy supposed she was a chthonic god, and the Underworld had all those jewels… “She couldn’t hurt you without hitting your weak point, even with the Death Mist shrouding you. But you wanted to protect your love so deeply that you managed something that none of my champions have ever managed before. Something that I think will be very useful.”

Percy blinked. “Your champions?”

“Those who carry my blessing. You know as well as I that only three have ever survived the ordeal.”

“I don’t think you can say that Achilles and Luke survived it. Not long term.”

“No one does.” She smiled, as if the words hadn’t struck terror into Percy the likes of which he hadn’t felt since Tartarus himself. “None of you have ever been traditional champions, of course. Not as the queen has that Grace boy. In light of recent events, I would like to change that.”

He swallowed. “What do you mean? What do you want?” Fear swelled in him, but something deeper as well—anger. Bitterness. And something dark that he tried not to feed, but that lurked behind so much of his feelings about the gods, nowadays.

She hummed, low and satisfied, in the back of her throat. “I am not just the goddess of oaths on my river. I am the goddess of hate. You control yours well, Perseus, but I can still feel it inside you. Did you hope that you would never regain my blessing after that petty little river washed it away?”

Percy knew better than to answer that.

Her voice softened. “I would like a champion,” she said. She was still cold, still firm, but… lighter. Like sunlight on a winter’s day. “For reasons that I think you will cooperate with me over. The gods have made and broken some very relevant oaths recently. I promise them punishment, but even where they are incapacitated for years because of it, they rarely take it as more than a slap on the wrist. I had thought that going after their once-beloved children would be more effective, but it seems not. The king, at least, seems to have suffered far less than his daughter for what he did.”

“You… you mean…”

“I cursed your life,” Lady Styx said frankly, “yes. And Thalia Grace’s. Your father’s seat of power in Atlantis was also nearly decimated thanks to his betrayal of his oath. More is in store for him, I’m afraid. If you agree to be my champion, though, the punishment would be lifted. I do not curse my own unless they break a similar oath. And your father would have lost you, the pride of his offspring. Much like Jupiter gave his son to his wife,” she mused. “A settlement of a debt.”

“A settlement,” Percy repeated, “of a debt.”

She seemed to hear the vicious edge to his voice. She studied him once more. “I could claim you as payment at any moment,” she said. “I could go to him and demand your life, and if he were a good king, it is a price he would pay. However, I am not sure he is that good a king. And I want your loyalty, not merely your life. I do believe we can work together, Perseus.”

Because he hated so well. Because she saw a godkiller inside him. Because, like her, in the depths of Tartarus, he still found strength.

“You want me to be your champion. Like Jason is to Hera. What does that mean?”

To his discomfort, she smiled. “You made the Olympians swear a hefty oath upon my waters,” she said. “One that two of them have already broken.”

“Hephaestus and Aphrodite,” Percy said. He knew exactly what she was talking about. “Leo and Piper weren’t claimed by the age deadline. They should’ve been guided to camp immediately after the Battle of Manhattan.”

“Do you think they are the only demigods out there left unattended? You made them swear an oath, Perseus. But do you intend to enforce it?”

“That’s your job.”

“I can do it more effectively with your help. There are few punishments that stick to gods. But I think you could deliver one that would truly make them fear the consequences of their actions once more.”

Understanding dawned on him. “You think I can do it again. Steal a god’s domain. Wouldn’t that kill them too?”

“Only if you take all their domains, as you took all of Akhlys’s.”

He swallowed at the confirmation that he’d managed to seize misery from her as well. How much misery can Misery take? “And you think that attacking their pride and power like that will finally make them fear you. So, what? You want me to be your champion and fight a bunch of gods? I’ll die.”

Lady Styx tapped him on the chin. “Not with my blessing. They will try. But I think, as you did in your famous battle with Ares, you would only need one strike to win.”

She held out her hand, and Percy blinked. It had been empty before, but now it held a dagger. The blade was black—Stygian iron—and the hilt unadorned leather. It was as clean and simple as hate could be.

“I do not know exactly how you stole Akhlys’s domains,” she admitted. “But I do believe that all you would need to do is make a god bleed with this. Stygian iron is designed to absorb mortal souls. Even gods cannot fully escape its gravity. Once you have wet it in their ichor, you will have a connection with which to achieve your goal.”

“I don’t want to fight any more gods.” He tried not to sound as tired as he felt.

“Do you want them to ignore their promise to you? Do you wish for all those demigods who died in the Titan War to be in vain?” He winced. “I believe you can guess the first person I would send you to fight. Not only has his daughter suffered for his misdeeds far more than he has, but he has broken a promise to you, and your friend is still lost for it.”

Percy, despite himself, stood a little straighter. “Zeus. Calypso.” They hadn’t heard from Leo in weeks. He and Calypso were probably lost, trying to find their way back from Ogygia.

“You carry my blessing once more,” Lady Styx said. “I’m sure you’ve realised by now that it will always return to you. You could swim in that river again, but I have already scolded the naiads there fiercely enough that I doubt they would object again. Whether you agree to serve me or not, you will always have iron skin. You will always be more than human in strength and power—and your fatal flaw will likewise be increased tenfold.”

His palm went to the small of his back. “Loyalty,” he said. And, realising what that meant: “You think I’ll be stabbed in the back.”

“You have proven time and time again that you cannot recognise betrayal.” He didn’t want to think about it, but he did. Luke. Ethan. Nico. Silena. Even with Akhlys, when he’d expected her to turn on them, he’d been surprised.

“There is no escaping fate, Perseus.”

The hand at his back clenched into a fist. “That’s what they said when we all thought I was gonna die at sixteen. There is always a way out, for people clever enough to find it.” Athena had said something like that to him once, years ago, at the Hoover Dam. Percy had always clung to it. He was never one to give up.

But the Styx was the main river of the Underworld. No mortal ever escaped her.

At least she had the grace to accept, “Perhaps you could find one. But you would lose an opportunity when you did. I know you rage at the gods. You wish they would adhere to their oaths. This is your chance to make them.”

And Percy had to admit: he did appreciate that. He suspected Lady Styx was couching her demand for his servitude in this way because she knew it would be the best way to manipulate him, but he also knew that it was working. She could just claim him from his father, and maybe Poseidon would hand him over, or maybe he wouldn’t. But if she really wanted Percy’s loyalty, she’d figured out how to go about that.

Percy didn’t think it was vain to realise that his loyalty was a powerful thing—especially to a god.

Her hand was still outstretched with the dagger. He raised his own and took it. “What do I need to do?”

She smiled like a shark. “Repeat after me.”

She spoke an oath in a Greek that felt older than the Ancient Greek he knew, but he understood enough of it to feel comfortable echoing it back to her. Always read the terms and conditions, as his mom insisted. When his lips stopped moving, he shuddered, and something ran through him. It felt cold, but it strengthened him, cell by cell, like a freezing shot of adrenaline. With the Curse of Achilles, he always felt strong, but this…

He wondered if this was what Bianca had felt like after she made her oath to Artemis. He remembered how hard he’d fought against that. What would she think of him now?

“I am not merciful,” Lady Styx said. “But I treat my champions well. As you have given your oath freely, I will not only forgive your father’s transgression, but also your lover’s.”

He froze. “What? Annabeth? She’s never broken an oath on the Styx.”

“Chiron should not have forced her to make it,” Lady Styx agreed. “She was a child. But I cannot dilute the strength of my oaths by forgiving her simply for her youth. You recall that he once made her swear on my waters to protect you?”

It took Percy a long time. Eventually, he remembered: Chiron leaving camp after Thalia’s tree was poisoned, insisting that Annabeth and Percy stay at camp, and making Annabeth… making her promise…

“Swear you will do your best to keep Percy from danger. Swear it upon the River Styx.”

Bile rose in his throat.

“It wasn’t her fault— she didn’t— she forgot—”

“One cannot forget me, Perseus.” Her tone was cold. “Even by the most generous interpretation, her hubris in taunting Arachne directly led to the both of you falling into Tartarus. I’m afraid I cannot overlook that. But I can forgive it. You can be her price as well as Poseidon’s.”

Percy swallowed. He felt like he’d been dangled over the Pit again—but this time, Nico had reached down and managed to pull him back out. The idea that Annabeth had been facing down the barrel of a punishment from the Styx… over him…

“Thank you,” he said at last. He wasn’t sure what for. The boon? Or the fact that she hadn’t mentioned this until after he’d sworn himself to her? She could easily have blackmailed him with it. But then, he supposed, she wouldn’t have had his enthusiastic cooperation. His loyalty.

It seemed it was true that she wanted a champion who genuinely wanted to fight for her.

“Do not thank me,” she ordered. “Go and challenge Zeus.”

“Right now?”

“If you’ll forgive the exhibitionist instinct,” she smiled again, “in front of everyone.”

Percy walked back into the throne room at Lady Styx’s right hand, the dagger clutched tightly in his fist. Its matte black surface occasionally gleamed with an eerie green light. She’d shown him how to decant Akhlys’s domains into the blade, so that he didn’t have to carry them himself. If she had her way, this knife would soon carry more domains than most minor gods.

That was if he could pull this off at all, of course.

Somehow, Hera was still giving her speech. Percy wondered where she found all that hot air to spout—maybe she’d made an alliance with Notus. But she stopped, again, when they returned. Poseidon sat up in his seat, looking at Percy with concern.

Percy just glanced at Lady Styx. Her dark lips were curled in a slight smile. She was enjoying this a lot.

She placed a hand on Percy’s shoulder—tight, familiar, possessive—and Poseidon stiffened even further. He was staring at her hand, then his gaze moved across Percy’s chest, up to his face. It was a sweep of the eyes all the sitting gods imitated, and Percy wondered what Lady Styx had just done to claim him. If gods could leave marks that no one else could see.

“Seeing as Perseus has recovered my blessing,” she announced, “I have seen fit to take a champion.

Poseidon’s grip tightened on his trident until it looked like he was trying to throttle it. “He is not yours to take,” he growled.

“He is not yours to give,” she retorted. “He agreed willingly. No coercion involved.” She glanced down to meet Percy’s gaze, and he knew she knew what he’d been thinking earlier.

She had made sure he agreed due to his own will, not out of any threats or deadlines. Maybe this was part of the reason. Poseidon had no way to contest this.

He’d try anyway. “Percy,” Poseidon said. Percy had expected him to sound angry, possessive as gods were, but he just sounded tense. Scared. “Is this true?”

Before Percy could answer, Lady Styx cut in: “You can discuss this later. I am here for one reason. Perseus.”

He stepped forward. He lifted the Stygian iron knife she’d given him—and pointed it straight at Zeus. “Uncle Zeus,” he said. “I challenge you to single combat. First blood wins.”

The throne room was more silent than the bottom of the ocean. Everyone was staring at Percy—at the knife in his hand—and he could feel their eyes like needles. Jason looked deeply worried. Annabeth was frowning, like she was running calculations on what was even happening. Percy couldn’t meet her eye.

He let himself grin, though. It took the edge off the moment. And after that stunt he’d pulled in closing Olympus right with war on the horizon, Percy did really want to stab Zeus.

“Do you accept?”

In front of everyone, Lady Styx had wanted. This was a test for Percy—of course it was—but it was also to send a message. No one was safe from her new champion. And everyone would see firsthand just what he could do to a god who broke their oaths.

Zeus looked purple in the face, but for once it wasn’t just fury. He did still fear Lady Styx, then, for all that he flouted her rules.

“This is absurd,” he tried. “Jackson, this is a celebration. Why are you sullying the memory of those who died with this? I had thought you respected Hephaestus’s boy’s sacrifice.”

Hephaestus flinched at the reminder. Percy didn’t. “I thought you would remember his name, at least.”

“Your behaviour—”

Percy glanced at Lady Styx, who just nodded at him.

“No formalised combat, then,” Percy decided. “Got it.”

“Jackson—”

But Percy was already moving. He crossed the throne room in long, swift strides—swifter than he’d used in a long time. It was easy to forget just how much stronger the Curse made him, how much faster. The gods loomed in their twenty-feet-tall forms, all the better for lording it over the gathered demigods and nymphs, but he didn’t flinch. His crewmembers from the Argo II stepped aside to let him pass, Annabeth giving him a searching look. He wasn’t even running, but he was at Zeus’s feet in an instant.

He raised his knife. Zeus tried to twist his legs away, hands twitching for his lightning bolt, but Percy was too quick. He drove the blade into the flesh of Zeus’s calf. It was fake flesh, more like clothes worn for decency’s sake than a true part of him. And this was a toothpick of a strike, considering Zeus’s size. But that didn’t matter once his blade was slick with ichor.

Lady Styx had been right. The Stygian iron sucked up Zeus’s divinity like a vacuum. Percy closed his eyes and reached through it, trying to remember what he’d done to Akhlys. It was a difficult place to go—all he remembered was a haze of terror, of the need to protect Annabeth, of hate. Hate.

He reached for his hate.

How dare Zeus sit there in judgement after all he had done—after all he had failed to do? How dare he forget Leo’s name?

Before, he’d drawn that hazy connection in his mind between pools of poison and pools of water. Liquids alike. Then with that flimsy justification, he’d argued with the universe that he should be able to control poison, not Akhlys, and in a sheer, shocking test of wills, he’d won. Maybe because Akhlys hadn’t been expecting it. Maybe because he genuinely had been stronger. It didn’t matter.

It was easier this time. The Stygian iron did a lot of the work for him. He instinctively reached for the storms—after his collaboration with Jason in Charleston, that was the main overlap between Zeus and Poseidon’s powers that he knew of—but the path of least resistance was somewhere else. He followed the flow of ichor through to that domain, that responsibility, that power… And when he saw what it was, he smiled.

Good riddance.

He yanked the blade out of Zeus’s flesh. Zeus made a high-pitched keening sound Percy would never have expected from the king of the gods, that crescendoed into a shriek when the domain broke loose. Percy opened his eyes to see tendrils of gold snaking out of the wound and into his knife. Zeus’s skin was pale and clammy.

His dad was in his peripheral vision—on his feet, his trident levelled at Zeus. Several gods were gaping at him. The demigods looked ready to be sick.

Also, Percy’s clothes were smoking.

He glanced down, frowning. His camp t-shirt was a charred husk, burnt through in places to reveal Percy’s chest underneath it. The rivets on his jeans glowed red hot, even if he didn’t feel them.

“Dude,” he said, annoyed. “Did you try to smite me?”

“Three times,” Poseidon bit out.

Wow. If Percy had known that having the Curse of Achilles made him immune to being smote, he would have mouthed off a lot more the first time round. Although, come to think of it, there was that time Hermes had nearly smote him just before the Battle of Manhattan and George and Martha had talked him out of it…

Zeus clenched his fists, as if that would hide the fact that they were suddenly trembling. Anyone with eyes could see how bad he looked. “What did you do?”

Percy glanced at Lady Styx again, who gestured for him to go on. Her grin was almost feral. Huh. Maybe he would like working for her after all, all the horribleness aside.

“I took one of your domains,” Percy said. “Trick I learned in… in Tartarus. Lady Styx tells me you won’t fade unless I take all of them, but you will no longer oversee the swearing of oaths. Don’t worry, you still have the rest of your justice domain. For now.” Just to demonstrate, he raised his eyes to the sky. “I swear on the Styx that this is the truth.”

No thunder rumbled.

Zeus’s mouth had dropped open. He stared down at Percy, milk-white, but Percy was the one who felt tall, for once.

He shrugged. “I was gonna take your storms, but this is more fitting. Remember: you swore an oath to release Calypso, at the end of the Titan War. If she and Leo are lost, I’ll be back. And that goes for the rest of you.” He raised his voice. “You made me an oath. Make sure you keep it.”

After shooting a quick glare in Aphrodite’s direction, he turned away. “Is there anyone else you want handled right now, my lady?” he asked Lady Styx. He could feel the gods’ horror behind him, like he was choking on it. Drowning.

For once, he found he didn’t mind drowning.

“Not today,” she intoned. Her gaze flitted around the Olympian Council, meeting each of them in turn. “We shall return another time.”

She offered Percy her arm. Percy glanced at Annabeth, who was looking pale herself at the mention of Tartarus, but she met his gaze and nodded slowly. He took Lady Styx’s arm, and they both vanished.

She left him standing next to the hearth at Camp Half-Blood. Other campers—the ones too young to have come to the celebration—were milling around. They gave him odd looks when he just appeared out of nowhere. Percy didn’t feel like talking about it, so he just slipped into Cabin 3 and lay, unmoving, on his bed.

Annabeth returned hours later. Without talking about it, she lay down next to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. It was a tighter grip than she’d held him with ever since he’d killed Akhlys.

“I’m sorry I ever made that oath,” she murmured.

He sat up. “She told you?”

Annabeth stayed with her back on the mattress. As she looked up at him, her grey eyes were shadowed. “Wouldn’t be much of a punishment if I didn’t know I was being punished, would it?”

“It’s not your fault,” he said immediately. “Annabeth, I promise. I swore the oath to her before she told me about that.”

“You would have done it if she’d told you, though. She had it up her sleeve in case you refused.”

He lay back down next to her. They rolled to face each other, so close their breaths mingled on their lips. “It’s not your fault,” he insisted. “You were a kid. If anything, it was Chiron’s.”

“I shouldn’t have forgotten about it. It was the sort of oath I thought I could easily keep, because it was what I wanted to do anyway. Keep Percy safe.” She clenched her jaw. “Don’t invite him on a quest to the Labyrinth. Don’t let him fall into Tartarus for me.”

“I would have sneaked out into the Labyrinth after you and gotten hopelessly lost, so you were keeping me safe. And I was always gonna jump.”

“She didn’t see it that way. And neither do I.” She tried to smile. “I got too used to fighting by your side. To keep you safe, yeah… but to keep me safe too. I’m sorry, Percy.”

He pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect any of this.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Then it’s not yours either.”

She sighed. He knew he hadn’t made any progress with her, just as she knew she wouldn’t make any progress with him. All they could do was hold each other.

“This is it, then?” she asked. Her voice was thin and shaking. “That’s our happy ending gone? New Rome. A peaceful life.”

New Rome. He closed his eyes. That dream had dragged them out of Tartarus when he’d thought he’d lose himself in misery.

“Nothing’s stopping us from going to New Rome,” he said. “I’ll just get called away to fight a god every so often.”

Annabeth snorted. “You think the Romans will take kindly to an ex-praetor who fights gods on the regular? I thought you said they were all super pious.”

“Technically I’m doing it on behalf of a god…” He pondered it for a moment before shaking his head. “We can still go.”

“But we won’t have peace. From monsters, maybe. But not from fighting.”

His throat went very dry. He had to swallow to say the words, but he said them anyway: “You can.”

She flinched back like she was burned, unwrapping her arms from around him. She hoisted herself up onto her elbows and looked down at him, her mouth open. “What?”

He couldn’t meet her eyes. “You can go. You can have peace. I don’t need to drag you down with me.”

It was a reckless move. Annabeth was still his mortal tether. She was so central to his self that Hera hadn’t been able to remove her from his mind, even when she’d taken his mother’s face. He wondered what would happen if his mortal tether rejected him—if that would kill him as surely as any other stab in the back.

But he was willing to risk it if it meant she could be happy. Even if it was without him.

The offence on her face told him that wouldn’t happen, though. “I’m not leaving you,” she said.

“Annabeth—”

“So long as we’re together,” she said. “Remember? So long as we’re together.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“I don’t want to scare you.”

She didn’t say anything to that. Couldn’t. He had scared her in Tartarus, when that loyalty of his had driven him to do worse things than he’d ever done before. He suspected he had scared her earlier, up on Olympus, when he’d taken something from the King of the Gods that he could never get back.

It would happen again. With the goddess of hate as his patron, he would do worse things. He would be monstrous. And one day his failings—his fatal flaw—would kill him. Or they would ruin his life so thoroughly that he wished they had.

Just like Achilles.

Just like Luke, too.

“Do you regret it?” she whispered. And that was the worst part, wasn’t it? Because his fatal flaw had already led him here. Now.

She had asked him that question before. She knew the answer wouldn’t have changed.

“If this means that the gods will actually keep their word,” he murmured back, “no. I don’t regret it.”

Annabeth crept closer to him. She put her arms back around his torso, pressing a kiss to his forehead, then to his eyes. His eyelids fluttered closed. Her thumb found the small of his back, his mortal point, and a shudder ran through him. She only held him tighter.

“I love you,” she said. “I won’t betray you. And I won’t ever leave you.”

“Annabeth…”

She silenced him with a kiss. She murmured against his lips: “I swear it on the River Styx.”

He swallowed her oath whole.