Archive of Our Own

After Percy returned Zeus’s Master Bolt, Poseidon rose from his throne, at his full godly height, and then he made himself small enough to talk to his son. Somehow, their conversation made him feel even smaller.

“I am sorry you were born, child. I have brought you a hero’s fate, and a hero’s fate is never happy. It is never anything but tragic.”

Perseus tried to hide it, but it was obvious he was hurt. Did he not realise how momentous those words were? Did he know how rare it was for a god to apologise?

“I don’t mind, Father.”

Of course not. How could he?

“Not yet, perhaps.” He tried not to sound wistful. “Not yet. But it was an unforgivable mistake on my part.”

He could see the moment the words landed. His young son was already good at hiding his emotions, but Poseidon knew his own tells, and looking at Perseus was like looking into a mirror. He knew the twitch of his mouth and the sudden downcast of his eyes. He knew the way Perseus bowed stiffly to hide the parts of his expression he couldn’t control.

“I’ll leave you then. I— I won’t bother you again.”

Poseidon took a moment to compose himself. He was the one who had to be strong. Perseus was a child who had borne too much already. He had to choose the right words before his own tactlessness was just another burden on his shoulders.

“Perseus.” The name tasted cold and distant on his lips, but calling him Percy once already had been a mistake. This was a child fated to die. He couldn’t get too close.

The boy was already several steps away, but he stopped and turned like he’d been waiting for the call. Poseidon let himself look at him fully, for the first time since he’d stepped into the room. His gaze turned intense, hungry and proud. This was his son. He had walked into the Underworld and out again. He had prevented a war. And he would do so much more.

He had no choice in the matter.

“You did well, Perseus,” he said at last, his tone thick. “Do not misunderstand me. Whatever else you do”—preserve or raze—“know that you are mine. You are a true son of the Sea God.”

Perseus didn’t outwardly respond. His tight mouth remained tight; his furrowed brow remained furrowed. After they looked at each other a moment longer, he nodded and turned around again, to begin the long, slow journey down from Olympus, back to the realm of the mortals. All Poseidon could do was watch him go.

That was the only conversation Poseidon would have with him before he died.

He watched, of course. In fact, he never looked away. The walls he tried to build between them were never loadbearing. Perseus became Percy, in his mind, particularly with how regularly the boy spoke to him in prayer. He smiled a lot at Camp Half-Blood, Poseidon noticed. It was a shame he hadn’t had the chance to exist there earlier.

Percy did everything right. He exceeded all expectations for a demigod, proved himself brave and kind and good, and Poseidon couldn’t stop watching his bright, brilliant son. He let his mother handle his stepfather. When Poseidon guided Tyson to his school to disguise his scent and keep monsters away, he befriended him. Poseidon would have been happier had the two of them then stayed at Camp Half-Blood, safe, but when Percy asked for his aid to go on yet another quest, Poseidon responded so swiftly that other gods might have mocked him for it.

Tyson came to Atlantis that summer. He was so happy. Poseidon pretended not to listen too closely when he chattered about Percy, but those who knew him were aware of exactly where his fond smile came from.

Whenever Percy prayed, he answered.

It meant that when Percy came to him with a large but straightforward request—safe passage for a dangerous creature—Poseidon was already poised to give it. It was a presumptuous ask, certainly, but not unreasonable. The Ophiotaurus needed to get to Olympus, for everyone’s sakes. Then Percy gave him the Nemean lion’s pelt, and dread crept over him.

That pelt was a powerful sacrifice. Under other circumstances, Poseidon would be equal parts smug and honoured to have received it. But his son found himself in so much danger. Giving it up felt like folly.

It didn’t matter, in the end. The pelt wouldn’t have saved him from Zeus’s bolt.

As soon as Percy walked into the council room, Poseidon felt parts of him ease. Just for a moment, every sea under his domain was calm and peaceable. Percy looked tired and shaken, and there was a chunk of grey in his hair that hadn’t been there before, but he was alive. He had saved Artemis. There was significant evidence that he was a hero and given that he had been the one to first warn Zeus about the threat their father posed, there was plenty of evidence he was loyal enough to be trusted with the prophecy.

A prophecy that might kill him, he reminded himself. That would kill him, unless Thalia Grace shouldered it. And from Artemis’s accounting, she had proven she could not be trusted in the same way.

The debate was agonising. He thought he could relax when Zeus himself objected to killing the heroes. Athena and Ares were warmongering, as usual, but Artemis had proven herself a staunch ally. It was a shame that the Ophiotaurus had to die—it technically fell under his domain as a sea creature, after all—but he could see why it was necessary. Then Percy had to speak up.

“Bessie?” he asked. “You want to destroy Bessie?”

The Ophiotaurus also protested rather strongly. Poseidon had no idea how this young, inexperienced beast could have learnt such a litany of swear words.

“You have named the Ophiotaurus Bessie?” he asked Percy.

“Dad”—as usual, Poseidon tried to deny how much he enjoyed being called that—“he’s just a sea creature. A really nice sea creature. You can’t destroy him.”

When the Ophiotaurus had appeared with Underwood, he had been babbling happily to the satyr about how much he liked Percy. Apparently, the feeling was mutual.

Which put Poseidon in a tight spot. He wasn’t supposed to harm the creatures under his domain. But… “Percy, the monster’s power is considerable. If the Titans were to steal it, or—”

“You can’t!” Percy insisted. Poseidon ignored the looks he got from his fellow Olympians over the fact he let his son interrupt him. To make matters worse, Percy followed it up by looking right at Zeus and continuing his tirade.

Sensible words, yes. But reckless ones too.

Zeus glanced at Poseidon; few other than the Kronides would have noticed the faint way his eyebrow raised. Thankfully, he didn’t smite Percy on the spot. He saved that for a few minutes later.

Thalia Grace joined the Hunters. Poseidon watched it happen with the same discomfort he’d felt while condemning the Ophiotaurus. He knew it was necessary, but…

It grew worse when the girl hugged Percy and insisted, with confidence and faith: “You will be the one of the prophecy.”

Percy shared Poseidon’s enthusiasm. “Great.” He didn’t even know that she had condemned him to have his soul reaped.

Poseidon tried to steady himself. The conversation swung back to killing Percy, and Percy would not keep quiet. The sea didn’t like to be restrained, and nor had Sally Jackson, but still, Poseidon wished he could be a touch more docile in situations like this. Soon, Poseidon’s hair would share the same chunk of grey that Percy’s did.

But Percy was clever. He was passionate. He spoke well. Before his eyes, Poseidon saw the opinion of Olympus begin to turn. There was only one thing left to do.

They’d had a trial run of this debate last solstice. It had been a little less intense, given that it was the first Winter Solstice since the Master Bolt was stolen and even the Olympians knew it was crass to accept the peace bestowed upon them by a child then immediately plot that child’s murder. Poseidon had talked everyone down at that meeting, but then he’d gone back to Atlantis. He, Amphitrite, and Triton had brainstormed ways to defend him if it ever came up again. Literally, in his case—a tropical storm had brewed over the Caribbean during their whole conversation.

Both his wife and son had cautioned that this was only to be done if absolutely necessary. If he was absolutely sure. The boy might be fated to destroy Olympus, after all. But Poseidon was as certain as Thalia Grace that Percy would not.

So he sat up and vouched for him on his honour.

It worked. Percy looked shocked but touched, and there was so much Poseidon wanted to say. I’m proud of you. I can do this because I’m proud of you. Because I know you won’t let me down. This is your doing as much as mine. Instead, he looked around the council. Most of them looked swayed. Good.

Then Athena opened her mouth.

Poseidon stared at her. The world felt unreal, as if he was trapped in his father’s stomach again, with horror close by and relief a distant dream. He’d had millennia of feuding with Athena to memorise her most malicious taunts, her gravest insults, but this had to be the worst one yet. For once, though it was him she insulted—and her father, indirectly—he wasn’t her target. His son was.

And, as happened so often, she won. One by one, the votes were cast in raised hands and pinched expressions. The scales tipped against him.

For one fatal moment, shock paralysed him. “You doubt my word?”

“Silence, brother.”

He would not be silent. Not when Zeus was standing, his Master Bolt in hand, and his gaze fixed on Percy. Poseidon threw himself forward…

And he missed.

Percy died without much sound. One moment he was there; the next, he was ash, and there was a sharp sting in Poseidon’s chest, like one of his heartstrings had snapped. A piece of the sea had boiled away. A part of him had been vaporised too.

There was another flash. A bubble popped—more of Poseidon’s power left to evaporate into nothing. It was another punch to the gut. Zeus had slain the Ophiotaurus swiftly, before Poseidon could try to spirit him away in his son’s memory.

The slight barely registered. Poseidon was still staring at where Percy had been moments before. Grover Underwood was collapsed in Percy’s remains—Poseidon vaguely remembered something about an empathy link. Percy’s friend, that daughter of Athena who’d had the nerve to question her mother’s cruelty, was staring at them too, unnaturally frozen, her face a rictus of disbelief. When she started to scream, Thalia Grace came up behind her to hold her together.

“Now,” Zeus said. Despite his neutral tone, Poseidon could feel the weight of his gaze like electricity tingling over his skin. “Let us attend the festivities. With Artemis returned to us, we have much to celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” Poseidon snarled. He stormed toward his brother, feeling the winds pick up around him, feeling rainclouds gather over Olympus. The other Olympians began to disappear, giving them both a wide berth.

Zeus held out a placating hand. “Do not think I am ignorant to the insult done to you in this,” he tried to placate. “Allow the council to provide some recompense. You reported earlier that ancient sea monsters and spirits have been flocking to Father’s cause, yes? Allow us to provide you aid for when they inevitably attack Atlantis.”

“You killed my son!”

“You should not have sired him,” Zeus retorted. “You knew this was a risk as much as I.”

“And yet your risk still walks free!” Poseidon glanced over his shoulder at the girls. To her credit, Grace looked as horrified as Chase did. It didn’t matter. The mere sight of her made the ground tremble. On instinct, Poseidon exerted the necessary control to keep it from cracking the marble floor, but he could feel that control dangling by a hair’s breadth.

Let it crack. Let it break. Let it show just what damage his fellow Olympians had done today. He wanted a fissure to open up right through the heart of the council chamber.

While Poseidon had pitied Zeus’s daughter for getting caught in it, he had thought he’d understood Hades’s murderous rage when he learnt of her existence. His petty understanding from then was nothing compared to what he felt now. Zeus had killed their children. If he truly wanted to speak of recompense, then and now, he should be prepared to sacrifice his own to his brothers’ fury.

He wasn’t, though. He followed Poseidon’s gaze. “She is Artemis’s, now,” he reminded him. His tone was calm, not betraying an ounce of the terror Poseidon knew he must be feeling. Cold though he was, he did love his daughter. “You have no quarrel with Artemis.”

That alliance had not helped him though, had it? Artemis had tried and she had failed. Perhaps losing her newest lieutenant would show her the price of that failure.

Zeus saw the animal fury in his eyes. “Return to Atlantis,” he snapped, suddenly deigning to show his fear. “We will discuss this when you are calmer.”

He should have known better. The sea was never calm. Even when the surface heaved only slowly, currents roiled in its depths.

Still, at that comment, Poseidon had to pay attention to the widespread maritime catastrophes that had occurred in the last minute and a half. The Panama Canal was closed. Lots of humans had died. Very sad. The Atlantic had nearly been rearranged with the force of the water he was throwing around; the Gulf Stream had been shunted several miles east, and he had to put it back. There’d be climate ramifications for that.

Who cared?

Poseidon glared at his brother and, for the first time in millennia, saw their father in his eyes. The two did not truly look much alike, but sometimes, Poseidon thought he saw ghosts in Zeus’s jawline. Particularly when he frowned like this.

Particularly when he pretended not to be afraid.

Zeus held his gaze steadily for a few moments, before sliding it over Poseidon’s shoulder. Poseidon didn’t need to turn to see who he was looking at. He could feel Athena retreating, after her failed attempt to speak to her daughter. The insufferable hooting of owls, not a sound to be heard but a sense to be felt, faded along with her presence.

She hadn’t even apologised. She had done nothing to try to soften the blow of her insult—nothing to heal the rift that she had created. It was up to their king to do that.

“I am sorry,” Zeus admitted. “I wish it did not have to be like this.”

“It didn’t.”

Zeus didn’t engage him. His hard expression didn’t shift. Poseidon might be the Earthshaker, but this was a mountain he would not move. “It did.”

With that, his brother disappeared. Poseidon clenched his fists around his trident. Thalia Grace was still behind him, defenceless, along with Athena’s own daughter. He could kill them both. It needn’t even look like revenge. In a state like this, no one would be surprised if Poseidon lost control of his godly form and vaporised them by accident.

But he thought of Percy hugging Grace tightly, with an expression that suggested she meant something to him. He thought of how much he knew Percy loved that daughter of Athena, who defied her mother, even now, in refusing to forgive her paranoia. Athena might not speak to Poseidon, might not look her crime in the eye, but she still saw it reflected back at her in her daughter’s devastated face.

Let Annabeth Chase live, then. So long as she rejected her mother—so long as she made Athena know what it meant to lose a child too—she could live. Later, when she and Grace eventually defected to the Titan Army, Poseidon would smile without mirth. He, at least, was pleased to see that Percy’s death had meant something, despite how awful their decisions were.

Poseidon dissolved into seafoam and mist. He couldn’t bear to stay here any longer.

Atlantis provided its usual reprieve from Olympian nonsense, but even the seat of his power couldn’t replace the shard that had been torn out of his chest. He didn’t need to tell Amphitrite what had happened when he appeared in their private quarters. The state of the seas reflected his mood, and they had all known that this council meeting would be the one that posed the most danger to Percy.

“I am sorry,” she whispered, pulling him into their shared bed and whispering sweet nothings meant to soothe. She was neutral, if not outright disdainful, about demigods, but she knew how to be polite. And she knew how to handle Poseidon, most of all.

Their conversation calmed him, as did destroying an old wing of the palace they’d been planning on remodelling anyway. Triton came to relay some messages to him—emergency missives from other Olympians. Hera, Demeter, and Hermes. Apologies, no doubt; attempts to salvage the bridge they had so wilfully burned. He told Triton to burn the messages in return.

“And Triton?” he called, before his son could leave the hallway.

Triton, hesitating, turned. “Yes, Father?”

Poseidon lifted his gaze to the ruined ceiling. This had once been a spare drawing room for guests. Now, the dome of the roof had cracked like an eggshell under his onslaught, the sea glass mosaics shattering and falling like iridescent rain, and the darkness of the depths stretched above them. If Poseidon glared hard enough, he could see all the way through the fathoms of the sea to the dome of his brother’s own realm, where he ruled with such impunity.

“When Zeus first brought Athena to you to be trained,” Poseidon said, “you should have killed her while you had the chance.”

Triton flinched. He swam away with more haste than strictly befitted Poseidon’s heir.

“There is more bad news, my lord,” Amphitrite said. She didn’t comment on his cruelty, but he could feel her disapproval over it, heavy in the air. “Oceanus has sworn his allegiance to Kronos.”

Poseidon blinked, looking over at her. “Oceanus? That is not his style.”

“He prefers neutrality,” Amphitrite agreed. “But it seems he is confident in which side will win.”

“That is troubling news indeed.”

War was coming. For Atlantis, imminently; for Olympus, inevitably. And his brother had just blasted Percy to smithereens, even when the boy might have been fated to save them all.

They burned a shroud for Percy. The Greek fire that burned even in the depths of his kingdom was so hot, and Poseidon stood so close, that it would have blistered away his skin had he been human. But he wasn’t human, so he could stand nearly in the flames themselves to watch that meagre representation of his son’s life shrivel, too, into ash.

It was premature. Poseidon had known for years that Percy would die young, and he had had a beautiful shroud made for him in his honour, stitched with gold thread and depicting the Montauk sands from which Percy had been born. But he hadn’t expected to use it so prematurely.

It wasn’t finished. The design had intended to have the golden sands ripple with coins, yet only one glittering drachma had yet been sewn into it, and that done in a hurry. But Poseidon didn’t want to wait. Percy deserved the best, but more importantly, he didn’t deserve to be marooned in Charon’s waiting room for as long as it would take to finish a worthier tribute.

They burned it in front of his court, and any curious citizens who wanted to see their newest hero off, but only Poseidon, Amphitrite, Triton, and Tyson stood in the inner circle. Triton’s face had hardened into something inscrutable. Tyson cried loudly and consistently throughout the whole ceremony.

Later, Poseidon was left staring at the still-burning flames, even once the shroud was gone. “He was kind,” he told Amphitrite.

“I know, my lord.” Her breath was heavy. “Tyson told me.”

There was no space for grief. War was coming. But grief was the sort of tenant that moved in uninvited and refused to leave. It squatted in Poseidon’s chest even as he saw to the daily business of his duties. He couldn’t stop thinking about that moment of shock. The offence he’d felt at his fellow Olympians doubting his honour, and how it had paralysed him. If he’d been swifter, perhaps he could have put himself between the bolt and Percy. He could have spirited him away. He could have…

There was so much he could have done.

When he faltered, Triton swam forward to pick up his slack. Both he and Amphitrite were capable warriors, enmeshed in the structure of the Atlantean armies, so Poseidon could delegate a great deal to them. He moved through much of what he did in a dream, unable to shake the feeling that they were already doomed.

That wasn’t how the Fates worked. He knew that. There was never one prophecy subject that everything hinged upon; there were three Fates because there were always at least three ways for these things to go. With Zeus’s child nullified and Poseidon’s child murdered, he idly wondered if Hades had a child somewhere who might step forth to fulfil the prophecy. It would be in line with past heroic narratives. But with the situation as bleak as this, it was difficult to hope.

The Olympian Council barely spoke to each other. That was partly Poseidon’s fault—a great deal of the silence came from him—but Apollo and Artemis were equally disgusted by the vote. Athena continued to insist on the necessity of such precautions, while Ares crowed about bloodshed and impertinent brats. Dionysus remained as unpleasant as he had been since he’d been banished from Olympus.

Hera and Demeter both maintained fierce attempts to reconcile with Poseidon, but he spurned their overtures. Both of them had surprised him with their betrayal. Hera cared too much about motherhood to disrespect a child like this, even as she had always been capable of remarkable detachment when it came to threats to those she perceived as being within her family circle. Poseidon had thought he was one of those people, but his beloved son, apparently, was not.

Demeter had come as even more of a shock. She tended toward neutrality. Even in the ancient times, all she had cared about was the bottom line of the harvest and having enough food to eat. And Persephone. She had distanced herself since that whole fiasco, of course, but she was still the neutral sister who kept the world alive while wars soaked her earth with blood; it was rare that she picked up her sickle to do the killing herself. Perhaps the potential return of their father had scared her more than they had realised. He should look out for more out-of-character behaviour from her, like finally taking up Hades’s invitation to visit him and her daughter in the Underworld.

His sisters should know better than anyone that it was never a good idea to eat one’s young. Zeus may have fallen prey to that with Metis and Athena, but he hadn’t had to grow up in Kronos’s stomach. Poseidon had thought the rest of his siblings remembered as clearly as he did.

Apparently not.

Zeus was the only one Poseidon deigned to speak to on the matter, and even those chats were hardly productive. Whenever they spoke, Poseidon found his rage as fresh as the day he’d lost him.

When Oceanus attacked, it was brutal. It seemed that having three thousand daughters, all with control over some aspect of the sea, was eminently useful in gathering support. Poseidon’s forces were powerful and loyal, but the sheer number of beings in revolt was staggering. Amphitrite murmured to him about it at night, concerned. It didn’t seem to be discontent with his rule—at least, nothing that couldn’t have been settled without total oceanic civil war. There were some who did have their axes to grind, of course. Poseidon was an Olympian, and all Olympians had their enemies. But it was mostly a war for survival.

No one wanted to face Kronos as king again and admit they’d fought against him. And everyone, it seemed, genuinely thought he would win. This idea had a certain critical mass. The more people believed it, the more people fought for Kronos, and the more likely it was to come true. It was a gravity they were struggling to fight.

Blood polluted the seas all across their pantheon’s territories. Poseidon could feel himself greying under the strain. Still, when Oceanus came to treat with him, they were a long way from beaten.

At first, he couldn’t understand why the offer for peace was coming now. It required surrender to Kronos, of course, offering total amnesty to all of Poseidon’s forces, including Poseidon himself. For once, if he yielded, he could experience his father’s rule from outside of his father’s body. See for himself whether Zeus was truly the juster option.

He had no intention of taking that option. This was a grudge that ran deeper than the Mariana Trench. Nor did he trust Kronos for one moment to keep his word. But stalling bought them time, so he attended the peace negotiations. He hoped they would be something of a distraction, too.

It was a good thing Amphitrite was there with him. They were not enough of a distraction, and he did not pay them the attention they deserved. The whole time, Percy’s face floated at the back of his mind.

If he defected, Zeus would deserve it. Olympus would deserve it.

It was a petty thought. One unbefitting a king with as vast a responsibility as his. But it bubbled up all the same. Keeping Percy at bay was especially difficult when Oceanus carefully, tactfully mentioned him as proof that Olympus should not hold Poseidon’s loyalty.

The ceasefire talks could only drag on for so long. Poseidon knew that. But he had no idea what choice he would make, in the end.

Amphitrite was acting strangely.

It began in the middle of yet another discussion between them about Oceanus’s proposals. Poseidon was, once again, fiddling with Anaklusmos. It still felt like Percy, his presence embedded in the blade. Auspicious and powerful though it was, it had had a long and tragic history. Perhaps, in giving it to Percy, he had only hastened the inevitable.

He was reminiscing about his son, again. Amphitrite was listening to him patiently, again. Then, when she made to reply, she cut herself off mid-sentence. Her gaze was fixed on something over his shoulder, but when he turned to look, he saw nothing. Only the balcony in which they sat.

“What was it?”

“Nothing, my lord,” she said. “A figment of my imagination.”

But her behaviour was distracted for hours after, and eventually she admitted why. Amphitrite had never laid eyes on the boy. Yet for a moment, she could have sworn she saw him watching them, his figure pale and ghostlike in the way that all dreamwalkers’ were.

“You’re sure it was him?”

“He was your spitting image,” she said. “Younger and scruffier, perhaps, but much like you. Especially when you’re like this.” She tentatively stroked one of the grey strands that had peppered his hair since the war began. “He had grey at the front of his head, too.”

Poseidon hadn’t ever mentioned that detail to her, he realised. He hadn’t thought it was relevant. “Percy did have grey hair,” he said. “From holding up the sky.”

She stared at him. “I had thought it was a vision. What might it mean?”

Oceanus explained to them exactly what it meant. Kronos had brought Percy back from the dead.

It was enough to startle even unflappable Amphitrite. “Impossible,” she said.

Oceanus kept his face calm. “Hades has forged a new symbol of power, but he was lax with security. Now that King Kronos has it, he can use it to resurrect any soul and free any imprisoned beings from the Underworld. Perseus was the first.” He gestured to Poseidon. “Consider it a peace offering.”

Poseidon would forever be ashamed to admit just how tempting that offering was, for a moment. The idea that Percy could be here, alive…

“You understand that we cannot take you at your word,” Amphitrite said, when it became clear that Poseidon couldn’t speak. “This claim is borderline preposterous. It is only due to our long history of co-existing with you that we give it any credence at all.”

Oceanus had not moved his dark eyes from Poseidon’s face. With the thick beard around his nose and mouth, it was hard to tell what his expression might be, but clearly he thought he had an ace up his sleeve. Poseidon was disturbed to realise he might be right.

Atlantis would struggle to survive Oceanus’s assault. They would last for several years, yes, but not for much longer. The fact was that if Poseidon cared about his people, he would surrender now, betray Olympus, accept whatever demeaning post his father gave him, and hope he did not break his word. Which meant that in one hand, Poseidon held the fate of Atlantis and the renewed life of his mortal son. In the other, he held Olympus, his eternal family, and the council he had dedicated his immortal life to.

“Why bring Percy back at all?” Poseidon asked. Too late, he realised his mistake: calling him Percy instead of Perseus betrayed attachment. A weakness to be preyed upon. “He is a threat to my father just as much as he was a threat to my brother.”

Oceanus’s impassive face barely shifted. “Why do you think?”

The negotiation broke up shortly after. Clearly, Oceanus had intended only to drop the information, thoroughly rattle him, then leave him to stew in his uncertainty until their next scheduled talk. It was a powerful approach, and he gnashed his teeth at the indignity of being on the receiving end of it. But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It was when he and Amphitrite were debriefing in an office, unsettled by the idea that Percy might have chosen to serve Kronos, when they realised exactly what was happening.

“Have you checked on Sally recently?” Amphitrite asked him.

Terror gripped Poseidon. He didn’t hesitate to flash to Sally’s apartment in Manhattan, ready to accept whatever dressing down she gave him for showing up uninvited when he’d ignored her prayers for so long. She had been difficult to face for years; now, with their son dead, it was especially hard. But this was worth the risk of whatever rage she threw at him.

Except she wasn’t there.

He knew the apartment. He’d watched her and Percy live here for long enough to know it well, by now. But as he raced through it on unsteady legs, he found no trace of her.

There were only a few scant traces of recent human habitation. Sally, wherever she was, had been gone for at least a week. A random mortal had rifled through the cupboards and stomped over the carpets a mere few hours before. But, most importantly, he could sense the lingering auras of two demigods, one of them smelling of salt and brine. There was a pile of dirty laundry on the floor of Percy’s bedroom and clothes missing from his closet. A tap glowed in the corner of the kitchen, marked with the influence of a child of the sea.

Poseidon pressed a hand to his chest. All his metaphorical heartstrings thrummed and plucked in response, like they’d been waiting for him to notice.

When he returned, Amphitrite was deceptively excited. “Do you think he was there?”

“Someone turned off the tap without touching it. By manipulating the water.” He felt like he couldn’t breathe, which was absurd. He was underwater. He had gills.

Amphitrite kept him on track. “Where do you think he is now?” They considered, but Amphitrite had more pressing concerns, too: “What are we to say in response? Has this changed your answer? Or should I continue the stalemate as best I can?”

Poseidon was barely listening. He’d already stretched his senses as thin as he could manage, trying desperately to cling onto that heartstring. That thread that tied them together.

“Keep stalling. As much as is feasible.” The words poured out on autopilot. “I will deal with this. If my father has Sally, that hardly endears him to us. Or to Percy.”

“The boy might be coerced—”

“I will deal with this.”

Despite his snappish tone, Amphitrite’s frown was contemplative. For a moment, she floated there: her eyes closed, head tilted. Every muscle of her body went stiff, as if she’d sensed something he hadn’t.

“I told you, my lord, that I thought I saw this face in the shadows when last we spoke.”

Poseidon moved forward so eagerly and clumsily he thought he might crash into something. “Yes?”

He watched where she looked. As soon as she said, “Hello, little dreamer,” he flashed around to fix his gaze on what she’d noticed.

Percy was there.

How long had he been there? How much had he seen? He was floating by the wall, half-hidden by the shadows, the spitting image of how he’d looked when he’d died. His eyes were large and dark in his face as he stared.

“Percy?” Poseidon could barely form the word.

Something in Percy’s face crumpled. He reached out a hand. “Dad…”

Poseidon reached back. Just before he could take Percy’s hand, he dissolved into fine bubbles in the salty water.

Amphitrite let out a sigh. Poseidon looked from where Percy had been to his own fingertips, tingling from where the bubbles had brushed him. Every muscle in him had tightened and stilled, like he’d looked straight into Medusa’s petrifying gaze.

It was his wife who said, “We must find him.” Because for a long time, all Poseidon could do was stare.

In the end, it was Percy who reached for him.

He was in New York, of course. Manhattan. Right next to the Hudson River. Poseidon felt him reach out, felt him connect with the powers he’d given him in full for the first time since he’d died, and all his attention zoomed in on him like a shark scenting blood in the water. That comparison was apt. Percy was in a duel.

In a duel without a weapon.

Poseidon cursed his own shortsightedness in taking Anaklusmos. All he could do was watch as the enemy demigod cut and thrust into Percy with his sword, drawing blood he had no right to spill, until Percy finally dragged him into the river. As soon as he was in, Poseidon reached out, shunting aside the mumbling, cowering Hudson spirit, and wrapped himself around Percy. Every wound—there were too many wounds—he looked over carefully. The kiss of the water, horribly polluted though it was, was enough to heal them until they were hardly there in the first place. Still, Poseidon didn’t retreat, didn’t unwrap from around his son. He didn’t want to let go.

The enemy demigod was drowning—good. He had hurt his son. He deserved to choke and splutter and fade with the full knowledge of what happened to people who hurt his children. Poseidon wanted to press in and flood his lungs with that knowledge, but Percy’s hands were fastened too tightly around the demigod’s throat. The water had returned Percy’s strength, and he was using it to his full advantage.

But then he let go. He thrust the demigod up to the surface and let him run away.

Foolish boy. Silly boy. Didn’t he know that the water wanted its revenge? But even so, Poseidon felt a part of him soar watching him. Percy was still kind.

Death changed everyone, but apparently not his son.

Poseidon watched as Percy spoke to his companions. An older man and a younger boy. The man left. The boy remained. A girl showed up. They disappeared into the depths of the terrible Labyrinth, and he couldn’t track them any farther, until—

“…Your dad? Oh, right. Poseidon…”

The conversation was difficult to cling to. The underground was Hades’s domain, but Poseidon’s name had been invoked. He struggled to keep listening to their inane chatter about the Labyrinth, where they were, holding onto his name wherever it was used…

“…Antaeus was the son of Poseidon and Gaia. The Earth Shaker and the Earth…”

“…I thought you liked your dad, Percy…”

“I never… okay, I do like my dad… where is he?”

If he’d had more mental capacity, he’d have spared a thought for Antaeus as well. He was a dutiful son, if a regrettable one. But the effort to listen in gave him a pounding headache—and gods didn’t get headaches. Hades was about to get grumpy with him for spying in his domain. But just when he was about to lose his purchase on the conversation, Percy finally prayed to him.

Hey, Dad, he said, and his voice was sweeter than the tides’. Long time no prayer? I guess? Uh, maybe this is rude to do without an offering…

No! Poseidon wanted to shout. Ask me! Ask me for anything!

Percy’s prayer was rambling. Antaeus’s arena; underground in the Labyrinth; dracaenae; collapsing the tunnels; Earthshaking powers? Maybe? But Poseidon understood. He always listened to Percy. And he always gave him what he needed.

From the way Percy phrased it, it seemed that he thought his powers were direct, conscious gifts from Poseidon. Taps that he controlled—that he could turn on and off at will. It wasn’t like that at all. Demigods either inherited things, or they didn’t. Poseidon could provide a boost, but he couldn’t determine the foundations of their strength.

But Percy was the first demigod child of his for decades. And he had inherited a great deal.

The earth shook. That focal point of his domain let Poseidon hold on even tighter, watching with an eyeless gaze as the tunnels collapsed on their pursuers, and thrust his own power into the earth as well. He made sure to bury the dracaenae especially deep, crush them under large rocks, suffocate them under the soil. It got out perhaps an inkling of his rage and frustration.

And if that demigod boy Percy was with was a little too adept at tunnelling under the earth for anyone other than a child of Hades… Poseidon decided that was not his problem.

For now, at least.

Again, Poseidon lost track of Percy in the maze. That didn’t matter. Now that he knew where he was, broadly—now that he knew he was alive—there were deficiencies to address.

“You need to give him back his sword,” Amphitrite pointed out. “He is talented, but to fight without one is an undeniable disadvantage.”

Poseidon, who was knee deep in the treasury’s chest of transportation pearls, looked up. “Yes,” he said. “That. But also this.” He pulled out three pearls.

Amphitrite raised an eyebrow at him. “He has two companions?”

“I think.”

“You think? The last time you only gave him three pearls…”

“It was not enough,” Poseidon realised with a pang. “He was forced to leave his mother behind.”

He looked down at the chest. Pearls like this were little pockets of magic. They were expensive, exhausting investments. This collection had been built up over millennia and was only to be used in emergencies.

Poseidon summoned a small leather pouch, seized a fistful of the pearls, and tipped them all into the bag. He took another handful for good measure. And another. When the bag got uncomfortably heavy for a human to hold, he enchanted it to be bigger on the inside than the outside so it could hold even more.

“Are you expecting a mass defection of demigods to Atlantis?”

“I will take as many refugees as I need,” Poseidon swore. “I do not care. So long as one of them is him!”

Amphitrite surprised him by smiling. “He can lose some,” she said. “Share them. Use them with abandon. You can cover all possibilities.”

“I intend to.” Poseidon wasn’t even entirely sure how many pearls he’d added. At least fifty. He pulled the drawstring of the pouch closed. “I just want him to come back to me.”

His voice broke.

“He will,” Amphitrite said. “He will, my love.”

Camp Half-Blood might have been destroyed, but Poseidon’s cabin was left intact in deference to Oceanus’s talks. Poseidon sensed the very moment Percy set foot in it again. He sent him the pouch and his sword, and when he heard that thankful prayer, he couldn’t resist reaching out to ruffle his hair.

Percy’s scalp was warm and real under his incorporeal palm.

All that was left to do was wait.

He had listened to enough of Percy’s conversations to know he was going… somewhere. Where, he couldn’t be sure. Percy always did find ways to waltz into trouble. All Poseidon could do was hope that sooner or later he’d use the pearls and find himself back in Atlantis.

The first pearl usage, though, came accompanied by Percy’s cringing prayer: Sorry, Dad.

A Cyclops appeared in the throne room.

Thankfully, court wasn’t in session. It was just Poseidon, Amphitrite, and Triton, deep in discussion, when there was a pop and a shower of light. Poseidon sat up eagerly, but when the light faded, it was a full-grown Cyclops standing there, eight-feet tall and battle-scarred, holding a club loosely and staring around in confusion.

Of all gods, Poseidon sired the most Cyclopes children. This was not one of his. The magic of the pearl wrapped around him to stop him from drowning, unfortunately, so he wasn’t crushed instantly by the pressure. But he did meet Poseidon’s gaze with abject terror.

“Who are you?” Poseidon demanded. “Where is Percy?”

“I— I— my lord—”

The Cyclops blubbered. He had a tattoo of a scythe, Poseidon noticed with disdain. One of Kronos’s soldiers must have gotten hold of a pearl, then. But before he could smite him, Poseidon hesitated. It was possible this was one of Percy’s friends. Unlikely, but not impossible. Until he was absolutely sure, he wouldn’t risk his son’s displeasure by doing something irreversible to him.

He did send him to the dungeons with a flick of his wrist, though.

Amphitrite watched the interaction with pursed lips. “Do you think the pearls have been confiscated?”

“Perhaps,” Poseidon said. The growing dread in his chest was heavier than anchor. He tried to remind himself that the pouch was enchanted to always return to Percy’s pocket, like Anaklusmos; if it was confiscated, it would not be long before Percy had it back. But the thought was cold comfort when he did not know where Percy was, except apparently surrounded by Kronos’s soldiers.

Fortunately, they did not have to wait long before someone else appeared.

Another flash of light. A massive, writhing creature appeared in the centre of the throne room, its tail lashing around wildly. They all frowned; Triton started forward, his trident materialising in his hand. Poseidon put up a hand to stop him.

“This is another monster,” Triton pointed out.

That was when he heard Percy’s prayer. Look after him, Dad, Percy pleaded. Please. And… please protect the rest of California from what I’m about to do.

Percy’s soft spot for the unfortunate beast was still going strong, then.

“This,” Poseidon said, staring at the massive cow head, the long serpent tail snaking its way around the throne room, “is the Ophiotaurus.”

“Bessie,” the Ophiotaurus corrected, in a loud, grumpy MOO.

“Bessie,” Poseidon repeated. “Yes.”

Both Triton and Amphitrite were looking at him like he was insane. “The beast fated to bring about the downfall of Olympus?”

“Yes,” Poseidon said. “Percy’s friend. I must look after him. And protect California.”

“California?” Amphitrite said.

Bessie perked up. “Where is Percy?” he asked, as if he wasn’t the one with the best idea of that right now. He even had the nerve to look around the throne room as if Percy might have followed him there.

Even as he asked it, Percy prayed for strength. Poseidon turned his gaze to him, but wherever he was, it was cut off from his power. He couldn’t give him the strength he wanted. A cold fist closed over his heart.

Where was he? California? Protect California from what?

“I do not know,” Poseidon snapped at Bessie. “It seems you were the last to see him. Where were you? What is happening?”

Bessie was not the ideal interrogation subject.

He kept swimming back and forth, asking inane questions like where he was, and who they were, and why the ocean tasted different. It had never occurred to Poseidon just how little life experience the Ophiotaurus would have. They’d always sought to kill it and dispose of its remains as swiftly as possible whenever it was reborn. That hadn’t been something he’d ever regretted. But now, having to explain to an ancient beast where Atlantis was and who Poseidon was and what, exactly, had happened in the throne room where he’d died before.

A magnitude seven earthquake rippled along the coast of San Francisco. Poseidon jolted upright.

“Protect California,” he muttered. “Right.”

“From what?” Triton demanded. Then he blanched as he felt the rising tsunami from where the earthquake had hit the seafloor. “I see.”

Trusting Triton with the tsunami, Poseidon reached out to still the earthquake. His power in the west was… limited. Technically, it was Neptune’s territory, which might be why Kronos had chosen to set up there—more difficult for the Olympians to access—but fortunately, Neptune didn’t want to cause an earthquake right now. He approved Poseidon to reach out and stop it.

But there was still a section he couldn’t access. Mount Tamalpais was beyond him, and that was what was being hit the hardest.

“He’s on Mount Othrys?” Poseidon realised out loud.

Amphitrite paled. “Why would he go there?”

As one, they turned their gazes back to Bessie. Bessie lowed meekly to protest his innocence.

Poseidon went back to interrogating him.

They didn’t get the chance to find answers before the mortals started appearing. A teenage human girl was the first. She materialised in the throne room, her flash of light and the bubble pressing to her skin protecting her from the weight of the water above her. She gasped out loud when she opened her eyes, gaze flickering all over the room. It landed on Bessie first, then Poseidon and his family, then the décor.

“Oh my god,” she said. “Oh my god.”

Triton looked disgruntled. “Are you referring to a singular god?”

“Right. Sorry. Gods, I should say, right? I’m not crazy. I haven’t been hallucinating. Gods. Oh my gods.” She spoke at rapid fire speed. Her hair was bright red, violently so in the gently illuminated dark of Atlantis. She looked to be about the age Percy should be.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Oh! You must be Percy’s dad,” she said. “Poseidon. Uh. Lord? Is there a way I’m supposed to address you? I only found out you were real a couple days ago.” She winced. “Sorry. My lord.”

Poseidon didn’t need to use lungs underwater, not with his gills, but he drew in a breath through his nose all the same.

Thankfully, that was when the satyr appeared. Alive and kicking again, now that Percy was back, he presumed. Kicking hard, in fact, because it quickly became obvious he was not a strong swimmer. The girl caught him as soon as he was in reach.

“Rachel!” Underwood said, gasping for breath. “Oh. Oh I forgot how weird these bubbles were.” He looked up and saw Poseidon. “Not that I’m ungrateful, my lord! Thank you! Thank you very much!”

Poseidon clenched his jaw. “Where is Percy?”

“He’s coming!” Rachel promised. “There was fight. Our pearls were confiscated”—despite the situation, Amphitrite looked smug at her correct inference—“and he had to throw new ones to us. Thanks for that, by the way. For sending lots, that is. I just stomped on the pearls as soon as I could. But he had all the pearls, so there’s no way—”

She was interrupted by Sally’s arrival, along with a middle-aged man who looked vaguely familiar, though Poseidon honestly didn’t care enough to place him. Sally took one look at Poseidon and started shouting.

“I can’t believe—”

“Sally…” he greeted.

“—watched our son die—”

“Where’s Percy?” Poseidon pleaded through her—honestly, deserved—tirade. “Why was he on Mount Othrys? Why is there an earthquake? What happened?”

“—you told me nothing—”

A deep sensation of wrongness settled in Poseidon’s bones. It felt like he’d been struck by the Master Bolt. Something alien was in his waters. In his home. It rang of the sky, of clouds and lancing lightning, of the cold glare of the sun and the stars as they reigned from above, so empty and open compared to the close comfort of the sea. He needed to banish it. He needed to get it out. And something else, too, the creeping stench of death in an otherwise thriving sea, dark, cold earth far below them and leaching the light and warmth from the world…

Two more demigods appeared.

Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus, was one of them. The other was the boy who’d been suspiciously good at tunnelling. That explained it. Poseidon hated his brothers’ children being in his realm almost as much as Zeus hated Poseidon’s children trying to get on planes. Which meant that the preteen boy looking around with furtive terror was definitely Hades’s.

Gods weren’t supposed to get migraines.

“Where is Percy?” he asked them instead. The boy looked at him with that furtive terror, but he didn’t back away. His lip twitched instead. Thalia Grace was even bolder.

“Coming,” she said shortly. “He needed to break a mountain first. Preserve or raze, you know how it is.”

If Poseidon had been a lesser god, he would have smote her. He would have screamed, too.

But he didn’t have to wait long. Percy appeared less than a minute later, the flash of white light illuminating the silhouettes of two demigods come as one. The pearlescent lights shone on Annabeth Chase’s bright hair, but Poseidon only had eyes for his son. He lay limp in her arms.

“No,” Poseidon said.

Sally had stopped her remonstrance to swim toward their son; clearly, she’d noticed something was wrong as well. Annabeth Chase was clutching him like a vice, but she pulled back to look at him. To see the way his body hung in the water, his eyes glassy and half-open, the stillness of his breathless lungs.

“Percy?” she asked, voice trembling. “Percy?”

There was no visible injury on Percy’s body. Not one Poseidon noticed, anyway. Nothing that would explain why he was— what could have—

“Percy!” the girl screamed. Poseidon swam forward and forced her away. She clawed at his arm, clinging to Percy even tighter, but Poseidon held her off with ease. “No—no, Percy—”

“What happened?” Poseidon demanded.

The girl just sobbed. Athena’s children were always useless when it counted.

He turned away from her. Sally was next to them now. She reached for Percy too, and her guttural cry broke his heart.

When she reached for their son, he loosened his grip on Percy’s listless limbs for long enough for Sally to clasp him to her chest and cling to him like she was drowning after all. Poseidon just stared at the both of them: his worst nightmares made flesh. Percy, young and brave, cut down all over again. And Sally, brilliant Sally, left only to mourn. She had her arms around him, but for once, Percy didn’t reach back. His body was an empty shell. Whatever had inhabited it once was far, far below them, having its audience with the judges of the dead.

He couldn’t have said how long they hung there. Everyone was left utterly still, staring at Percy’s corpse. Poseidon was no exception. It was the ultimate stroke of cruelty from the Fates—the sort of ending they loved to give a story.

Percy had died once already, with no body to burn. He had been brought back, and he had lived for a few scant days. Poseidon had chased all whispers of him, tried desperately to track him, to get him back—and now he had, too late for it to mean anything.

Sally had her face buried in their son’s neck, holding him as close to her in death as she had in life. And Poseidon remembered that he had never had that chance.

He had never held Percy. Never even touched him, save for that fleeting visit when he was a mere babe. That dream vision of him, where Poseidon reached out only for him to dissolve before his eyes, was an apt representation of how it had always gone.

All he could do was stare. At the familiar curve of his nose, his blank green eyes, the drift of dark hair over his forehead. His lanky, bony limbs, which he had never had the chance to grow into. The scars that pocked his skin. The grey of his hair.

When he reached out, this time, he didn’t disappear.

Poseidon’s fingers found purchase on Percy’s cold shoulders. Sally’s grip had weakened with her trembling; one of the others, Hades’s boy, had reached out to pull her away, to hold her in her suffering. Behind him floated Grover Underwood, comatose yet again. Amphitrite seemed to have noticed that; she waved a hand, and nymph attendants went to see to him.

It didn’t matter.

For the first time, Poseidon pulled Percy into his arms. He wrapped himself, in his faux-mortal form, around Percy’s small, frail body, and pressed their chests together. He’d hugged a great many people before, but he’d never hugged Percy, and the art of it suddenly seemed lost to him. With one hand, he cradled Percy’s face against his shoulder, as gently as you might handle a newborn’s head.

He held his son. Just like with Sally, his son did not hold him back.

Poseidon’s grip on him tightened, until he feared his bones would break, his skin split, his muscles ground back to ash. He did not cry. The world cried for him. The seas raged. The earth shuddered. So long as Percy lay dead in his arms, nothing would ever be peaceful again.

Percy sucked in a breath.

Poseidon felt it through him like a jolt. It was the opposite of what it felt like when his brothers’ children entered his domain; this was a key slotting back into a lock, a string finding its place on a lyre, a coral colony taking a shipwreck as its home. Percy was in his arms, and he was breathing hard, sucking in great gulps of water like he’d been holding his breath the whole time he was dead.

“Percy?” Poseidon whispered, hardly daring to breathe. He reached out a hand to clasp his chin, to turn his face toward his.

His son looked up. He seemed dizzy, confused. Understandable. They all were. “What?”

Then his gaze focused on Poseidon. Recognition sparked. “Dad?”

The word broke. Poseidon enveloped him again, pushing in against him with his whole body, his whole being. This was it. He would never, ever release him.

The others in the throne room murmured, mooed, called out in joy. Only one of them mattered, though.

“Percy?” Sally croaked. Percy responded to his mother’s call like a baby seal. He tried to pull away, but Poseidon wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t. He pulled him even closer.

Sally had held him for years. Poseidon couldn’t let this moment end.

“What happened?”

Percy’s face was still pressed into his chest. “He said to stop the earthquakes.”

“What?”

“Hades said stop the earthquakes. They’re making the underworld shake.”

Poseidon felt every muscle of his body tense. The earthquakes he was casting out were reaching dangerously close to his brother’s domain.

“I stopped the earthquakes,” he said once he’d relaxed again. “I stopped yours from hitting California, too. No one outside of Mount Tam felt a thing.”

Percy blasphemed: “Jesus Christ.”

Poseidon allowed himself a wet chuckle. He squeezed Percy again, blinking hard. Percy’s pulse thrummed under his skin.

Finally, he pushed Poseidon away, firm and insistent. Poseidon didn’t want to, but he let him, even as he felt his heart crack in two with it. Percy gave him a warm smile before he turned to the others he loved; Poseidon kept his gaze on his son. His living son.

He hovered behind him as he spoke to his others. He tried to press, along with them, for details on what had happened. Every part of him was in this room, right now, with this miracle. Trying to understand what had happened. How to make sure it kept happening.

None of Percy’s explanations made him feel confident. Nor did the message Triton read out from Hades.

We need to talk, his brother said.

The assembled mortals winced at the phrasing, but Poseidon didn’t react. His gaze just found that preteen boy who’d been following Percy around like a lost puppy.

Yes, he thought to himself. They certainly did.

He looked back at Percy. Sally had her hands firmly clasped around his. Poseidon wanted to reach out and hold him again too. Life was so fleeting, and he didn’t know what any of this was. What it meant. What Hades wanted. How long this reprieve might last.

Which meant he needed to find out as soon as possible, didn’t he?

The sooner Poseidon dealt with this—the sooner he had answers—then the sooner he could be sure Percy would be safe.

He could still feel the ghost of him in his arms. His presence was attached to his ribs, the heartstring of his life force thrumming once again with vitality and attitude. He knew he was staring, as Percy perked up at Amphitrite’s promise of fetching Tyson, but he couldn’t look away.

Percy had come back to him. Against all odds, Percy was alive.

Against all odds…

In the blink of an eye, Poseidon rushed to confront his brother. There were springs at the bottom of the sea where the River Styx rose before it flowed through the cracks into the Underworld. He slipped through there, feeling his brother’s reluctant acquiescence to let him into his territory, and headed for Hades’s palace. But for another few key moments, a part of him stayed in the throne room, watching his guests orbit Percy like a star.

Percy looked unwell. Of course he did. He was still bodily fourteen; he had died twice; his resurrection had been violent and dramatic, with enormous amounts of heartbreak; and who knew what he had been eating while he ran around the Labyrinth. Poseidon would have to find a way to make it better. Feed him hearty Atlantean cuisine. Give him a place to rest his head until the nightmares ceased and there was muscle and fat between his skin and bones. Tell him, deeply and truly, how much he loved him. How much he regretted what had happened—and how much he intended to be better.

But before he could, he had to do better.

Hades wanted something. He would not have resurrected Percy for no reason. So, Poseidon demeaned himself and ran to answer his summons, feeling his chest constrict and his jaw clench. Being around Sally and Percy had always made him feel more mortal than he should. He was a god, a king, but with them, he remembered how to be a lover and a father as well.

It was that father in him that realised that it didn’t matter what Hades wanted. As the last shadow of him stayed in the throne room to watch his son retreat with Amphitrite, smiling already at the thought of seeing Tyson again, Poseidon knew that there was very little he wouldn’t barter or beg.

His son was alive. Here. In Atlantis, safe and sound.

Poseidon would do anything to keep him that way.