by Rick Riordan
Jason tried not to close his eyes. Every time he did, he saw his mom’s spirit disintegrating.
‘It wasn’t her,’ he said. ‘At least, no part of her I could save. There was no other choice.’
Annabeth took a shaky breath. ‘No other right choice, maybe, but … a friend of mine, Luke. His mom … similar problem. He didn’t handle it as well.’
Her voice broke. Jason didn’t know much about Annabeth’s past, but Piper glanced over in concern.
‘I’ve bandaged as much as I can,’ she said. ‘Blood is still soaking through. And the smoke. I don’t get that.’
‘Imperial gold,’ Annabeth said, her voice quavering. ‘It’s deadly to demigods. It’s only a matter of time before –’
‘He’ll be all right,’ Piper insisted. ‘We’ve got to get him back to the ship.’
‘I don’t feel that bad,’ Jason said. And it was true. The ambrosia had cleared his head. Warmth was seeping back into his limbs. ‘Maybe I could fly …’
Jason sat up. His vision turned a pale shade of green. ‘Or maybe not …’
Piper caught his shoulders as he keeled sideways. ‘Whoa, Sparky. We need to contact the Argo II, get help.’
‘You haven’t called me Sparky in a long time.’
Piper kissed his forehead. ‘Stick with me and I’ll insult you all you want.’
Annabeth scanned the ruins. The magic veneer had faded, leaving only broken walls and excavation pits. ‘We could use the emergency flares, but –’
‘No,’ Jason said. ‘Leo would blast the top of the hill with Greek fire. Maybe, if you guys helped me, I could walk –’
‘Absolutely not,’ Piper objected. ‘That would take too long.’ She rummaged in her belt pouch and pulled out a compact mirror. ‘Annabeth, you know Morse code?’
‘Of course.’
‘So does Leo.’ Piper handed her the mirror. ‘He’ll be watching from the ship. Go to the ridge –’
‘And flash him!’ Annabeth’s face reddened. ‘That came out wrong. But, yeah, good idea.’
She ran to the edge of the ruins.
Piper pulled out a flask of nectar and gave Jason a sip. ‘Hang in there. You are not dying from a stupid body piercing.’
Jason managed a weak smile. ‘At least it wasn’t a head injury this time. I stayed conscious the entire fight.’
‘You defeated, like, two hundred enemies,’ Piper said. ‘You were scary amazing.’
‘You guys helped.’
‘Maybe, but … Hey, stay with me.’
Jason’s head started to droop. The cracks in the stones came into sharper focus.
‘Little dizzy,’ he muttered.
‘More nectar,’ Piper ordered. ‘There. Taste okay?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, fine.’
In fact the nectar tasted like liquid sawdust, but Jason kept that to himself. Ever since the House of Hades when he’d resigned his praetorship, ambrosia and nectar didn’t taste like his favourite foods from Camp Jupiter. It was as if the memory of his old home no longer had the power to heal him.
Born a Roman, die a Roman, Michael Varus had said.
He looked at the smoke curling from his bandages. He had worse things to worry about than blood loss. Annabeth was right about Imperial gold. The stuff was deadly to demigods as well as monsters. The wound from Varus’s blade would do its best to eat away at Jason’s life force.
He’d seen a demigod die like that once before. It hadn’t been fast or pretty.
I can’t die, he told himself. My friends are depending on me.
Antinous’s words rang in his ears – about the giants in Athens, the impossible trip facing the Argo II, the mysterious hunter Gaia had sent to intercept the Athena Parthenos.
‘Reyna, Nico and Coach Hedge,’ he said. ‘They’re in danger. We need to warn them.’
‘We’ll take care of it when we get back to the ship,’ Piper promised. ‘Your job right now is to relax.’ Her tone was light and confident, but her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Besides, those three are a tough group. They’ll be fine.’
Jason hoped she was right. Reyna had risked so much to help them. Coach Hedge was annoying sometimes, but he’d been a loyal protector for the entire crew. And Nico … Jason felt especially worried about him.
Piper brushed her thumb against the scar on his lip. ‘Once the war is over … everything will work out for Nico. You’ve done what you could, being a friend to him.’
Jason wasn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t told Piper anything about his conversations with Nico. He’d kept di Angelo’s secret.
Still … Piper seemed to sense what was wrong. As a daughter of Aphrodite, maybe she could tell when somebody was struggling with heartache. She hadn’t pressured Jason to talk about it, though. He appreciated that.
Another wave of pain made him wince.
‘Concentrate on my voice.’ Piper kissed his forehead. ‘Think about something good. Birthday cake in the park in Rome –’
‘That was nice.’
‘Last winter,’ she suggested. ‘The s’mores fight at the campfire.’
‘I totally got you.’
‘You had marshmallows in your hair for days!’
‘I did not.’
Jason’s mind drifted back to better times.
He just wanted to stay there – talking with Piper, holding her hand, not worrying about giants or Gaia or his mother’s madness.
He knew they should get back to the ship. He was in bad shape. They had the information they’d come for. But as he lay there on the cool stones, Jason felt a sense of incompleteness. The story of the suitors and Queen Penelope … his thoughts about family … his recent dreams. Those things all swirled around in his head. There was something more to this place – something he’d missed.
Annabeth came back limping from the edge of the hill.
‘Are you hurt?’ Jason asked her.
Annabeth glanced at her ankle. ‘It’s fine. Just the old break from the Roman caverns. Sometimes when I’m stressed … That’s not important. I signalled Leo. Frank’s going to change form, fly up here and carry you back to the ship. I need to make a litter to keep you stable.’
Jason had a terrifying image of himself in a hammock, swinging between the claws of Frank the giant eagle, but he decided it would be better than dying.
Annabeth set to work. She collected scraps left behind by the suitors – a leather belt, a torn tunic, sandal straps, a red blanket and a couple of broken spear shafts. Her hands flew across the materials – ripping, weaving, tying, braiding.
‘How are you doing that?’ Jason asked in amazement.
‘Learned it during my quest under Rome.’ Annabeth kept her eyes on her work. ‘I’d never had a reason to try weaving before, but it’s handy for certain things, like getting away from spiders …’
She tied off one last bit of leather cord and voilà – a stretcher large enough for Jason, with spear shafts as carrying handles and safety straps across the middle.
Piper whistled appreciatively. ‘The next time I need a dress altered, I’m coming to you.’
‘Shut up, McLean,’ Annabeth said, but her eyes glinted with satisfaction. ‘Now, let’s get him secured –’
‘Wait,’ Jason said.
His heart pounded. Watching Annabeth weave the makeshift bed, Jason had remembered the story of Penelope – how she’d held out for twenty years, waiting for her husband Odysseus to return.
‘A bed,’ Jason said. ‘There was a special bed in this palace.’
Piper looked worried. ‘Jason, you’ve lost a lot of blood.’
‘I’m not hallucinating,’ he insisted. ‘The marriage bed was sacred. If there was any place you could talk to Juno …’ He took a deep breath and called, ‘Juno!’
Silence.
Maybe Piper was right. He wasn’t thinking clearly.
Then, about sixty feet away, the stone floor cracked. Branches muscled through the earth, growing in fast motion until a full-sized olive
tree shaded the courtyard. Under a canopy of grey-green leaves stood a dark-haired woman in a white dress, a leopard-skin cape draped over her shoulders. Her staff was topped with a white lotus flower. Her expression was cool and regal.
‘My heroes,’ said the goddess.
‘Hera,’ Piper said.
‘Juno,’ Jason corrected.
‘Whatever,’ Annabeth grumbled. ‘What are you doing here, Your Bovine Majesty?’
Juno’s dark eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Annabeth Chase. As charming as ever.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Annabeth said, ‘I just got back from Tartarus, so my manners are a little rusty, especially towards goddesses who wiped my boyfriend’s memory, made him disappear for months and then –’
‘Honestly, child. Are we going to rehash this again?’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be suffering from split-personality disorder?’ Annabeth asked. ‘I mean – more so than usual?’
‘Whoa,’ Jason interceded. He had plenty of reasons to hate Juno, but they had other issues to deal with. ‘Juno, we need your help. We –’ Jason tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. His insides felt like they were being twirled on a giant spaghetti fork.
Piper kept him from falling over. ‘First things first,’ she said. ‘Jason is hurt. Heal him!’
The goddess knitted her eyebrows. Her form shimmered unsteadily.
‘Some things even the gods cannot heal,’ she said. ‘This wound touches your soul as well as your body. You must fight it, Jason Grace … you must survive.’
‘Yeah, thanks,’ he said, his mouth dry. ‘I’m trying.’
‘What do you mean, the wound touches his soul?’ Piper demanded. ‘Why can’t you –’
‘My heroes, our time together is short,’ Juno said. ‘I am grateful that you called upon me. I have spent weeks in a state of pain and confusion … my Greek and Roman natures warring against each other. Worse, I’ve been forced to hide from Jupiter, who searches for me in his misguided wrath, believing that I caused this war with Gaia.’
‘Gee,’ Annabeth said, ‘why would he think that?’
Juno flashed her an irritated look. ‘Fortunately, this place is sacred to me. By clearing away those ghosts, you have purified it and given me a moment of clarity. I will be able to speak with you – if only briefly.’
‘Why is it sacred … ?’ Piper’s eyes widened. ‘Oh. The marriage bed!’
‘Marriage bed?’ Annabeth asked. ‘I don’t see any –’
‘The bed of Penelope and Odysseus,’ Piper explained. ‘One of its bedposts was a living olive tree, so it could never be moved.’
‘Indeed.’ Juno ran her hand along the olive tree’s trunk. ‘An immovable marriage bed. Such a beautiful symbol! Like Penelope, the most faithful wife, standing her ground, fending off a hundred arrogant suitors for years because she knew her husband would return. Odysseus and Penelope – the epitome of a perfect marriage!’
Even in his dazed state, Jason was pretty sure he remembered stories about Odysseus falling for other women during his travels, but he decided not to bring that up.
‘Can you advise us, at least?’ he asked. ‘Tell us what to do?’
‘Sail around the Peloponnese,’ said the goddess. ‘As you suspect, that is the only possible route. On your way, seek out the goddess of victory in Olympia. She is out of control. Unless you can subdue her, the rift between Greek and Roman can never be healed.’
‘You mean Nike?’ Annabeth asked. ‘How is she out of control?’
Thunder boomed overhead, shaking the hill.
‘Explaining would take too long,’ Juno said. ‘I must flee before Jupiter finds me. Once I leave, I will not be able to help you again.’
Jason bit back a retort: When did you help me the first time?
‘What else should we know?’ he asked.
‘As you heard, the giants have gathered in Athens. Few gods will be able to help you on your journey, but I am not the only Olympian who is out of favour with Jupiter. The twins have also incurred his wrath.’
‘Artemis and Apollo?’ Piper asked. ‘Why?’
Juno’s image began to fade. ‘If you reach the island of Delos, they might be prepared to help you. They are desperate enough to try anything to make amends. Go now. Perhaps we will meet again in Athens, if you succeed. If you do not …’
The goddess disappeared, or maybe Jason’s eyesight simply failed. Pain rolled through him. His head lolled back. He saw a giant eagle circling high above. Then the blue sky turned black, and Jason saw nothing at all.
V
Reyna
Dive-bombing a volcano was not on Reyna’s bucket list.
Her first view of southern Italy was from five thousand feet in the air. To the west, along the crescent of the Gulf of Naples, the lights of sleeping cities glittered in the predawn gloom. A thousand feet below her, a half-mile-wide caldera yawned at the top of a mountain, white steam pluming from the centre.
Reyna’s disorientation took a moment to subside. Shadow-travel left her groggy and nauseous, as if she’d been dragged from the cold waters of the frigidarium into the sauna at a Roman bathhouse.
Then she realized she was suspended in midair. Gravity took hold, and she began to fall.
‘Nico!’ she yelled.
‘Pan’s pipes!’ cursed Gleeson Hedge.
‘Whaaaaa!’ Nico flailed, almost slipping out of Reyna’s grip. She held tight and grabbed Coach Hedge by the shirt collar as he started to tumble away. If they got separated now, they were dead.
They plummeted towards the volcano as their largest piece of luggage – the forty-foot-tall Athena Parthenos – trailed after them, leashed to a harness on Nico’s back like a very ineffective parachute.
‘That’s Vesuvius below us!’ Reyna shouted over the wind. ‘Nico, teleport us out of here!’
His eyes were wild and unfocused. His dark feathery hair whipped around his face like a raven shot out of the sky. ‘I – I can’t! No strength!’
Coach Hedge bleated. ‘News flash, kid! Goats can’t fly! Zap us out of here or we’re gonna get flattened into an Athena Parthenos omelette!’
Reyna tried to think. She could accept death if she had to, but if the Athena Parthenos was destroyed their quest would fail. Reyna could not accept that.
‘Nico, shadow-travel,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll lend you my strength.’
He stared at her blankly. ‘How –’
‘Do it!’
She tightened her grip on his hand. The torch-and-sword symbol of Bellona on her forearm grew painfully hot, as if it were being seared into her skin for the first time.
Nico gasped. Colour returned to his face. Just before they hit the volcano’s steam plume, they slipped into shadows.
The air turned frigid. The sound of the wind was replaced by a cacophony of voices whispering in a thousand languages. Reyna’s insides felt like a giant piragua – cold syrup trickled over crushed ice – her favourite treat from her childhood in Viejo San Juan.
She wondered why that memory would surface now, when she was on the verge of death. Then her vision cleared. Her feet rested on solid ground.
The eastern sky had begun to lighten. For a moment Reyna thought she was back in New Rome. Doric columns lined an atrium the size of a baseball diamond. In front of her, a bronze faun stood in the middle of a sunken fountain decorated with mosaic tile.
Crepe myrtles and rosebushes bloomed in a nearby garden. Palm trees and pines stretched skyward. Cobblestone paths led from the courtyard in several directions – straight, level roads of good Roman construction, edging low stone houses with colonnaded porches.
Reyna turned. Behind her, the Athena Parthenos stood intact and upright, dominating the courtyard like a ridiculously oversized lawn ornament. The little bronze faun in the fountain had both his arms raised, facing Athena, so he seemed to be cowering in fear of the new arrival.
On the horizon, Mount Vesuvius loomed – a dark, humpbacked shape now several miles away. T
hick pillars of steam curled from the crest.
‘We’re in Pompeii,’ Reyna realized.
‘Oh, that’s not good,’ Nico said, and he immediately collapsed.
‘Whoa!’ Coach Hedge caught him before he hit the ground. The satyr propped him against Athena’s feet and loosened the harness that attached Nico to the statue.
Reyna’s own knees buckled. She’d expected some backlash; it happened every time she shared her strength. But she hadn’t anticipated so much raw anguish from Nico di Angelo. She sat down heavily, just managing to stay conscious.
Gods of Rome. If this was only a portion of Nico’s pain … how could he bear it?
She tried to steady her breathing while Coach Hedge rummaged through his camping supplies. Around Nico’s boots, the stones cracked. Dark seams radiated outwards like a shotgun blast of ink, as if Nico’s body were trying to expel all the shadows he’d travelled through.
Yesterday had been worse: an entire meadow withering, skeletons rising from the earth. Reyna wasn’t anxious for that to happen again.
‘Drink something.’ She offered him a canteen of unicorn draught – powdered horn mixed with sanctified water from the Little Tiber. They’d found it worked on Nico better than nectar, helping to cleanse the fatigue and darkness from his system with less danger of spontaneous combustion.
Nico gulped it down. He still looked terrible. His skin had a bluish tint. His cheeks were sunken. Hanging at his side, the sceptre of Diocletian glowed angry purple, like a radioactive bruise.
He studied Reyna. ‘How did you do that … that surge of energy?’
Reyna turned her forearm. The tattoo still burned like hot wax: the symbol of Bellona, SPQR, with four lines for her years of service. ‘I don’t like to talk about it,’ she said, ‘but it’s a power from my mother. I can impart strength to others.’
Coach Hedge looked up from his rucksack. ‘Seriously? Why haven’t you hooked me up, Roman girl? I want super-muscles!’
Reyna frowned. ‘It doesn’t work like that, Coach. I can only do it in life-and-death situations, and it’s more useful in large groups. When I command troops, I can share whatever attributes I have – strength, courage, endurance – multiplied by the size of my forces.’