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FIC: The Final Sacrifice, chpt 3
Title: The Final Sacrifice (Daughter of Wisdom 5)
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, Thalia Grace, Charles Beckendorf/Silena Beauregard, Clarisse La Rue, Michael Yew, OCs, multiple others
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Word Count: WIP, estimated 100K+ (33 chapters planned)
Summary: The war on Olympus is heating up, and Annabeth Chase is right in the thick of it. Bad enough that she's gearing up for battle while wrestling with the emotional turmoil over two of her dearest friends that is turning her heart inside out. She doesn't need more mysterious glimpses about the Great Prophecy and how it connects to her own history. But in order to understand what lies in her future, Annabeth has to dig into the past. What she finds will shape her choices … and change the course of the final battle. An alternate PoV retelling of The Last Olympian. Part 5 of the Daughter of Wisdom series.
In this chapter
Chapter Title: I Visit A Psychic
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Luke Castellan, Kronos, Ethan Nakamura, Alabaster Torrington, Halcyon Green, Apollo, characters from the Greek pantheon, OC
Word Count: 3,996
Chapter Summary: Dreams and stories give Annabeth a glimpse of ancient history.
Notes: Annabeth's dream comes indeed from one of the earlier stories of the Trojan War, the second gathering at Aulis, though of course the scene I presented here is entirely fictionalised. Those of you who know your Greek mythology may know what's coming in that particular tale.
Phoebe is one of the original Titans, and the origin of the name 'Phoebus Apollo', as she once owned the Oracles that Apollo took over. You can read more about her (or the canon version, anyway) in Percy Jackson's Greek Gods.
The references to Annabeth's previous meetings with Alabaster Torrington come from my previous story in this series, The Necklace of Harmonia.
Back to Fic Content Page
If I had a drachma for every nightmare I'd had as a demigod, I'd be richer than King Midas. Like monsters, the dreams were something I couldn't escape. Regular mortals have nightmares about turning up at school in their underwear. Demigods get those plus a bonus helping of death, doom, and evil Titans plotting to destroy the world.
As far as demigod dreams went, this one started off relatively tame. I found myself on a cliff overlooking the sea. The waters were glassy green, without a single ripple in sight. I could have been standing above an emerald mirror, stretching all the way out to the horizon. Docked at the harbour was a full fleet of Greek triremes, all outfitted for war. Each one could carry at least a hundred men, horses and weapons included.
In the valley below, an army gathered. Their shouts and catcalls echoed through the hills as they rough-housed. Minor scuffles broke out among different groups, from name-calling to little fights. It reminded me of an overcrowded school yard full of rowdy kids with too much pent-up energy.
Not far from me, two men stood at the edge of the cliff, one in Greek armour, the other in white priest's robes. The warrior had a bronze shield strapped to his broad, muscular back, and a ten-foot spear in one hand. Battle scars criss-crossed cruelly across his cheeks. Though he appeared to still be in his youth, he held himself with the bearing of a seasoned commander. He had handsome, chiselled features typical of ancient Greek kings. His eyes, slanted like a nymph's and pale as the quiet sea before us, held a touch of careless arrogance. They narrowed in consternation as he surveyed the army in the valley.
'The men are restless,' he said. 'Our ships have been held in port for weeks. All this effort, all the favours Agamemnon called in to recapture his brother's wife, and here we are at Aulis, waiting like fools.'
'It is uncommonly still,' agreed the priest. 'If the wind does not blow, your attack on Troy will never succeed. This gathering will have been for nought.'
'What is your prophecy, then, Calchas? You are the Oracle.'
Calchas lifted his eyes to the clear, cloudless skies. 'The gods withhold the wind. This can be the only explanation.'
'Are we cursed, then?'
'Perhaps. But there is always a way to lift the curse, to appease the gods and change our fate. It requires sacrifice.' He glanced behind him. There was a pure white altar at the top of the hill. In front of it lay a smooth slab of marble. Dark, reddish streaks ran down it. I tried not to think about what had caused them.
'An animal, then,' said the warrior. 'A bull, perhaps, dedicated to the master of the seas. Or to my great-grandsire, the lord of the gods himself.'
'No,' Calchas said grimly. 'If you wish this expedition to be a success, the sacrifice must be more substantial.'
In the ensuing pause, the red streaks on the marble slab seemed to glow. 'You mean a mortal, don't you?'
Calchas raised his eyebrows. 'Squeamish, Achilles?'
Achilles stabbed his spear into the earth, where it stood, quivering. 'I am a warrior. It is not bloodshed I oppose, but the unnecessary letting of blood. The sacrifice of an innocent is abhorrent.'
'Great victory requires great sacrifice.' Calchas closed his eyes and raised his palms, face up, as though receiving a divine message. 'The gods call for our great commander to sacrifice his most dear-the fairest creature of his kingdom.'
The blood drained from Achilles's face. 'You are talking about Agamemnon's daughter. My betrothed.'
'It is the only way.'
Achilles yanked his spear from the ground. 'You lie,' he said flatly.
Calchas didn't even blink. 'Am I the Oracle, or you?'
'Agamemnon will never agree to it.'
'We shall see.'
Achilles's grip tightened around his spear shaft. His expression was so dark, I thought he might run the priest through with his weapon any moment now. 'Am I to sacrifice my betrothed in order to reclaim another man's wife?'
'We did not start this war,' Calchas said. 'Remember, the Trojans stole Helen. Sometimes, to set things right, a life is required.'
At these words, the softest hiss of wind blew over the cliff, just enough to stir the smallest tufts of grass. It travelled through the valley, making the gathered army's heads lift in hope. But it was gone almost as soon as it was raised. And the sea stayed quietly, eerily, calm.
The scene shifted. The glassy sea rippled, becoming a scrying pool. The cliff and valley vanished, replaced by the softly glowing walls of a rock cave. The stone was embedded with gems, or maybe it was made up of precious rock, crystal or quartz or something. I thought at first the light was emanating from the rock, but then I realised the walls were only reflecting the glow that came from a woman sitting in the middle of the cave, looking into the scrying pool.
She was dressed like a gypsy, with numerous scarves wrapped around her head and gauzy shawls draped over her shoulders. A thin blanket covered her lap, embroidered with the moon and stars. Large golden hoops dangled from her ears, shimmering in the light that radiated off her skin.
'Ah, brother ...' Her voice was hoarse and croaky. She addressed a tall, muscular figure in the shadows. 'It has been a while.'
'Indeed, Phoebe.' The man stepped into the light, and I gasped. It was Luke, pale and sandy-haired, the old dragon-claw scar running down his right cheek. But his eyes ... before, they had been the clear blue of a sunny sky. Now, they were a molten gold that reflected the light from Phoebe's skin. And strapped to his back was a long shaft with a wicked, curved blade protruding from the business end-a reaper's scythe.
Phoebe stirred the waters of her scrying pool with one shining finger. 'I believe my husband Koios has already joined you,' she said. 'Surely you have no need of a retired psychic?'
'I could restore your Oracle to you.' His voice was like a blast of cold air. This wasn't the Luke I knew. It was Kronos, lord of the Titans and our most dangerous enemy, residing in the body of the boy who had been my oldest friend. 'We would wrest her from your insufferable grandson and return her power to you.'
Phoebe laughed. 'In her current state? I'd get better mileage with one of the other ancient Oracles.'
Kronos screwed up his face-Luke's face-in confusion. The look of it, the same expression I'd seen so many times on Luke himself, made me want to cry. 'What do you mean?'
'Oh, the Oracle of Delphi was cursed a long time ago,' Phoebe said, with an airy wave of her hand. 'Her spirit has been grounded for decades.'
'Then her prophecies ...' Kronos's voice dropped to a whisper. 'Do they not hold?'
'Of course they do. A prophecy is a prophecy. You should know that it is futile to run from one. As you found out yourself, when you tried to eat your children.' The hint of a smile played around Phoebe's mouth.
Kronos grimaced and put a hand to Luke's stomach. As the myth went, he'd swallowed his children, the original Olympians, while trying to escape a prophecy that indicated they'd overthrow him one day. It was so weird to see him making the same face Luke used to when he got indigestion.
'This is different,' Kronos said. 'The prophecy speaks of the destruction of Olympus. What have I got to lose?'
'Hmm.' Phoebe raised her hand over the scrying pool. The image of a girl rose above the surface. She was quite pretty, with short black hair cut in an old-fashioned bob. Green mist swirled around her as she spoke, reciting a set of lines I recognised immediately: A half-blood of the eldest gods ...
I'd only ever heard the Great Prophecy-or any prophecy, really-spouted by the zombie Oracle who lived in the attic above the Big House. It was surreal, watching this lovely young maiden issue the familiar lines. I'd never thought much about it before, but I guess the mummified Oracle must have been a living person once. Was this her, as she'd been before her death?
The image of the live Oracle sank back into the depths of the pool. Phoebe repeated the final line of the prophecy: 'Olympus to preserve or raze.' Her eyebrows arched towards her scarf-bedecked forehead, punctuating the line with clear importance.
'I have learned from my previous mistakes,' Kronos said. 'I do not seek to thwart the prophecy, but to control its direction. My pieces are in place.' He reached for the scythe and ran his fingers over its black blade. 'My blade will reap Percy Jackson's soul and destroy Olympus.'
'If you are so sure, why have you come to me?'
Kronos's hands faltered. He crossed his arms over Luke's chest. 'Because I have been thwarted before. Two years ago, I thought it was the right time ...'
He closed his eyes. I knew which incident he was recalling. Two years ago, Kronos had orchestrated Thalia's return to life and tried to convert her to his cause. As a daughter of Zeus on the verge of her sixteenth birthday, she could have fulfilled the prophecy. But she had chosen to join the Hunters of Artemis, forever immortalised at the age of fifteen, and taken herself handily out of Kronos's reach.
'I wish to be sure,' Kronos continued. 'You owned the Oracle before. If anyone could interpret this prophecy, it would be you.'
Phoebe sighed and twirled the end of her scarf around her fingers. 'This prophecy is like a curse. It gathers power over time. To understand it, you need to understand its history.'
'The history of a prophecy?' Kronos put on Luke's most sceptical expression.
'I sense ...' Phoebe leaned forward, as though catching a scent. 'The body you possess knows something.'
Kronos drew back. 'This body? It is but a host. A stepping stone to my ultimate goal.'
'Then you know all its secrets?'
Kronos's expression darkened. Luke's eyes turned inwards. My breath caught as I watched them flicker. Was it just a trick of the light, or did they actually shift from gold to blue for a moment?'
'There was ... something. But I can't retrieve the memory. It was ... the girl. It has to do with the girl.' His face settled back into Kronos's dark, angry expression.
Phoebe squinted into the pool. A new face appeared in it. At first I thought it was Kronos's reflection, but Luke's face in the pool was unscarred, full of the innocence of youth. I swallowed painfully.
Then two more figures appeared-Thalia and me. She knelt behind me, trying clumsily to braid my hair while I gave the Luke in the pool a gap-toothed grin. It was a scene from our time on the run, before we'd come to camp. The memory made my chest constrict.
Kronos slashed his scythe across the surface of the pool, scattering the images into disjointed ripples. 'The girl,' he hissed. 'He must have told the girl. Curse him and his wretched Achilles heel!'
'It was inevitable,' Phoebe said. 'A price must be paid to bridge the mortal soul.'
'Not for much longer. I am close to my goal.'
'Ah yes. The last mortal coil.' Phoebe cocked her head. 'Tread carefully, Lord Kronos. Some things, once done, are irreversible.'
Kronos grunted, but made no other acknowledgement of this mysterious advice. He turned on his heel and left the cave.
He emerged onto a thin ridge overlooking a mountain valley. In it, a massive army gathered, just like the Greek forces at Aulis. Only, this wasn't an army of men. They were monsters of all sorts and strengths: Scythian dracaenae with scaly trunk legs, slavering hellhounds with razor-sharp teeth and claws, giants that towered over the heads of their monster comrades. Last summer, we'd taken out most of the monsters Luke had recruited to fight for Kronos, but monsters never really died. They eventually regenerated from Tartarus. It looked like Kronos had managed to recoup his losses at last.
A demigod waited for Kronos outside the cave, dressed in army fatigues with a bronze sword strapped to his belt. An eye patch ran diagonally across his face. I knew this kid-Ethan Nakamura, a demigod we'd met last year, who had joined Kronos's army even after we'd rescued him from a gladiator death match. He greeted Kronos with a salute.
'Tell the army to move out,' Kronos said without preamble.
'North, sir?'
'No. We're going to Charleston. Make sure Torrington brings the new ... recruits.' His lip curled. 'We want to keep them in sight. I don't trust our hypnotic friend's work.'
'Yes-'
A blast of static cut off Nakamura's answer. My dream shifted again, but this transition was choppy, like when the Internet connection suddenly cuts out on a Netflix movie. Luke and Nakamura's images froze, then winked out of sight. I found myself in a narrow passage lined with steel bars, like a jail cell.
Nakamura appeared again, walking down the passage with another kid I recognised: Alabaster Torrington, a stringy, brown-haired demigod whom I'd met several times in the past year. He didn't look like much, but he was a formidable enemy. As a son of Hecate, he had the power to bend the Mist and magically teleport people and monsters across space.
'The magic is working,' Nakamura said. 'Maybe a little too well. It attracts even the children too young for the monsters to sense.'
Torrington stared at the bars to his right. With a jolt, I realised that they lined two massive cages. Nakamura and Torrington were walking between them. Inside were more demigods, all fast asleep. They appeared to be grouped by age. On the right, the cage held children who couldn't have been older than eight. There were maybe ten of them, curled up on the cage floor. One of them had her arm around a one-eyed teddy bear. Another was sucking his thumb as he slept. The cage on the left had one satyr and five demigods. They looked to be between the ages of twelve and sixteen-the age where most either got scouted for camp or devoured by monsters.
'They are too young to join the army.' Torrington waved his hand at the little children. 'We have no use for them.'
'They'll make snacks for the monsters,' Nakamura said grimly.
Torrington stopped walking. 'Don't you feel uncomfortable about this sometimes? Like we're luring kids to their deaths? It's one thing for the ones we'll draft into the army, but the younger ones ...'
Nakamura touched his eye patch. 'Victory requires sacrifice,' he said, sounding very much like the old priest, Calchas. 'I learned that from my mother, Nemesis. Besides, we lost a valuable meat source when Percy Jackson took out that rancher in Texas.'
'Still ...'
'Would you rather Camp Half-Blood took them in and brainwashed them into siding with Olympus?'
The two demigods walked on. I gripped the bars of the cage, staring at the pitiful children inside. So Kronos had been gathering demigods to his cause not just by temptation, but trickery. A wave of nausea hit my stomach. Wasn't it enough that he had a battalion of monsters?
Inside the left-side cage, one of the demigods stirred. He had a round, droopy sort of face, with sleepy eyes that made me think of cows (and thanks to her bovine majesty's little gifts, I'd had plenty of experience with cows over the past year). His heavy-lidded eyes creaked open and stared straight at me. Although he shouldn't have been able to see me in a dream, I got the distinct impression that he knew I was there.
'Help,' he mouthed.
I woke up shivering. The cabin was dark, but in the bunks around me, my siblings were tossing and turning in their sleep as though they were having bad dreams of their own. On my nightstand, my bronze dagger sat on top of the green diary I'd found yesterday. Its soft, comforting light made me think of the glow of Phoebe's skin in her dark cave.
I stared at the dagger for a while, tracing the shadow it cast on the worn cover of the book. Something Torrington had said replayed in my head, trying to strike a chord: Like we're luring kids to their deaths.
I set the dagger aside and picked up Halcyon Green's diary. There was a flashlight in my drawer. I flicked it on and started to read.
I guess I should start with Cath.
As far as I can remember, she was always different. Both of us were-we never really fit in at school, but that's the best thing about having a twin. Even if the other kids ostracised us, or called us names, we always had each other to rely on.
Mother said we were strange because of our father. We'd never met him as kids; Mother said he'd left before we were even born.
This wasn't an unusual story for a half-blood. We all grew up that way, never knowing our godly parents, seeing the strange things that the Mist obscured from mortals. But it seemed Halcyon's sister Cath was even more different than usual.
Cath didn't just see the weird things that were in front of us. She'd tell me about things that were going to happen, too, things that no one could possibly have known.
He went on to describe her predictions, ranging from the mundane (she guessed he'd fail his math test) to the terrifying (she'd apparently seen the bombing of Pearl Harbour ... which meant the Green siblings had to be really old). When they were twelve, the twins had a falling out when Cath saw their mother would die from cancer and refused to tell Halcyon in advance.
It took me a while to struggle through these paragraphs, all written in Halcyon's cramped, tiny handwriting. It was a sad story, with the twins losing their mom and having to move from their family house in Richmond to stay in a tiny apartment with their grandmother in D.C. But like the weird entries at the start of his diary, I had no idea how this stuff was relevant.
I would have skimmed Halcyon's description of his house, packed up for their move, except it kind of reminded me of the time my family had moved from Richmond to San Francisco. It seemed a painful coincidence that he'd gone through the same curse of temporariness on his life.
I could relate to the way Halcyon started at his closet, bare except for a metal safe he didn't know how to open. It had been there as far as he could recall. His sister came in and asked if he was still angry. He shook his head and asked if she could tell their future. She was unsure, because she'd never seen her own future, but he asked her to try anyway.
She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together as though in prayer.
Then the strangest thing happened. A green mist swirled around Cath. She stood and her eyes flew open. She had pale green eyes like mine, but now they were glowing like a cat's. Green smoke billowed from her mouth.
'A half-blood of the eldest gods,' she said, 'shall reach sixteen against all odds.'
I nearly dropped the diary. Those were the beginning lines of the Great Prophecy. I thought of the young girl I'd seen in Phoebe's scrying pool, the one who had been the Oracle. Although I still didn't know how this connected to Luke, the diary no longer seemed irrelevant.
Intrigued now, I tried to read faster.
Cath's voice came out in a rasp, strong and harsh. She sounded even more ancient than Gran. I didn't understand what she was saying at all. Half-blood? Gods? What did this have to do with either of us?
But Cath-or whatever was speaking through her-wasn't done.
'And see the world in endless sleep
The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap
A single choice shall end his days
Olympus to preserve or raze.'
Lightning arched outside the window, illuminating the statue of Robert E Lee that stood opposite our house. Thunder clapped overhead, so loud that I thought the window panes might shatter. The mist rushed out of Cath all at once and flooded the room with an eerie, mystical light. She collapsed to the ground.
'Cath!' Stunned, I was too late to catch her. I lifted her gently by the shoulders. She lay limply in my arms, but she was still breathing.
'Wow,' said a voice. 'That was some prophecy.'
I guessed before twelve-year-old Halcyon that the new stranger was his father, Apollo (but then, I had the benefit of years of experience with the gods). This part of the story wasn't all that unfamiliar; Apollo explained Halcyon's heritage, but also what was happening to his sister.
'You were born special, yourself and Catharine,' Apollo said. 'I warned your mother before you were born. I told her provisions needed to be made. I left her this house,' he waved his hands at the walls around us, 'so that you would have a safe place to grow up. A treasure lies within these walls, one that scares away the monsters of the outside world.'
I hoped Apollo might explain the prophecy as well, but he was either unwilling, or it was as much a mystery to him as it was to the rest of us.
'It is not always wise to peer purposefully into the looking glass of Fate, and even less so to speak of it freely,' Apollo warned.
'Why not? Why not, if I can tell what's going to happen? Wouldn't it be good to know?'
Apollo laughed, but it was a harsh, humourless sound. 'Because the future isn't a Roman road from A to Z. Do you know how many decisions, how many choices people make that go into producing a single outcome? What you see, what a prophecy says-that's just the end point. Even the choice to change the future may be the exact thing that causes that end to occur.'
He looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to nod in understanding. When I didn't, he sighed. 'I can see you're going to need help. Your sister-the Oracle will give her a modicum of protection now; the spirit will speak through her when approached, but otherwise, she will be relieved of the burden of Sight. But you, Hal-you will come into your own powers soon enough. You must learn to control them. To look only when it is unavoidable. And never to speak of what you see.'
'I don't have any powers.'
'You will,' Apollo promised. 'You were born with them. A gift and a curse. But listen. There's a place for kids like you and Cath.'
At this point, the story took a familiar pattern. A satyr arrived for the twins and brought them to Camp Half-Blood. I wanted to keep reading, curious about what happened next. Obviously something had happened such that the Oracle ... Cath-it was weird to think of her having a name, and a brother ... or just a life-had ended up the way she was now. But it had taken me several hours just to read this far, and my eyes were complaining from the effort. The sun was up, and most of my siblings were already moving around the cabin.
I marked my place carefully, put the diary away, and got ready for breakfast.
Chapter 4
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, Thalia Grace, Charles Beckendorf/Silena Beauregard, Clarisse La Rue, Michael Yew, OCs, multiple others
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Word Count: WIP, estimated 100K+ (33 chapters planned)
Summary: The war on Olympus is heating up, and Annabeth Chase is right in the thick of it. Bad enough that she's gearing up for battle while wrestling with the emotional turmoil over two of her dearest friends that is turning her heart inside out. She doesn't need more mysterious glimpses about the Great Prophecy and how it connects to her own history. But in order to understand what lies in her future, Annabeth has to dig into the past. What she finds will shape her choices … and change the course of the final battle. An alternate PoV retelling of The Last Olympian. Part 5 of the Daughter of Wisdom series.
In this chapter
Chapter Title: I Visit A Psychic
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Luke Castellan, Kronos, Ethan Nakamura, Alabaster Torrington, Halcyon Green, Apollo, characters from the Greek pantheon, OC
Word Count: 3,996
Chapter Summary: Dreams and stories give Annabeth a glimpse of ancient history.
Notes: Annabeth's dream comes indeed from one of the earlier stories of the Trojan War, the second gathering at Aulis, though of course the scene I presented here is entirely fictionalised. Those of you who know your Greek mythology may know what's coming in that particular tale.
Phoebe is one of the original Titans, and the origin of the name 'Phoebus Apollo', as she once owned the Oracles that Apollo took over. You can read more about her (or the canon version, anyway) in Percy Jackson's Greek Gods.
The references to Annabeth's previous meetings with Alabaster Torrington come from my previous story in this series, The Necklace of Harmonia.
Back to Fic Content Page
If I had a drachma for every nightmare I'd had as a demigod, I'd be richer than King Midas. Like monsters, the dreams were something I couldn't escape. Regular mortals have nightmares about turning up at school in their underwear. Demigods get those plus a bonus helping of death, doom, and evil Titans plotting to destroy the world.
As far as demigod dreams went, this one started off relatively tame. I found myself on a cliff overlooking the sea. The waters were glassy green, without a single ripple in sight. I could have been standing above an emerald mirror, stretching all the way out to the horizon. Docked at the harbour was a full fleet of Greek triremes, all outfitted for war. Each one could carry at least a hundred men, horses and weapons included.
In the valley below, an army gathered. Their shouts and catcalls echoed through the hills as they rough-housed. Minor scuffles broke out among different groups, from name-calling to little fights. It reminded me of an overcrowded school yard full of rowdy kids with too much pent-up energy.
Not far from me, two men stood at the edge of the cliff, one in Greek armour, the other in white priest's robes. The warrior had a bronze shield strapped to his broad, muscular back, and a ten-foot spear in one hand. Battle scars criss-crossed cruelly across his cheeks. Though he appeared to still be in his youth, he held himself with the bearing of a seasoned commander. He had handsome, chiselled features typical of ancient Greek kings. His eyes, slanted like a nymph's and pale as the quiet sea before us, held a touch of careless arrogance. They narrowed in consternation as he surveyed the army in the valley.
'The men are restless,' he said. 'Our ships have been held in port for weeks. All this effort, all the favours Agamemnon called in to recapture his brother's wife, and here we are at Aulis, waiting like fools.'
'It is uncommonly still,' agreed the priest. 'If the wind does not blow, your attack on Troy will never succeed. This gathering will have been for nought.'
'What is your prophecy, then, Calchas? You are the Oracle.'
Calchas lifted his eyes to the clear, cloudless skies. 'The gods withhold the wind. This can be the only explanation.'
'Are we cursed, then?'
'Perhaps. But there is always a way to lift the curse, to appease the gods and change our fate. It requires sacrifice.' He glanced behind him. There was a pure white altar at the top of the hill. In front of it lay a smooth slab of marble. Dark, reddish streaks ran down it. I tried not to think about what had caused them.
'An animal, then,' said the warrior. 'A bull, perhaps, dedicated to the master of the seas. Or to my great-grandsire, the lord of the gods himself.'
'No,' Calchas said grimly. 'If you wish this expedition to be a success, the sacrifice must be more substantial.'
In the ensuing pause, the red streaks on the marble slab seemed to glow. 'You mean a mortal, don't you?'
Calchas raised his eyebrows. 'Squeamish, Achilles?'
Achilles stabbed his spear into the earth, where it stood, quivering. 'I am a warrior. It is not bloodshed I oppose, but the unnecessary letting of blood. The sacrifice of an innocent is abhorrent.'
'Great victory requires great sacrifice.' Calchas closed his eyes and raised his palms, face up, as though receiving a divine message. 'The gods call for our great commander to sacrifice his most dear-the fairest creature of his kingdom.'
The blood drained from Achilles's face. 'You are talking about Agamemnon's daughter. My betrothed.'
'It is the only way.'
Achilles yanked his spear from the ground. 'You lie,' he said flatly.
Calchas didn't even blink. 'Am I the Oracle, or you?'
'Agamemnon will never agree to it.'
'We shall see.'
Achilles's grip tightened around his spear shaft. His expression was so dark, I thought he might run the priest through with his weapon any moment now. 'Am I to sacrifice my betrothed in order to reclaim another man's wife?'
'We did not start this war,' Calchas said. 'Remember, the Trojans stole Helen. Sometimes, to set things right, a life is required.'
At these words, the softest hiss of wind blew over the cliff, just enough to stir the smallest tufts of grass. It travelled through the valley, making the gathered army's heads lift in hope. But it was gone almost as soon as it was raised. And the sea stayed quietly, eerily, calm.
The scene shifted. The glassy sea rippled, becoming a scrying pool. The cliff and valley vanished, replaced by the softly glowing walls of a rock cave. The stone was embedded with gems, or maybe it was made up of precious rock, crystal or quartz or something. I thought at first the light was emanating from the rock, but then I realised the walls were only reflecting the glow that came from a woman sitting in the middle of the cave, looking into the scrying pool.
She was dressed like a gypsy, with numerous scarves wrapped around her head and gauzy shawls draped over her shoulders. A thin blanket covered her lap, embroidered with the moon and stars. Large golden hoops dangled from her ears, shimmering in the light that radiated off her skin.
'Ah, brother ...' Her voice was hoarse and croaky. She addressed a tall, muscular figure in the shadows. 'It has been a while.'
'Indeed, Phoebe.' The man stepped into the light, and I gasped. It was Luke, pale and sandy-haired, the old dragon-claw scar running down his right cheek. But his eyes ... before, they had been the clear blue of a sunny sky. Now, they were a molten gold that reflected the light from Phoebe's skin. And strapped to his back was a long shaft with a wicked, curved blade protruding from the business end-a reaper's scythe.
Phoebe stirred the waters of her scrying pool with one shining finger. 'I believe my husband Koios has already joined you,' she said. 'Surely you have no need of a retired psychic?'
'I could restore your Oracle to you.' His voice was like a blast of cold air. This wasn't the Luke I knew. It was Kronos, lord of the Titans and our most dangerous enemy, residing in the body of the boy who had been my oldest friend. 'We would wrest her from your insufferable grandson and return her power to you.'
Phoebe laughed. 'In her current state? I'd get better mileage with one of the other ancient Oracles.'
Kronos screwed up his face-Luke's face-in confusion. The look of it, the same expression I'd seen so many times on Luke himself, made me want to cry. 'What do you mean?'
'Oh, the Oracle of Delphi was cursed a long time ago,' Phoebe said, with an airy wave of her hand. 'Her spirit has been grounded for decades.'
'Then her prophecies ...' Kronos's voice dropped to a whisper. 'Do they not hold?'
'Of course they do. A prophecy is a prophecy. You should know that it is futile to run from one. As you found out yourself, when you tried to eat your children.' The hint of a smile played around Phoebe's mouth.
Kronos grimaced and put a hand to Luke's stomach. As the myth went, he'd swallowed his children, the original Olympians, while trying to escape a prophecy that indicated they'd overthrow him one day. It was so weird to see him making the same face Luke used to when he got indigestion.
'This is different,' Kronos said. 'The prophecy speaks of the destruction of Olympus. What have I got to lose?'
'Hmm.' Phoebe raised her hand over the scrying pool. The image of a girl rose above the surface. She was quite pretty, with short black hair cut in an old-fashioned bob. Green mist swirled around her as she spoke, reciting a set of lines I recognised immediately: A half-blood of the eldest gods ...
I'd only ever heard the Great Prophecy-or any prophecy, really-spouted by the zombie Oracle who lived in the attic above the Big House. It was surreal, watching this lovely young maiden issue the familiar lines. I'd never thought much about it before, but I guess the mummified Oracle must have been a living person once. Was this her, as she'd been before her death?
The image of the live Oracle sank back into the depths of the pool. Phoebe repeated the final line of the prophecy: 'Olympus to preserve or raze.' Her eyebrows arched towards her scarf-bedecked forehead, punctuating the line with clear importance.
'I have learned from my previous mistakes,' Kronos said. 'I do not seek to thwart the prophecy, but to control its direction. My pieces are in place.' He reached for the scythe and ran his fingers over its black blade. 'My blade will reap Percy Jackson's soul and destroy Olympus.'
'If you are so sure, why have you come to me?'
Kronos's hands faltered. He crossed his arms over Luke's chest. 'Because I have been thwarted before. Two years ago, I thought it was the right time ...'
He closed his eyes. I knew which incident he was recalling. Two years ago, Kronos had orchestrated Thalia's return to life and tried to convert her to his cause. As a daughter of Zeus on the verge of her sixteenth birthday, she could have fulfilled the prophecy. But she had chosen to join the Hunters of Artemis, forever immortalised at the age of fifteen, and taken herself handily out of Kronos's reach.
'I wish to be sure,' Kronos continued. 'You owned the Oracle before. If anyone could interpret this prophecy, it would be you.'
Phoebe sighed and twirled the end of her scarf around her fingers. 'This prophecy is like a curse. It gathers power over time. To understand it, you need to understand its history.'
'The history of a prophecy?' Kronos put on Luke's most sceptical expression.
'I sense ...' Phoebe leaned forward, as though catching a scent. 'The body you possess knows something.'
Kronos drew back. 'This body? It is but a host. A stepping stone to my ultimate goal.'
'Then you know all its secrets?'
Kronos's expression darkened. Luke's eyes turned inwards. My breath caught as I watched them flicker. Was it just a trick of the light, or did they actually shift from gold to blue for a moment?'
'There was ... something. But I can't retrieve the memory. It was ... the girl. It has to do with the girl.' His face settled back into Kronos's dark, angry expression.
Phoebe squinted into the pool. A new face appeared in it. At first I thought it was Kronos's reflection, but Luke's face in the pool was unscarred, full of the innocence of youth. I swallowed painfully.
Then two more figures appeared-Thalia and me. She knelt behind me, trying clumsily to braid my hair while I gave the Luke in the pool a gap-toothed grin. It was a scene from our time on the run, before we'd come to camp. The memory made my chest constrict.
Kronos slashed his scythe across the surface of the pool, scattering the images into disjointed ripples. 'The girl,' he hissed. 'He must have told the girl. Curse him and his wretched Achilles heel!'
'It was inevitable,' Phoebe said. 'A price must be paid to bridge the mortal soul.'
'Not for much longer. I am close to my goal.'
'Ah yes. The last mortal coil.' Phoebe cocked her head. 'Tread carefully, Lord Kronos. Some things, once done, are irreversible.'
Kronos grunted, but made no other acknowledgement of this mysterious advice. He turned on his heel and left the cave.
He emerged onto a thin ridge overlooking a mountain valley. In it, a massive army gathered, just like the Greek forces at Aulis. Only, this wasn't an army of men. They were monsters of all sorts and strengths: Scythian dracaenae with scaly trunk legs, slavering hellhounds with razor-sharp teeth and claws, giants that towered over the heads of their monster comrades. Last summer, we'd taken out most of the monsters Luke had recruited to fight for Kronos, but monsters never really died. They eventually regenerated from Tartarus. It looked like Kronos had managed to recoup his losses at last.
A demigod waited for Kronos outside the cave, dressed in army fatigues with a bronze sword strapped to his belt. An eye patch ran diagonally across his face. I knew this kid-Ethan Nakamura, a demigod we'd met last year, who had joined Kronos's army even after we'd rescued him from a gladiator death match. He greeted Kronos with a salute.
'Tell the army to move out,' Kronos said without preamble.
'North, sir?'
'No. We're going to Charleston. Make sure Torrington brings the new ... recruits.' His lip curled. 'We want to keep them in sight. I don't trust our hypnotic friend's work.'
'Yes-'
A blast of static cut off Nakamura's answer. My dream shifted again, but this transition was choppy, like when the Internet connection suddenly cuts out on a Netflix movie. Luke and Nakamura's images froze, then winked out of sight. I found myself in a narrow passage lined with steel bars, like a jail cell.
Nakamura appeared again, walking down the passage with another kid I recognised: Alabaster Torrington, a stringy, brown-haired demigod whom I'd met several times in the past year. He didn't look like much, but he was a formidable enemy. As a son of Hecate, he had the power to bend the Mist and magically teleport people and monsters across space.
'The magic is working,' Nakamura said. 'Maybe a little too well. It attracts even the children too young for the monsters to sense.'
Torrington stared at the bars to his right. With a jolt, I realised that they lined two massive cages. Nakamura and Torrington were walking between them. Inside were more demigods, all fast asleep. They appeared to be grouped by age. On the right, the cage held children who couldn't have been older than eight. There were maybe ten of them, curled up on the cage floor. One of them had her arm around a one-eyed teddy bear. Another was sucking his thumb as he slept. The cage on the left had one satyr and five demigods. They looked to be between the ages of twelve and sixteen-the age where most either got scouted for camp or devoured by monsters.
'They are too young to join the army.' Torrington waved his hand at the little children. 'We have no use for them.'
'They'll make snacks for the monsters,' Nakamura said grimly.
Torrington stopped walking. 'Don't you feel uncomfortable about this sometimes? Like we're luring kids to their deaths? It's one thing for the ones we'll draft into the army, but the younger ones ...'
Nakamura touched his eye patch. 'Victory requires sacrifice,' he said, sounding very much like the old priest, Calchas. 'I learned that from my mother, Nemesis. Besides, we lost a valuable meat source when Percy Jackson took out that rancher in Texas.'
'Still ...'
'Would you rather Camp Half-Blood took them in and brainwashed them into siding with Olympus?'
The two demigods walked on. I gripped the bars of the cage, staring at the pitiful children inside. So Kronos had been gathering demigods to his cause not just by temptation, but trickery. A wave of nausea hit my stomach. Wasn't it enough that he had a battalion of monsters?
Inside the left-side cage, one of the demigods stirred. He had a round, droopy sort of face, with sleepy eyes that made me think of cows (and thanks to her bovine majesty's little gifts, I'd had plenty of experience with cows over the past year). His heavy-lidded eyes creaked open and stared straight at me. Although he shouldn't have been able to see me in a dream, I got the distinct impression that he knew I was there.
'Help,' he mouthed.
I woke up shivering. The cabin was dark, but in the bunks around me, my siblings were tossing and turning in their sleep as though they were having bad dreams of their own. On my nightstand, my bronze dagger sat on top of the green diary I'd found yesterday. Its soft, comforting light made me think of the glow of Phoebe's skin in her dark cave.
I stared at the dagger for a while, tracing the shadow it cast on the worn cover of the book. Something Torrington had said replayed in my head, trying to strike a chord: Like we're luring kids to their deaths.
I set the dagger aside and picked up Halcyon Green's diary. There was a flashlight in my drawer. I flicked it on and started to read.
I guess I should start with Cath.
As far as I can remember, she was always different. Both of us were-we never really fit in at school, but that's the best thing about having a twin. Even if the other kids ostracised us, or called us names, we always had each other to rely on.
Mother said we were strange because of our father. We'd never met him as kids; Mother said he'd left before we were even born.
This wasn't an unusual story for a half-blood. We all grew up that way, never knowing our godly parents, seeing the strange things that the Mist obscured from mortals. But it seemed Halcyon's sister Cath was even more different than usual.
Cath didn't just see the weird things that were in front of us. She'd tell me about things that were going to happen, too, things that no one could possibly have known.
He went on to describe her predictions, ranging from the mundane (she guessed he'd fail his math test) to the terrifying (she'd apparently seen the bombing of Pearl Harbour ... which meant the Green siblings had to be really old). When they were twelve, the twins had a falling out when Cath saw their mother would die from cancer and refused to tell Halcyon in advance.
It took me a while to struggle through these paragraphs, all written in Halcyon's cramped, tiny handwriting. It was a sad story, with the twins losing their mom and having to move from their family house in Richmond to stay in a tiny apartment with their grandmother in D.C. But like the weird entries at the start of his diary, I had no idea how this stuff was relevant.
I would have skimmed Halcyon's description of his house, packed up for their move, except it kind of reminded me of the time my family had moved from Richmond to San Francisco. It seemed a painful coincidence that he'd gone through the same curse of temporariness on his life.
I could relate to the way Halcyon started at his closet, bare except for a metal safe he didn't know how to open. It had been there as far as he could recall. His sister came in and asked if he was still angry. He shook his head and asked if she could tell their future. She was unsure, because she'd never seen her own future, but he asked her to try anyway.
She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together as though in prayer.
Then the strangest thing happened. A green mist swirled around Cath. She stood and her eyes flew open. She had pale green eyes like mine, but now they were glowing like a cat's. Green smoke billowed from her mouth.
'A half-blood of the eldest gods,' she said, 'shall reach sixteen against all odds.'
I nearly dropped the diary. Those were the beginning lines of the Great Prophecy. I thought of the young girl I'd seen in Phoebe's scrying pool, the one who had been the Oracle. Although I still didn't know how this connected to Luke, the diary no longer seemed irrelevant.
Intrigued now, I tried to read faster.
Cath's voice came out in a rasp, strong and harsh. She sounded even more ancient than Gran. I didn't understand what she was saying at all. Half-blood? Gods? What did this have to do with either of us?
But Cath-or whatever was speaking through her-wasn't done.
'And see the world in endless sleep
The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap
A single choice shall end his days
Olympus to preserve or raze.'
Lightning arched outside the window, illuminating the statue of Robert E Lee that stood opposite our house. Thunder clapped overhead, so loud that I thought the window panes might shatter. The mist rushed out of Cath all at once and flooded the room with an eerie, mystical light. She collapsed to the ground.
'Cath!' Stunned, I was too late to catch her. I lifted her gently by the shoulders. She lay limply in my arms, but she was still breathing.
'Wow,' said a voice. 'That was some prophecy.'
I guessed before twelve-year-old Halcyon that the new stranger was his father, Apollo (but then, I had the benefit of years of experience with the gods). This part of the story wasn't all that unfamiliar; Apollo explained Halcyon's heritage, but also what was happening to his sister.
'You were born special, yourself and Catharine,' Apollo said. 'I warned your mother before you were born. I told her provisions needed to be made. I left her this house,' he waved his hands at the walls around us, 'so that you would have a safe place to grow up. A treasure lies within these walls, one that scares away the monsters of the outside world.'
I hoped Apollo might explain the prophecy as well, but he was either unwilling, or it was as much a mystery to him as it was to the rest of us.
'It is not always wise to peer purposefully into the looking glass of Fate, and even less so to speak of it freely,' Apollo warned.
'Why not? Why not, if I can tell what's going to happen? Wouldn't it be good to know?'
Apollo laughed, but it was a harsh, humourless sound. 'Because the future isn't a Roman road from A to Z. Do you know how many decisions, how many choices people make that go into producing a single outcome? What you see, what a prophecy says-that's just the end point. Even the choice to change the future may be the exact thing that causes that end to occur.'
He looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to nod in understanding. When I didn't, he sighed. 'I can see you're going to need help. Your sister-the Oracle will give her a modicum of protection now; the spirit will speak through her when approached, but otherwise, she will be relieved of the burden of Sight. But you, Hal-you will come into your own powers soon enough. You must learn to control them. To look only when it is unavoidable. And never to speak of what you see.'
'I don't have any powers.'
'You will,' Apollo promised. 'You were born with them. A gift and a curse. But listen. There's a place for kids like you and Cath.'
At this point, the story took a familiar pattern. A satyr arrived for the twins and brought them to Camp Half-Blood. I wanted to keep reading, curious about what happened next. Obviously something had happened such that the Oracle ... Cath-it was weird to think of her having a name, and a brother ... or just a life-had ended up the way she was now. But it had taken me several hours just to read this far, and my eyes were complaining from the effort. The sun was up, and most of my siblings were already moving around the cabin.
I marked my place carefully, put the diary away, and got ready for breakfast.
Chapter 4