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FIC: The Impossible Maze, Chpt 28
Title: The Impossible Maze (Daughter of Wisdom 4)
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, Tyson, Grover Underwood, Rachel Dare, Nico di Angelo, various others, Gen with developing Percy/Annabeth
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Summary: Annabeth Chase has finally gotten her chance to lead a quest, but the stakes have never been so high. With war on the horizon, she and her friends must navigate the Labyrinth to find its creator and convince him to help Camp Half-Blood. But the Labyrinth is more than just a physical maze-in its twist and turns, Annabeth must not only confront the Titan army’s monsters, but her own fears, hopes, and scariest of all, her developing feelings for her best friend. An alternate PoV retelling of The Battle of the Labyrinth.
In this chapter
Chapter Title: I Burn One Last Shroud
Rating: PG
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Grover Underwood, Tyson, Luke Castellan/Kronos, Ethan Nakamura, Hera, Athena, multiple character cameos
Word Count: 5,617
Chapter Summary: Annabeth finally accepts her prophecy and puts it behind her.
Notes: This chapter took more time to draft than 5 other ones, possibly because it needed a lot of careful set up as well as closure. I also had to think a lot about whether the events of The Bronze Dragon did indeed fit this timeline. My conclusion based on theme and interactions within BotL was that the short story did not sensibly occur within the months between the Labyrinth quest and the end of summer. Particularly, it did not fit well with Percy's description of he and Annabeth dancing around each other. I have thus elected to situate those events at another time point, although this ostensibly contradicts certain details of Beckendorf's age and his relationship with Silena (however, those don't actually add up with BotL and TLO in the first place). I don't imagine this is of the utmost importance or a deal-breaker for anyone reading this fic, but I thought I'd explain my decision anyway.
But yes … here we are at the end of yet another long project, and coming in to the very final DoW 'book'!
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The last threads of summer unravelled quickly. The Labyrinth had stolen June from me, and now the Fates seemed to yank July and August from under my feet as well. In the past, this part of summer had always been the best, with our quests complete and nothing to worry about except how I would win capture the flag. But this year, we stood on a precipice, teetering on the edge of an impending war.
Chiron was adamant that everything go back to normal. 'You will need it,' he assured us. 'This may be our last summer before …'
I didn't want to think about the end of that sentence. We had won the Battle of the Labyrinth, but it was too much to hope that the Titan army had been routed for good. They would return eventually, and this time … this time Kronos would be with them.
Luke.
Percy tried to catch my eye. I looked away.
On the fourth of July, the Hephaestus cabin prepared their usual fireworks display. Percy, Grover, Tyson, and I spread out a massive blanket on the beach to watch the brilliant pyrotechnics together. Grover talked about the projects he was setting up with the other satyrs. He would head off soon to lead a conservation march in Massachusetts.
'There's this company, see, Dare Enterprises.' He held up a glossy flyer with an embossed green logo, DE, stamped over a picture of a building development block. 'It wants to tear down the wildlife refuge and build a strip mall. But if we get enough protestors to march against them-'
'Wait, Dare Enterprises?' I said. The name rang a bell. 'Like …'
Percy shook his head at me, and immediately, I knew exactly why it sounded familiar.
'Like Rachel Dare?'
Tyson's jaw fell open. 'The pretty girl is destroying the forest?'
'No!' Percy said sharply. 'Her dad's a land developer, okay? She told me, after Pan-you know.'
'So she's rich.' It was finally starting to make sense, how she'd managed to snag us that fancy car on short notice. A land developer big enough to buy off a wildlife refuge and raise a strip mall over it. Styx, she had to be more than rich. She had to be loaded.
Something sour exploded in the pit of my stomach. All that stuff Rachel had said about her parents not caring, or the fundraising for art schools she'd been doing-was that just a lie? Not that it mattered. It wasn't like she was my friend or anything.
'It's not her fault,' Percy said defensively. My disillusionment immediately curdled into annoyance.
'You knew, and you didn't tell us.'
'Does it matter? She can't help what her dad does. It's like Chiron and how he can't help that his dad is Kronos.'
'Except Chiron stood up to Kronos! He fought him! And he just got his legs broken fighting with us last week, remember?'
'It's not the same. Kronos is evil-'
Grover gulped. 'Guys, can we stop saying the Lord of Time's name out loud?'
'Fine, Luke, then,' Percy snapped. 'Luke is evil. I notice you don't spend a lot of time attacking him.'
My skin turned to ice. 'Luke isn't Kronos.'
'Wake up, Annabeth. He gave himself to Kronos. And he made all those choices himself. Kronos didn't force him to do it.'
'Percy …' Grover whined.
'That's-that's not-' I thought of Luke, standing on my doorstep, pleading. He'll use me. None of it was as simple as Percy suggested.
'He didn't force Luke to steal the lightning bolt two years ago. He didn't force Luke to poison Thalia's tree. He didn't force Luke to trick you-'
'He did it to save my life!'
'And he didn't force Luke to give him his body either! When are you going to stop standing up for that jerk?'
'Maybe when you stop attacking him!'
Percy's eyes flashed coldly. 'In case you didn't realise, he's been trying to kill us for the last two years. And now he's got an actual Titan living in his body. Even if there was any good in him, it's gone now.'
My fist was flying before I even thought about it. But it wasn't Percy that my right hook connected with. Tyson had stepped between us. My hand slammed into his rock-solid arm. I heard the crack of my knuckles fracturing before I felt the sharp burst of pain.
'Sorry!' Tyson looked horrified. 'Annabeth, are you okay?'
I cradled my injured hand and gritted my teeth. 'I'm fine.'
'No, you're not.' Percy reached for me, but I pulled away. The fireworks were no longer popping. Every camper within a twenty-foot radius was staring at us.
'Oookay,' Grover said. 'Lets, um, break this up. Annabeth, let's go to the infirmary.'
I let Grover guide me away. As we left the beach, the other campers crowded around Percy, demanding to know why he'd said those things about Luke. By the end of the night, everyone would know what had happened on Mount Othrys.
My heart stung worse than my hand.
Clarisse jogged up next to us. 'Want me to pulverise him?' she offered.
I sighed and shook my head. 'Go back to Chris. I'm sorry we messed up the fireworks.'
'Are you kidding? Best fireworks ever!' She grinned and took off back to the beach.
Grover rolled his eyes. 'Annabeth, you know Percy's just worried about you, right?'
'Yeah, that's why he keeps making me want to knock his lights out.'
'He's …' Grover sighed and shook his head. 'It's not really my place to say. But it bothers him, the way you're so hung up on Luke.'
'I'm not-'
'I may not have an empathy link with you, but I'm a satyr. I can still sense emotions. I know you feel guilty. And I know you're scared that Percy-'
I glared at him. 'Butt out of my feelings, Goat Boy.'
Grover held up his hands. 'Fine. Just-promise me you'll talk to Percy.'
But I couldn't do it. When I saw him the next day, he didn't mention our altercation, and I was too relieved for the bit of normalcy in our interaction. Then someone came by and asked about Luke, and I couldn't look at Percy for the rest of the afternoon.
We went back and forth like this all summer-everything would seem fine, then someone would mention Kronos and a tight, sick knot would form in the pit of my stomach. Then we'd avoid each other for the rest of the day and I'd become so jittery, it felt like my insides would fly apart any second.
Each day I thought, Tomorrow I'll talk to him. Tomorrow I'll explain and fix this.
But time played that nasty trick where you start off with loads of it before a deadline, and then it creeps up on you and shoves it in your face. Before I knew it, we were sitting at the final campfire, giving out the beads for the summer. All the counsellors had unanimously voted on a maze, memorialising the Battle of the Labyrinth.
It was my eighth bead. Some of the campers, especially the new ones like Mitchell and Lacy, stared in awe when I strung it on. Eight years. No one else even came close. Lee, if he'd survived, would have gotten his sixth, and he was eighteen. Had been eighteen.
My camp necklace was getting crowded, but I couldn't imagine removing anything. What would I possibly pick? Not this year's. Not my first, with Thalia's pine tree on it. Not the black bead with the sea-green trident-the bead of my first quest. Percy's bead.
Luke's last bead. I wondered if he still kept his necklace. Probably not. He'd forsworn everything about camp.
I dreamt of him that night. He stood in front of the black marble ruins at the top of Mount Othrys, the very palace that Nico had brought down when we ran from Luke into the Labyrinth.Strapped across his back, forming a rigid line over his shoulder blades, was the long, wicked scythe with the curved, double-edged blade.
Monsters-telkhines, dracaenae, giants-weaved among the broken stone, slowly piecing them back together. There weren't many of them, maybe only a few dozen out of the hundreds that had attacked us at Zeus's Fist. I hoped this was indeed all that was left of the Titan army after Daedalus had collapsed the Labyrinth on them.
'Sir!' A boy ran up the path, panting as if he'd sprinted all the way from the base of the mountain. It was Ethan Nakamura, the half-blood with the eye patch. He paused at the side of a stone basin, struggling to catch his breath.
'Nakamura.' Luke's voice sent shivers down my spine. It wasn't Kronos's voice exactly; it still sounded human, but it had an emotionless quality to it that scared me almost as much as if Kronos had spoken through Luke.
Ethan straightened and saluted. He wasn't in uniform, or even Greek armour, but he still gave off the distinct aura of a soldier reporting for duty. 'Sir, the ship has arrived. We have retrieved the other half-bloods.'
'Good,' Luke said, still with his cold, dead voice. 'How many?'
Ethan gulped.
'How many?'
'Twenty.' Ethan shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
Luke turned back to the ruined palace. 'Twenty, of a strike force of fifty. A poor showing, indeed.'
'I-I am sorry, Master,' Ethan stammered. 'We will recruit more demigods to your-to our cause.'
'Yes. The country is full of jaded half-bloods, forsaken by the godly parents who abandoned them. Just like …' He looked down, contemplating his own body. 'We will find them. We will promise them their revenge. When the palace is rebuilt, we will gather our army here. My brothers will join us. Next summer, we will march. And you, Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, will bring your brethren's revenge to Olympus.'
Ethan bowed low. 'Thank you, Master.'
'And this time …' Luke's face hardened. It was the mirror image to Percy's animosity whenever he talked about Luke. But there was something in the way Luke's eyes narrowed that chilled me to the bone. Even at his angriest, Percy couldn't even come close to this level of hatred.
I wasn't sure if it scared me more to think of this as Kronos taking over Luke, or the alternative: that Luke himself was capable of looking this cruel.
'This time, I will deal with the cursed son of Poseidon myself.' Luke ran a finger over the edge of his scythe, which shouldn't have been possible. Kronos's weapon was rumoured to have the power to separate a mortal soul from its body. Touching it should have torn him apart.
Unless his soul was already lost.
'Sir,' Ethan said tentatively, 'he wasn't alone in the Labyrinth. Percy Jackson, I mean. There was a girl from the camp, too. Annabeth Chase.'
Luke stared into the stone basin. It was ringed with the same black marble as the ruined palace. A pool of liquid the colour of Nico's Stygian blade swirled in it, so dark that I couldn't tell how deep the basin went. I'd seen this pool before. Luke had raised it last winter in this very spot, when he'd begged Thalia to summon the Ophiotaurus and sacrifice its entrails. It would have given them the power to bring down Olympus on the spot.
'Please,' he'd pleaded. 'He'll use the other way if you don't.'
Even then, he must have known. Luke had known what Kronos had in mind. When Thalia had failed him, he'd tried to run away, to come to me for help. And I'd refused.
Because of that decision, I'd lost-
My mind shut down the thought as quickly as it threatened to emerge.
There was a hazy image in the pool, but this time it wasn't the Ophiotaurus. There were two figures, the shadowy forms of two girls. It was the same vision I'd had at the start of summer, when I'd flown into the storms of Mount Tam: Thalia and I, standing at the edge of a cliff. This time, I saw it from the reverse perspective, looking up the cliff face. Luke's perspective, watching us reach for him, to pull him back to safety.
Only we hadn't. Both of us had let him down.
Luke's face was inscrutable. He lost the hard expression; his eyes wavered. His hand came up across his chest, clutching at his shoulder as if it pained him. I waited to see the flash of blue in his eyes, like when Rachel had hit him in the head. I thought for sure he would break through.
But his mouth curled at the edges, cruel as the scythe over his shoulder, and he said, 'We will crush the girl as well. Every ally of the gods, every stone of Olympus. We will bring it down-brick by brick.'
The water in the basin swirled, washing away the images in it so thoroughly, they might have never been there. Luke looked straight at me with eyes like molten gold. I saw him, and I didn't. There was nothing of him left.
I woke with my cheeks wet. For the rest of the night, I lay awake with my bronze dagger in my hands. Its harsh, golden glow sickened me, yet I was unable to tear my eyes from it.
In the morning, I switched on my cell phone and found a voice message alert blinking at me on the screen. It was from my dad. He had bad news and good news: San Francisco had been put under an aviation ban until the storms cleared, so he couldn't fly out to collect me just yet. But for the school year, Janet had enrolled me in a good private school just outside the city. I guess she still hoped I could excel academically. Frankly, I couldn't think of anything less important just now.
When I went to tell Chiron about my change in plans, I found Percy there, making arrangements for Mrs O'Leary. His bags were already packed, sitting on the front steps.
'Thanks, Chiron-Tyson and I will visit in turns over the year,' he said.
'I'll look after her this week,' I offered.
They both looked up, surprised. 'Annabeth, my dear, aren't you going home?' Chiron asked.
I explained about the aviation ban. 'It's a good thing. I can help you until your legs are okay again. And there's lots of stuff in Daedalus's laptop I wanted to run by you.' I'd been cataloguing it all summer. Among other things, he'd come up with twenty-three defensive plans for various cities across the country.
Chiron nodded. 'I'd better go leave a note for the cleaning harpies, then.'
He wheeled off, leaving Percy and me alone on the porch.
'So … you're not riding into Manhattan after all.' Disappointment was evident in Percy's tone. It made my insides go into their jittery, ready-to-fly-apart dance again.
'I'll walk you to the hill.' The conversation I'd been putting off all summer-tomorrow I'll talk to him-pounded inside my throat. This was the last tomorrow, at least for a year.
We started off discussing the school year as we climbed to the top of Half-Blood Hill. It should have been a neutral topic, only nothing between us seemed like it would ever be neutral again. Percy was going to the school he'd blown up last summer after all. Chiron had manipulated the Mist to work in favour of his innocence.
'… and I guess Rachel must have helped.'
My stomach gave a sharp twist. I'd forgotten Rachel Dare went to that school, too. Everything I was working myself up to say to Percy went flying out of my head.
'What about you?' Percy asked.
'What?'
A shadow of annoyance passed over his face. 'School. You're going back to San Francisco?'
'Oh. Yeah.' I told him about the private school Janet had found for me. I was feeling less enthusiastic about it by the second. I'd be all the way across the country while Percy went to school with Rachel. And the thought of spending the school year in the shadow of Mount Othrys made my stomach churn, too.
We reached the top of the hill. Down on the farm road, Argus was loading bags into the camp van.
'Well, call me, okay?' Percy said.
'Sure,' I said. My mind was still on Mount Othrys and the black palace being reconstructed at its peak. 'I'll keep my eyes open for …'
He hung in the space between us, bending time so that every second dragged. I could almost sense our recurrent fight about to start up again.
I felt like crying. Last year, everything had been so simple. We'd laughed and joked and fought over stupid things that didn't matter. When had it all become so ridiculously complicated?
'Annabeth, Percy said slowly, 'what was the rest of the prophecy?'
Of all the things he had to ask me about. I'd avoided thinking about my prophecy since we'd left Mount Othrys, but it wasn't exactly something I could forget. I could almost see it curling like smoke over the tree line of the woods-the final line, the one I'd never told the others.
'You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze.' Somehow, he'd memorised the lines perfectly. He rattled off the others, ticking each one off with his interpretation. The dead, the traitor, the lost one-Bianca, Ethan, and Pan. The ghost king, Nico. And Daedalus, the child of Athena.
'Percy-' Fear and panic clawed at my throat. I couldn't do this. I couldn't say it and make it real.
Except it was. It had happened just as the prophecy had foretold.
Percy kept pushing. 'What was the last-?'
'And lose a love to worse than death,' I blurted out. It was out there now, a bomb that had detonated a month ago, but whose shock was only now rippling through me. 'That was the last line, Percy. Are you happy now?'
Percy had been right all along. Luke was gone. I'd lost him.
'Oh.' Percy's tone was flat. It reminded me of Luke's emotionless voice in my dream. I saw again the horrible hatred in Luke's face when he'd spoken of Percy. If I looked up and saw that anger mirrored in Percy's eyes … I would break. I knew I would.
'So Luke-' His voice cracked.
I risked a glance at his face. He wasn't angry, or even bitter. The expression he wore … it made me think of standing at his funeral pyre in June, believing he was the one I'd lost.
'Percy …' I moistened my lips. 'I didn't know who the prophecy was talking about. I-I didn't know if …' I had no words for how I'd felt in the heart of Mount St Helens, when I'd kissed him and lost him so soon after.
That stupid prophecy. And lose a love-what was that even supposed to mean? With Luke … Luke and me … what was Luke to me, anyway? I struggled for words. 'For years, he was the only one who really cared about me. I thought …'
I thought he was my family. I thought he'd always look after me.
Was that love?
Maybe it was. But as I thought of Luke's new hard eyes and cold voice, I was keenly aware that Luke had already been gone for a while. For the last two years, the person who'd been there for me was the one standing before me now, looking like I'd just stabbed him in the gut.
'I'm sorry,' I started to say, but before I could form the words, the air between us parted in a golden shimmer. Out of nowhere stepped a glowing goddess in a snow-white dress. She was even brighter than she had been in the Labyrinth, as if she had recharged her own internal light source.
'You have nothing to apologise for,' she said blithely.
'Hera.' My hands clenched into fists at my sides. The last time I'd seen her, she'd convinced me that my prophecy referred to Percy. She'd let me believe he was dead.
'You found the answer, as I knew you would.' Hera's smile was as bright as her being, and just as fake. 'Your quest was a success.'
'A success?' Exactly what was Hera judging it by? After all the losses we'd sustained-Pan, Daedalus … Luke. 'How is that-'
Hera clucked impatiently, like I was being a silly girl. 'Our family is safe. Those others are better gone, my dear.'
I dug my nails sharply into the skin of my palm. The callousness of her words contrasted sharply with her next ones: 'I am proud of you.' They were as empty as an echoing wind.
'You're the one who paid Geryon to let us through the ranch, weren't you?' Percy accused.
Hera acknowledged it casually. It was obviously no big deal to her. As if the favours she bestowed on us were the only things that mattered, and if she'd passed over other demigods and let them perish in the meantime, who cared? They didn't belong in her perfect little world.
Percy made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. 'Hephaestus was right. You only care about your perfect family, not real people.'
'Watch yourself, son of Poseidon,' Hera snapped. 'I guided you more than you know in the maze.' She listed all the times she'd intervened, so many more than I could have guessed. She'd been interfering in my quest all along … maybe even before it had officially begun. That enormous stash of money that Argus had given me at the start of summer, that had sped Percy and me back to camp after his orientation fiasco. Hera had told me Percy had the answer to navigate the maze. Could she have orchestrated Percy and Rachel's meeting?
I should have known better than to accept her offer. Gifts are meant to come at a price. It had been Hera herself who'd said it, the very first time I'd met her on Olympus. Of course she wouldn't have given me a wish for free.
'Annabeth, my dear.' Hera's voice turned syrupy sweet. 'Surely you see how I've helped. I would welcome a sacrifice for my efforts.'
My mouth was full of bile. Hera made out like she'd been helping us, when really, she'd marched us through the maze like her personal chess pieces. She'd toyed with my feelings and wrung out my heart repeatedly. And all for what? To stall the Titans? To keep their attention off Olympus? How much of the fall-out of my quest was she responsible for?
I pressed my lips together. A few years ago, I might have played it safe, stayed respectful. Maybe it was Percy's usual defiance rubbing off on me, but I was in no mood to play nice now. And Percy was giving me an odd look, somewhere between awe and respect. It bolstered my courage.
'Percy is right,' I said tightly. Our family is safe, she'd said. She wanted to talk about who belonged in her family? Well, I sure as Hades didn't want her in mine. 'You're the one who doesn't belong, Queen Hera.'
Her eyes glowed with anger, but I forged ahead. I wasn't going to be her pawn again. 'So next time, thanks … but no thanks.'
And then I did what was either the bravest or the stupidest thing possible. I turned my back on the queen of heaven.
The air trembled behind me. 'You will regret this insult, Annabeth,' Hera warned. 'You will regret this very much.'
I waited for a bolt to strike me down, or for my body to incinerate, but all that happened was a blast of heat that radiated from behind my back. It dissipated as suddenly as it had burst out. When I turned around, Hera was gone.
I looked at Percy, who seemed shell-shocked. He probably expected me to be turned into an Annabeth-shaped pile of ashes, too. The anger that had buoyed me up against Hera fizzled out. I tried to recollect my thoughts, to return to what I'd wanted to tell him before, but Hera had thrown me off completely.
'I'm sorry. I should get back. I-I'll keep in touch.'
Percy caught my arm. 'Listen, Annabeth-'
My heart leapt. We stared at each other. I felt like I was back on this same hill eight years ago, watching Thalia die. I wanted Percy to step into the hole in my heart and promise me I still had someone left. I wanted him to do what Luke had.
But the moment vanished into a loud honk from the road. Tyson stuck his head out of the camp van and beckoned for Percy to hurry.
'You'd better get going,' I said, my throat tight. 'Take care, Seaweed Brain.'
And I turned away before he could see my tears fall. All the way back to the cabins, I didn't dare look back. But I hoped with all my heart that he would call after me.
He didn't. When I finally turned around, the only one left on the hill was Peleus, lounging in the shadow of the pine tree.
I entered my cabin with a heavy heart. To my surprise, it wasn't empty. Someone was sitting at the desk in the back, in front of my laptop. Someone with long, dark hair in a neat braid down her back, and a stiff, regal posture.
'Mom?'
She was dressed casually, as she had been at the start of summer-white blouse and grey slacks, brown loafers. She turned and stood when I addressed her.
'He was always full of ideas,' she said, waving her hand at Daedalus's laptop. 'A pity his pride got the better of him several times. I had to punish him quite severely one time when it got out of hand.'
'I saw,' I said faintly, remembering the brand on Daedalus's shoulder.
'But he did the right thing in the end. You convinced him of that.'
'It was too late. He'd already given Luke the string. We couldn't stop the invasion. Luke-'
'Made some terrible choices.'
'I didn't want to believe Percy when he said Luke was gone. I didn't want my prophecy to mean …'
Athena's eyes were sympathetic. 'You did not want to admit you had been wrong about your hero. It is not easy when our idols turn out to have clay feet. In truth, it is often worse to lose the idea of them than to lose them to death.'
My skin tingled. 'Then my prophecy …'
'Tell me, Annabeth, what did you and your friends find in the Labyrinth?'
'I-' We had set out with a single goal in mind-to find Daedalus-but along the way, we'd found so many things, all of them unexpected. All of them painful. Nico had found Bianca, only to say goodbye. Tyson had found Briares, who had run away. Grover had found Pan, but had to let him go. Percy had found an incredible power within him, and almost destroyed himself with it. I had found Daedalus … only to discover he wasn't the saviour I needed.
And we had found Luke …
'The truth,' I said hoarsely. 'We all found the truth.'
'Yes. The truth … it is a delicate thing, but it is necessary to face it in order to gain wisdom. Can you accept the truth about Luke as well?'
I knew she didn't just mean what I had seen on Mount Othrys. My fingers played across the beads on my necklace, cataloguing each one. They marked eight years at camp, but also the eight years I'd known Luke. The year he'd poisoned Thalia's tree. The year he'd failed his quest. The year he'd found me.
'Do you know why I guided you to Luke and Thalia, Annabeth?'
'Because I needed help.'
'Yes, but that wasn't the only reason. Remember the Cyclops's mansion in Brooklyn. You were the one who saw clearly through the monster's wiles.'
'I-' She was right, of course, but my memory of the fight felt so different. I remembered Thalia breaking free of her bonds and attacking with all her thunderous fury. I remembered Luke taking my hand, not letting go until we were miles away from the mansion. I remembered how terrified I'd been, alone in the dark.
But I'd also taken my dagger, my new gift from Luke, and plunged it into the Cyclops's foot.
'Luke was never your hero, child. You were always your own. And I didn't lead you to them just to save you.'
'You sent me to save them,' I whispered.
'Do you understand?'
'I-I think I do.'
'Good.' She slid her hand into the pocket of her slacks. 'One more thing.' She brought out a silver key hanging on a thin chain and looped it around my neck, where it settled next to my camp necklace. 'For your fifteenth birthday. I am sorry I did not return in time for it.'
I held it out in front of me to get a better look. It was a skeleton key, the kind that might fit into an old-fashioned lever lock. The ring at its bow was shaped like an owl. 'What is it for?'
'Keys unlock many things,' Athena said. 'Doors, codes, secrets … I am afraid that this one will only work once. Use it well.'
'But-how will I know when?'
'When the right time comes, you will know.' The contours of her form flickered. She touched the crown of my head, a benediction. 'Remember, my daughter, you are your own hero. Believe in yourself.'
The next moment, she was gone, leaving only a light breeze ruffling through my hair.
I sat there for a while, staring at Daedalus's laptop. Then I laid my dagger on the desk. Its bronze glow complemented the luminescence of the blue Delta. A real, monster-slaying weapon for the bravest and quickest of fighters. From the moment Luke had laid it in my hands with the promise of an enduring family, I'd worshipped him.
He'd been my hero when we travelled the East Coast, running from monsters. When he carried me away from Thalia into the safety of camp, cursing the gods with every step. Even when he returned from his quest, bitter and angry from failure, I'd closed my eyes to his distress. I'd wanted to believe in the dashing hero who had promised to always take care of me.
Luke was never your hero.
After a while, I got up and went to the art and crafts cabin. I sat at the loom and started to weave. Some external force took control of my fingers, picking the colours, the pattern. When I was done, the shroud was a braided blue, green, and grey, the colour of three prophetic threads I had once seen entwined. At the centre, I'd embroidered my bronze dagger.
I took it to the amphitheatre where we'd burnt the other funeral shrouds a month ago. The coal pit was still warm from yesterday's campfire. I stoked it up and fed the shroud to it slowly.
A man with two faces was silhouetted in the flames: Janus's outline, but with Luke's faces. The left was handsome, confident, a perfect hero. The right was scarred and bitter, contorted with anger and marred by hatred.
Neither was real.
I'd never find the left Luke, the one I'd adored, because he didn't actually exist. The right one was a distortion of a man who wasn't perfect, but wasn't evil to the core either.
The real Luke lay somewhere in between. And if there was a chance that he could still turn back, as Daedalus had … if there was a chance that his soul could still be redeemed, maybe I could find him. But to do that, I first had to accept that the hero of my childhood had never really existed. That all those times I'd looked up to him, I hadn't understood who he was. I had to see him-really see him, and not my ideal of him.
And lose a love … to worse than death.
In the end, the truth I'd avoided all summer didn't hurt as much as I'd feared it would.
The last remnants of my tricolour shroud curled into smoke, rising towards the sky. And then it was gone, fading into the bright afternoon sun. It took with it the weight that had been pressing down on me all summer, leaving me with a sense of calm.
I knew the battles were only just beginning. Kronos had promised to renew his attack next summer. Pan had laid upon me a great charge. Hera and Janus had both promised me a crucial choice in my future. I thought of forks and crossroads and side tunnels in an impossible maze. Of a desperate plea on my front step in San Francisco. Of an adrenaline-fuelled kiss and a locked door in the heart of a volcano.
I saw once again Janus's nightmare: the blades that hung over Percy and Luke, a choice between one or the other. I gripped my dagger tightly. It no longer felt like a curse, but a talisman.
You are your own hero.
Next time, when the choice came round, I'd find a way to save them both.
THE END
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, Tyson, Grover Underwood, Rachel Dare, Nico di Angelo, various others, Gen with developing Percy/Annabeth
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Summary: Annabeth Chase has finally gotten her chance to lead a quest, but the stakes have never been so high. With war on the horizon, she and her friends must navigate the Labyrinth to find its creator and convince him to help Camp Half-Blood. But the Labyrinth is more than just a physical maze-in its twist and turns, Annabeth must not only confront the Titan army’s monsters, but her own fears, hopes, and scariest of all, her developing feelings for her best friend. An alternate PoV retelling of The Battle of the Labyrinth.
In this chapter
Chapter Title: I Burn One Last Shroud
Rating: PG
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Grover Underwood, Tyson, Luke Castellan/Kronos, Ethan Nakamura, Hera, Athena, multiple character cameos
Word Count: 5,617
Chapter Summary: Annabeth finally accepts her prophecy and puts it behind her.
Notes: This chapter took more time to draft than 5 other ones, possibly because it needed a lot of careful set up as well as closure. I also had to think a lot about whether the events of The Bronze Dragon did indeed fit this timeline. My conclusion based on theme and interactions within BotL was that the short story did not sensibly occur within the months between the Labyrinth quest and the end of summer. Particularly, it did not fit well with Percy's description of he and Annabeth dancing around each other. I have thus elected to situate those events at another time point, although this ostensibly contradicts certain details of Beckendorf's age and his relationship with Silena (however, those don't actually add up with BotL and TLO in the first place). I don't imagine this is of the utmost importance or a deal-breaker for anyone reading this fic, but I thought I'd explain my decision anyway.
But yes … here we are at the end of yet another long project, and coming in to the very final DoW 'book'!
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The last threads of summer unravelled quickly. The Labyrinth had stolen June from me, and now the Fates seemed to yank July and August from under my feet as well. In the past, this part of summer had always been the best, with our quests complete and nothing to worry about except how I would win capture the flag. But this year, we stood on a precipice, teetering on the edge of an impending war.
Chiron was adamant that everything go back to normal. 'You will need it,' he assured us. 'This may be our last summer before …'
I didn't want to think about the end of that sentence. We had won the Battle of the Labyrinth, but it was too much to hope that the Titan army had been routed for good. They would return eventually, and this time … this time Kronos would be with them.
Luke.
Percy tried to catch my eye. I looked away.
On the fourth of July, the Hephaestus cabin prepared their usual fireworks display. Percy, Grover, Tyson, and I spread out a massive blanket on the beach to watch the brilliant pyrotechnics together. Grover talked about the projects he was setting up with the other satyrs. He would head off soon to lead a conservation march in Massachusetts.
'There's this company, see, Dare Enterprises.' He held up a glossy flyer with an embossed green logo, DE, stamped over a picture of a building development block. 'It wants to tear down the wildlife refuge and build a strip mall. But if we get enough protestors to march against them-'
'Wait, Dare Enterprises?' I said. The name rang a bell. 'Like …'
Percy shook his head at me, and immediately, I knew exactly why it sounded familiar.
'Like Rachel Dare?'
Tyson's jaw fell open. 'The pretty girl is destroying the forest?'
'No!' Percy said sharply. 'Her dad's a land developer, okay? She told me, after Pan-you know.'
'So she's rich.' It was finally starting to make sense, how she'd managed to snag us that fancy car on short notice. A land developer big enough to buy off a wildlife refuge and raise a strip mall over it. Styx, she had to be more than rich. She had to be loaded.
Something sour exploded in the pit of my stomach. All that stuff Rachel had said about her parents not caring, or the fundraising for art schools she'd been doing-was that just a lie? Not that it mattered. It wasn't like she was my friend or anything.
'It's not her fault,' Percy said defensively. My disillusionment immediately curdled into annoyance.
'You knew, and you didn't tell us.'
'Does it matter? She can't help what her dad does. It's like Chiron and how he can't help that his dad is Kronos.'
'Except Chiron stood up to Kronos! He fought him! And he just got his legs broken fighting with us last week, remember?'
'It's not the same. Kronos is evil-'
Grover gulped. 'Guys, can we stop saying the Lord of Time's name out loud?'
'Fine, Luke, then,' Percy snapped. 'Luke is evil. I notice you don't spend a lot of time attacking him.'
My skin turned to ice. 'Luke isn't Kronos.'
'Wake up, Annabeth. He gave himself to Kronos. And he made all those choices himself. Kronos didn't force him to do it.'
'Percy …' Grover whined.
'That's-that's not-' I thought of Luke, standing on my doorstep, pleading. He'll use me. None of it was as simple as Percy suggested.
'He didn't force Luke to steal the lightning bolt two years ago. He didn't force Luke to poison Thalia's tree. He didn't force Luke to trick you-'
'He did it to save my life!'
'And he didn't force Luke to give him his body either! When are you going to stop standing up for that jerk?'
'Maybe when you stop attacking him!'
Percy's eyes flashed coldly. 'In case you didn't realise, he's been trying to kill us for the last two years. And now he's got an actual Titan living in his body. Even if there was any good in him, it's gone now.'
My fist was flying before I even thought about it. But it wasn't Percy that my right hook connected with. Tyson had stepped between us. My hand slammed into his rock-solid arm. I heard the crack of my knuckles fracturing before I felt the sharp burst of pain.
'Sorry!' Tyson looked horrified. 'Annabeth, are you okay?'
I cradled my injured hand and gritted my teeth. 'I'm fine.'
'No, you're not.' Percy reached for me, but I pulled away. The fireworks were no longer popping. Every camper within a twenty-foot radius was staring at us.
'Oookay,' Grover said. 'Lets, um, break this up. Annabeth, let's go to the infirmary.'
I let Grover guide me away. As we left the beach, the other campers crowded around Percy, demanding to know why he'd said those things about Luke. By the end of the night, everyone would know what had happened on Mount Othrys.
My heart stung worse than my hand.
Clarisse jogged up next to us. 'Want me to pulverise him?' she offered.
I sighed and shook my head. 'Go back to Chris. I'm sorry we messed up the fireworks.'
'Are you kidding? Best fireworks ever!' She grinned and took off back to the beach.
Grover rolled his eyes. 'Annabeth, you know Percy's just worried about you, right?'
'Yeah, that's why he keeps making me want to knock his lights out.'
'He's …' Grover sighed and shook his head. 'It's not really my place to say. But it bothers him, the way you're so hung up on Luke.'
'I'm not-'
'I may not have an empathy link with you, but I'm a satyr. I can still sense emotions. I know you feel guilty. And I know you're scared that Percy-'
I glared at him. 'Butt out of my feelings, Goat Boy.'
Grover held up his hands. 'Fine. Just-promise me you'll talk to Percy.'
But I couldn't do it. When I saw him the next day, he didn't mention our altercation, and I was too relieved for the bit of normalcy in our interaction. Then someone came by and asked about Luke, and I couldn't look at Percy for the rest of the afternoon.
We went back and forth like this all summer-everything would seem fine, then someone would mention Kronos and a tight, sick knot would form in the pit of my stomach. Then we'd avoid each other for the rest of the day and I'd become so jittery, it felt like my insides would fly apart any second.
Each day I thought, Tomorrow I'll talk to him. Tomorrow I'll explain and fix this.
But time played that nasty trick where you start off with loads of it before a deadline, and then it creeps up on you and shoves it in your face. Before I knew it, we were sitting at the final campfire, giving out the beads for the summer. All the counsellors had unanimously voted on a maze, memorialising the Battle of the Labyrinth.
It was my eighth bead. Some of the campers, especially the new ones like Mitchell and Lacy, stared in awe when I strung it on. Eight years. No one else even came close. Lee, if he'd survived, would have gotten his sixth, and he was eighteen. Had been eighteen.
My camp necklace was getting crowded, but I couldn't imagine removing anything. What would I possibly pick? Not this year's. Not my first, with Thalia's pine tree on it. Not the black bead with the sea-green trident-the bead of my first quest. Percy's bead.
Luke's last bead. I wondered if he still kept his necklace. Probably not. He'd forsworn everything about camp.
I dreamt of him that night. He stood in front of the black marble ruins at the top of Mount Othrys, the very palace that Nico had brought down when we ran from Luke into the Labyrinth.Strapped across his back, forming a rigid line over his shoulder blades, was the long, wicked scythe with the curved, double-edged blade.
Monsters-telkhines, dracaenae, giants-weaved among the broken stone, slowly piecing them back together. There weren't many of them, maybe only a few dozen out of the hundreds that had attacked us at Zeus's Fist. I hoped this was indeed all that was left of the Titan army after Daedalus had collapsed the Labyrinth on them.
'Sir!' A boy ran up the path, panting as if he'd sprinted all the way from the base of the mountain. It was Ethan Nakamura, the half-blood with the eye patch. He paused at the side of a stone basin, struggling to catch his breath.
'Nakamura.' Luke's voice sent shivers down my spine. It wasn't Kronos's voice exactly; it still sounded human, but it had an emotionless quality to it that scared me almost as much as if Kronos had spoken through Luke.
Ethan straightened and saluted. He wasn't in uniform, or even Greek armour, but he still gave off the distinct aura of a soldier reporting for duty. 'Sir, the ship has arrived. We have retrieved the other half-bloods.'
'Good,' Luke said, still with his cold, dead voice. 'How many?'
Ethan gulped.
'How many?'
'Twenty.' Ethan shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
Luke turned back to the ruined palace. 'Twenty, of a strike force of fifty. A poor showing, indeed.'
'I-I am sorry, Master,' Ethan stammered. 'We will recruit more demigods to your-to our cause.'
'Yes. The country is full of jaded half-bloods, forsaken by the godly parents who abandoned them. Just like …' He looked down, contemplating his own body. 'We will find them. We will promise them their revenge. When the palace is rebuilt, we will gather our army here. My brothers will join us. Next summer, we will march. And you, Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, will bring your brethren's revenge to Olympus.'
Ethan bowed low. 'Thank you, Master.'
'And this time …' Luke's face hardened. It was the mirror image to Percy's animosity whenever he talked about Luke. But there was something in the way Luke's eyes narrowed that chilled me to the bone. Even at his angriest, Percy couldn't even come close to this level of hatred.
I wasn't sure if it scared me more to think of this as Kronos taking over Luke, or the alternative: that Luke himself was capable of looking this cruel.
'This time, I will deal with the cursed son of Poseidon myself.' Luke ran a finger over the edge of his scythe, which shouldn't have been possible. Kronos's weapon was rumoured to have the power to separate a mortal soul from its body. Touching it should have torn him apart.
Unless his soul was already lost.
'Sir,' Ethan said tentatively, 'he wasn't alone in the Labyrinth. Percy Jackson, I mean. There was a girl from the camp, too. Annabeth Chase.'
Luke stared into the stone basin. It was ringed with the same black marble as the ruined palace. A pool of liquid the colour of Nico's Stygian blade swirled in it, so dark that I couldn't tell how deep the basin went. I'd seen this pool before. Luke had raised it last winter in this very spot, when he'd begged Thalia to summon the Ophiotaurus and sacrifice its entrails. It would have given them the power to bring down Olympus on the spot.
'Please,' he'd pleaded. 'He'll use the other way if you don't.'
Even then, he must have known. Luke had known what Kronos had in mind. When Thalia had failed him, he'd tried to run away, to come to me for help. And I'd refused.
Because of that decision, I'd lost-
My mind shut down the thought as quickly as it threatened to emerge.
There was a hazy image in the pool, but this time it wasn't the Ophiotaurus. There were two figures, the shadowy forms of two girls. It was the same vision I'd had at the start of summer, when I'd flown into the storms of Mount Tam: Thalia and I, standing at the edge of a cliff. This time, I saw it from the reverse perspective, looking up the cliff face. Luke's perspective, watching us reach for him, to pull him back to safety.
Only we hadn't. Both of us had let him down.
Luke's face was inscrutable. He lost the hard expression; his eyes wavered. His hand came up across his chest, clutching at his shoulder as if it pained him. I waited to see the flash of blue in his eyes, like when Rachel had hit him in the head. I thought for sure he would break through.
But his mouth curled at the edges, cruel as the scythe over his shoulder, and he said, 'We will crush the girl as well. Every ally of the gods, every stone of Olympus. We will bring it down-brick by brick.'
The water in the basin swirled, washing away the images in it so thoroughly, they might have never been there. Luke looked straight at me with eyes like molten gold. I saw him, and I didn't. There was nothing of him left.
I woke with my cheeks wet. For the rest of the night, I lay awake with my bronze dagger in my hands. Its harsh, golden glow sickened me, yet I was unable to tear my eyes from it.
In the morning, I switched on my cell phone and found a voice message alert blinking at me on the screen. It was from my dad. He had bad news and good news: San Francisco had been put under an aviation ban until the storms cleared, so he couldn't fly out to collect me just yet. But for the school year, Janet had enrolled me in a good private school just outside the city. I guess she still hoped I could excel academically. Frankly, I couldn't think of anything less important just now.
When I went to tell Chiron about my change in plans, I found Percy there, making arrangements for Mrs O'Leary. His bags were already packed, sitting on the front steps.
'Thanks, Chiron-Tyson and I will visit in turns over the year,' he said.
'I'll look after her this week,' I offered.
They both looked up, surprised. 'Annabeth, my dear, aren't you going home?' Chiron asked.
I explained about the aviation ban. 'It's a good thing. I can help you until your legs are okay again. And there's lots of stuff in Daedalus's laptop I wanted to run by you.' I'd been cataloguing it all summer. Among other things, he'd come up with twenty-three defensive plans for various cities across the country.
Chiron nodded. 'I'd better go leave a note for the cleaning harpies, then.'
He wheeled off, leaving Percy and me alone on the porch.
'So … you're not riding into Manhattan after all.' Disappointment was evident in Percy's tone. It made my insides go into their jittery, ready-to-fly-apart dance again.
'I'll walk you to the hill.' The conversation I'd been putting off all summer-tomorrow I'll talk to him-pounded inside my throat. This was the last tomorrow, at least for a year.
We started off discussing the school year as we climbed to the top of Half-Blood Hill. It should have been a neutral topic, only nothing between us seemed like it would ever be neutral again. Percy was going to the school he'd blown up last summer after all. Chiron had manipulated the Mist to work in favour of his innocence.
'… and I guess Rachel must have helped.'
My stomach gave a sharp twist. I'd forgotten Rachel Dare went to that school, too. Everything I was working myself up to say to Percy went flying out of my head.
'What about you?' Percy asked.
'What?'
A shadow of annoyance passed over his face. 'School. You're going back to San Francisco?'
'Oh. Yeah.' I told him about the private school Janet had found for me. I was feeling less enthusiastic about it by the second. I'd be all the way across the country while Percy went to school with Rachel. And the thought of spending the school year in the shadow of Mount Othrys made my stomach churn, too.
We reached the top of the hill. Down on the farm road, Argus was loading bags into the camp van.
'Well, call me, okay?' Percy said.
'Sure,' I said. My mind was still on Mount Othrys and the black palace being reconstructed at its peak. 'I'll keep my eyes open for …'
He hung in the space between us, bending time so that every second dragged. I could almost sense our recurrent fight about to start up again.
I felt like crying. Last year, everything had been so simple. We'd laughed and joked and fought over stupid things that didn't matter. When had it all become so ridiculously complicated?
'Annabeth, Percy said slowly, 'what was the rest of the prophecy?'
Of all the things he had to ask me about. I'd avoided thinking about my prophecy since we'd left Mount Othrys, but it wasn't exactly something I could forget. I could almost see it curling like smoke over the tree line of the woods-the final line, the one I'd never told the others.
'You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze.' Somehow, he'd memorised the lines perfectly. He rattled off the others, ticking each one off with his interpretation. The dead, the traitor, the lost one-Bianca, Ethan, and Pan. The ghost king, Nico. And Daedalus, the child of Athena.
'Percy-' Fear and panic clawed at my throat. I couldn't do this. I couldn't say it and make it real.
Except it was. It had happened just as the prophecy had foretold.
Percy kept pushing. 'What was the last-?'
'And lose a love to worse than death,' I blurted out. It was out there now, a bomb that had detonated a month ago, but whose shock was only now rippling through me. 'That was the last line, Percy. Are you happy now?'
Percy had been right all along. Luke was gone. I'd lost him.
'Oh.' Percy's tone was flat. It reminded me of Luke's emotionless voice in my dream. I saw again the horrible hatred in Luke's face when he'd spoken of Percy. If I looked up and saw that anger mirrored in Percy's eyes … I would break. I knew I would.
'So Luke-' His voice cracked.
I risked a glance at his face. He wasn't angry, or even bitter. The expression he wore … it made me think of standing at his funeral pyre in June, believing he was the one I'd lost.
'Percy …' I moistened my lips. 'I didn't know who the prophecy was talking about. I-I didn't know if …' I had no words for how I'd felt in the heart of Mount St Helens, when I'd kissed him and lost him so soon after.
That stupid prophecy. And lose a love-what was that even supposed to mean? With Luke … Luke and me … what was Luke to me, anyway? I struggled for words. 'For years, he was the only one who really cared about me. I thought …'
I thought he was my family. I thought he'd always look after me.
Was that love?
Maybe it was. But as I thought of Luke's new hard eyes and cold voice, I was keenly aware that Luke had already been gone for a while. For the last two years, the person who'd been there for me was the one standing before me now, looking like I'd just stabbed him in the gut.
'I'm sorry,' I started to say, but before I could form the words, the air between us parted in a golden shimmer. Out of nowhere stepped a glowing goddess in a snow-white dress. She was even brighter than she had been in the Labyrinth, as if she had recharged her own internal light source.
'You have nothing to apologise for,' she said blithely.
'Hera.' My hands clenched into fists at my sides. The last time I'd seen her, she'd convinced me that my prophecy referred to Percy. She'd let me believe he was dead.
'You found the answer, as I knew you would.' Hera's smile was as bright as her being, and just as fake. 'Your quest was a success.'
'A success?' Exactly what was Hera judging it by? After all the losses we'd sustained-Pan, Daedalus … Luke. 'How is that-'
Hera clucked impatiently, like I was being a silly girl. 'Our family is safe. Those others are better gone, my dear.'
I dug my nails sharply into the skin of my palm. The callousness of her words contrasted sharply with her next ones: 'I am proud of you.' They were as empty as an echoing wind.
'You're the one who paid Geryon to let us through the ranch, weren't you?' Percy accused.
Hera acknowledged it casually. It was obviously no big deal to her. As if the favours she bestowed on us were the only things that mattered, and if she'd passed over other demigods and let them perish in the meantime, who cared? They didn't belong in her perfect little world.
Percy made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. 'Hephaestus was right. You only care about your perfect family, not real people.'
'Watch yourself, son of Poseidon,' Hera snapped. 'I guided you more than you know in the maze.' She listed all the times she'd intervened, so many more than I could have guessed. She'd been interfering in my quest all along … maybe even before it had officially begun. That enormous stash of money that Argus had given me at the start of summer, that had sped Percy and me back to camp after his orientation fiasco. Hera had told me Percy had the answer to navigate the maze. Could she have orchestrated Percy and Rachel's meeting?
I should have known better than to accept her offer. Gifts are meant to come at a price. It had been Hera herself who'd said it, the very first time I'd met her on Olympus. Of course she wouldn't have given me a wish for free.
'Annabeth, my dear.' Hera's voice turned syrupy sweet. 'Surely you see how I've helped. I would welcome a sacrifice for my efforts.'
My mouth was full of bile. Hera made out like she'd been helping us, when really, she'd marched us through the maze like her personal chess pieces. She'd toyed with my feelings and wrung out my heart repeatedly. And all for what? To stall the Titans? To keep their attention off Olympus? How much of the fall-out of my quest was she responsible for?
I pressed my lips together. A few years ago, I might have played it safe, stayed respectful. Maybe it was Percy's usual defiance rubbing off on me, but I was in no mood to play nice now. And Percy was giving me an odd look, somewhere between awe and respect. It bolstered my courage.
'Percy is right,' I said tightly. Our family is safe, she'd said. She wanted to talk about who belonged in her family? Well, I sure as Hades didn't want her in mine. 'You're the one who doesn't belong, Queen Hera.'
Her eyes glowed with anger, but I forged ahead. I wasn't going to be her pawn again. 'So next time, thanks … but no thanks.'
And then I did what was either the bravest or the stupidest thing possible. I turned my back on the queen of heaven.
The air trembled behind me. 'You will regret this insult, Annabeth,' Hera warned. 'You will regret this very much.'
I waited for a bolt to strike me down, or for my body to incinerate, but all that happened was a blast of heat that radiated from behind my back. It dissipated as suddenly as it had burst out. When I turned around, Hera was gone.
I looked at Percy, who seemed shell-shocked. He probably expected me to be turned into an Annabeth-shaped pile of ashes, too. The anger that had buoyed me up against Hera fizzled out. I tried to recollect my thoughts, to return to what I'd wanted to tell him before, but Hera had thrown me off completely.
'I'm sorry. I should get back. I-I'll keep in touch.'
Percy caught my arm. 'Listen, Annabeth-'
My heart leapt. We stared at each other. I felt like I was back on this same hill eight years ago, watching Thalia die. I wanted Percy to step into the hole in my heart and promise me I still had someone left. I wanted him to do what Luke had.
But the moment vanished into a loud honk from the road. Tyson stuck his head out of the camp van and beckoned for Percy to hurry.
'You'd better get going,' I said, my throat tight. 'Take care, Seaweed Brain.'
And I turned away before he could see my tears fall. All the way back to the cabins, I didn't dare look back. But I hoped with all my heart that he would call after me.
He didn't. When I finally turned around, the only one left on the hill was Peleus, lounging in the shadow of the pine tree.
I entered my cabin with a heavy heart. To my surprise, it wasn't empty. Someone was sitting at the desk in the back, in front of my laptop. Someone with long, dark hair in a neat braid down her back, and a stiff, regal posture.
'Mom?'
She was dressed casually, as she had been at the start of summer-white blouse and grey slacks, brown loafers. She turned and stood when I addressed her.
'He was always full of ideas,' she said, waving her hand at Daedalus's laptop. 'A pity his pride got the better of him several times. I had to punish him quite severely one time when it got out of hand.'
'I saw,' I said faintly, remembering the brand on Daedalus's shoulder.
'But he did the right thing in the end. You convinced him of that.'
'It was too late. He'd already given Luke the string. We couldn't stop the invasion. Luke-'
'Made some terrible choices.'
'I didn't want to believe Percy when he said Luke was gone. I didn't want my prophecy to mean …'
Athena's eyes were sympathetic. 'You did not want to admit you had been wrong about your hero. It is not easy when our idols turn out to have clay feet. In truth, it is often worse to lose the idea of them than to lose them to death.'
My skin tingled. 'Then my prophecy …'
'Tell me, Annabeth, what did you and your friends find in the Labyrinth?'
'I-' We had set out with a single goal in mind-to find Daedalus-but along the way, we'd found so many things, all of them unexpected. All of them painful. Nico had found Bianca, only to say goodbye. Tyson had found Briares, who had run away. Grover had found Pan, but had to let him go. Percy had found an incredible power within him, and almost destroyed himself with it. I had found Daedalus … only to discover he wasn't the saviour I needed.
And we had found Luke …
'The truth,' I said hoarsely. 'We all found the truth.'
'Yes. The truth … it is a delicate thing, but it is necessary to face it in order to gain wisdom. Can you accept the truth about Luke as well?'
I knew she didn't just mean what I had seen on Mount Othrys. My fingers played across the beads on my necklace, cataloguing each one. They marked eight years at camp, but also the eight years I'd known Luke. The year he'd poisoned Thalia's tree. The year he'd failed his quest. The year he'd found me.
'Do you know why I guided you to Luke and Thalia, Annabeth?'
'Because I needed help.'
'Yes, but that wasn't the only reason. Remember the Cyclops's mansion in Brooklyn. You were the one who saw clearly through the monster's wiles.'
'I-' She was right, of course, but my memory of the fight felt so different. I remembered Thalia breaking free of her bonds and attacking with all her thunderous fury. I remembered Luke taking my hand, not letting go until we were miles away from the mansion. I remembered how terrified I'd been, alone in the dark.
But I'd also taken my dagger, my new gift from Luke, and plunged it into the Cyclops's foot.
'Luke was never your hero, child. You were always your own. And I didn't lead you to them just to save you.'
'You sent me to save them,' I whispered.
'Do you understand?'
'I-I think I do.'
'Good.' She slid her hand into the pocket of her slacks. 'One more thing.' She brought out a silver key hanging on a thin chain and looped it around my neck, where it settled next to my camp necklace. 'For your fifteenth birthday. I am sorry I did not return in time for it.'
I held it out in front of me to get a better look. It was a skeleton key, the kind that might fit into an old-fashioned lever lock. The ring at its bow was shaped like an owl. 'What is it for?'
'Keys unlock many things,' Athena said. 'Doors, codes, secrets … I am afraid that this one will only work once. Use it well.'
'But-how will I know when?'
'When the right time comes, you will know.' The contours of her form flickered. She touched the crown of my head, a benediction. 'Remember, my daughter, you are your own hero. Believe in yourself.'
The next moment, she was gone, leaving only a light breeze ruffling through my hair.
I sat there for a while, staring at Daedalus's laptop. Then I laid my dagger on the desk. Its bronze glow complemented the luminescence of the blue Delta. A real, monster-slaying weapon for the bravest and quickest of fighters. From the moment Luke had laid it in my hands with the promise of an enduring family, I'd worshipped him.
He'd been my hero when we travelled the East Coast, running from monsters. When he carried me away from Thalia into the safety of camp, cursing the gods with every step. Even when he returned from his quest, bitter and angry from failure, I'd closed my eyes to his distress. I'd wanted to believe in the dashing hero who had promised to always take care of me.
Luke was never your hero.
After a while, I got up and went to the art and crafts cabin. I sat at the loom and started to weave. Some external force took control of my fingers, picking the colours, the pattern. When I was done, the shroud was a braided blue, green, and grey, the colour of three prophetic threads I had once seen entwined. At the centre, I'd embroidered my bronze dagger.
I took it to the amphitheatre where we'd burnt the other funeral shrouds a month ago. The coal pit was still warm from yesterday's campfire. I stoked it up and fed the shroud to it slowly.
A man with two faces was silhouetted in the flames: Janus's outline, but with Luke's faces. The left was handsome, confident, a perfect hero. The right was scarred and bitter, contorted with anger and marred by hatred.
Neither was real.
I'd never find the left Luke, the one I'd adored, because he didn't actually exist. The right one was a distortion of a man who wasn't perfect, but wasn't evil to the core either.
The real Luke lay somewhere in between. And if there was a chance that he could still turn back, as Daedalus had … if there was a chance that his soul could still be redeemed, maybe I could find him. But to do that, I first had to accept that the hero of my childhood had never really existed. That all those times I'd looked up to him, I hadn't understood who he was. I had to see him-really see him, and not my ideal of him.
And lose a love … to worse than death.
In the end, the truth I'd avoided all summer didn't hurt as much as I'd feared it would.
The last remnants of my tricolour shroud curled into smoke, rising towards the sky. And then it was gone, fading into the bright afternoon sun. It took with it the weight that had been pressing down on me all summer, leaving me with a sense of calm.
I knew the battles were only just beginning. Kronos had promised to renew his attack next summer. Pan had laid upon me a great charge. Hera and Janus had both promised me a crucial choice in my future. I thought of forks and crossroads and side tunnels in an impossible maze. Of a desperate plea on my front step in San Francisco. Of an adrenaline-fuelled kiss and a locked door in the heart of a volcano.
I saw once again Janus's nightmare: the blades that hung over Percy and Luke, a choice between one or the other. I gripped my dagger tightly. It no longer felt like a curse, but a talisman.
You are your own hero.
Next time, when the choice came round, I'd find a way to save them both.
THE END