Chapter 1: Oracle

"Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away."
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


I hefted the weight of my sword nervously, testing it. I wasn't looking forward to the coming trial, for I was a horrible with swords. And yet, I still had to fight.

Across from me, facing me with narrowed eyes, was the enemy—Esther. She stood before me, an expert, her coarse red, ridiculously straight hair tied back into a neat ponytail. I looked past her challenging brown eyes to the ponytail, watching it stir slightly in the breeze. Anything but looking at her face.

Then a challenge—her challenge—rang out, loud and clear.

"Ready to be destroyed?"

My toes involuntarily curled up inside my boots. It was quite possibly the cheesiest challenge ever, worthy of legions of cheap sci-fi movies, and yet, the way Esther pronounced the words made them terrifying—dripping with malicious intent, oozing threat to my life.

I willed myself to respond. "I won't be!" I shouted, but the words fell flat and powerless. Balancing myself in an imitation of what I had been taught, I prepared myself as much as I possibly could.

In less than the blink of an eye, Esther was suddenly there, raising her own sword, swinging it towards me. I just barely responded, arcing my blade into hers with a sharp metallic clang that rattled my arm. Esther pushed her advance, and I just barely kept pace, my sword only keeping hers inches away, never doing harm.

I was being pushed back towards the wall of the arena, my feet sliding across the sand. Sweat poured into my face, but Esther showed few signs of being tired, if any. She landed a heavy blow with the flat of the blade to my arm, and in response I buckled, all of my lessons sliding out of my head, like melted snow through my fingers.

In this vulnerable position, Esther struck me across the back, and my vision turned piercingly red. With a cry of pain, I swung up, moving blindly, not noticing how Esther's expression of smooth concentration changed to one of worry as she fought back.

My own mind heard nothing. I felt as though I had been transported to another place, and my vision saw it so—no longer was the sunlight clear with the morning, no longer was there a gentle heat, no longer was I in the training arena. It was late afternoon, chillingly cold, I was on a lonely hilltop, and Esther was my enemy, and I had to press her in, defeat her, win. Kill her, my mind hissed, and I was ready to do so, willing, empowered by a force I couldn't name, and so I moved in, swinging my blade up, ready to bring it down and end it—

"Holy shit Cass!" a voice cried, and the red haze splintered before me. I blinked, no longer on that hilltop, but standing once again in the arena.

I had pushed Esther to the ground, and she held her sword out weakly before her, sweat streaming down her body, her eyes wild and frightened. I myself stood erect, not feeling tired but instead empowered, holding my sword up and ready to bring it down in a path that would have sliced her skull.

I stumbled back, confused and frightened at myself, when I realized that. Bloodlust had never taken me before, and I realized now why I was always so glad I hadn't. It had changed not only the scene around me, but it had also skewed my relationship with Esther, changing me from friend to enemy, and that would have proved lethal if her words hadn't pierced my mind, for bloodlust also strengthened, changing me from a horrible swordfighter into someone even Esther had trouble holding her own against.

Letting my sword swing to my side limply, I reached out a hand to Esther, who stood up quietly, and then said, "Cass, um, you do realize the goal was for us to train, not kill each other, right?"

I looked at her evenly. "Of course. I don't know what happened."

Esther breathed heavily, running her fingers through her limp hair. "Well," she said at length, "that was interesting, at least." I simply nodded in reply as I turned away, walking towards the exit and allowing her to fall into step beside me.

After putting my sword away, I tramped off to the showers, feeling unclean not only in body, but in soul. After a long shower, I studied myself, hard in the mirror, trying to once again remember myself, for I had once again forgotten.

As I gazed into the cool, reflective glass of the mirror, I could have sworn I saw not my own face looking back at me, but someone else's—the face of an invalid, my own navy eyes sunken in the skull, my own wet, straight brown hair dry and stringy, torn out in chunks, my own skin wrinkled, sallow, pale. I started, and the image disintegrated as it had that morning, and I was once again looking at my real self.

"I am Cassandra Delos, 14 years old, demigod daughter of Asteria," I proclaimed, loudly, to the mirror. "I live at Camp Half-blood year round. I like chicken soup and history." Those words, acting as an affirmation of who I was, worked to ease my mind, and I felt as though I was being pulled back into my body, tethered to the ground solidly, and no longer a balloon lost by a child.

Drying my hair, I focused on other things—such as my schedule for the day, which was entirely, depressingly, empty, other than the training match with Esther and meals.

Such were Octobers at Camp Half-blood: dry and stale, bread left to rot. Since so few people lived here year-round, Chiron and Mr. D never bothered to organize schedules for the cabins. As such, every one of us were left to do as we will, with the warning of, "continue your studies! Practice!"

And, in true teen fashion, we didn't—or, at least, hardly did. Frankly, the only reason I'd been at the arena today was because Esther is obsessed with how well she fights. Spoken like a true daughter of Enyo.

Trying to devise some sort of structure for my day, I climbed the steps to the Hermes cabin, almost wary of the idea of entering. The things that went on in this cabin were unspeakably insane, and I was certain that since coming here, most of my sanity had been eaten away.

Summoning up the courage to trounce inside, I was greeted with the usual noisiness, arguing, and flying objects. Ducking a stuffed turtle and monkey, I dove for the general safety of my sleeping bag, which had been shoved up against the wall. I took the padlock off of my bag (it was necessary in this cabin, for even those who weren't children of Hermes were excellent at stealing) and rummaged through my things, in search of my mirror.

A voice spoke behind me. "Oh, look, it's Ms. I Can Tell the Future!" Despite the slight prod, the speaker was light-hearted. I tilted my head up and back, looking up into Esther's face.

"Sheesh, Esther, and you're Ms. Let's Kill Everything that Gets In the Way," I responded, looking back to my bag and ignoring the pinched look that Esther gave me as I said that, and her protest of "I do not!"

Esther called me by the name she did for a certain reason: I could tell the future. I was a daughter of the goddess Asteria, the goddess of prophecy, astrology, and the stars. In fact, I think I'm better at it than the Apollo kids, but don't let them hear you say that—they've got huge egos.

One thing I try not to let people know is that Asteria is actually a Titan goddess. The Titans aren't very popular around here, of course. It seems to fall over the heads of most that not all of the Titans were necessarily evil. I'm not sure about Asteria, but I don't think she was against the gods. At any rate, I don't support either side.

Esther was speaking to me. I shook my head. "Huh?"

She looked at me accusingly. "You don't listen! I'm leaving, then!" Thus promptly, she pushed herself off the bunk she had been laying across and headed to the other end of the cabin. I stared after her, shaking my head. Esther's mood changed far too often.

I turned my attention back to my bag, pulling out my mirror. I held it in my hands reverently, for it was a stunning piece of creation, made of striking, deep blue azurite, with a face of black opal. She ran a finger over the silver and gold filigree that formed decorations around the mirror of flowers, stars, and leaves.

The mirror was a scrying mirror. I had found it a long time ago in the basement of my home in Virginia, and I'd kept it since then, feeling as thought it was rightfully mine. I looked into it most every day, the mirror giving me something to fall back on when things spun completely out of my control.

Now, I lifted it, carrying it with me as I headed outside once more into the chill October air. I was bound for the strawberry fields, my hangout for whenever I wanted to be alone, or if I wanted to scry.

The vines had been left to wither and die with the seasons, in keeping with the natural rhythm of life. They hung skeletal over their trellises, and their leaves only contained the faintest hint of green, quickly fading to brown.

I sought out my usual spot and sat on the dry ground, cross-legged and comfortable. Then I closed my eyes and relaxed, breathing in and out, letting my mind fall empty as I pulled myself into the right condition for divination. Then, I opened my eyes, and focused on the mirror.

The mirror was blank for a while, but then, blurry colors washed across it, slowly pulling into focus, and then were like a movie. I, personally, was delighted at the ease of it, but I didn't let my concentration wane, lest the images also disappear.

Playing before my eyes was a scene I didn't recognize. A hospital room, with a simple bed and white sheets. The blinds in the room were closed, and a girl that I only stirred the slightest vague memories lay in it. A medical chart hung at the foot of her bed....

Something in my mind rebelled sharply against the scene, and I wanted to scream at it, shatter it, but then the image fluidly and swiftly shifted into one I did recognize: Mount Tamalpais, Tam for short, the home of Kronos. I watched in fascination as a I watched a figure climb towards the fortress from a distance. I couldn't recognize who they were, but to me, they didn't seem to have the intent to attack. Otherwise, why would they be so blatant about coming towards it? They were probably a supporter of the Titans.

My focus on the scene changed to come closer, and I saw that the figure was a girl. Something about her was familiar, and then I began to realize who she was with a feeling of dread—

Voices rose into the air behind me. There was a crunching sound as footsteps walked across the dead leaves of the strawberry plants. The images shattered on the surface of the mirror, and I scrambled to my feet, my mind still halfway in the world of the mirror. I knew where I was, but I thought I could see Othrys looming in the distance still.

Shaking my head, I cleared all of those sensations from my mind, bringing myself sharply back to full consciousness with a pinch. I didn't know who was intruding upon my own privacy, and though it made me angry, I fled—I always had some sort of stigma with people seeing me using the mirror to divine the future.

As I hurried back towards the cabins, I tried to bring back the image of who had been climbing towards Othrys back to my mind, but the information I'd learned was dissipating, and I no longer remembered who it had been.