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Jason and Piper had come back – with bad news.
"There's nothing within at least a thousand miles all around apart from that Siren island that those two saw," complained Piper, looking haggard from her flight. And there really was nothing, Jason had confirmed. Literally nothing, apart from ocean, rocks and marine animals. Great help, wasn't it? Meanwhile, Leo had reported the Argo II was not going to be able to move for at least 5 days (how he knew this, Nico didn't know. And he hadn't asked, either, because the last time he did Leo had gone on about how the steam room had blah blah blah mechanical problems blah engineering. Or something like that).
Nico wished Percy was with them. He could make something out of the endless, vast amounts of water around them.
He turned his skull ring round his finger as he watched the sun set. At that moment, he felt an eerie sense of calm. Why it was there, he didn't know. There was so much to worry about; Percy and Annabeth, Gaia, the whole quest was built from worries, for gods' sake. But for a second, he felt sure everything was going to turn out right. They were the people who could stop Gaia. Nico had never liked Hera or Juno (he wasn't sure if anybody did), but he felt reassured that she had, at least a little bit, thought they had the power to save, well, the world. However much of a cliché it sounded, Nico believed that everything would turn out all right in the end.
The last bit of the sun disappeared, sinking into the sea, and with it went Nico's sense of reassurance. Because after all, didn't gods routinely kill heroes for no reason? It was like one of their hobbies, or something. And how exactly was everything going to turn out right? They had no plan, no anything. Gaia, on the other hand, had a whole army ready to go on her command. The only thing that was stopping her, Nico knew, was how no one had died to wake her up. And in the meantime, what was their army doing? Oh, yeah. Weren't they fighting each other to death or something?
The sky turned dark, and Nico sighed. Night. He'd always dreaded this time, when he had to sleep. With sleep came nightmares. He knew this was a regular thing all demigods were cursed with, but it always seemed his were especially potent. They'd given him the best news he'd ever had, but they had also given him the worst news he ever experienced. Nico had always hated them, however many times they'd given him hope or even saved his life.
Since he'd gotten trapped in that bronze jar, sleep had been even harder for him than before. It reminded him too much of the death trance he'd put himself in so he could survive. He'd often woken up in the middle of the night, and been too afraid to go back to sleep again.
He sometimes – no, always - wished he could go back to being the little kid again; playing with Mythomagic cards (that seemed so long ago) and asking stupid questions that he never knew always annoyed everyone else. It had been a lot better then.
His thoughts were interrupted when Hazel spoke up. "We should get inside."
Nico nodded, and they headed into the dining room.
…...
The atmosphere was uneasy with the two –well, the two leaders, really - missing. Nico saw Hazel look up and start to say something a few times, but going silent when she realized whoever she wanted to talk to wasn't there. Also, Nico was positive Hazel hadn't wanted to eat precious metals for dinner.
Finally, Leo broke the silence. "Where do you think they are?"
Hazel looked up, finally having someone to talk to. Before she could utter a word, however, Nico stopped her. "Falling into Tartarus," he said, shortly. "What do you think?"
"I know, I just…" Leo looked slightly taken aback. Piper glared at him for making the situation worse. Oh, well. Another one of the people who would think he was inconsiderate, rude, blah-di-dah.
Alright, maybe he was being over-dramatic. But what did he have to be happy about? Even if his sister came back from the dead (this wasn't even the correct word anyway, since she'd already gone on), it wouldn't make everything fine. No, he'd just start worrying about Thanatos being chained up, people returning from the dead, his father getting weaker and more people for Gaia's army. Oh, the list was endless.
His mind returned to the conversation. "…go to Epirus as quickly as possible," Jason was saying.
No, they had to be quicker than possible. Falling into Tartarus took 9 days, and they'd already wasted 3 of them, including today. Percy and Annabeth would take some time to get to the Doors of Death, but they had to be there before those two did. After all, in the few days they could be waiting for them, death might have come to get them.
Except they would already be there.
The words sent a shudder through him.
"How are we going to get there?" asked Frank. "This ship is broken, you know."
The rest of the table echoed his words, agreeing. How would they? In less than a week, and with the ship in such bad condition, their chances of getting to Epirus even any time near 6 days was almost impossible. They were 'a thousand miles' from anything.
The conversation turned to their cryptic dreams and the messages Piper's Katoptris had been trying to get through. According to Piper, it had been showing a dark place, which they all agreed was Tartarus…technically. Except…what would Piper, of all the people in the quest, be doing there? No offence to her, but Nico could not see that girl in the Underworld, let alone Tartarus. Not because she was a daughter of Aphrodite, but he just couldn't…OK?
"Are you feeling alright?" Leo, who had been sitting beside Hazel, asked suddenly. "You've been quiet the whole time. And you look like you're about to say something, but you never do."
She looked up, startled. "I - um, nothing. I was just thinking about a dream I had," she said, quickly. "I was with my father and he…" Hazel paused again, as if weighing out the correct words. "He said something about sacrifices," she said finally.
When Hazel said the word, he suddenly remembered what he'd heard in one of his dreams and what the others had told him.
Sacrifices. Sacrifices to wake Gaia.
He knew he'd been intended as a sacrifice to Gaia as well. How else would he have survived Tartarus? They hadn't been trying to kill him. And neither had the Sirens, he knew. All of them had just been trying to capture them, to take them to the Earth Mother.
"Everyone knows, right?" Nico spoke up. "I mean, that they're not going to kill us yet."
"Yes," said Jason, his face serious. "And I think we all know as well why Gaia specially wanted Percy and Annabeth."
Yes, that was true. She had. But him…would it be possible Gaia wouldn't want him? It was strange to be worrying about someone not wanting them as a sacrifice, but still. Gaia wouldn't want him. He was the son of the Hades. The ghost king, the dead called him. Was that really a good sacrifice? Plus, as far as he knew, Gaia wanted couples. She wanted Percy and Annabeth, Jason and Piper, Hazel and Frank. Why this was, he wasn't sure. But he had some idea.
But no. He wasn't going to go there. It couldn't be. To manipulate them like that…no way.
Then again, this was Gaia.
No, no, no. He shook his head, and he thought he felt the life aura of Percy and Annabeth dull, as if they'd gotten deeper in Tartarus. But it couldn't have been. When they were so far away, he couldn't sense these things.
Right?
He saw everyone looking at him worriedly, with expressions of nervousness on their faces. They were waiting for his advice as the son of Hades.
"Percy's fatal flaw isn't fatal for nothing," he said, his voice quiet.
This was not coming together in a good way. Nico felt like he'd finally solved a puzzle in a competition, only to be told that his prize was a pool of vomit.
Leo looked confused. "But why…oh."
"We've got to really get going." There was a level of urgency in Nico's voice.
"But guys…won't Percy and Annabeth buy us some time? I mean, if they're in a condition good enough to fight, Gaia won't want them yet, right?" Leo pointed out.
"Annabeth's got a broken ankle," said Piper. "That isn't really my definition of a 'condition good enough to fight.'"
They all went so quiet you could hear the ship's mechanical hum. And Leo had made it specially so no one would hear it.
"Well," said Hazel, standing up. 'We've got no time to waste then. Leo, raise the sails. The ship's going to move without the lime and tar, no matter what."
Her eyes glittered, and for the first time Nico didn't see her as his half-sister, but as a leader of a quest.