Artemis Gives Me a Warning
It only took a few seconds for me to realize that, now that Nico was gone, I was the only boy present. I was still on the ground and as I looked around I saw that all of the girls were looking at me. I cleared my throat awkwardly. All the girls here, except Annabeth, had sworn to remain virgins forever. They never grew older. For a moment I wondered what they were thinking about me. Some of them were glaring at me, while others were smiling rather cheekily. They thought I was a joke.
"How long do you think it will take Nico to get Rachel here?" I asked.
"It won't take too long," Thalia said, "maybe a couple of days."
"So what are we doing in the mean time?"
Thalia looked at me with a smirk. "We could practice, if you take my meaning."
I knew what she meant. We always used to practice sword fighting together. But at the moment I still wasn't feeling very good. "Could we do it later? I don't really feel up to it."
"Sure thing," Thalia said, getting up. "I'm going to check on camp. We are staying here for awhile," she said when I gave her a questioning look. "We need somewhere to sleep."
When Thalia had left, I looked at Annabeth and smiled. "I'm glad to see you again."
Annabeth smiled back and laughed. "We do have a funny way of meeting every year, don't we, Seaweed Brain?"
I laughed as well. It was true. There wasn't a single year were Annabeth and I hadn't gotten together in a weird circumstance. Last year, for example, I had run into her after destroying my new school's band room with a mortal, Rachel, running along behind me. Annabeth and I started chatting about the summers we'd experienced together. Thalia came over after awhile and listened to us. She told us about what she had learned from Artemis. She'd been taught more fighting skills and she was an excellent archer.
"It isn't so bad, you know, not being with any boys," Thalia said, looking at me. "O course, I do miss you, Perce. There's no one to argue with any more." Thalia reached forward and punched my arm. I laughed. Thalia and I had fought a ton. We'd always stayed friends though. Of course I didn't really know her very well. I'd spent one summer with her, but she was cool. "We stay in a beautiful valley that only people Artemis wants can enter. It is so lovely. I wish you could see it," Thalia continued. It did sound pretty, but I thought that I'd prefer camp. Of course, even if I preferred the valley Thalia described, I probably wouldn't be welcome there, since I'm a boy.
Annabeth and I filled Thalia in on what was going on at camp. We told her about our adventures in the Labyrinth, well, most of them. She seemed to already know about Luke and everything. I figured that Annabeth had already told her. We gave her a detailed report on the Battle of the Labyrinth and Annabeth told Thalia about meeting Daedalous. She told Thalia about the book he had given Annabeth and how she had been studying it like crazy. "He was a pure genius," she said over and over again.
After awhile I noticed that Thalia looked jealous. I thought about when she had joined Artemis's Huntresses. She hadn't liked the idea of not feeling for boys. She'd thought that the Huntresses were silly and foolish. Of course, they'd thought the same thing about her. But later she had joined to prevent herself becoming sixteen, leaving the prophecy to be fulfilled by me. I wondered if that was the only reason she had joined.
Thalia interrupted Annabeth and I. "Percy, Annabeth tells me you were there when … when Luke turned into Kronos. Tell me what happened."
The smile on Annabeth's face vanished. She looked away from me and I thought I saw tears in her eyes. Instead of feeling sorry for her, I felt rather angry. Why couldn't she accept the fact that Luke was evil? He'd completely changed from the kid she had grown up with. Why couldn't she see that?
"Annabeth probably told you everything," I answered, not wanting to talk about it.
Thalia stared hard into my face. "Kronos is inside Luke's body?"
I nodded slowly, glancing at Annabeth. She was staring off into space, her face solemn.
I looked back at Thalia. She was biting her lip nervously. "Percy, did you happen to notice… well, did Luke … did his body, I mean, did it look dead before Kronos was inside it?"
Annabeth looked back at me. Both of the girls were staring hard at me. I thought back to when I had opened the coffin and seen Luke lying there. He hadn't moved. He had been very pale. Yes, he had looked dead, but was he really? Some part of me thought that he had just been sleeping. Maybe Annabeth was right. Luke was still inside somewhere.
"I'm not sure. He looked mostly dead, but he could've been sleeping" I said, realizing how stupid that sounded. But Thalia looked slightly relieved. Annabeth looked away again. And then I felt strange. As I looked at Annabeth I thought about Luke. Why wasn't he dead? He should be dead. He'd fallen of a cliff, but somehow he had lived. Had his body already begun it's preparation to became Kronos's? My stomach flipped uncomfortably and I felt sick. How long had Luke known that his body would become home to Kronos? Suddenly, an even worse thought came to my mind. Had Luke known at all? Had Kronos tricked him into it? Was Luke a poor victim? I shook my head. No, Luke was evil. It had been his own decision to join Kronos.
"Percy Jackson, may I see you for a moment?"
I jumped and looked up to see Artemis gazing down at me. I quickly stood up, my head spinning slightly, and followed her a little further into the trees. A few of the Huntresses followed, but Artemis turned to them and said, "No. Stay behind. I trust Percy." The girls turned and went back. Artemis turned to me and smiled. "It is good to see you again Percy."
I smiled and bowed, rather clumsily. Sometimes it was hard for me to remember that the young girl was a Goddess. She looked so much like any other girl, except that she looked more mature. Suddenly Artemis's sweet voice changed. It became harder, more powerful. "Percy, you know that the Gods do not and can not know everything, but we do have small hints that can tell us what might happen in the future. You have many enemies, Percy, as you know. Even some of the Gods are numbered among them. But I must warn you, one Goddess does not consider herself your enemy, but what she could do to you is terrible. I fear that what she considers her help will destroy you. It would destroy others as well. I can not tell you much more, but be on the lookout. There will come a time that you and a friend will have to make a decision. Be careful and stay close to your friends." With that, Artemis turned around and joined her Huntresses.
I stayed were I was. I really didn't know what Artemis had been talking about. I already knew that I had many enemies. I was really confused about the Goddess that wanted to help me. I wondered which Goddess it was. I knew that Athena and Hera didn't like me very much. I'd met Aphrodite once, something I didn't want to experience again, and, of course, I'd met Artemis more than once, but other than that I hadn't really made contact with any of them. The last thing Artemis said was the plainest and easiest for me to understand. She wanted me to stay close to my friends. I was pretty sure that I could trust what she had told me. Artemis didn't seem like she would mess around with my head. But can anyone really trust a God?
