I feel terrible. I haven't updated in a MONTH! A MONTH! WHAT KIND OF PERSON AM I? Some weeks, I couldn't update because of school. Some weeks, I had writer's block. And some weeks, I was just too lazy. *Sheepish grin*
Anyway, onwards with the chapter!
Disclaimer: If I owned PJO, I would have put extremely fluffy Percabeth moments into the Blood of Olympus. (If you read it and would like to rant, don't hesitate to PM me!)
She couldn't believe him.
They'd known each other for ONE MONTH, one FREAKING month and he had the nerve to question her father's policies? Who was he to… argh.
It was useless arguing with him. Remarkably headstrong, but charmingly loyal, the boy who changed her world stared back at her. She sank into a memory of the first time she met those green eyes and fully meant to.
-FLASHBACK-
It was the end of the New Year's Ball. Rachel and the boy – Percy – stood side by side, staring up at the fireworks blooming in different colors in the sky like bioluminescent flowers.
"They're beautiful," he muttered, refusing to tear his eyes away from the sky.
"Haven't you seen the New Year fireworks before? They happen every year, you know," she responded.
He turned to her with a sarcastic smile, and their eyes met. Green on green. "Well, I would certainly hope the New Year comes every year," he said. He turned his head back up to the stars. "I just haven't had such a great view before." He then muttered something that sounded like "You have no idea" and something about luck.
Three hours later, all the "Happy New Year-ing" and the cheering and champagne bottle bursting had died down, citizens drifting back to their respective houses in a drunken haze, ready to sleep off the alcohol they had ingested, or perhaps drink even more. Royals pompously offered courteous bows and curtsies, and wishes for a Happy New Year were exchanged, along with the implicit message of "Hope you consider my new policy in the New Year!"
But she tried not to think about that. Politics baffled her. She was convinced that it even confused the government.
After those three hours, Percy said, "You risked talking to an actual citizen? Coming out of Daddy's little paradise, are we?"
She flinched inwardly, but met his gaze coldly. "You should be thankful it was I who caught you, and not the Royal Guard." They fell into an uneasy, tense silence. She sighed. "Look, I don't know what I did to you or your family, but whatever it is, it's not my fault. Why can't we just be friends?"
He looked at her as if she had just said, "Why don't we jump off a cliff?" He laughed humorlessly. "You want to give friendship a chance? The country's pretty much falling apart, the government's corrupted, you're the only one who's capable of doing a damn thing, and your main focus is being friends with an orphan from the streets."
She stomped her foot in frustration. If she could, she'd probably throw a tantrum worthy of a bratty four year old. What was it with this boy? Maybe her family wasn't perfect, but they were still family. Her blood. Taking a deep breath, she fixed a steely glare on his face. "I don't know," she said slowly. "What I or my family did to you, but whatever it is, I'm sorry!"
It was almost comical, watching his facial expressions. They went from cynically disbelieving, to shocked and surprised, to confused.
"You mean you don't know?"
She blinked in bewilderment. "Don't know what?"
He stared back into her eyes, looking at her as if she was a mystery – a puzzle that he needed to solve. No one had ever looked at Rachel that way before. "Meet me at the city library tomorrow at noon. Dress like a commoner and come alone."
He raced off into the shadows before she could respond, leaving Rachel staring after him, bemused. As she took small steps towards the castle, moving more slowly than was wise, seeing as she needed to sleep soon, Rachel tried desperately to sort out her emotions. One part of her was screaming the lessons that had been drilled into her ever since she was old enough to comprehend the meaning of words – lessons that boosted the already inflated egos of people like her uncle and father, lessons that taught royals to behave like royals and no less, lessons that she'd been forced to repeat for hours on end until her mouth and throat dried up.
But lessons could be changed, and new ones were learned every day. Maybe that was why the other part of her – the part that hid in the shadows quietly but firmly speaking its mind, the part that acted as the little nagging voice in the back of her head every time she had to repeat those words – was saying that maybe the boy was trustworthy.
Maybe there were two sides to every story.
Maybe this could work out.
Maybe.
As she stumbled up to her bedroom, though, she wasn't sure which part to listen to. Last week, she would have dismissed the boy, possibly calling Dmitri to take him away if she'd been in a bad mood, but that was the point of learning new lessons. Sometimes they crept up on you and you weren't sure where to go, or which path to take. Her options were to turn her back on her family to cause a revolution – a royal hadn't befriended a peasant in half a century and it would undoubtedly cause a huge scandal – or to stay with her family, secretly miserable and unsatisfied, dutifully heeding the lessons she'd been taught and the rules that had been set since she was young.
Sometimes rules were made to be broken.
-FLASHBACK-
The next day, she walked up to the city library, positioned on the south side of the palace. Huge white marble columns supported the domed roof. On the ceiling inside was a fresco – a watercolor painting that depicted the gods on Olympus. Towering oak bookshelves covered the library's stone walls; more scrolls than she could read in ten lifetimes surrounded her. She breathed in air thick with a distinctive smell – of old wood and pages and ink, but also the more overpowering, intriguing scent of magic and mystery, of swordfights and romances, of humor and tragedy, of science and art, more adventures than she could hope for in a million lives all contained in small, bound scrolls.
She was seated at a table, wearing a disgusting brown dress she'd managed to persuade a charity worker into giving her. She and Percy were hunched over the giant collection of files on the table. According to Percy, the files hadn't even been on the shelf – her father had supposedly prohibited it – but he was friendly with the librarian, a nervous redhead named Ella. "You've got to be kidding me," she said.
He looked at her in surprise. "Rachel, these files are hardcore evidence! I understand that this is going completely against your family, but it's obvious you're in serious denial."
"I AM NOT IN DENIAL!" she yelled, earning some annoyed looks from the rest of the people there. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. "Okay, so I've known you for a whopping week, and you just waltz in here and expect me to believe that my parents stood by and did nothing while an deadly plague killed off citizens all around the kingdom?"
"That isn't the worst part," he said, looking back down at the files.
Oh, really?
He continued, "They had an antidote, but they used it for themselves, when they could have mass produced it and given it to the kingdom."
She stared blankly at him, disbelieving. Why would her parents say they were spending millions of dollars on plague research if they weren't? If it was a simply matter of production and distribution, why didn't her parents do so?
As if he read her mind, he said, "Producing and distributing it would be too much work for them. Even if they did, only the filthy rich could afford any."
Rachel groaned and buried her face in her hands. "'S gonna take a while to sink in," she said, her voice muffled.
"Take your time," he said, not unkindly, flipping through the rest of the files.
A few minutes later, papers stopped shuffling. "Oh my gods," Percy muttered.
She lifted her head off her arms. "What?"
He turned to her. "Rachel, this is a page from the king's private journal."
She straightened up as if someone had sent a jolt of electricity through her spine. "What does it say?" she asked warily. From his expression, she knew the answer wouldn't be good.
When he spoke several minutes later, his voice was carefully measured. "Your father made an alliance with Midas' kingdom."
Those words, those nine small words, which may not have been so earth-shaking to most, turned Rachel's entire world upside down. It was known all throughout Greece that King Midas was more of a dictator than a king. A poor boy who once stole a piece of bread could be sent to the gallows, and a rich man who committed murder could get off scot-free. To survive in his kingdom, you had to be quick on your feet, always have connections, and NEVER speak the truth. It was also known that Midas himself was ruthless: he once took pleasure in torturing a peasant imprisoned for insubordination, and it was common knowledge that he abused his wife before she died. Midas never made an alliance unless it benefited him in some way, and Rachel's father's kingdom was one of the poorest – financially and military-wise. So that could only mean…
"What did Midas want in exchange for an alliance?" she asked him, her words laced with fear.
He refused to meet her eyes. "He wanted a companion."
Her eyes widened. No. Anything but this.
This time, he met her eyes, and what she saw in them was truly frightening. He was afraid, afraid for her. This boy wasn't intimidated easily, and seeing fear in his eyes was the worst thing ever. Then he spoke, and life as she knew it ended.
"Rachel, your father wants you to be Midas's wife."
MWAHAHAHAHA! Oh, by the way, I'm sorry I didn't put Percy's POV in here, but it didn't flow with the story. His POV probably won't be in the next chapter either, so you can just not read the next one if you're reading this solely for Percy. But you might be confused.
I will try to update as soon as possible, but my teachers don't understand this thing. It's called "Having a Life outside of School." I lost mine. Have you seen it?
Also: Chapter after next: ANNABETH! YAY!