Author's Note: Hi, lovely people! You guys made me feel so happy with your reviews. And as promised, I have a new chapter for you guys. This is the fastest I've ever updated in my life. Two days! I think this is where I stopped the last time I wrote this story, so now I have to actually come up with ideas that aren't already on my computer. But I have it planned out, for the most part.
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Now, I have this chapter for you. We're now getting to the actual quest! I'm excited about writing that part of the story!
Disclaimer: My initials aren't R.R., so how can I possibly be Rick Riordan?
Chapter 9: We Start Another Quest
Thankfully, no dreams came with unconsciousness this time. I woke up in the Big House sickroom, again. I tried to remember what had happened...the ice statue, the cold mist. Something about Avery's expression when she'd asked if I'd liked her statue...it had seemed almost like she was mocking me. Then the way she looked at me like I had wronged her in some way. Like I was her enemy.
All of this was running through my head when I realized that Chiron, Jessica, and Annabeth were in the room with me. It sounded like Annabeth was arguing with the centaur about something. "Chiron, this can't possibly be happening," I heard her say.
"We were careless not to see this sooner," Chiron replied.
"I think Percy was careless not to tell anyone sooner," Jessica said.
I sat up. "Sorry," I mumbled.
Chiron was in wheelchair form. He rolled over to my bedside and looked at me sternly. "Percy," he said, "Do you realize the severity of your situation?"
I blushed. Now I was really regretting my decision to keep Chiron in the dark about this. What was I supposed to say: Yes, I did understand it, but I didn't want to tell you about it just yet. I thought it might have gone away on its own? So I kept my mouth shut and stared at my hands in my lap.
Annabeth was giving me her signature glare. I noticed her hair was turning curly again. Her eyes were the color of thunderclouds. "Percy, you said you were going to tell Chiron!"
"Tell me what?" Chiron asked, frowning.
Annabeth sighed, looking completely unhinged. I felt terrible for making her worry about me. And I felt worse for having kept such a big secret from Chiron, whom I could trust with my life. So I told him about Price breathing mist on me, and the woman's face in the clouds, and the two girls on Half-Blood Hill. Annabeth seemed to have already explained the situations about Avery at capture the flag and the dance.
While I talked, Nico, Thalia, and Grover walked into the room together, listening with furrowed brows. Grover was holding a plastic cup in his hand and was nervously biting off bits of it. Nico stared at the floor, and Thalia stared at me, twisting her silver bracelet around her wrist. With every sentence, Annabeth seemed to lose her cool a little more. Chiron just stared at me intently, listening to every word that came out of my mouth.
When I finished, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "This is worse than I'd feared," he muttered.
"What?" I asked. "What's going on? Do you know who these girls are?"
Annabeth sat next to me on the bed and took a deep breath. "Percy," she said. "Remember when you told me that Avery's sword was made of Stygian ice? And I told you that only one group of people used Stygian ice to make weapons?"
I nodded, getting more worried.
"Well, apparently they're real," she told me. "They were an ancient civilization that worshipped the goddess Khione. That's the family those girls meant. And the fact that you breathed in their mist is very, very bad."
"Who's Khione?" I asked, feeling dumb as usual.
Chiron explained. "Khione is the daughter of Boreas, the North Wind. She is the goddess of snow."
I frowned. "Then will you tell me why it's bad that I inhaled their mist?" Although…as I asked the question, I felt a surge of dread wash over me. I had the feeling I was going to find out what was wrong with me, and the news wouldn't be pretty.
Annabeth took a deep breath and sat down next to me. "Percy," she started shakily, "their mist is one of the most powerful substances in the world. It freezes everything and anything it comes into contact with."
"Which is how they froze the oceans, although one may think that it would be an impossible feat," Chiron added.
"And how they've made it snow all over the country, even in the warmest places, in June," Annabeth said.
My heart leaped into my throat. "And?" I asked, dragging out the word in my nervousness.
"And since you breathed the mist in," Annabeth continued, "it made contact with your throat and lungs. It was bad enough that this would happen once, but three times, Percy?" she said, raising her voice. "Their mist generates ice that builds upon itself, forming a layer that's almost impossible to melt."
My spine tingled. "So...you're saying that..." I couldn't finish the thought.
"Ice is forming in your lungs, Percy," Annabeth concluded. "And you're lucky that you're half-god. A regular mortal would never have been able to withstand this for more than more than twenty-four hours. But you've gone a week and you're still alive." She shook her head, muttering to herself, "I can't believe I didn't realize this sooner."
My mind was reeling. All of this information was jumbling up in my head. It was hard to comprehend. I thought about the last day of school, how Mr. Price had breathed the mist on me, and I'd inhaled it. Then I remembered the horrible pain that followed. That's how the girls were going to kill me. I would die a horribly slow death that ended in excrutatingly painful suffocation. Even as I thought about it, my chest stung. I winced, putting a hand over my heart, which I noticed was beating too hard, trying to pump freezing blood. "So...what do I do?" I asked. "How do I get better?"
Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair and sighed. "I would hate to send you out of here in your condition," he said, "But the only way to ensure your recovery is for you to undertake a quest."
"Chiron's right," Annabeth said. "The only way to reverse your condition is to destroy the one who cursed you, in your case, Mr. Price. But you have to do it immediately. You've already been sick for a week. At most, you have days, maybe another week. Otherwise, you'll just get worse and worse until..." She didn't finish the thought, but it was pretty understandable.
I felt cold, and I don't think it had anything to do with the ice in my lungs. "Those girls knew," I said, barely recognizing my own voice. "They knew that it would come to that. That's why they wanted me dead before I found out."
Chiron nodded solemnly. "Although I don't know their motives, you're correct. They, and Price, probably knew they wouldn't be able to fight you, because you bear the curse of Achilles—"
"And they're trying to destroy you from the inside," Annabeth supplied.
I let that sink in. "So this quest...what am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go?"
Chiron glanced toward a corner of the room and said, "I think those questions would best be answered by our Oracle."
Rachel came into the room quickly, like she'd been caught off-guard. She'd probably just come in. "Oh, me?" When Chiron nodded, her expression looked pained. "Alright," she said quietly. She closed her eyes and swayed like she was about to collapse. Annabeth ran to her and held her shoulders. Then, when Rachel opened her eyes again, they were glowing bright green. I shuddered. I'd never really gotten over the Oracle's prophecies. They always freaked me out.
Rachel began to speak, her voice tripled:
"You shall travel to the land of midnight sun,
You shall be accompanied by five, betrayed by one.
Most powerful half-bloods with you shall go,
The sword of surprise strikes the final blow.
Beware the journey's tragic end—
The one you love shall die with a friend."
Rachel opened her eyes after the last word. The glow had disappeared. But the echo of her words still lingered in my mind. I don't think there was one line that hadn't bothered me.
"Percy?" Annabeth said. "You okay?"
I wasn't so sure. Someone was going to betray me on this quest. And 'The one you love shall die' ? How many times had I heard that this week?
But I nodded in response to Annabeth's question.
Chiron's face was grim. "Well, choose your five companions, Percy," he told me.
I glanced at Annabeth, and an understanding passed between us. She would definitely be coming with me.
"I'll come." Jessica spoke for the first time since she'd called me careless.
I frowned at her. "No," I said flatly.
"Why not?" she asked me. "You told me you were twelve on your first quest. I'm almost fourteen. I think I'm capable of taking care of myself."
"But it'll be too dangerous," I told her. "You can't go."
"Who are you, my mom?" Jessica glared at me. "I'm going to go. You heard the prophecy: 'Most powerful demigods with you shall go.' I'm the daughter of Poseidon. I think I qualify as a 'powerful demigod.'" She made air quotes with her fingers.
I don't know why I was being overprotective. I guess it was an older brother thing. I remembered how I thought I'd lost Tyson in the Sea of Monsters, and how worried I was when Tyson was missing in the Labyrinth with Grover a few years ago.
I opened my mouth to argue again, but she cut me off real fast. "Look, stop protesting," she said. "The prophecy says you need five to go with you on the quest. I'm volunteering. Take my help. I'm your sister. I even have a weapon. Who's better to go with you than me?"
I glared at her for a few second, but decided better than to keep arguing with her. After all, she was a good fighter, she was my sister, and she did have a weapon: her magic bow and arrows. But suddenly, I was seriously uneasy about her coming on the quest, and it wasn't overprotectiveness anymore. As soon as she mentioned her weapon, I thought about my dream of the girl with the bow and arrow, crouching behind trees in the forest, tears running down her cheeks, taking aim at an unseen target.
I'm going to go work on the next chapter now. This is so much fun to write! I started this story before Secrets & Sleepovers, if you guys remember that story. And for some reason, it's taken me three years to get past this point. *sigh* but I'm finally moving past it.
You guys have been great with the reviews this time. And I want to apologize for the whiny author's note last chapter. I was tired, and kind of discouraged by the lack of reviews. But that'll happen sometimes, right?
By the way, how did I do on the prophecy? I'm no poet, I know. I was just looking for words to rhyme, and it wouldn't rhyme. Then it DID rhyme, but the rhythm was off...I don't know. Tell me what you think of it. Hahahaha!
See the box at the bottom? That's where your review goes! :)
Thanks so much,
~Mandi2341
