Chapter eight
Zombie shrimp
The senate house was packed. Reyna insisted that I stand on the floor, in front of the praetor's table. Rows of faces starred down at me from the elevated seats. I felt like I was on trial. Reyna and Frank directed the meeting, having me answer questions that I felt I always gave the wrong answer to.
Halfway through the meeting, a boy and girl burst through the door. They were both wearing orange tee shirts under their togas. The girl had curly blond hair and grey eyes, the color of storm clouds. They radiated intelligence.
The boy was strikingly familiar. He had tousled black hair and eyes the color of the sea. He was about a year older than me, or at least looked like it. I knew I had never met him, but he stirred my memory. "Sorry we're late. Terminus gave us trouble." The boy shrugged. Frank gave him a friendly smile, and the boy nodded to him. They took seats in the front row, and sat together.
"Tell us the part where the Hydra attacks." Reyna asked. I closed my eyes.
"This girl, Jessica, she was a jerk, and I told her off. Then my teacher dragged me outside and transformed." I said. I was conscious of all the eyes that hung on my every word. No pressure or anything. Dylan had tried to assure me they wouldn't kick me out of the legion, but I found it hard to believe. The two newcomers whispered urgently.
"What was Jessica doing?" Reyna asked. Her hands were folded in front of her, obscuring part of her face. Two metal dogs paced at her feet.
I cleared my throat before answering, "Flirting?" I made it sound like a question as confidence leeched out of me.
"With you?" Frank raised an eyebrow. My cheeks burned.
"No. With Dylan." I denied it as quickly as I could. Cat calls echoed across the hall and Dylan sunk into his seat, glaring at me. It was nice to know he could be embarrassed. I was beginning to worry he had no emotions. Reyna's dogs barked, a symbol to reinstate order.
"How did you defeat the Hydra?" Frank continued. I had decided to focus on Frank, since he was friendlier and softer than Reyna.
"I caused an earthquake." I said. "Like I did at the gate." Reyna nodded. No one denied the lava scarred earth was my fault. Frank and Reyna whispered viciously, obviously arguing over my acceptance.
"As praetor, my comrade and I wish to suspend judgement on Leila's acceptance into the legion until she has been claimed. All in favor, please say so." Reyna motioned to the floor. The senators called out various words of agreement. It appeared I passed my trial. "Leila, as soon as your parent has sent a sign, you may join the legion." Reyna smiled at me.
"Senatus populesque Romanus!" Frank shouted. The senators echoed his call and stood to leave. Dylan joined me on the senate floor.
"Come on. They're serving dinner." He said quietly. He seemed distant all of the sudden.
"What happens next?" I asked him, as I stared at the empty senate house.
"When you get excepted and claimed, I'll write a letter of recommendation for you, get you into my cohort. The rest will be up to you." He told me, leading me outside. Despite the distance, I smelled the food from the dinning hall.
When we arrived, I'm almost beaned in the head by a slice of cheesecake. Food trays are whizzing around like wizards playing quiditch. With the exception of the seemingly well ordered food fight, the entire scene looked like a Roman mural come to life.
I don't know why that surprised me.
Dylan lead me to an open couch, sitting besides the girl who had guarded the entrance - Mika - and Cassie. True to her word, Cassie had a new violin strapped to her leg. It looked royally uncomfortable, but Cassie didn't seem to mind. "This is Mika." Dylan said to me. "She's the other centurion on the first cohort."
"And your half sister." Mika added, looking up from her dish of food I didn't recognize. Mika caught me looking. "It's Soba, Japanese. Want some?" She lifted her plate toward me.
I shook my head. "So what's with the violin?" I asked Cassie. She grinned broadly at me.
"I'm a legacy of Apollo and Mercury. Both are musically inclined. Mercury made the first lyre." She held up the violin for me to see.
"And the bow is magical." I finished for her.
"Gift from Apollo." She nodded. Dylan had explained the idea of legacies to me before. A demigod has a kid, with a mortal or with another demigod, and they inherit some powers.
"So it's like you have two godly parents." I'm jealous of the fact she knew who both her godly ancestors were.
"Right. Timmy has two dads, and all that. Though Timmy's dads likely couldn't blast his enemies to dust." She laughed.
"So, what about Mercury? Did you inherit anything from him? He's the god of thieves, yeah?" I was surprised about how quickly I was catching on to all this. I wondered if this would count as extra credit in mythology class next year.
"I guess you could say..." Cassie smiled mischievously, "I know how to steal the show." Dylan snickered.
"Punny," I stated, chuckling to myself. Mika shook her head. A plate of lobster and shrimp, my favorite food, settled in front of me, a water glass on the side. Conversation across the table halted as everyone dug into their food.
I hadn't realized how hungry I really was. I picked up my fork and stabbed at a shrimp. It moved away and scrambled across the plate. I frowned. Not possible. The wind. It was the wind. I tried again, and again the shrimp...moved. "Did you bump the table?" I asked Dylan. He shook his head.
I demonstrated the moving shrimp trick for him. When he saw it move, he knocked the fork out of my hand. "Stop!" He shouted. "It's a sign." My heart jumped. Was I about to be claimed?
I noticed Frank stand from his spot with some senators. He leaned forward to watch, and I leaned back, as far as I could from my magically death defying shrimp. It jumped around in my plate like a...well like a fish out of water. It squirmed around before jumping into my glass of water. It settled to the bottom. I'm not sure if a shrimp can feel happiness, but if they can, this one did.
Don't stop here. It's about to get weirder.
The water in my glass began to glow, the blue aura washing waves of light across Dylan's face. Cassie moved away, as if she thought the water was going nuclear. We attracted attention from all around the dinning hall, and rightfully so. What could we say? Don't mind us, just playing with zombie shrimp? Yeah, like that'll help.
In a final burst of color, the glass went dark and the shrimp vanished. Cassie relaxed. I blinked dots from my eyes and tried to see straight. "It is a sign from Neptune." Frank agreed. "Your parent has claimed you." I thought it was a sign to stop eating seafood.
"My dad is Neptune?" I scrunched my eyebrows together and looked back and forth between the campers.
"Makes sense," Mika shrugged. "He is the god of earthquakes." She said it so casually, like, your dad is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, what else is new? Although if I counted the bars on her arm correctly, she had been here long enough to see it.
"Call an assembly at the field of Mars." Reyna hissed, behind Frank. Frank did so. Cassie nervously twisted her bow into weapon form. Even though the camp knew why an assembly was in order, they seemed growingly uneasy.
The legion broke into the five cohorts. Dylan and Mika stood side by side in front of the first cohort. Cassie stood farther back, with the third cohort. Frank placed a hand on my shoulder, sensing my confusion. "Just stay by us until a cohort adds you. The first will probably snap you up. Dylan didn't lead you this far to let you fall on your face."
Rachel joined us and stood with Reyna. "Present the colors!" Reyna called out. I expected to see an American flag, maybe one of the state of California, but instead a golden eagle was implanted at the front of the legion.
"We are here to welcome a new recruit. Leila Inigo, please step forward." Rachel nodded to me, and I took a step forward, kinda unnecessary considering I was standing in front of them and clearly didn't belong. "The prophecies have proven Leila's entrance to be in the best interest of the legion." Rachel continued. "Does she have any letters of recommendation?"
A rustle of paper echoed in the silent field, and several envelopes were passed forward. Rachel glanced at the names on a few then handed them over to Reyna. She took her sweet time opening the letters and reading over them. "Centurions Rise and Lagdon," she shouted. Dylan and Mika stepped forward slightly. "As both of you have prepared highly regarded letters of recommendation, I take assume the First would like to take in Leila?"
"Correct." Mika said, her answers formal and short. Frank smiled at me.
"See? What did I say? Now all you need is a sponsor." He whispered to me. "Are there any sponsors?" He called out. It was silent.
"What's a sponsor?" I asked Rachel.
"They vouch for you, and make sure you don't mess up. They teach you how we do things, and if you screw up, you both get killed," Rachel whispered back. I looked at Dylan, but he had taken a sudden interest in his shoes. I felt my heart sink.
"Are there any sponsors?" Frank asked again.
"Don't worry. Traditionally, children of Neptune have been considered bad luck. That's changed, but habits are habits." Rachel sounded worried.
"Are there any sponsors? I'd like to remind you all if Leila cannot receive a sponsor, her entrance into the legion will be denied." Frank said sternly as he looked across the crowd. I closed my eyes.
"I'm a full member of the legion. I will stand for Leila Inigo." Someone shouted.
