DISCLAIMER: Riordan definitely owns PJatO and HoO. Read his blog. He knows a lot more than we do.
oOo
The palace was surprisingly simple, compared to the garden. It'd dazzled me with crystal trees and gem-crafted flowers. Obsidian dandelions, sapphire tulips, ruby daisies, opal and amber sunflowers. The only live things had been pomegranate trees.
The palace was just black, with the green torches and the varying cool, faint shades of ghosts floating by overhead and the illumination seeping from the skulls of our guards. The air felt like a very taught bubble – the way it feels when a wet cloth is shoved over your face, but you're still aware of the fingers prodding at your eyes.
That's what it was. A silence that was surrounded by noise. Silence that could be shattered yet remain intact all at once, for ghosts don't communicate with sound.
If I focused, I could still feel Cerberus standing attentively at the gates…
"I figured there'd be more memories," I said to Nico through shadows. Then I realized how much more obvious that was here and said it aloud in English.
"Not from the ones in Asphodel," he said distractedly. "Once the whole spirit is dead, the memory fades…"
Hunter frowned. "Once the whole spirit is dead?"
I glanced over my shoulder warily. "Nico wasn't joking when he said Ethan lives in us."
She fell quiet rather quickly for Hunter.
My gaze landed on my brother. "You're awfully quiet. I expected you to give the tour more than Bob. You're still worried about Pluto, aren't you?"
He sighed. "I'm open to ideas."
"We could tell him Prophyrion is heading for Greece."
"Are you still mad about that?" Brook asked. She was still pale and shaky.
I huffed. "A little. I can't believe you wouldn't tell me that. Especially after these last few weeks."
"We'd have told you in the van. Jason just has a big mouth," Hunter sighed. "Daffodil? You got a plan, or should we be making funeral arrangements?"
One of the guards offered up a tentative image of his own funeral. It'd been a small thing in the fields outside of town, attended by his brother and no one else. It was blurred, hazy, and blotted out as if a picture spotted with nonexistent ink.
Brook, who'd seen nothing but his teeth clacking, hissed and drew closer to Hunter.
I couldn't help but smile sadly at the guard. Taste the magic. Hear Moon's protective growl. No, if anything, coming here had reinforced my will to leave alive.
And not because of fear.
"Keep thinking," I told Nico.
The rest of the walk to the throne room was quiet. It wouldn't have been so long, either, if the palace were not crafted for twenty-foot beings. On the way, Hunter whispered quietly to Brook about what she was missing out on. Or, what Hunter could understand of it, at least.
It didn't seem to comfort the girl.
At last, a heavy set of doors stood to our right. Engraved with a certain attractive lack of elegance were scenes of radical difference; calm ones, exciting ones, horrible ones, peaceful ones, gory ones. Ways to die. The doors were so large I didn't doubt that Pluto had every possibility listed.
Nico sucked in a breath and cursed. "They're here."
"Who?" I asked.
At that moment, the doors opened. We didn't exchange last glances but we did exchange something as we took our steps in. The guards stayed behind in the hall. Nico took up the head of our patrol and I fell in close behind him. Brook was between Hunter and I, as we'd made her promise to stay even before we'd known we were coming here.
The temperature was about twenty degrees cooler in here. A wide tower is what it was – either the roof wasn't there, or it was so high up not even the rafters were visible. My tongue was slick with the taste of ghosts up there. But they, too, were hidden in the blackest recesses of the black room. It was small and humble for a throne room; the chairs were immediately there when one came through the door, unadorned, simple to the point of felicity. Just three chairs. As if a small family found it entertaining to sit here during the day and watch the eerie death-omen engravings all day.
The one on the left was the largest. A comforting size compared the Giant King. Bones white and pure had been fused together, time and time again, countless skeletons lost in a maze of themselves, to form a straight-backed, simple chair. You could've built it out of building blocks. Two solid arms, flat seat, rectangle backing. The only ornamentation was on the top of either side; small spirals of decoration, also crafted from bones, peaked with skulls sporting the same glowing eyes as the guards.
The one on the right was second largest. Woven of intricate vines, spotted with blossoms that had wilted and were dusted with frost. But alive nonetheless.
The one in the middle I'd have never guessed was a seat if it weren't so out of place. Two creatively placed hay bales sat between the other two thrones.
They were empty.
And then they weren't.
The three deities just appeared there, sitting in various positions, as if they'd been present and invisible the whole time. The deep green glow of the torches lightened so we could see them clearly.
From overhead, ghosts began to descend.
"Father," Nico said, and knelt. The rest of us followed suit. "Lady Demeter, Lady Persephone."
We stared at the floor as if it might jump up and eat us.
There was quiet before a woman's voice spoke. "You told me you were having visitors."
"You lied to my daughter?!" another gasped. "Your wife?!"
"Lady Demeter-" we heard Hades grunt.
But Lady Demeter was on a roll. "I told you something else would go wrong! But would you let me counsel you?! No! 'We're perfectly fine', you said! 'I haven't been with another woman since Maria', you said! And look where we are! You lied-"
"Mother, please. I'll talk to him later," Persephone said softly. "I wish to see what's to become of these heroes right now."
Demeter made a few more crude remarks before quieting. There was an awkward five further minutes of us knelt on the floor.
"Stand," Hades said. We did.
They were all in Greek form; there was no hint of a telltale Roman goatskin cloak. My father had the appearance of a twenty-foot college student; slightly scruffy beard, young and bushy eyebrows, lanky but strong. The eyes and outfit was where that ended. He wore Greek armor and a cloak of blood red, and he looked at us as if he were old. Much older than he was. The way Nico looked.
"Let's be honest," he said. "First and foremost. I feel that this might go badly if we're not. Times were hard, but everything done has been done out of choice, correct?"
Nico narrowed his eyes and Hunter said, "Correct."
"Are you speaking for the accused, Titan?" Persephone asked, with a tinge of surprise. As if she'd expected something else. The spring goddess looked wan, here on this dreary Christmas Eve; her large dark eyes had sunken in, her hair fell in wet twirls by her face, and her dress was composed of washed-out, dying colors. If Khione had been beautiful and just a little sad, she'd have looked like Persephone. A tiara of jeweled flowers matching the garden outside was on her head.
"I usually do," Hunter agreed coolly.
Nico said nothing, glaring at his father. He seemed to be frozen.
I grit my teeth. "With all due respect, while we're being honest, can we also be blunt and skip the formalities? I'm done with this stupid, delicate little tap-dance."
"She needs to learn respect," Demeter diagnosed. "We should make her farm for six months. With one of my favorite plows."
"Blunt," Hades sighed. "Very well. You three know why you're here, and that the consequences came from your own choice. Alecto? Take them to the room. I'll deliver their punishment when I'm done talking to my son. Privately."
For a moment, I heard Persephone's shocked protests that this decision had been made without her, and saw the wrinkled demon descending from the sticky black soup overhead, before it seemed to fade.
Our chance was slipping away. Whatever had told me to let go of life so easily, if it was the wiser half of me, now was the chance to comply. But I was beyond judging what was wiser.
Something Nico had said to me once, while I was stranded on that cliff below Orpheus and the shadows were being tortured, about Ethan not dying just so I could follow. I hadn't found the strength to turn on Kronos just anywhere. The joy that had graced me when the Olympians decided not to kill me was not hollow or farce.
Nico was saying something to me, quietly, urgently. The not-so-gentle tug on my left shoulder jolted me back into reality. Brook and Moon were snarling at the approaching Fury. It was heavy, with flaky grey skin, very bat-like, not quite the size of Night. The fiery whip at her side had been drawn into one clawed hand.
"Come on, loves," it crooned with a voice seething with cracks and lava beneath. "This way, honey, this way. Alecto likes you."
"You wouldn't!" I yelled at Hades. Nico jumped in shock but didn't motion for me to quiet. Hunter's mouth opened but the words were already spoken for us both. "The man Nico told us about wouldn't, but you're not him!"
I didn't see if he gave the signal, but I felt it when Alecto dug her nails into my shoulder. The cursed demon claws in the delicate spot sent waves of fire across my body. For a moment, I swear I felt things break again, felt a hand squeezing on my lungs, like I was back at the Wolf House-
"Stop it!" Nico screamed, and slammed his foot into Alecto's face. She wailed and went tumbling into a pile of bones.
Immediately, two others came shooting down at us from above. Moon barked angrily. Hunter ran forward beside Nico and I and shot hard at one, while Brook aimed quickly at the third.
"Stop! Back away!" Hades yelled, leaping off his throne. The Furies weren't listening.
But Hunter had lost all reason to hold back and be polite. She kicked the wounded form of the last one aside and yanked Brook closer to us. "Whatever happened to 'trial by jury'?" The Furies, hissing, retreated to Hades's feet.
My brother turned to me and gently pried my shirt collar out to expose my shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"Fine. We have bigger problems."
Hades was staring at us with wide, enraged eyes. "Nico. Come here. Right now."
Nico planted himself between us. "No. Someone has to stop you, and the two spectators sitting beside you aren't going to do it."
Their eyes met coldly. "Stop me from what, son?" He said the last word like it was a curse.
Nico didn't so much as flinch. "From doing what Zeus did. From deciding to kill a few demigod just because they might become a problem in the future and that you're too low to admit you're scared."
It took me a moment to realize what he meant. I didn't, not until Persephone rose shakily to her feet. She looked like she was about to say something, but her lips were condemned to silence.
Hades just stared. And stared. And, slowly, sat down. "Boy, Bianca should've lived instead of you."
"She'd have said it, too. She was never shy about her hand," Nico flinched.
Hades sighed. "Fine. We'll be honest; I don't care about the pact being broken. I hardly considered what Bree did a possible breach. You're down here because I don't trust a single one of you and I'm not scared, I'm in control."
"Those are the things Kronos said," Hunter warned.
"If we prove," Nico cut her off, "that they're not untrustworthy, then, you'd have no reason to kill them?"
Hades's gaze grew distant. "There is nothing for you to say. I've seen every moment from this very spot. There's nothing more for me to learn, and nothing to consider. It's a risk I'm not going to take."
Alecto hissed and drew closer at his words. At his words. My death was being brought upon me with nothing but petty lips, that stupid game of politics. I didn't fight the basilisk and watch Brook break down just to be killed by a few simple syllables. Syllables that weren't even part of some imbrued spell!
But words were more than we had. Brook was stolid and frowning in the midst of our group, Moon was staring with curiosity at Demeter's straw dress as if contemplating lighting it, and Nico was just staring at his father, empty of all his clever tricks. Empty of whatever had brought him through the maze and up to this point. There was nothing more he could give to solve this one.
Then he seemed to remember who he was. Something sprang to life in his eyes the way a demon lurches out of the dark, and his mouth seemed to unhinge like a snake's, and his voice rose to a volume that so few people heard roaring from that small pale throat. The noise snapped back at us off the walls and made the Furies cringe.
"It's not Kronos you're afraid of and you know it! You're scared of the same damn things everyone in this room is! You don't think I am?! You don't think they are?! We didn't spend night and day for months trying to find our way down here to pick a fight! We came down here to take a gods-damned chance and maybe, just maybe, stop whatever Gaea's done to our home! That didn't happen, fine! It was a gamble anyway! But I figured at least you'd be happy with it, because you took a chance when you got on that chariot and followed me into Manhattan, you came up there with me to meet the rest of our family despite what they'd done to us! And now you mean to tell me you're happy with giving Mama's killer a chance but can't hand it down to your own daughter?! To someone who's been trying to reach out to you and willing to lay down their life and sanity?! Was them following me in here not enough?! I know you don't have to accept but you at least can keep your sword sheathed! Acknowledge the effort or leave us alone! We didn't come this far for nothing and sure as hell not to walk off with only half our numbers! Forgive me for not being impartial but I don't care what you think! You're selfish to think that your fear means anything in the face of this war! Nobody here deserves to die because you're too coward to admit you have something to lose!"
Not even the ghosts could move their minds from the deafening silence.
"They've turned my son against me," Hades murmured.
"Lies!" Moon barked.
Hunter shoved forward and held her scythe at rest position. "With all due respect, Lord Pluto, you've never had reason to mistrust Nico. And he's had no reason to trust you. I don't think you need to be pinning any more of this on him."
Something to lose.
I stared at Nico, who still had his head lifted but was staring at the floor. Beside me, Brook was watching each deity vigilantly.
Behind us, the wall seemed to explode.
Hunter blocked the rubble from us with her time shield. Nico flashed forward to grab Brook in a reflex. The massive scar the shadows had left in the wall was icing over, even lighting frost on the marble now scattered across the ground and atop crushed bones. The air fell too many degrees to count.
"Stop!" Persephone yelled, and suddenly she was there, between us and Hades.
He stared in shock at her.
"I don't care what you do to Nico," she said slowly. "But these three? Their service to Kronos was pardoned, and they've done nothing harmful to us since. You've no reason to harm them. Look – Bree there may be able to kill giants on her own, and held off Kronos himself on Olympus. Hunter's killed demon after demon and lead them through so much. And little Brook there – she knows what I'm going to say two minutes before I say it. And they were willing to give us a chance." She swallowed. "Not many are so eager to even speak with us."
"So I'm supposed to spare them because of your sympathy?" Hades snarled.
"No. You're supposed to spare them because they deserve it, and they'll be of great use to us. And because I'm your wife and I say so."
Hades just looked around, as if suddenly lost.
"I stand by my daughter," Demeter huffed. "I'd like to see them dead, too, but I'll stand by her. Just give me the ungrateful brats for discipline and you won't be unsatisfied with the results."
Hades looked from one of us to the next, eyes so intense it was like staring off a cliff and down miles and miles to the ground. Standing on the edge and feeling the gravity tug oh so playfully for you to take a plunge.
"Go. Get them out of my sight," he said. "I need a moment to think."
oOo
"You mean to tell us all the work was for nothing?! That we'd allow them to rise again right in our midst?!"
"They're the ones poisoning the water!"
"We already let the ringleader get away! Kronos's girl is probably halfway to China by now! We can't let it get any worse!"
Shay sucked in a breath and stared at the curtain. The window and faces beyond it were hidden well, but the voices were not.
"They're angry," Luna said.
"Splendid observation, Sherlock," Shay muttered. "Got any more wisdom to share with us?"
"Peace, children," Chiron said gently with a flick of his tail. "They are just alarmed, is all. There's a lot of bad blood so soon after the war. But I have faith in them. They are good kids, through and through. They won't treat you too harshly."
"Kill the Titans!" someone yelled, and threw an object against the window so hard it shuddered and groaned.
"Fun," Haley sighed.
Chiron sighed and motioned deeper within the Big House. "Go. The basement is behind the stairs. Wait there until we get a counselor's meeting finished. You'll be safe there."
Shay scowled. "So we really are in danger now? Make up your mind."
"They are good kids. Good kids," Chiron gritted, as if the words were salt and his tongue shredded. "Bless them, gods, for their bravery. And they were the forgiving half of the Titan War. But once bitten, twice shy. I have no doubt that one day soon you will be safe, but for now, no matter how hard they try, they will be scared of you. And fear shows itself through the most blinding anger."
"I bet they're the ones that kidnapped Amelia!" someone outside burst.
Clarisse's rough voice immediately followed. "They did not, you dimwit! Amelia went missing two days before they got here!"
"We found her body in the woods earlier today," said the quiet boy Bree had pointed out to Shay. What was his name? Something similar…. Seth, that was it. Seth.
That moment, a horrible banging noise began at the doors. Then a roar of voices as they were opened. Cries as people were shoved back. A gunshot as the they closed.
Clarisse came storming into the rec room. "Y'all are causing a riot, you know that?"
"Oh, is that what that is?" Shay laughed. "We thought it might be a Capture the Flag rally."
Clarisse chuckled. "You wimps ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until the Apollo kids start busting out curses. You little pipsqueaks will be easy pickings for weeks." She grinned as if looking forward to it.
Will followed her in on quiet feet and observant eyes, as usual. He'd always made Shay uneasy but not near as much as most things in her life had.
Chiron's eyes narrowed. "Clarisse. What are you up to?"
"Something," she grinned, displaying the yellow Ricola bag Hunter had left her. "You'll see come sundown. It should solve this whole mess. Hunter'd die before she let her rep get spoiled. Good girl, Hunter. Looks so goody-two shoes in her fancy jacket, but I suppose I can make something good outta just about anybody, can't I?"
"You sure can," Will muttered distractedly, drawing an arrow and picking at something in its barbs.
"I'm sure you can," Shay said, struggling not to voice the time Hunter had invited Nico over for a movie night that consisted purely of the new Transformers trilogy. Bree had been furious.
Chiron sighed and looked out the window. "Good kids," he insisted. "They are good, good kids."
oOo
"Now?"
"Yes. Do you doubt yourselves?" Khione asked, running her finger up and down the silver dart gun. It was all that remained of Mithridates. Pity – he had a simple sort of beauty about him that would've made a nice sculpture. Now all that was left of him was a weapon.
The best part of a person. And a pretty darn good one, at that. She liked the gun immensely.
Her two young charges shook their heads. Behind them, Python gurgled happily and plunged his head into the pile of horse carcasses. Green scales glittered brilliantly around them.
"It's not us," the one on the right drawled coldly with his ragged voice. She scowled – it was an ugly voice, that one. "It's you, m'Lady. You're wounded still."
The memory of the Ghost King's blade was oddly pleasing to her. Parching and pained, but pleasing. She saw her golden Ichor as crimson blood, and the sword in her hand instead of his.
"Don't worry about me," she said. "Don't let anyone fool you when they say numbers don't win a battle. You coat a town in enough snow, they'll eventually shut down and freeze to death." She giggled at the cheery image.
The boy rolled his eyes and patted the drakon. "Alright. C'mon, buddy. Armor time."
Python growled angrily and continued to gorge himself.
Khione waved her hand to freeze the horses and send them off, but to her utter dismay, the motion sent pain radiating through every inch of herself. In Siberia and New York and Seattle. Only the leg of the nearest animal turned to ice. She bit back the groan and seethed.
They were going to die for what they'd done.
"Hurry!" she howled, and the two fearfully scampered off to get ready. For Khione, her enemies just simply could not die fast enough.
oOo
Nyx: I don't have much time.
Nic: So many good things have started with that sentence…
Nyx: SO sorry it wasn't up Saturday! Ask Nic how hard I tried. But the scene took me ages to write and then ages to write again and again until it was right. I think it's okay, now… Please review and tell me what you think.
Nic: I can't wait for EfaE to come out…
Nyx: Yeah, that's also what I did over the weekend. That and some original stuff. So it wasn't a total creative slump. Kolkolkol I just couldn't get Nico's rage right :)
Nic: *holds out screwdrivers solemnly* Take a weapon, dear readers. Together, we shall make it through this bleak and horrid Monday.
