Amoriel could barely find the moment to breathe. It felt like the fight was all around her and every direction she turned, another monster was charging at her. It was completely terrifying to watch her. She stopped at nothing and her once mint green irises had turned almost black. Sweat glistened on her forehead and her sword was quite literally dripping with monster blood. She looked like a stunning killing machine.

wolf launched itself at Amoriel. She stepped back and kicked him on the snout, effectively knocking out the wolf. Maybe only silver could kill it, but a good old-fashioned knocking out never disappoints.

Leo had taken on Khione herself. While fighting a goddess should've been suicide, Leo was the right man for the job. She kept summoning ice daggers to throw at him, blasts of winter air, tornadoes of snow. Leo burned through all of it. His whole body flickered with red tongues of flame-like he'd been doused with gasoline. He advanced on the goddess, using two silver-tipped ball-pen hammers to smash any monsters that got in his way.

Finally, Amoriel stabbed her last earthborn and before she knew it, Jason had grabbed her arm and placed her on the back of his newfound friend. She couldn't help but cling to her best friend since the horse felt like it was nothing but smoke.

"Okay, where the heck did you get this horse?" Amoriel asked as they started to circle the place before stopping near Leo.

"I dunno," Jason shrugged. "But he's mine now."

Amoriel shook her head, " Only you, Jay-Jay. I swear, only you."

They watched as Leo was bearing down on the goddess of snow.

"You're too late," Khione snarled. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can ever stop us."

Leo set his hammers ablaze and threw them at the goddess, but she turned into snow—a white powdery image of herself. Leo's hammers slammed into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.

Piper was breathing hard, but she smiled up at Jason and Amoriel. "Nice horse."

Tempest reared on his hind legs, arcing electricity across his hooves. A complete show-off. "He's a show-off, just like you Jay-Jay," Amoriel muttered.

Then she heard a cracking sound behind her. The melting ice on Hera's cage sloughed off in a curtain of slush, and the goddess called, "Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!"

The four of them jumped into the pool and ran to the spire.

Leo frowned. "Uh, Tía Callida, are you getting shorter?"

"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"

What Amoriel saw inside the cage alarmed her. Not only was Hera sinking, but the ground was also rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock had already covered her shins. "The giant wakes!" Hera warned. "You only have seconds!"

"On it," Leo said. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."

"What?" she said.

"Talk to it. Use everything you've got. Convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I—"

"Right!" Piper cleared her throat and said, "Hey, Gaea. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"

The more she talked, the more confident she sounded. It seemed to have some effect on the cage. The mud was rising more slowly. The tendrils seemed to soften just a little—becoming more like tree root than rock. Leo pulled a circular saw out of his tool belt. How it fits in there, Amoriel had no idea. Then Leo looked at the cord and grunted in frustration. "I don't have anywhere to plug it in!"

The spirit horse Tempest jumped into the pit and whinnied.

"Really?" Jason asked.

Tempest dipped his head and trotted over to Leo. Leo looked dubious, but he held up the plug, and a breeze whisked it into the horse's flank. Lighting sparked, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirred to life.

"Sweet!" Leo grinned. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"

Their good mood didn't last long (obviously). On the other side of the pool, the giant's spire crumbled with a sound like a tree snapping in half. Its outer sheath of tendrils exploded from the top-down, raining stone and wood shards as the giant shook himself free and climbed out of the earth.

There was something more terrible about him—a kind of strength, even magnetism as if the giant were so huge and dense he had his own gravitational field.

Like Enceladus, the giant king was humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armor, and from the waist down he had scaly dragon's legs, but his skin was the color of lima beans. His hair was green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons—daggers, axes, and full-size swords, some of them bent and bloody—maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opened his eyes, they were blank white, like polished marble. He took a deep breath.

"Alive!" he bellowed. "Praise to Gaea!"

"Leo," Jason said.

"Huh?" Leo's mouth was wide open. Even Piper seemed dazed.

"You guys keep working," Jason said. "Get Hera free!"

"What are you going to do?" Piper asked. "You can't seriously—"

"Entertain a giant?" Jason said. "I've got no choice."

"Shut the heck up, Jay-Jay," Amoriel said with a roll of her eyes as she wiped the blood on her sword with the hem of her jacket. "I'm going with you."

"Amorie-"

"Don't even try to convince me, Jason. I got your back whether you like it or not." She said before marching in front of the giant. "Hey, ugly!"

"Excellent!" the giant roared as she and Jason approached. "An appetizer! Who are you—Hermes? Ares?"

Amoriel wrinkled her nose in offence. "I'm Amoriel Fletcher," she said as she had before when she fought hideous monsters only to have their remains by her feet at the end of the day." The daughter of Cupid."

" And I'm Jason Grace," he said too, sounding very confident. "Son of Jupiter."

Porphyrion threw back his head and laughed. "Outstanding!" He looked up at the cloudy night sky. "So, Zeus, Eros you sacrifice your children to me? The gesture is appreciated, but it will not save you."

"oh Trust me, honey," Amoriel said in a sickly sweet voice. "I don't need my father to kill you."

"If you knew who we were," Jason yelled up at the giant, "you'd be worried about us, not our father's," Jason said.

"I hope you enjoyed your two and a half minutes of rebirth, giant, because we're going to send you right back to Tartarus." Amoriel continued.

The giant's eyes narrowed. He planted one foot outside the pool and crouched to get a better look at his opponent. "So ... we'll start by boasting, will we? Just like old times! Very well, demigods. I am Porphryion, king of the giants, son of Gaea. In olden times, I rose from Tartarus, the abyss of my father, to challenge the gods. To start the war, I stole Zeus's queen." He grinned at the goddess's cage. "Hello, Hera."

"My husband destroyed you once, monster!" Hera said. "He'll do it again!"

"But he didn't, my dear! Zeus wasn't powerful enough to kill me. He had to rely on a puny demigod to help, and even then, we almost won. This time, we will complete what we started. Gaea is waking. She has provisioned us with many fine servants. Our armies will shake the earth—and we will destroy you at the roots."

"You wouldn't dare," Hera said, but she was weakening. They could hear it in her voice. Piper kept whispering to the cage, and Leo kept sawing, but the earth was still rising inside Hera's prison, covering her up to her waist.

"Oh, yes," the giant said. "The Titans sought to attack your new home in New York. Bold, but ineffective. Gaea is wiser and more patient. And we, her greatest children, are much, much stronger than Kronos. We know how to kill you Olympians once and for all. You must be dug up completely like rotten trees—your eldest roots torn out and burned."

"You said a demigod killed you," he shouted. "How, if we're so puny?"

"Ha! You think I would explain it to you? I was created to be Zeus's replacement, born to destroy the lord of the sky. I shall take his throne. I shall take his wife—or, if she will not have me, I will let the earth consume her life force. What you see before you, child, is only my weakened form. I will grow stronger by the hour, until I am invincible. But I am already quite capable of smashing you to a grease spot!"

He rose to his full height and held out his hand. A twenty-foot spear shot from the earth. He grasped it, then stomped the ground with his dragon's feet. The ruins shook. All around the courtyard, monsters started to regather—storm spirits, wolves, and Earthborn, all answering the giant king's call.

"Great," Amoriel muttered. "All we needed were more enemies."

"Hurry," Hera said.

"I know!" Leo snapped.

"Go to sleep, cage," Piper said. "Nice, sleepy cage. Yes, I'm talking to a bunch of earthen tendrils. This isn't weird at all."

Porphyrion raked his spear across the top of the ruins, destroying a chimney and spraying wood and stone across the courtyard. "So, spawn of gods! I have finished my boasting. Now it's your turn. What were you saying about destroying me?"

Jason and Amoriel shared a look as if wondering who would go first. Amoriel saw a look in his eyes and let him take the lead. Recognition flashed and he turned back to the giant with a renewed sense of determination.

"I'm the son of Jupiter! And she is the firstborn of Cupid!" Jason shouted, and just for effect, he summoned the winds, rising a few feet off the ground. "We're children of Rome, consul to demigods, centurions of the First Legion." Amoriel was absolutely certain that Jason had no idea what he was saying but he sounded as if he'd repeated the same words time and time before. He held out his arms, showing the tattoo of the eagle and SPQR, so did Amoriel showing the giant the bow and the arrow with a heart-shaped arrowhead to their surprise the giant seemed to recognize it.

For a moment, Porphyrion actually looked uneasy.

"We slew the Trojan sea monster together," Jason continued. "We toppled the black throne of Kronos and destroyed the Titan krios together. And now we're going to destroy you together, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves. "

While Jason talked Leo glanced at Amoriel. The wind blew her hair out oh her face and he couldn't help but be in complete awe of her. She stood with perfect posture and a tight grip on her sword, the storm in her eyes was back and she glared at the giant king so fiercely that the storm spirits, Earthborns, and wolves that stood by his side cowered in fear. She looked absolutely breathtaking and terrifying at the same time with blood staining her clear porcelain skin.

"Wow, dude," Leo muttered. "You been eating red meat?"

Amoriel and Jason shared one last look before they launched themselves at the giant. Yelling some battle cry in Latin.

Amoriel ran to the giant's feet before climbing its leg all the way to his neck and before anyone knew, she was stabbing him like a madwoman.

"For Rome!" They yelled at the same time. Jason having have found a sword and driving it to the giant's massive ear. Amoriel continued stabbing before jumping down, making sure her sword was buried deep into its reptile-like skin. She had already given him a long rush from his temple all the way to his chin and it was dripping with golden ichor.

Lightning streaked out of the sky and blasted the sword, throwing Jason free and when Amoriel was pushed away like a fly by the giant, Jason grabbed her and they both fell rolling as they hit the ground. When they looked up, the giant was staggering. His hair was on fire, and the side of his face was blackened from lightning. The sword had splintered in his ear. Golden ichor dripped from his face due to the cut Amoriel gave him.

Porphyrion almost fell. The circle of monsters let out a collective growl and moved forward—wolves and ogres fixing their eyes on the two demigods that were far too powerful than they ever anticipated.

"No!" Porphyrion yelled. He regained his balance and glared at the demigods. "I will kill them myself."

The giant raised his spear and it began to glow. "You want to play with lightning, boy? You forget. I am the bane of Zeus. I was created to destroy your father, which means I know exactly what will kill you."

"I thought we were done with the boasting," Amoriel said

Amoriel and her friends, they had a good run. The four of them had done amazing things. Yeah, heroic things even. But as the giant raised his spear, Amoriel knew there was no way they could deflect this strike.

This was the end.

"Got it!" Leo yelled.

"Sleep!" Piper said and had Amoriel not killed every last one of the wolves and Earthborn, there was no doubt that they would fall over in deep slumber at the forcefulness of her words.

The stone and wood cage crumbled. Leo had sawed through the base of the thickest tendril and apparently cut off the cage's connection to Gaea. The tendrils turned to dust. The mud around Hera disintegrated. The goddess grew in size, glowing with power.

"Yes!" the goddess said. She threw off her black robes to reveal a white gown, her arms bedecked with golden jewelry. Her face was both terrible and beautiful, and a golden crown glowed in her long black hair. "Now I shall have my revenge!"

The giant Porphyrion backed away. He said nothing, but he gave Jason and Amoriel one last look of hatred. His message was clear: Another time. Then he slammed his spear against the earth, and the giant disappeared into the ground like he'd dropped down a chute.

Hera glowed brighter. She shouted, "Cover your eyes, my heroes!"

Amoriel did exactly that.

"JASON!"

Amoriel uncovered her eyes when she heard this get yelled. She felt light-headed.

Piper kept calling his name as she held him. He'd been unconscious for two minutes now. His body was steaming, his eyes rolled back in his head. Amoriel couldn't tell if he was even breathing.

Amoriel collapsed on her knees, her head between her hands and Leo was next to her immediately. Her memories were coming back and her head felt like it was about to explode. And she was pretty sore and tired from the battle.

"It's no use, child," Hera said as she stood over them in her simple black robes and shawl.

Amoriel hadn't seen the goddess go nuclear. Thankfully she'd closed her eyes, but she could see the after-effects. Every vestige of winter was gone from the valley. No signs of battle, either. The monsters had been vaporized. The ruins had been restored to what they were before—still ruins, but with no evidence that they'd been overrun by a horde of wolves, storm spirits, and six-armed ogres.

Even the Hunters had been revived. Most waited at a respectful distance in the meadow, but Thalia knelt by Piper's side, her hand on Jason's forehead.

Thalia glared up at the goddess. "This is your fault. Do something!"

"Do not address me that way, girl. I am the queen—"

"Fix him!"

Hera's eyes flickered with power. "I did warn him. I would never intentionally hurt the boy. He was to be my champion. I told them to close their eyes before I revealed my true form."

"Um ..." Leo frowned. "True form is bad, right? So why did you do it?"

"I unleashed my power to help you, fool!" Hera cried. "I became pure energy so I could disintegrate the monsters, restore this place, and even save these miserable Hunters from the ice."

"But mortals can't look upon you in that form!" Thalia shouted. "You've killed him!"

Leo shook his head in dismay. "That's what our prophecy meant. Death unleashes, through Hera's rage. Come on, lady. You're a goddess. Do some voodoo magic on him! Bring him back."

Amoriel half-heard their conversation, but mostly she was focused on Her memories. She remembered. With the new knowledge, she leaned down and checked his pulse. "He's breathing!" Amoriel announced. "I can feel his pulse!"

"Impossible," Hera said. "I wish it were true, child, but no mortal has ever—"

"Jason," Piper called, putting every bit of her willpower into his name. She was desperate. "Listen to me. You can do this. Come back. You're going to be fine."

Nothing happened. Had she imagined his breath stirring?

"Healing is not a power of neither Aphrodite nor Eros, much lesstheirchildren," Hera said regretfully. "Even I cannot fix this, girls. His mortal spirit—"

Amoriel grabbed his wrist and, "Jason," she said forcefully, and she force the power in every syllable "Wake up!" She ordered. Now she remembered how to use her powers and even a dying man couldn't resist her charmtouch.

He gasped, and his eyes flew open. For a moment they were full of light—glowing pure gold. Then the light faded and his eyes were normal again. "What—what happened?"

"Impossible!" Hera said.

Piper wrapped him in a hug until he groaned, "Crushing me."

"Sorry," she said, so relieved, she laughed while wiping a tear from her eye.

Thalia gripped her brother's hand. "How do you feel?"

"Hot," he muttered. "Mouth is dry. And I saw something... really terrible."

"That was Hera," Thalia grumbled. "Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon."

"That's it, Thalia Grace," said the goddess. "I will turn you into an aardvark, so help me—"

"Stop it, you two," Amoriel said. Amazingly, they both shut up.

Piper helped Jason to his feet and Amoriel gave him the last nectar from her supplies. But Jason shook his head.

"Now ..." Piper faced Thalia and Hera. "Hera—Your Majesty—we couldn't have rescued you without the Hunters. And Thalia, you never would've seen Jason again—I wouldn't have met him—if it weren't for Hera. You two make nice because we've got bigger problems."

They both glared at her, and for three long seconds, Amoriel wasn't sure which one of them was going to kill Piper first.

Finally, Thalia grunted. "You've got spirit, Piper." She pulled a silver card from her parka and tucked it into the pocket of Piper's snowboarding jacket. "You ever want to be a Hunter, call me. We could use you."

She looked over at Amoriel; "You got amazing skills I would ask you too, but you like flirting way too much."

"Watch out or I might steal one of your Hunters," Amoriel said with a chuckle.

Hera crossed her arms. "Fortunately for this Hunter, you have a point, daughter of Aphrodite." She assessed Piper as if seeing her clearly for the time. "You wondered, Piper, why I chose you for this quest, why I didn't reveal your secret in the beginning, even when I knew Enceladus was using you. I must admit, until this moment I was not sure. Something told me you would be vital to the quest. Now I see I was right. You're even stronger than I realized. And you are correct about the dangers to come. We must work together."

Piper's face looked warm. She wasn't sure how to respond to Hera's giving a daughter of Aphrodite a compliment, but luckily Leo stepped in.

"Yeah," he said, "I don't suppose that Porphyrion guy just melted and died, huh?"

"No," Hera agreed. "By saving me, and saving this place, you prevented Gaea from waking. You have bought us some time. But Porphyrion has risen. He simply knew better than to stay here, especially since he has not yet regained his full power. Giants can only be killed by a combination of god and demigod, working together. Once you freed me—"

"He ran away," Jason said. "But to where?"

Hera didn't answer, but a sense of dread washed over Amoriel. She remembered what Porphyrion had said about killing the Olympians by pulling up their roots. Greece. She looked at Thalia's grim expression and guessed the Hunter had come to the same conclusion.

"I need to find Annabeth," Thalia said. " She has to know what's happened here."

"Thalia ..." Jason gripped her hand. "We never got to talk about this place, or—"

"I know." Her expression softened. "I lost you here once. I don't want to leave you again. But we'll meet soon. I'll rendezvous with you back at Camp Half-Blood." She glanced at Hera. "You'll see them there safely? It's the least you can do."

"It's not your place to tell me—"

"Queen Hera," Piper interceded.

The goddess sighed. "Fine. Yes. Just off with you, Hunter!"

Thalia gave Jason a hug and said her good-byes. When the Hunters were gone, the courtyard seemed strangely quiet. The dry reflecting pool showed no sign of the earthen tendrils that had brought back the giant king or imprisoned Hera. The night sky was clear and starry. The wind rustled in the redwoods. Amoriel thought about the time she and her father came here, to Sonoma valley. It was like now, except it was day.

"Jason, Amoriel, what happened to you here?" Piper asked. "I mean—I know Jason's mom abandoned him here. But you said it was sacred ground for demigods. Why? What happened after he was on his own?"

Jason shook his head uneasily. "It's still murky. The wolves ..."

"You were given a destiny," Hera said. "You were given into my service."

Jason scowled. "Because you forced my mom to do that. You couldn't stand knowing Zeus had two children with my mom. Knowing that he'd fallen for her twice. I was the price you demanded for leaving the rest of my family alone. "

"It was the right choice for you as well, Jason," Hera insisted. "The second time your mother managed to snare Zeus's affections, it was because she imagined him in a different aspect—the aspect of Jupiter. Never before had this happened—two children, Greek and Roman, born into the same family. You had to be separated from Thalia. And Eros allowed me to use Amoriel for this quest in exchange for me helping him hide Amoriel from Zeus until she's old enough to go to the camp, this is where all demigods of your kind start their journey."

"Of their kind?" Piper asked.

"She means Roman," Jason said. "Demigods are left here. We meet the she-wolf goddess, Lupa, the same immortal wolf that raised Romulus and Remus."

Hera nodded. "And if you are strong enough, you live."

"But ..." Leo looked mystified. "What happened after that? I mean, you guys never made it to camp."

"Not to Camp Half-Blood, no," Amoriel agreed.

Piper felt as if the sky were spiraling above her, making her dizzy. "You went somewhere else. That's where you've been all these years. Somewhere else for demigods—but where?"

Amoriel turned to the goddess. "The memories are coming back, but not the location. You're not going to tell us, are you?"

"No," Hera said. "That is part of your destiny. You and Jason must find your own way back. But when you do ... you two will unite two great powers. You will give us hope against the giants, and more importantly—against Gaea herself."

"You want us to help you," Jason said, "but you're holding back information."

"Giving you answers would make those answers invalid," Hera said. "That is the way of the Fates. You must forge your own path for it to mean anything. Already, you four have surprised me. I would not have thought it possible ..."

The goddess shook her head. "Suffice to say, you have performed well, demigods. But this is only the beginning. Now you must return to Camp Half-Blood, where you will begin planning for the next phase."

"Which you won't tell us about," Jason grumped. "And I suppose you destroyed my nice storm spirit horse, so we'll have to walk home?"

Hera waved aside the question. "Storm spirits are creatures of chaos. I did not destroy that one, though I have no idea where he went, or whether you'll see him again. But there is an easier way home for you. As you have done me a great service, so I can help you—at least this once. Farewell, demigods, for now."

The world turned upside down, and Amoriel almost blacked out.