Chapter 13

He sat in the rubble and stared at the sleeping form next to him.

It wasn't Thanas. Thanas was a lot paler. He was taller, and the bulk of his muscular definition was in his upper body and shoulders. And he most definitely did not have long hair.

Someone had moved him while he was asleep. He was in Ostia now instead of Rome. He wasn't even sure if his lookout shift had finished when he passed out.

The figure on the floor suddenly woke up, pushing herself up and stretching. She blinked a few times, noticing that she wasn't in the same place she'd fallen asleep in. When her eyes landed on him, his breath caught in his throat.

It was the person he feared it would be: Zoë.

Percy's relationship with Zoë had always been complicated.

The first time he met her, he was standing within fifty Roman pedes of the Titan Atlas. Atlas had cursed her for betraying him and her sisters and revoked her immortality. Surely one of the gods would have found her had he not… in fact, he knew one of the gods would have found her.

But it was perhaps because he did run into Zoë that all this was happening to him. Had he never met her he likely wouldn't have gone to Olympus. He never would have received Aegis. He would have fallen in love and married. He would have had children and lived a peaceful live. Or he would have continued adventuring and died a lonely death. He would never have become the tutor of Achilles, a hero of the Trojan War. And most of all, he never would have become the demon he was now.

Thinking about it, it was all Apollo's fault. Or Artemis'. He couldn't remember who was behind sending him his first dream. He remembered the Fates about to rip his mind to pieces, and perhaps that was what ingrained that memory so deeply. His first memory about Zoë.

The Twin Archers had created the most dangerous demigod to ever live. If Heracles was the strongest demigod, if Achilles was Greece's greatest warrior, and Jason the hero of the Argonauts and conqueror of the Sea of Monsters, or even Perseus the slayer of Medusa, or Odysseus being the wittiest Greek hero... then he truly was Perseus, the destroyer of kingdoms.

Never before had a demigod been the cause of tens of thousands of deaths by his sword and bow.

And not even the girl he had loved could stop him.

He wasn't sure if they were meant to fall in love. But they had, even though they had both agreed to start the Hunters of Artemis. That was probably what made the relationship so complicated. The whole point was to find girls who scorned men, hated them. He'd neglected the fact that he himself was a man. In the end, it didn't seem like all the Hunters hated all men anyway. Hippolytus, one of Theseus' sons, gave up love in order to join the Hunt.

But Zoë was the only Hunter he knew who had actively loved someone while in the Hunt.

"Hi," he said quietly.

Zoë stared at him like he was a ghost. "You..."

"No, I have no idea why I'm here," he told her. He gestured over his shoulder to the exit. "Shall we talk and walk?"

The two of them got up and left, walking side-by-side, leaving over an arm's length of distance between them.

"So what are you doing in Ostia?" Percy asked.

"I have no idea either," Zoë admitted with a sigh. "I was sleeping and, suddenly, when I woke, you were lying there next to me."

He shrugged. "I guess it just turned out that way."

"Sure."

As for their relationship after the fall of Western Rome… that wasn't going well.

Rome was just a day or less inland from where they stood. It was desolate, at least in comparison to what it had once been. There were still a few tribes here and there, and not all the Romans had died. Survivors had become slaves themselves. A city that had once supported the lives of a million souls had dwindled down to the thousands, as it had been during the times of the Kingdom.

Much of its riches and monuments had been pillaged or destroyed. The Forum, which was once the headquarters for the Senate and the center of Roman power, had been all but reduced to rubble in these Gothic Wars.

It wasn't uncommon to see stragglers or criminals roaming the streets of Rome. After all, there was no longer any central government and no army to follow through with those orders. Percy wondered how things were over in the Eastern Empire. While he should have been ecstatic that the east still remained with the power base in the Hellenic provinces and Asia Minor, it was still difficult to manage the installation of Christian leaders that dominated the east. That was perhaps the most important reason for why East Rome still stood. He'd united the Eastern Roman Empire and diluted the Western Empire. And the barbarians saw Western Rome as the easier target.

Once Constantine made Constantinople his capital, Rome was no longer the most defensible city in the two Empires. Rome's older Aurelian Walls were no match for the newfound strength of the barbarians, whereas the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, in addition to being along the strait where the Symplegades had once clashed, made the city extremely difficult to capture.

"Look, the Temple of Venus," Percy said as they passed a ruined structure. "There's a woman standing there."

Zoë turned to look. She frowned. "Isn't that…?"

The woman looked up. Percy recognized her instantly.

She was beautiful beyond doubt. Her eyes continuously changed colour. So did her hair. In fact, her whole appearance continued changing, slowly becoming prettier and prettier. It was Venus herself.

"I want no part of this," Zoë said stiffly before turning to walk away.

Before she could, there was an explosion of smoke in front of them. Appearing was none other than the aforementioned goddess. She was wearing battle armour, like she was ready to fight. She kept the spear in her hand and the helmet on her head, despite what it could have done to mess up her hair. Zoë was forced to halt in her tracks, scowling at the goddess of love.

"Hello, Venus," Percy greeted cautiously.

The goddess waved him off. "I'm Aphrodite."

Percy glanced behind him at the ruins of the Temple of Venus.

"Oh, don't be suspicious just because I'm wearing battle armour," the goddess sighed. "I am the mother of Eros. And that rascal loves to shoot people."

"That's true..." Percy muttered, remembering the last time he met the god.

"And for what reason did you want to speak to us?" Zoë asked carefully.

Aphrodite stared at Zoë curiously for a dozen seconds. "The Huntress mistrusts me and believes I have ill intent. May I ask, Zoë Nightshade, where this bias comes from? Does it, by any chance, come from Artemis' lectures on the threats of love? Isn't that ironic? You yourself still love, do you not?"

Zoë glared at the goddess and set her jaw. "Those feelings have long dissipated."

Percy thought he saw a flicker of worry in the goddess' eyes, but Aphrodite masked it with an artificial smile.

"Oh, dear." Aphrodite fabricated a look of pity, as if she was trying to persuade Zoë. "You hardly even know yourself."

Zoë just kept glaring. She didn't say a word.

"But, alas, that is not why I have summoned you here today," Aphrodite sighed.

"Summoned us?" Percy was confused. She was the one that appeared in front of them.

"Of course," Aphrodite nodded. "Why else would two people who hold such distaste for one another, who have not seen each other in five hundred years and left on a bad note, wake up together?"

Percy and Zoë shared a quick glance. Uh-oh, he thought.

"In any case," the goddess continued, "I have a favour to ask of you. I know you might wonder what stupid quest the goddess of love has planned for you, but this is urgent. As you can see behind you, my temple has been utterly destroyed. The good news is that the Romans predicted this and sent the cargo to Constantinople. The bad news is that it was ransacked by one of the last remaining pirates in existence, Chrysaor."

"I've heard that name before," Zoë muttered.

"He is the brother of Pegasus," Aphrodite explained. "He was once a devilishly kind man. He wielded a golden sword, the first golden sword, of which he gifted his first version to the Trojans… the sword you call the Sword of Troy. But after the Trojan War, Chrysaor decided that the heroes of Achaea were no longer worthy. He crafted a new sword from what was then called Enchanted gold in Ausonia and turned against mortals, becoming a pirate. He ransacked the convoy that was carrying my jewels. I want you two to find my jewels: pearls, gold, jade, sapphire and silver. You will know them when you see them."

"Why ask the both of us?" Zoë questioned. She glanced over at Percy. "If Chrysaor is a pirate, why can't he go alone?"

Aphrodite gave him a sad smile. "He cannot, Zoë. If he could, I would have chosen him alone."

"I can't?"

"That is something for me to decide and you to follow," the goddess said with a sigh. She looked up into the sky. "Normally Zeus would send me a warning for talking to you for so long. Alas, he cannot right now. The war is stirring, and with the obliteration of the Eleventh Legion, he's not in the best of moods." She turned back to face them. "It is time for you to choose your path, Percy. You forgave me a thousand years ago. Will you forgive Apollo? Or will you continue down this path until you are no longer human?"

Percy stared at Aphrodite. The goddess wasn't all that scary. She was smiling, and as always looked elegant. But her tone was serious. She truly meant it. This was the true Aphrodite, the one who cared about more than just looks and makeup. The one who wanted everything to work out in the end. Her words sounded exactly like those of Chiron, who had warned him so long ago to stop with all the killing.

Percy knew it was impossible. All of his hunting skills and been transferred to hunting humans. There was no way he couldn't do that anymore. He knew, deep down, that they wanted him to stop tearing things down. They wanted to show him that he didn't need to be a destroyer. They wanted to show him that he didn't need to control everything anymore. That it was time for a new era—an era of growth and prosperity.

He had a feeling that the whole point of the quest was to help him realize that truth, and Zoë was there to help.

"I'll take on your quest, Aphrodite," he said. "But I won't promise you anything."

The goddess sighed again. "Very well. Good luck, Percy. Zoë." The goddess bowed before snapping her fingers and disappearing.

Percy glanced at Zoë.

She immediately crossed her arms and shook her head. "I don't want to do anything for that goddess."

"Why not?" he asked with a frown. "Don't tell me you actually believe Artemis."

Zoë scowled. "I don't trust her intentions. I don't care if she's already held back and kept us apart all these centuries. I am a Hunter of Artemis. The reason why I dislike Aphrodite should be self-explanatory, Percy. And it is insulting that you would speak of Lady Artemis that way."

He closed his eyes and let out a loud sigh. "Okay, maybe I phrased that wrong, but you know what I mean. Artemis holds grudges. You can't deny that she's biased. But Aphrodite is technically under my debt. She felt guilty for doing what she did to me before Mycenaean Greece fell, and I forgave her. There was an unspoken agreement… we both know that my forgiveness came with the condition that I am not to be bothered. And by affiliation, that means you are free from Aphrodite's influence too."

Zoë stared at him for another few seconds. She'd been doing that often lately. "You were meticulous, weren't you?"

Percy knew what she meant. He looked away and nodded. "I can't travel with the snap of my fingers. Of course, my plans could go awry if one part of my plan went wrong. So I waited in the shadows, built Rome up on pillars of sand, ready at any moment to make it all crumble to the ground. If I chose so, I could have ended Rome with Caesar. But I believed in him. When he went back on his word... would I just let him order the wholesale slaughter of Greeks? Everything I did was to make the Greeks have a better future."

"Your methodology was all wrong," Zoë said bluntly.

"You only say that because you hate to see what I've become," he argued back. "If you went through what I went through, you would understand why I acted the way I did. I needed to do whatever it took to achieve my goals."

Zoë gave him a pained look. "And you realize that it's only because it was you that you aren't dead, right? If it hadn't been you, but someone who wasn't backed by Athena, the gods would have smote you. Because despite everything you did, Athena backed you. Even as a Greek goddess, she supported your containment strategy of the Romans. Now… now that things are more balanced, if the gods catch you, you will be punished. Only Apollo and Ares hated you. Now many of the others will join them if you continue down this path."

Percy fought back a smirk. That's what you think, he thought.

"I need to get back to Thanas, Xanthe and Leon."

She paused for a moment. Then, she pointed toward the harbour. "Later. Let's go find Aphrodite's jewels first to get her off our back. She didn't say explicitly but I have a feeling she will give us useful information, particularly on the whereabouts of my Hunters."

He was surprised. He didn't expect her to give in and join him on the quest. He fully expected her to leave, and he was fully willing to go on his own even if it meant his end. After all, it was what everyone seemed to want… right?

As she passed by his ear, Zoë whispered, "If I hadn't fallen in love with you, I wouldn't have made that promise when you were exiled to protect you… to keep you alive at any cost. Trust me, Percy. I know what you saw. Because I took leave from the Hunters to follow you across the world. I know what you saw…"

Her dark eyes seemed even more piercing than usual.

"I saw what you saw."

I have made next to no progress in the past month lol. I didn't even proofread this before posting. Damn, I forgot how hard it was to finish a story. I'm gonna keep trying. I just need to figure out how to not jump straight to the ending, because that's what I really want to get to, except it'll be super abrupt and everything if I don't at least show how they get there.

Just keep writing. Just keep writing. Just keep writing, writing, writing...