CHAPTER EIGHT: Faith
Alex's ancestor was named Flynn Stockett. Chiron killed him during the Civil War.
A Roman demigod, Flynn was the one who led the rogue army of Romans who supported the Confederacy. It was a history Piper and Leo were already vaguely aware of, how some of the Romans were Confederates, and the Greeks largely fought for the Union. But Chiron further explained: the Greeks and the Romans had avoided confrontation for three years, and all they had of each other were rumours. Iris messages that were cut off. Council meetings cancelled at the last minute. Communication lines interfered with. Threats made. Camp Jupiter cut themselves off from the world and Camp Halfblood was fortified with the help of all the inventions sprouting from Bunker Nine. Festus was designed with stronger armour, and he guarded the Hill. Gods picked and chose sides.
It would have been just like any other war, but as soon as Chiron knew that a descendant of Achilles was leading the charge, extra measures had to be taken.
"What's so dangerous about descendants of Achilles?" Alex asked.
Her face was tired, but her eyes were still sharp, showing that she was still thinking. Pushing herself to stay awake, to pay attention to this nightmare unfolding - but not actually scared. Piper had seen Alex scared over much less things. Like the director yelling at her, or someone slamming the door too hard. But now, Alex May just looked resigned to her fate. She was over it.
Piper tried to catch her eye, to tell her that she was still here (that they all were), but Alex didn't look.
"Perhaps it is better to call them legacies," Chiron explained. "Unlike demigods, legacies are not direct descendants of a god. They are the further generations of gods, or demigods. They are more often recognised at our sister camp in Camp Jupiter, where the Roman demigods live."
She saw Alex, Riley and Mags avoid his gaze. Chiron still thought they didn't know about Camp Jupiter. Piper was already getting a headache from all the things they knew, still had to know, and still had to say.
Jesus Christ, she thought, massaging her forehead.
"But they are dangerous because..." Chiron continued, "...they exhibit all the best qualities of Achilles and warp them into something dark. Like taking the warmth of the sun and shaping it into a burning dagger. Achilles was known as the shield of an army. It was the common belief that any battle Achilles fought, he would win – and this was true, too, for his legacies. But somewhere along the line, after Alexander the Great, Achilles' line became too ambitious. Desperate for glory. Bordering on bloodthirsty. All the things Achilles courted but managed to avoid, until the end."
The centaur paused, deep in thought. "It…the dramatic change has always remained a mystery to me. Perhaps this was always his and his children's destiny. But every major war in human history has had one aspect of it led by a child of Achilles. That is, until the end of the Civil War."
"I remember Percy told us about the Curse of Achilles once," Leo spoke up, "and how he had it. I – I can't believe we never thought about it before," he looked to Piper, shocked. "Percy told us all about how he got so exhausted, how he felt too powerful."
"You're right, Leo, and Percy would have also told you about how the Curse amplifies a demigod's fatal flaw. Achilles' flaw was always his need for glory, and his prejudice against his enemies."
Piper frowned. Just as Leo reminded her, everything came flooding back. That one night the Argo II team spent around the campfire, after all the food and songs. All the old stories of the war against Kronos. Jason's stories with the Roman legion. Percy's stories of Manhattan. And how he'd willingly submitted himself to the Curse of Achilles.
She should have remembered. And then it hit her.
"So why don't we just bring Alex to the Tiber River? That's how Percy got rid of the Curse, right?" she asked.
"Yes, but - " Piper had never hated the word 'but' more, "- Alex May and her family are not cursed. Not in the usual sense, anyway."
Alex frowned, her hands nervously clasping each other. "I...don't get the difference."
Chiron bowed his head, taking a second to think. "It may be similar to how...children of Athena are born with an innate fear of spiders. This is due to their mother's encounter with Arachne. It's something that's just built within them, and isn't a spell or curse that can be lifted."
"So this whole murderous warlord thing is just built within me?"
Chiron realised his mistake. "No. No, Alex, I was foolish and wrong to treat you that way, and I cannot apologise enough -"
"No, it's okay, it's fine - I just don't -" Alex folded her arms, unfolded them, and then folded them again. "I just don't get how you could be so sure that all of Achilles' descendants are like that. After Alexander the Great," she added quickly, in case anyone was going to correct her. No one did.
"It was what we came to expect," Chiron sighed. "In the Siege of Jerusalem, Quirinus was at the front of the Roman army's wedge, destroying the Second Temple. In the time of the Crusades, there was Malcolm Jacobs. 101 killed by his sword. The Napoleonic Wars had Estelle Boucher, who disguised herself as her ill husband and took his place as captain of his company. All of them led their people to many victories, and merciless death for their enemies. And all of them - the accounts of these three, in particular - describe them as quiet and mild-mannered until it seemed like a switch was turned on that eventually made them unstoppable."
Alex closed in on herself.
"And the arrow?" Riley asked. He'd been so unnaturally quiet Piper almost forgot he was here. He was still sitting next to Alex, he and Mags on either side of her, but now there was a gap of space between him and Alex. Piper couldn't yet figure out why that seemed so strange.
"The Amazons," the centaur answered. "Achilles killed their queen, Penthesilea, during the Trojan War. They made it one of their missions to track down dangerous legacies of Achilles and...do whatever was necessary to subdue them. It was the Amazons who recovered the arrow that killed Achilles, before his funeral pyre. They grow the tree and create the arrows when they are needed."
"And they needed them for me?" Alex asked.
"You said they shot the arrow at the giant?" Chiron turned to Piper, and she hastily nodded. "Then no, I think...I believe that was more of a warning sign. To show that they were aware of you."
"Because they weren't sure," Mags guessed, sounding hopeful. Piper didn't want to say too hopeful. "They weren't sure if Alex was even the kind of Achilles kid that was dangerous. Because we all know she's not."
Chiron hesitated. "…the Amazons know more about it than I do. They've been…secretive about their operations regarding the line of Achilles. All the knowledge of his line, I accumulated over the years for my own peace of mind. I was Achilles' trainer but he was also my friend. Perhaps they thought I was too close to the situation to have an opinion. But they did give me the arrow to incapacitate Flynn. I'd shot at him, and he caught it. As I said before, these arrows are like any other, but for the curse upon them that makes descendants of Achilles recall his pain. It is the only thing we know that stops them long enough. So Flynn, when he caught the arrow, felt the same pain Alex May did, and once he was down, we captured him and…" his sentence trailed off. Everyone guessed the ending to that story.
The room fell quiet.
Piper looked to Leo, who only gave her a short glance before continuing to fiddle with a paper clip in his hands.
She looked to Mags, who had her scrunched-lips-thinking-face on. Probably thinking of ways to prove Alex's innocence. And then there was Riley, who looked too overwhelmed for words. Piper couldn't tell yet what he was thinking.
And then Alex.
Piper had heard of 'dangerous demigods' before. She'd dated one, and been friends with countless others. She'd heard of heavy family histories. And she was no stranger to fate or destiny, or the terrible feeling that nothing was in her control. But she didn't know how Alex felt about all that stuff. She assumed Alex was just content with living, with singing and baking and taking care of Riley and Mags. She always looked like she was okay with that. Like she was ready for anything life was going to toss at her, no matter how anxious she got. And now that Alex was silent, Piper wished she had asked. How simple would that have been?
Hey. So. Destinies. Swipe left or swipe right?
Then she would've known how to help her.
"So…" Alex spoke up again, waking up the whole room. "How did you know you had no choice but to kill Flynn?"
"The American Civil War, as you all might recall, lasted for several years. However, between the two camps, the real confrontation only began in 1864, and lasted several days. And everything seemed worse because…" Chiron's expression became pained. Piper had never seen him look so haunted. "Because they were all children. The oldest must have been only eighteen. Flynn was nineteen," he added. "We had older campers come in to help on the last day, and even some of the Romans came in to fight against Flynn's rogue army, but there was so much confusion and Greeks began to attack any Roman in sight." The centaur closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and sighing.
"It was too bloody. Too much. And Flynn Stockett killed so many. Anyone who tried to stop him. Early in the battle, I had captured one of his men. Whom I believed to be his right-hand man. I held him right here," Chiron held his arm out to the space next to him. Piper imagined a Roman boy of sixteen. She tried not to imagine Jason's face. "I held him by the collar of his armour. We stood atop the Hill. Flynn was down near the strawberry fields. And I offered to talk peace, in exchange for the freedom of his compatriot. But Flynn...Flynn threw his spear, and he killed him. Killed his own friend. And we knew then, there would be no peace. Not for a boy like that."
And the story seemed to finish there. Piper allowed herself to relax. She'd been standing so rigid, but now she slumped against the bookshelf, not caring anymore about what was behind her. She and Leo locked eyes again. An invisible conversation happened between them:
I'm sorry, Leo seemed to say. For what I said before.
Me too.
Piper took Leo's hand and squeezed it, before letting go.
Everyone waited for Alex to say something again. Even Alex seemed to. She looked left and right, waiting for Mags to come up with something logical, or Riley to break the tension. But when no one did, and she realised she was on her own, Alex May stood up from her seat on the floor.
Wobbling a bit, she steadied herself against the table that had the black arrow on it. Her eyes flickered to the arrow for a second before setting themselves on Chiron.
"Thank you," she said, her voice wavering only once. "Thank you for letting me know. I'm...I'll try not to be like that," she added, her gaze dropping to her feet. "I just need some time alone. I...I need to think." Alex took a sweeping look at all of her friends before walking out, only saying one more thing: "I'm sorry."
Once she was gone, Chiron told the rest of them to exit the Big House the back way, and he followed Alex.
The Aphrodite table had less people sitting on it in the Dining Pavilion so Piper gestured for Leo to sit with them. But just as Leo stood up, Mitchell waved for him to stop and Leo almost tripped trying to balance himself.
"Oh, my Gods, Mitchell -" Piper rolled her eyes. "Who cares about the rules -"
"I care. Jedediah got in trouble for trying to sit with the Hermes kids again and the harpies chased him off to the lava climbing wall. And then all the Athena kids had clean-up duty.'
"...fair enough."
Piper motioned for Leo to join her near the central fire. They both stood with their plates in their hands. Leo had roast chicken, vegetables, and a slice of bread that looked suspiciously like banana bread. He tore off a piece of the bread and some chicken into the fire.
"There you go, dad," he mumbled.
Piper scraped off some of the vegetables and pasta on her plate, dedicating the offering to her mother. She'd enjoyed this meal once, when she explored New Rome with Annabeth. There was also a donut and some fruit on her plate, but she figured Aphrodite would appreciate the fruit more. It went into the fire.
When she asked him where Calypso was, he said she'd taken Festus somewhere, and that he'd explain where later.
"But it's going to help. Hopefully," he said.
"If it means more people thinking about this, then I'm all for it. I thought we only had monsters to deal with. Now we have the Amazons? And all this stuff going against Alex...how did Percy and Annabeth and Grover deal with all this when they were just thirteen? Fourteen?"
"Actually, I think Grover was, like, twenty-eight."
"Still. I can barely handle storm-spirits and three mortals -"
"But you did handle them."
"You call one of my friends suddenly coming up as the next in line for Greatest Killer of All Time as 'handling' it?"
"Well, it's not your fault."
Piper frowned.
"Hey." Leo looked at her pointedly. "Lightning McLean."
She gave him a warning look.
"You love me," Leo said, through a mouthful of chicken. "And I love you. And the team loves you. And you know what else? You really gotta remember to love yourself." He pointed at her heart.
"Now I really hate you."
"- are you talking about the Justin Bieber song?" Lacy piped up. She and Mitchell appeared on either side of Leo and Piper, both with their own plates and looking pretty happy with themselves for popping up out of the blue.
Piper groaned. "What do you guys think you're doing?"
Mitchell shrugged. "Hanging out with my dearest, darlingest sibling and her best friend."
"Guys," Leo beamed, "can you please tell Piper she's freaking awesome and needs to give herself more credit?"
Mitchell and Lacy looked at each other and repeated, at the same time: "Piper, you're freaking awesome and need to give yourself more credit."
Piper stabbed a pasta spiral with her fork. "That wasn't freaky at all."
The two children of Aphrodite scraped off part of their food into the fire, and then Mitchell said: "Anyway. We came over 'cause you guys look like a fate worse than death."
"I guess you really were in trouble at the principal's office," Lacy said sadly. "Or was it just the mortals? I like them a lot, by the way."
"We weren't really in trouble," Leo said. "it was more like...Chiron telling us all the possible terrible things that could happen because of the stuff we did."
"So basically every meeting with Chiron?" Mitchell asked.
"Basically."
"Does that mean they'll have to go?" Lacy gasped.
"Who?" Piper blinked, only half-listening to their conversation.
Lacy nudged her gently. "Your cute friends. Alex, Riley, and Mags."
Piper shared a look with Leo: I really can't handle talking about this now. And he thankfully answered for her. "Not sure about that one, Strawberry Shortcake. I'll tell you this, though. I'm pretty sure Chiron likes them too. So you won't have to say goodbye to them anytime soon. Then again, if something changes last minute, don't blame me 'cause I can't actually see the future," he added, like a salesman speeding through the terms and conditions in a commercial.
"Now. Why're you asking anyway? You plannin' on working your love potions on one of them? Riley's taken, you know. I know how you like us curly-haired short boys," Leo teased.
Lacy threw a salad leaf at him.
"Yeah, I figured they were dating each other. Children of Aphrodite, remember," Mitchell said. "But they're pretty subtle about it. Which I totally respect. Remember when Sherman and Miranda first started dating and they were just laying the PDA everywhere? Ew." Then he glanced at Piper before continuing: "As a side note, I'm pretty sure Alex May is taken too."
Piper narrowed her eyes. Mitchell just smirked. "And Lacy would've noticed all this," he poked her, "if she wasn't so caught up in her own emotions."
"Ugh, this is so annoying," Lacy huffed. "When are you going to bring single people over here? I thought everyone at university was lonely and single!"
"You wouldn't like them, Lace," Piper chided. "And they're too old for you."
Lacy pouted, smoothing her hair down with her hands. A habit she had when she was feeling down. Piper remembered Drew used to point out all the kinks in Lacy's hair and force her to straighten them before Piper shouted at her about it.
"Is it true that they're monster-hunters?" Lacy asked.
Piper nodded. "Yeah, they are."
"Is that, like, their job?"
"I think they think it's their job."
"Huh. Where are they anyway?" Lacy asked.
"At the Hermes table." Mitchell answered before Piper could. Again, she narrowed her eyes at him. Maybe Mitchell was getting too confident. "Only Riley and Mags, though. Dunno where Alex is. But I heard Riley's going back to the Amphitheatre for the campfire sing-along later, and he's gonna make some plans with Leticia and Harley. Something about hacking Spotify or making Halfblood-tunes, or whatever."
"Awesome," Leo and Lacy said at the same time. The two demigods high-fived. As the two started talking about their favourite music, and other ways to incorporate more music around Camp, Mitchell shuffled around Leo to speak to Piper directly.
"'Sup?" he grinned.
"What do you want?" she frowned.
"What, I can't just stand here in front of a warm fire and talk to my sister and ask her how her day was and stuff?"
"You could, but you never want to do that. So what do you want?"
Mitchell tapped his fingers along the bottom of his plate, making a rapping sound that reminded Piper of when cartoon villains would rap their nails evilly on a table.
"Alex May," he said.
Piper arched an eyebrow. "You want Alex?"
"No," he rolled his eyes. "I want to talk about her. And you. Her and you."
"Mitchell." Piper stared at him. "Do you know who you're talking to?"
"Yes?"
"So you should know I already hate this conversation."
Piper finished the rest of her pasta, stabbing the vegetables and the spirals with her fork, before messily stuffing them into her mouth. The plate immediately filled up with her dessert: a certain sweet powder. She immediately thought of something else. The plate swapped it for chocolate cake.
She started walking around the pavilion, trying not to kill her brother in front of everyone. She probably didn't look as threatening as she wanted to, with chocolate icing all over her fingers, but the look in her eyes was enough to make nosy demigods look away.
"But you should also know that I'm not blind," Mitchell said quickly, catching up to her, "and, as Aphrodite's son, I have full awareness of human emotions, and you'd be dying to hear what Alex May is feeling -"
"I don't want to know! I don't want to know, Mitchell. As Aphrodite's daughter, I don't want to know!" she swatted her hand at him. He avoided the chocolate icing with a yelp.
Piper licked the icing from her fingers.
"Okay, you wanna make a bet?"
"No."
"Ugh, Piper, you can be so mean sometimes -" Mitchell shook his arms and shoulders, like he was holding in too much excitement and was going to burst at any second. "This is the most exciting thing that's happened all year and now you don't even want to talk about it? You have to tell me your secret. I've been dying to get Ellis to notice me, and you had Jason, tell me: how do you get all the cool heroes?"
Piper turned around, stopping Mitchell in his tracks.
Her eyes flashed and Mitchell gulped.
"I do not get all the heroes. I never wanted them," she snapped. "And you know that. So stop talking."
She continued walking, not even looking behind to see if Mitchell was following. She headed for the central fire again, leaving her plate and unfinished cake back at the Aphrodite table as she walked by.
Piper clenched and unclenched her hands, trying to ignore the churning feeling in her stomach. It was probably just bad vegetables. As if that was possible in Camp Halfblood. But, no, it had to be bad vegetables and not something even worse like refusing to confront all these emotions Mitchell kept talking about.
Back at the central fire, Piper had ten more minutes of quiet with Leo and Lacy (she saw Mitchell stay back at the Aphrodite table, talking with Taki the satyr about something), before all the demigods eventually left the Dining Pavilion. She knew they were all headed to the amphitheatre for the nightly campfire. She actually loved the campfire sing-alongs. But she needed to calm herself down and figure herself out before she faced anyone again.
Mitchell and his stupid emotions-radar.
Alex May and her stupid polvoron.
The gods and their stupid -
"Hi," said Mags, slowly coming up to stand next to Piper.
"Uh, hi." Piper crossed her arms over her chest.
"You okay? You look a little spooked. And annoyed. More so than usual."
"No, I'm fine. Just...thinking."
Mags did a weak chuckle. "Just thinking," she repeated, doing quotation marks in the air with her fingers. "Yeah, I've said that before."
They stood in silence for a short while, staring into the fire.
"You know...the last time Alex fought," Mags began, her voice small. "Before we made her promise not to fight again...we went on this road-trip around America. I'd finished my Communications degree so it was all spring break stuff," she rolled her eyes. "And everything was fine. You know. The usual. Alex killed monsters before we even got to them. I drove the car and Riley navigated. Alex slept in the back. We got to Washington...happened upon this group of...God, I can never remember the name. Tel...Tele…?"
"Telekhines?" Piper offered.
"Yes. Those. Anyway, we came upon a whole pack of them. Way more than just three monsters that could be stabbed. We were getting outnumbered. And...they'd lost me," Mags' smile faded completely. "All I could remember was a bunch of monsters overwhelming me, and then pulling me away, further into these mountain caves, I - I couldn't even remember how or why they got me. And then I just heard all this shouting. And suddenly all these telekhines around me...they disappeared. And instead of being covered in telekhines, I was covered in blood."
The image of the Roman sixteen year old soldier came back to Piper's mind. A golden spear sticking out of his chest. Chiron horrified, the boy's blood on his hands.
"And Alex wouldn't stop fighting. She kept trying to kill them even when they were already retreating, we - we had no idea what to do. We just kept begging her to stop, to just come back to us and help me out. And when she finally heard us - she did. And she came back to us, and collapsed at my feet."
Then Mags' face hardened.
"I have more reason to believe that Alex can turn evil and unstoppable, more reason than anyone else. Riley and I do. This was before we even knew about this whole Achilles thing. All we had to go on was our friend could turn into this insane killing machine. But we chose not to believe that that was all she was. We couldn't stop her, but we trusted her to stop. And she did. I just...I just hope you haven't lost faith in her. Please don't," Mags looked straight at her, searching for her reaction.
Piper looked right back. She saw the truth in Mags' eyes; Mags believed in Alex a hundred per cent. And didn't have a single doubt about it. And Piper knew her well enough to know that, if Mags felt Alex was in any real danger in Camp, she would leave without a moment's notice and take Alex with her. She'd protect her herself. That was what she and Riley did.
She knew what she should say: that fate was a weird thing in the world of gods and monsters. That sometimes they had no choice but to just go with it. No matter how hard they tried, as Piper knew all too well. And you lost people, and you lost lives. She tore her gaze away from Mags to look back into the fire.
And in the flames, she saw impossible things. Visions of a figure standing on a stage, singing with her arms held out. Four people walking together. Hands exchanging a bowl. A smile that glowed brighter than any light, any flame, any star.
You could lose faith in destiny, fate, and the gods, Piper thought. But not people. Over the years, Piper had begun to put her faith in people. And people had never let her down. So she wasn't going to let them down either.
"I'm not going to lose faith in her, Mags. In any of you. We're all in this together now, so...I got you." Piper's smile was small, but it was a promise. She looped her arm around Mags'. The other girl laughed with relief, wiping the corner of her eye, and Piper began to lead them both out of the Dining Pavilion and towards the amphitheatre.
When she turned back to the central fire, she saw a little girl sitting there, picking up a fallen piece of chicken. The girl waved at Piper, and smiled.
A/N: and that finishes the big reveal! for now!
i hope all my things about the Civil War are okay, as far as I remember they didn't really get into too much detail about the Civil War in the books, so there was some room to play around with that.
thank you again to SundayPopTarts, I actually found a copy of Camp Halfblood Confidential and read it as fast as I could. HIGHLY recommend everyone to read it bc I'd forgotten so many things about the actual camp and it was nice to go back into the world without the context of a whole quest and stuff. also how did leo and thalia skype sally and mr grace that easily ? is there actually secret wifi in camp? who knows kfbvhjekjrh
That being said, I still have to continue reading the Trials of Apollo rip
also - Chiron's history with Achilles will be more explored, and Mags is also getting a larger role in the story now, just wait until the next few chapters, it's gonna get wild
hope everyone has enjoyed it! so much is already happening and there's bigger things in store so just stay tuned :) please leave a comment if there's anything you'd like to see, or anything i should improve on. thank you always for reading ❤️