CHAPTER ONE
Seven years earlier
When Nico and Will brought home their adopted daughter, they knew she needed a name. In honour of Bianca di Angelo, the sister of Nico di Angelo, who sacrificed herself to save her comrades in battle, Nico and Will decided to name their child Bianca Solace.
Bianca was raised with her two fathers, in New Rome at Camp Jupiter. New Rome seemed to be the only safe place for descendants of the gods to stay and raise a family. Nico was the son of the god Hades, who ruled the underworld. Some people might think that letting a five year old child walk around the fields of punishment with no restrictions, might send that child insane. Not for Bianca Solace. The first time Nico and Will brought their daughter down to the land of the dead to meet her grandfather, Bianca was two. As soon as Hades was introduced to the child, he fell all over her. Just because the god of the Underworld ruled over the dead, did not necessarily mean he did not have a soft spot for his grandchildren. Hades cooed over Bianca and gave her a miniature skeleton toy to play with. Bianca sat with Persephone as Nico, Will and Hades talked. Persephone never had any grandchildren of her own even if they were step-grandchildren. She plaited dandelions in Bianca's hair and talked to her, asking about her favourite things to do, friends, and what she thought of Persephone.
Bianca Solace had never met Apollo, Will's dad. Though she knew he was watching over her. When Bianca visited Camp Jupiter, she practised archery and even if she looked like her shot was way off, she never missed. When Bianca did the right thing, when she had fights with friends and resolved them for example, the sun would shine a little brighter.
By the time Bianca was seven, Will and Nico took her to see Chiron at Camp Half Blood. It was very different from what she was used to at Camp Jupiter. The cabins were assigned to campers depending on their Olympian parent. There was a huge dog lying in the sun, while a young man with dark hair and sea green eyes battled against a girl around the same age as him, maybe 30? 31? She had blonde hair tied up in a messy ponytail which swung from side to side as she sidestepped and slashed with her bronze coloured dagger. "Hey Percy! Annabeth." Bianca heard Nico call as they passed. "Hey Nico!" The boy that must be named Percy answered. the girl nodded at them and jabbed Percy in the chest. "Ha! I hit you Percy!" The girl said, "Aw, no fair Annabeth! I wasn't looking!" Percy laughed.
By the time they reached the building that Will called the big house, the sun was setting. Chiron turned out to be a centaur, a man that was a man waist up, and a white stallion waist down. The centaur invited them into the Big House for an introduction, then he walked the family of three down to the dining hall. Chiron seemed really happy that Bianca was here with her parents, and laughed when Bianca said, "I thought you sailed the boat?". The little girl sat on top of the centaur's white body, as he trotted over to a seat at a big table up the front. Nico and Will sat beside Chiron, and Bianca sat on Will's lap.
"Say whatever food and drink you want, and it will appear in front of you sitting on the plate." Will told Bianca. "I want pizza!" The child said, and sure enough, there it was, sitting on her plate warm and fresh out of the oven. "You have good taste," Percy called to her from the Poseidon table. "Why is yours blue?" Bianca called back. Percy laughed along with a faun, no, satyr, and a little girl with black hair and grey eyes that sat next to him. Bianca frowned, missing the joke.
Will sat Bianca down on her chair and left Bianca to eat her pizza. When the little girl finished, she scraped her leftovers into the hearth like Nico showed her to do. The girl named Annabeth that was fighting Percy earlier, stood behind her showing a little boy how to do it. "Come on Cast, stand next to that little girl over there. Scrape that strawberry and this cracker into the fire and say 'Athena'." Annabeth told the boy. The boy that Annabeth called Cast walked up to the hearth and scraped in his food. Cast had scruffy blonde hair with what looked like an extremely faded steak of grey. His wide sea green eyes reflected the flickering flames of the hearth. Cast wore a grimy Camp Half Blood shirt and mud stained grey shorts. Bianca knew this must be Annabeth's son. Cast walked back to his mother and together they strolled back to the Athena table.
After dinner was finished, Nico told Bianca to go make some friends by the lake where a group of kids about the same age as Bianca were playing tag. Bianca walked over to the group of kids and asked if she could play. A girl with coffee brown hair tied up in a red bandanna pointed towards one of the boys. "You have to ask Cast. He will tell you." The girl said. "Thanks," Bianca said, and she marched off towards the little boy Cast she saw at dinner. "Hey! Can I play?" She asked him, Cast nodded. He lunged at one of the girls and tagged her. "Run! Amy is in!" Cast yelled. Several little kids screamed and ran away from the girl called Amy. In the process of dashing away from Amy, Cast tripped on a stone and fell on his knees. "Ouch." He muttered, Bianca looked down at him and stretched out her hand for him to gab on to. Cast grabbed her hand and Bianca heeved him up onto his feet. "Thanks," Cast said, "No worries. My dad told me to make more friends. This might be a good way to start." Bianca replied. "Sounds good. I'm Cast then." He said. "Bianca, nice to meet you." The little girl said. "Come on then Bianca! We don't want Amy to catch us!" Cast laughed and dashed away.
Present Day
"Come on! Run Cast!" Bianca Solace called behind her. She could just see the sign that said Camp Half Blood. If she just kept running they would make it. "I'm running! This thing is gaining on us!" Cast Jackson yelled from a metre or so behind her. Bianca could see the tip of Thalia's pine tree. "We are almost there!" Bianca said. The hellhound howled into the dark misty sky. Cast sped past Bianca and crossed the magical barrier of Half Blood Hill. The hellhound galloped past her in a blur of black. The monster turned to face her and growled. 13 year old Bianca slid under the hellhound and jabbed her celestial bronze dagger into the hellhound's gut. It exploded into a cloud of dust as Bianca picked up her dagger and ran across the barrier of the hill.
"Woah, that thing was nothing like Mrs O'leary." Cast exclaimed, hands on his hips. "Yeah, that's because Mrs O'leary is a trained hellhound. Dunno how, but she is as cuddly as your giant teddy bear sitting in the Poseidon cabin." Bianca answered, totally puffed out. "You've got monster dust in your hair." Cast pointed out. Bianca ruffed her black, blonde-streaked hair and flakes of monster dust drifted down. "Come on, Amy and the others are waiting for us inside the camp" Cast told Bianca. "Alright, let's go." She replied. And the two of them walked into camp.
Once Cast and Bianca strolled into the camp, Amy La Rue ran up to them, "Hey, what happened? What took you guys so long?" She sounded panicked, something had happened. "Nah, just got chased by a hellhound. Didn't find anything, just more monsters than usual." Cast said. "Yeah," Bianca agreed, "I thought that the Hunters were meant to be hunting in that area. Now there are more monsters, it feels like Alaska."
Bianca and Cast were sent on a quick quest earlier in the day. They were meant to find the Hunters of Artemis and ask them if they could help kill a monster that has been hanging around camp borders. Now the Hunters have completely disappeared and the monster keeps getting closer and closer to the camp.
"Bianca! Thank the gods your safe!" Bianca turned around and there were both her dads standing behind her. Bianca leaped into Nico and Will's arms. When she pulled away, Bianca said "We need to find Chiron, maybe he will know what to do." Nico tapped her shoulder, the others looked back, "Don't worry guys, I will catch up." Bianca told them. She turned to her parents, they were both smiling warmly at her. The sun bounced off Will's golden hair, Nico's eyes gleamed in the light. "Bianca," Will said, "Nico and I have decided to go back to New Rome. We are not asking you to come with us, we just need to get back to work and if you don't want to come we totally understand-" Bianca cut him off, "No, you guys need to get back to work, I get it. But I really need to find out what is going on with the Hunters." Nico nodded his head, "Alright hon. You do what you need to do."
"Thanks, I will get someone to drop me back to New Rome when I can. I'll also let you know if anything happens." Bianca smiled then ran off to her friends.
"What did they want?" Amy asked Bianca when she caught up. "Oh well, they just wanted to let me know that they are going back to New Rome, they need to get on with some work." She answered. "Oh, cool." Cast said, nodding his head. The three of them hurried off towards the Big House. "Amy, you sounded worried when you asked us what had happened. What is going on here?" Bianca asked, she did not like the way Amy frowned at her question. "Ah, well I should probably let Chiron explain that." She said, then looked down as if the movement of her feet was the most interesting thing she had seen all day.
"Chiron!" Cast called as they dashed towards the centaur. "Yes child?" Chiron looked up and down at the three of us. "We have something to ask you." Cast continued, he told Chiron what he and Bianca had seen on their trip. "Oh dear. I think we will need to call an emergency council meeting for this." He frowned just the way Amy had. "You three must go spread the news. It will start in five minutes." Bianca nodded and the three walked off to fulfil their task.
By the time everyone was in the rec room sitting down and Bianca had explained their story again, lunch had just passed. "Hm, that's not normal for Hunters of Artemis to just disappear. Maybe they just decided that they needed to hunt in another area because it was more important?" Coby Stoll offered. "No, the Hunters have a schedule and they stick to it. They only skip when…" Chiron's voice trailed off. "When what?" Amy asked. Chiron looked at her, "Only when they have to do something with Artemis on Olympus. But that hasn't happened in over a thousand years." Bianca gave this some thought. Maybe they were planning a party for a special god? Or helping Hermes deliver the mail? Or maybe- all thoughts of hope were crushed when Chiron said, " and when Artemis brings the hunters up to Olympus, it is never a good thing." he glanced at everyone individually, giving each person a grim look. Cast reached for a cracker, and stuffed it in his mouth. " We have afternoon activities, how about we just worry about this tomorrow?" Nothing, absolutely nothing seems to get in the way of Cast and his afternoon sword fighting.
"Yes, Cast is right. I will sleep on this and let you know if I come up with anything." Chiron told the group. " You may all go enjoy your afternoon activities." Bianca stood up and Cast strolled over to her. "Come on B, we've got archery, that's your favorite." Cast said, putting his arm over her shoulder and steering Bianca out of the rec room. " What could they possibly be doing on Olympus?" Bianca asked Cast, it was really meant to be a rhetorical question, but Cast answerd anyways."Dunno. But we can iris message Thalia, she is part of the hunt." Bianca sighed, "That's a good idea, but we can do it later." Bainca said. The two walked over, Cast grabbed a spare bow and a few arrows from the weapon shead. Bianca took off her bow from her back and took a few arrows from her quiver. Cast appeared back by her side and they began shooting arrows into targets. Bianca got a bullseye for every arrow that she shot. Cast not as good, Bianca thought it was safe to say that archery was not Cast's strong suit. " Do we tell Chiron if we are going to iris message Thaila? Or will we just do it by ourselves?" Cast asked, " Well, I think that we should, instead of asking, tell him first so that he doesn't iris message the hunters as well." Bianca told Cast. "Alright, we can iris messenger Thaila at the next war council meeting." Cast said, shooting an arrow, completely missing the target and almost hitting Willow Underwood, a tree nymph and the child of Grover Underwood and a tree nymph Juniper. "AHH," she screamed, "Watch it Jackson!" she shouted across the meadow. "Sorry!" Cast called back to her. She turned back to caring for the flowers, clearly frustrated. Bianca snicked, "Hey! It's not my fault that my grandfather is not the god of archery!" Cast said. "Sure, but it was pretty funny the way she got mad at you when you almost shot her." Bianca giggled. "Humph." Cast frowned. "Come on, we have to go to arts and crafts." and the two of them walked off.