JASON wanted to throw a hissy fit.

His day had been awful. Fifteen girls had come already from seven o'clock in the morning, all to beg for his hand in marriage. The servants and guards had batted them away as if they were flies. Jason had long ago lost interest in trying to be kind to these crazy suitors, but the guards had been harsh. When he tried to help a girl up by offering her his hand, she swooned and fainted! Her hand had dragged along Jason's wrist, scratching him with her sharp nail and drawing blood.

After that, his hand still throbbing, Jason had to practice his fencing skills. Then there was Power Practice (summoning weather and lightning and whatnot), Kingliness (as the only current heir to the throne, Jason would one day be king), and to finish off, six hours of Lessons. History of the Kingdom, for example, and Maths and the Greek Stories, and the Roman Stories and Arts and Philosophy. Jason despised learning these things; perhaps Greek Stories he hated the most. That was because often his father came along and told him of Greece's grandeur. How wonderful she was, how much better than Rome.

How Thalia was Greek.

Jason knew that when a person died or disappeared, often family and friends exaggerated their good qualities and forgot the old. He knew this hands-on; his father, for example, always spoke of his amazing mother. Thalia had told him, as a fact, that before she'd died Zeus had done nothing but rant about her. Jason himself did not remember a thing.

But Jason remembered also the bad things about Thalia. How she sometimes yelled or brooded. How she screamed at servants. How she despised their mother. How she sometimes shut Jason out for days on end. Somehow, though, Jason didn't care. He wanted Thalia back.

It had been a stormy night, five years earlier. Jason, eleven years old, had been reading in his room. While skimming through his reading materiel (an old history book), Jason had come across a curious find- A sentence in his book read: Thousands of years ago, Old Zeuopolis crumbled in on itself, and New Zeuopolis sprang around it, born from the ruins.

This sentence had confused Jason so deeply that he'd decided to ask Thalia about it. He could still remember, now, the sound his socks made as he padded along the hall; the spatter of rain against enormous windowpanes; the snores of a thousand servants echoing in the huge palace.

"Thal?" Jason had said, pushing open her door. He expected the room to be illuminated, Thalia reading in bed, but the chamber was shrouded in darkness.

"THAL?!" Jason stepped forward and stumbled, crashing to the floor. Something moved around in front of him, and then…

…Lightning flashed, throwing a line of glowing white into Jason's vision, showing him what had stirred.

Thalia had been perched on the windowsill. The window was hastily shut behind her, a patch of dampness on the carpet beneath her dangling feet, water dripping from the place she sat.

Jason gasped.

"Jason! What is it?" He remembered Thalia's urgent voice.

"Thal! I- what-"

"What IS IT, Jason?!"

He clambered over to her and pointed at the confusing sentence.

"This doesn't make any sense, Thal. Master Windson taught me: 'Our own Zeuopolis shines so bright, stood millennium in Zeus's light.' This book is wrong! There was never and Old or New Zeuopolis. Right? Right?"

Jason could remember the face Thalia had made when he'd finished talking: So pained and worried, considering something, terrified… he remembered wondering what could make a fearless girl of eighteen so scared.

"Jason." Thalia had grabbed his shoulders. "Listen to me very carefully. You may never, EVER, repeat what I'm going to tell you now."

"Is this about the book?" Jason had asked, nervous.

"This is about EVERYTHING, Jason."

He'd squirmed from her grip. "You're freaking me out, Thal."

She'd sighed. "Fine. Listen to me: that book is right. There was an Old Zeuopolis. There's a reason for all of this- the segregation, the anger. The unfairness. There was a city, and it's close. Close, so Zeus can watch over it. To make sure no one will find it. But he's slacking, and I'll find it. There's something behind all this. I'll find it and when I do I'll get you."

Jason stood in silence.

"You didn't call him Father. You called him Zeus." He finally said.

"He's no father of mine." Thalia answered grimly. "Stay safe, brother. I love you."

And with that, she'd jumped out the window.

That was where Jason's memory ended. But he'd never had any reason to believe what Thalia had said- or any reason NOT to.

So he just did.

Now he was walking in the Royal Gardens. The plants were all clever fakes, created to act like real ones. They even wilted with no water. Nobody in Zeuopolis had real flowers; Persephone, furious with the treatment of her husband and herself (neither were respected), refused to allow any flower or pretty plant to poke through Zeuopolis' soil. Jason didn't mind; the gardens were still a good place to think. And they had wheat rom Demeter. Jason liked to chew it.

"Prince Jason!"

Jason swerved and looked over at the Garden Gate. A footman stood there, slightly out of breath.

"Prince Jason, you are wanted with your father's court."

Jason nodded regally. "All right, I'll go immediately."

He bid the fake flowers a silent goodbye and sprinted into the palace's depths.

The throne room (AKA Zeus's court) was a gargantuan hall, complete with an arched ceiling and a diagram of the galaxies. Jason had loved finding the constellations when he was younger: Hercules, the Big Dipper, Ursa Major… now, though, he was occupied with the people in the room.

First, there were twenty servants; only two one-hundredths of the servants in the entire palace (Jason had done the math when he was ten). Along with them, there were Zeus' advisors, all children of Athena; the Muses; and of course, Zeus himself.

The King wore a robe of sky-blue today. That meant he was in a good mood. He stretched up, ten or so meters tall, sitting in his gold throne. His beard, stark white on this occasion, seemed to look like the clouds Jason often saw in the sky.

"Son!" Zeus boomed.

"My father." Jason bowed gracefully and deeply. "May I know why you have called me here today?"

Zeus laughed heartily for no particular reason. "My son, you have no knowledge of the beauty hunters."

This was not a question, it was a statement; nevertheless, it was true.

"These are people who searched through all of Zeuopolis for a bride fitting for you." Zeus kept talking.

Jason started getting a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Finally, they have found the perfect girl!"

A tall, thin man who Jason hadn't noticed stepped out from behind the throne. He dragged with him a girl about Jason's age, who was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.

Her eyes seemed to be multicolored, her hair the color of caramel (and soft and feathery). She gazed at him with what seemed like the greatest hate in the world- very different from the women who threw themselves at him.

Horror built up in Jason's throat.

"Meet your new bride-to-be, Prince Jason." The man spoke in a slippery voice. "Piper McLean."