Chapter 8

Life was finally becoming normal again- well at least as normal as flying chariots that breath fire gets at a camp made for the children of Gods. You would think that because I was a fill in Praetor helping a camp heal its old wounds I would have more to do. In reality, the next few days for me involved sitting around, eating large amounts of ice cream and pretending I was interested in reading 1000 year old books. I had assigned jobs to everyone to make sure they were busy- unfortunately, I hadn't considered what I would do.

This meant that on a Saturday afternoon, peak hour for half bloods in dangerous situations of fun, I was sitting in my room trying to read a book Annabeth had given me for Christmas. It took about a half hour for me to finally stop pretending I understood what was going on in the book, and instead I focused on going on a walk. If I was being honest, I missed Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Grover and everyone back at camp half blood. No one had made a huge effort to come and say hi, but that was mainly because camp half blood was undergoing major reconstruction. A cabin had been taken out by the storm, and as Annabeth was busy searching for Reyna, there were no experienced architects around. I put on some bathers after deciding a swim would do me some good. It'd been a while since I spent time where I fit in best. I made my way down to the lake in the center of Camp Jupiter, only to find it swarming with Half Bloods. Someone had organized a canoe race and unfortunately, I'd forgotten.

"Hey Percy!" Leila called from a nearby canoe.

"Hey- how long do you think this will be going on?" I asked, but before she could answer, someone from a nearby canoe splashed her, resulting in a crazy laugh in which she yelled "your FUNERAL WILLIAM", frantically canoeing after the unforeseen splash-er.

"Percy!" a familiar voice called from behind me, just I began to shake my head at the others.

"Hazel?" I said, before turning and finding her standing with about ten books smiling. I love Hazel, but there's no doubt that she looked- well… terrible. Her hair was shooting in every direction and hadn't been washed in at least a week, her eyes had huge bags under them, and her breath was not exactly minty. "You look-"

"Terrible, I know, but I think I've found something and I need your help." She said, turning and walking towards the library. She moved fast and I had to run to catch up with her.

"What's going on?" I ask as soon as she puts her book down on the table, opening onto a page of an illustrated picture I've never seen before.

"Do you recognize that?" she asks, and I take a look closer at the picture. It seems to be a string, but silvery, as though it's a chain. It takes a moment for me to realize that I've seen it before- around the neck of a frightened bird.

"Is that what I think it is?" I ask, but when I look up she's staring at me painfully, nodding her head. I look for the paragraph of wording I saw before and read aloud.

"Hera's string was used by Hera to capture many of Zeus' mistresses and was famous for being unbreakable. The more one struggled against the chain, the tighter and more sickly the person would become. If the captor was alive after 13 days, Hera would free her as a prize." I said, struggling against my dyslexia. I closed my eyes trying to absorb the information as best I could, before finally opening them with a plan.

"The chain couldn't have just fallen from the sky- there is a reason Frank has it around his neck. Do you have any idea?" I asked, but Hazel shook her hair.

"There's nothing I can possibly think of. Percy, I haven't stopped thinking about this for 5 days. All I know is that unless we get it off within the next week, Frank could die." She choked.

"Or he could live- it says anyone could survive the 13 days." I said and Hazel sniffled.

"That's practically impossible. Hera made the chain unbearable, so that any one of Zeus' mistresses would have suffered before she died. Besides there are no records of survivors ever." Hazel said. I went silent.

"It all comes to Hera- something we did must have pissed her off." I said.

"Majorly." She said and I couldn't help but laugh. Eventually my laugh turns to silence, and my silence returns to thinking.

"Wait a minute-" I said, before walking out the building and running down to the lake. Hazel follows after me but we both stop when I spot Michael.

"When you missed the one session with Frank and Hazel and everything went Haywire- was there anything you were talking about that week?" I ask, not bothering to introduce myself.

"Um… Yeah- we were talking about who the memorial was going to be in the name of. We have other memorials here but they're all for specific battles. We were going to choose between two of the Gods." He said slowly. I watched Hazel begin to realize what I was on to, while Michael watched puzzled from the side.

"Who were the Gods?" she asked quickly, catching Michael off guard.

"Hera and Aphrodite I think." He said defensively.

"Of course!" Hazel said angrily, before storming back to the library. "Hera has always blamed Zeus' affections to other women on Aphrodite, saying that the goddess of love is the only reason Zeus could never control his affections." Hazel explained as we continued to walk at a faster pace. "Hera would be pissed that Aphrodite would get a memorial before she would, meaning she would do anything to stop it from happening, and hurt anyone who got in her way." She finished.

"You can bet Frank was vouching for Aphrodite as the Goddess of the memorial." I said, and Hazel turned to face me.

"Annabeth has to find Reyna. We have to find out everything we can before we go and see Hera." Hazel said, as if tasking me with making sure my fiancée new what she was doing.

"Wait- you guys are just going to walk into Mount Olympus and tell Hera to take the chain away?' Michael, who had swiftly been followed us, asked.

"Pretty much." I said, and he laughed.

"I don't know about you guys, but wouldn't you think that walking into Mount Olympus without a plan is going to make Hera angrier then she was when everything started." He warned but Hazel and I smiled.

"We'll have a plan." Hazel shrugged.

"In case you didn't realize, my fiancée is a kick ass plan maker."