Annabeth
Everyone was chewing on icy popsicles in Annabeth's class on the fair day of third grade.
But Annabeth's daddy had not showed up yet. She was hiding behind the trashcan and glaring at the pigtailed girl clinging to both her parents and eating blue and pink balls of ice.
"Annabeth there's a spider on your shoulder!"
Annabeth shrieked and jumped and slapped her shoulders erratically. Her heart had soared to beat against her eardrums and even though she hadn't realised it, she'd completely stopped breathing.
Bells of jingling laughter emanated from her well-wisher's... mocker's belly.
Annabeth bunched her fingers into fists and glared at the tall and lanky idiot of a tenth grader in front of her.
She knew him... of course. Everybody did.
Despicable Castellan
Or so Annabeth had dubbed him after he'd tried to kiss the school nurse.
He was the notorious quarterback with a revolving door of girlfriends and otherfriends.
He was the kind of guy mama had been afraid Annabeth would play with if she let her go to those hideous public schools. Her mother had been wrong. Even the private schools had such rotten apples.
She huffed and started walking away from him.
"Hey! Wait up!"
Annabeth glanced back and gasped.
Luke was marching towards her with two popsicles, blue and pink.
"Here!"
He offered her the pink one.
Annabeth crossed her arms against her chest and tried to stare him down... but it was impossible. She was up to somewhere around his stomach.
"Why should I accept a popsicle from a stranger?"
Luke cocked his eyebrow and both the popsicles to his left hand. He stretched his right one and gave Annabeth a wide grin.
"Hello little lady, I'm Luke Castellan! May I have the honour of feeding you a Popsicle?"
Annabeth snarled, "Who are you calling a little lady?"
Luke's smile widened.
A warm feeling settled deep in her stomach and she suddenly noticed how blue his eyes were.
He crouched down in front of her and petted her head,
"I'll give you the pink one okay? I'll buy you another before your father comes."
Annabeth's eyes watered. Every kid in her class used made fun of Annabeth, calling her the unlucky child... after whose birth her mama and daddy fought constantly. Nobody had ever tried to give her a Popsicle and make her feel better.
"Fine! I'll let you!"
With that she snatched the blue ice ball from Luke's hand and in one gigantic scoop bit more than half of the Popsicle off.
"OW!"
Annabeth grabbed her head and shook it hard.
"Idiot! You got a brain freeze!"
Annabeth wanted to snap at Luke, tell him that she was way smarter than him, but her brain felt like it was trying to split her skull apart.
"-ot right!"
"Her face is fine. She's been resting for the last thirteen hours!"
"Oh by resting you mean WONKED OUT!"
"...What?"
"UNCONCIOUS!"
Annabeth groaned. Was she still dreaming? But that memory was one of her nicer ones. Surely she didn't share any happy memory with that stupid school mechanic.
Oh wait... he wasn't stupid at all. He had built a time machine and-
The air squeezed out of her with a terrible sharp pain in her chest and spine. Annabeth was jerked right up from her slumber, her eyes going wide and watery from aching joints and swollen muscles.
"What-"
She looked around and squinted in the dim lighting.
Leo let go of her and gave her a wide grin.
"I can't believe my luck! I actually found you!"
Annbeth stared at him. He was really there?
A low and angry growl drew Annabeth's attention away from her impish ex-council men... definitely and ex after blowing his president off to the previous century.
The dark haired girl bared her teeth at Annabeth.
"You noble whore! You killed our leader!"
And after that colourful profanity, Annabeth finally became aware of the lack of space in that small cramped room. Piper stood with her back pressed against the door, an annoyed look crisscrossing her rather red face and then the largest occupant of the room stepped forward, the one eyed guard she'd tricked into letting her go to that wretched party...Tyson. She was among the rebels?
"Calm down Reyna, you can't trust that Kate girl until Chiron says so."
Annabeth's head jerked back. Standing right behind her was...
She scrambled back against the rugs strewn underneath her on the floor, she wanted to be away from him... away from the person who had aided in her sister's murder.
"Jasper..." A strangled whisper escaped her lips.
Jasper gave her a small smile,
"Jason, really. Jason Grace. Nice to see you again Annabeth."
Annabeth frowned, was he a spy of the empire, in that case she'd have to worn the others.
Annabeth opened her mouth to reveal Jasper's identity when the door burst open. Piper stumbled and began to fall but was caught.
Annabeth was taken aback. Piper thanked Jasper and pecked him before letting go.
Chiron walked in then. Well... wheeled in.
Annabeth started at him, it was really hard to believe that she was standing in front of her country's great saviour. His brown eyes crinkled in the darkness. He looked at Annabeth for a moment and then through the mess of his shaggy hair and beard... smiled at her... warmly.
Annabeth looked away. She'd failed him. She's let them take Percy away. Even though she had spent the last two days blaming it all on Kate, she'd known all along deep down that it was her fault. She'd insisted on staying at the widow house, she hadn't insisted on going with him for the perimeter check. She'd just let him go.
Her heart clenched and her fingers began to tremor.
For a moment she forgot that she was sitting up on a mouldy and dirty floor in a an inadequately lit stuffy room with that familiar dark haired girl sneering down her neck and a possible noble spy seducing Piper. For a moment her mind went perfectly blank.
And then like lightening Chiron's words seemed to thunder through the room.
"Now little one. I have a very important task for you."
Luke
"And then they'll storm the pavilion in a 'W' formation... like this."
Luke drew a skewed 'W' over the hand-drawn map showing the position of various rebels at the ceremonial ball on the northern side of the icy castle of Freezing.
The Emperor sat there and stared at the yellowed parchment like a sack of stones, his golden eyes unmoving and unflinching at the goriest details... like how by the end of the ball his head won't remain attached to his body anymore.
The Emperor nodded when Luke had finished. He turned his piercing gaze towards him.
Luke wanted to look away... and preferably hide under the Emperor's bed in his luxurious bedroom.
To be honest, he thought, there were better hiding spots in that room than the bed. The lighting had been set to coax a lazy temperament but the room and all its paintings and luxuries were crystal clear to him.
Luke was sitting in the Kings tea room. Four doors stood like walls of embroidered silver against the gold trailed walls. The doors led to the powder room, card room, sleeping chamber and the queens chambers... which had been empty for as long as Luke ha known the Emperor.
"Well done my boy!"
Luke's face warmed at the compliment. He could feel joy pouring thought his core. If only his real father had ever bothered to even come see him...
But he had the Emperor and that was enough.
"Thank you sir."
Luke gulped then. A question had been nagging him ever since the Emperor had first expressed his wishes and plans.
"But sir..."
The Emperor gave him a bemused look and waved his perfectly gloved hand in a carry on gesture.
He decided that he would ask the Emperor, it wasn't like he was suggesting the old one in front of him against his plans.
"Why go to such extents? You could just cancel the ball... or now that you know what's going to happen when the ball starts you could just... capture them?"
The Emperor tilted his head to the right and chuckled, his purple cape crinkled with the harsh coughs that followed.
When his breathing had slowed down again he slowly picked up the tea cup and brought it between their faces.
"What is this boy?"
Luke thought hard for a second. That had to a symbolic question. What could a tea cup possibly mean to the Emperor?
Nothing came to his mind.
"A... tea cup?"
The king flashed him a quick glance, then went back to staring at the simple white ebony cup in wonder,
"It's a poisoned cup my dear."
Luke sat up in a fright.
"P-P-poisoned?"
The Emperor nodded and laughed then heaved.
"What should I do with it?"
"Throw it away?"
The king nodded and then threw the little cup. It crashed against the white and gold wall and shattered into a million pieces, spilling rivulets of dark herbal tea on the plush red carpet.
Luke waited for the Emperor to say something... or to excuse him more preferably. He hoped the Emperor didn't suspect him of the poison.
After a couple of minutes, when silence bore down Luke like a storm of prickly shrapnels, he spoke up without much of thinking,
"Well... now you're safe..."
The Emperor smiled ruefully,
"Am I? There are more cups, dishes, and other things that can be poisoned."
Luke didn't know what he was getting at but nodded anyway,
"Yes..."
"So,"
The Emperor looked straight into his eyes and asked the next question,
"What are you going to do about it?"
Luke thought it was obvious,
"Well... I would find the culprit-"
The Emperor quirked a barely-there gray eyebrow. His wrinkles seemed to morph with the golden lights of the torches and give him a sinister... almost young look despite his shock of gray hair and dried out dark skin.
Luke quickly thought of something more... dramatic and sever.
"Or frame someone and publically execute them to set an example."
A predatory glint sparked the old Emperor's golden eyes.
"Very well... but what about those who won't see this as an act of self defence and won't be suppressed merely through fear?"
Luke was lost. The only thing he could think of in such a situation was a civil war.
But a war was very unpredictable. It could go both ways.
Taking Luke's silence as sign of his ignorance in that matter the Emperor went on,
"You sneak up behind every single one of them and cripple them."
Luke knew that was cowardly, but he had no right to point that out. There were two reasons for that. Firstly, he didn't want to cross the only sort of father he had found , and secondly, the things he had done to those girls... there was nothing not cowardly in his actions."
The Emperor continued in his deep and slightly cracked baritone,
"Of course some will say that that is an impossible task to accomplish, but..."
He smiled at Luke, his eyes crinkling with amusement and hints of pride... for Luke.
He smiled too, his most charming smile. He was so proud of himself. He had made the Emperor, his father, proud.
"But with your help my dear boy... I can now do that."
The door burst open. Luke could swear that the temperature went down by at least five degrees when she entered, even though there was no apparent signs prove it, just the chill that ran up his back.
"Uncle! How unusual! You decided to have this meeting without me?"
Luke had been surprised too. But the Emperor had grown suspicious of her husband.
He turned around and smiled at Khione. She was white, not pale in an unhealthy way, just pearly white. Even with that colouring her cheeks never flushed. Her long ebony hair reached down in waves and touched her enormous waist line.
"Khione, my dear!"
The Emperor extended his hand affectionately and the duchess of Freezing rushed (or walked as fast as she could with her enormous belly) to kiss her uncle's hand.
"You should be resting dear. This is no time for a future mother to be moving around!"
Khione rolled her icy blue eyes.
"I can't stay put for long Uncle. Especially with all this excitement going on."
She motioned at the sketches Luke had drawn.
"Where's your husband child?"
Khione's smile fell.
"He went to the wine district."
The Emperor raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes in mock disbelief.
"A Lord fetching his wine himself?! Whatever happened to all your servants?"
Khione shrugged.
Luke laughed at her. He couldn't help it. Even though Khione was a cruel and shrewd woman who had, with his advanced knowledge, rendered every single house maid in her palace incapable of ever giving birth, was one of those loyal wives.
Unlike Annabeth who had so easily given herself up to that bastard rebel.
Khione glared at him,
"How dare you laugh at me?"
Luke smiled at her and shook his head,
"Just a thought."
Her glare grew sharper, she clutched her shimmery blue smock and settled down on the armchair beside him.
Luke took her hand and squeezed,
"Nothing. Just wondering if there is another woman out there who was knocked up by him. Maybe he went to see her in secrecy."
Khione frowned,
"Knocked up?"
Luke smiled and pushed a silky strand of hair behind Khione's ear. He had wanted to have a couple of nights with her, but that was impossible. Khione had married Jasper as a virgin. Since he had taken her virginity she's vowed to never bed another man.
Poor Khione. Jasper banged every female creature when she was not looking. Specially that red head...
"Pregnant. You know. Some other woman in that wine district might be carrying his child and maybe that's the reason he went there himself."
Khione's grip turned iron sold around his finger. He winced and flinched away.
The Emperor tusked and drew their attention back to him,
"Pay no heed to him my dear girl, he's just fooling with you."
Luke grinned at them,
"I'm just saying-"
"Then I'll find that bitch and carve her entrails out with my hands!"
Luke burst out in Laughter along with the Emperor, both completely aware that she wasn't exaggerating.
She'd done the same to that red headed girl Rachel. Luke had informed her of his suspicions that Jasper, her husband, might have fallen in love with that maid.
After that all he knew was that the read-head's corpse was still rotting in the cold and dank underground dungeons.
Jason
Jason was fighting off his sleep. He didn't want to close his eyes, not even for a second otherwise Rachel would come to him again with blank, lifeless eyes.
Why My Lord?
That's what she always asked before shrieking and tearing apart into pieces of blood, flesh and entrails. And all those other maids joined her who were now to lead a childless life in disgrace, for a woman or man incapable of giving birth in Kyte was considered a subhuman... and cries of those he'd killed and tortured to please the frozen heart of his wife, chimed in to add to his misery.
All of them echoed Rachel and cursed him over his fortune for having a child.
He would scream at them that it was not a gift, not when it was coming from Khione and they would call him a liar and lung at him, choking and throttling him.
He knew they were right though. He already loved the idea of having a child, of sharing a part of him with his small baby. He might finally attain some piece of mind.
But that was not to happen. His unborn child was destined to join Rachel and the other's and plague him with nightmares for life.
He'd stopped bedding the housemaids after that night... when Piper had whispered softly into his ears that she loved him.
But he'd been too late. Khione had found out and had cut open those maids right in front of him.
He'd never touched them again and none of them had approached him... except for Rachel. She'd been his friend... and had had to give up her life for that reason.
Jason glanced towards Annabeth.
She was sleeping soundly. The jostling and shaking of the carriage were doing little to wake her up from her dreams.
Her face looked smooth and calm under the moonlight streaming through the window.
Their plan was simple and had already been put to action.
He'd been feeding Khione small doses of Angelica for quite a few days. Next day's lunch would be her last dose. After that she would suffer through sever contractions due to the advanced stage of her pregnancy and would be locked up in her chambers following her unfortunate miscarriage for quite a while if not forever.
Then, even though he would be heartbroken, he would have to attend the ball... as he would be the host in the absence of the duchess and would reluctantly have to be his mad cousin Annabeth's escort.
He would reappoint the guards, the banquet hall would be teeming with rebels when the Emperor will make his entry (with considerably light guard since he was in the castle of his dearest niece) and then they'll move out and capture him.
The emperor would be given one chance to surrender. If he refused he'll be killed and Kyte would finally be free.
The carriage flew over a pot hole and threw Jason back against his seat.
Annabeth's head bumped against the window right where she was already sore.
Her eyes flew open and a strangled slew of profanity escaped her lips.
Jason laughed,
"Reyna has done quite a number on you."
Annabeth tentatively touched her head,
"She had asked me to stay away from Percy that time... when I had recently joined the old compound... I remember now."
Jason nodded knowingly.
Reyna had been one of the first girls he had decided to lose himself in after going through the horrifying acts that Khione made him commit on a daily basis. She's stuck to him against his fervent wishes after she'd been rid of her child bearing ability.
And right before Khione had settled to tear her entrails out, Percy had visited as a horse master and had swept her away. He'd saved her life. She'd become obsessed with him. It was as simple as that.
Annabeth winced again and murmured,
"All because of that stupid red head..."
Kate. She'd stirred his memories of his dead friend with a forked knife. But all she'd had in common with Rachel was the colour of her hair and eyes.
She'd lied, to Chiron though... and she'd gotten Percy killed.
Jason looked at Annabeth again.
He'd expected her to break down in hysterics and scream her lungs out when he had dropped the news.
She'd just twisted her ring and had remained quiet... and had been exceptionally compliant.
Sure.
That's all she'd said when Chiron had asked her to be his companion to the ball so as to not draw any kind of suspicion towards him. She'd even accepted the fact that he was a rebel spy very quickly.
She was still twisting her ring and staring out of her window.
"It's cold."
She murmured but didn't make to touch the neatly folded woollen shawl lying beside her.
Jason smiled at her,
"It's supposed to be the warmest time of Freezing."
Annabeth didn't respond. She just kept staring at the blur of red and yellow leaves they were leaving behind.
Jason sighed and looked away.
He didn't quite understand what Annabeth was feeling... but he had to protect her and send her safely away with her strange friend after Kyte was free.
He owed that much to his dead brother in arms.
Hey guys! Sorry I was veeery sleepy while editing this so it might have a few hundred typos xD. Do you people think this story is becoming boring? Please let me know!
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