Chapter Sixteen: Aion

Zoё's POV

From what Zoё saw, the castle was deserted. Not a single object moved, besides the cold, clouded ground underneath them; always shifting, it seemed like. Controlled by an eternal unknown force.

Zoё brought out her bow, instinctively notching an arrow. She took slow, tentative steps, sure of her footing; the clouds tilting without warning. Luke covered the right flank as Zoё studied the left- nothing.

It was still. Too still. Zoё couldn't help but think Ouranos was waiting for her and Luke one by one to meet their demise at his blade. She raised her bow, drawing the arrow back. Zoё would make sure she was ready for anything Ouranos threw in her direction. She saw what he did to Aion- the tridents. She knew what he was capable of. She would fight him and she would destroy him, despite her promise to Gaea.

Ahead at the castle's walls, Luke caught her eyes. He nodded. Zoё repeated the gesture: all clear. She ran to Luke's side, careful of making any noise. The fortress didn't exactly strike her as a place for parties. It seemed more for getting away from it all, for concentration, perhaps.

"Nothi-" Luke froze in the middle of his prose.

Two wind spirits calmly floated to their designated spots, at either side of the entrance. If they simply looked over at Zoё and Luke, they were dead. Luke looked at Zoё, smiling, immediately giving her the honor.

Zoё let two arrows take flight: one into the heart of the nearest spirit, the other into the second's abdomen. Clutching their wounds, each fell to the ground- well, sunk through it, actually. Thank Chaos, Zoё thought. They would have a tough time flying back up.

Zoё ran on the balls of her feet, silent as a feather. She now stood at the threshold of the castle. Luke, at the walls, waited for her signal. She laid down on the cold clouds and pressed her ear to the door. No voices, no rumblings, no anything. Was this a different castle than Ouranos's? Whatever it was, Zoё didn't know. She beckoned her friend over with a simple hand gesture and rose to her feet.

"Nothing," she said once he was across the courtyard. She cocked her head. "Luke, you think Gaea fooled us?"

"Don't know," he answered, resting a hand on the lock. A moment's silence and the door clicked- it was unlocked. He removed his hand and slowly pushed the two-inch thick metal forward into the grand building. "But Aion is here," he said. "His aura radiates from the whole complex."

Zoё went in first. Her bow newly notched and ready to fire, she looked around the room for guards. A fireplace hugged the wall across from her. Trees of all kinds grew within the room, their roots making up half the flooring along with the sky comprised of the other. A balcony overlooked the tops of the trees as well as the room beneath it. Into the walls on either side of the room were three thresholds, six in total, leading toward a different part of the castle. Zoё expected the complete opposite of what she saw instead: empty silence.

She grunted in frustration. Maybe they were in the wrong castle after all. Maybe Gaea tricked them, a superior move on her part. Zoё should have known better not to trust her Gaea wasn't a fool to succumb to her sob story as easily as she had. No; it was merely an act. A well-played act of defiance. Zoё now knew what she would be going against when Gaea finds out she hurt Ouranos.

Luke closed the door behind him gasping when he saw the many thresholds Aion and Artemis must have been in. Zoё tried to remember anything from her dream that would be deemed worthy. It was like a piece of the puzzle was missing, she noticed; no events appeared useful.

Except one thing. The image of her husband's blood on the walls gave her a much needed dose of courage as she studied each of the paths closely. Zoё decided on the path closest to the entrance. She looked over at Luke. "I'll rescue Aion, you Artemis?"

"We meet here after," he said, eyeing the opposite threshold Zoё had picked.

She nodded. It wasn't as extravagant a plan as she wished but it served its purpose.

Aion, she thought. Find Aion.

"Let's go."

The hallways were long corridors filled with many kinds of Hell all equally worse than Tartarus in their own way. At first Zoё would carefully peek from each corner, wary of guards. But as she passed her fifth hallway, Zoё began to realize two things.

The first was that Ouranos probably knew of her arrival. The missing guards were enough proof of that. Ouranos might've been looking over her, planning to direct her doubtfully slow and painful demise. He could've even been stalking her path through the castle even now. The thought unnerved her. Nevertheless she kept going.

The second thing she realized was that this castle was definitely inhabited by Ouranos. The thousands glamor shots of him clearly displayed it. One painting showed him frowning, displeased at something Zoё would never know. Beside that was an image in a particularly large frame- Ouranos sitting at a table and holding what appeared to be a small, fancy cup filled with tea while he smiled graciously at something in front of him. Another revealed him to have an arm around the shoulder of a wind spirit, like they were old friends. Ouranos was grinning while the wind spirit looked clearly shocked and embarrassed.

None of the pictures interested Zoё even in the slightest; they merely annoyed. But one of them caught and held her attention, making her pause suddenly in her steady speed walk. Zoё studied it carefully.

The painting was one of dark colors. It displayed a scene of Ouranos standing triumphantly in a room splattered in blood, smirking wildly. He carried a trident glowing with raw power. In the background lay a broken figure colored crimson from his blood. His limbs were shackled to the wall and he sat spread-eagle on the cement. His hair was matted and wet with sweat, his eyes rolled in the back of his head- unconscious. At the bottom of the painting was in small print, clearly readable: Second Right!

How dare these people make it sound like a joke? Tears clouded her vision as Zoё mouthed his wonderful name. Aion. She reached over and traced his starved outline with a finger. Aion. Her Aion. Her husband. A fiery feeling of incense washed over Zoё as she grounded her jaw. Ouranos would pay for every single damned thing he did or said to her family. She would make sure of it.

Zoё avoided catching Ouranos's painted, unblinking eyes, instead staring only at Aion. She absorbed his image until she had it memorized.

I'll find you.

With that final thought, Zoё sped down the eternal corridor. She didn't pause for a moment, not even at corners. She knew the guards were missing and she quite preferred it this way. A quiet and lonely silence was allowed to reign above Ouranos's power of the sky.

The first door on the right was comprised of a simple design: wooden in texture, worn with age. She had probably made it to the older sections of the castle. It made sense, she thought. Put a prisoner as far away from the entrance as possible. Confuse them with the amount of hallways and tire them out before they could even make it in sight of the entrance. Despite his unnerving pictures, Ouranos was someone very smart, strategy-wise. Zoё would give him that.

It took a while to find the second door, about ten minutes of almost sprinting through the corridors. If even possible, the door looked older than the rest of the castle, as if the castle was just built when the door was living its better years. Zoё rested a shaking hand on the knob. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She pulled out her bow. Ouranos could be in there, torturing him.

Pushing the door open, Zoё ran in to face complete silence. Her eyes were blinded to the darkness but automatically succumbed, allowing her full vision of the room around her. Blood colored the walls, puddles of the same substance lined the rough cement, and all Zoё could think was, Aion.

Zoё didn't remember standing in the doorway. She didn't remember closing the door. She didn't remember putting her bow down, either. All she was sure of was her husband. He had to be okay, he had to be okay.

"Aion," she whispered, fresh tears daring to escape her tear ducts.

His fallen head rose automatically to the sound of her voice. He replied faintly, his voice cracking from emotion: "Zoё." His sickly green eyes seemed to repair themselves the more they absorbed her.

Alive. He was alive. He was okay.

"Artemis?" he asked.

"Luke's got her," she said. "Rendezvous at the entrance."

Aion seemed to smile at that. Zoё placed a hand on his neck and pressed her mouth to his. All her thoughts, all her feelings, all her emotions, all her everything- she put it all into that one everlasting kiss. It seemed like forever she hadn't felt his soft lips. His graceful features. His powerful yet gentle hold on her. Bliss.

He was alive. He was alive.

Aion's mouth went still and Zoё drew back, suddenly concerned. "Aion?"

He smiled a weary kind of smile, leaning into her warm hand. "Later. Okay?"

"Yeah." She returned the smile. "Yeah, okay."

Alive.

Zoё turned her attention to each of the shackles that kept Aion from moving even an inch in his uncomfortable position. Drawing her knife she tried cutting at the rusted chains. To no avail did she succeed. Aion struggled a little in their hold, probably to gain some feeling in his limbs. He winced once he shifted his abdomen.

"They're too strong," he groaned through the pain, "Need a key."

Alive.

Each movement he made worried her. She was saving her energy for a portal back to Camp Half-Blood, but this was an emergency. It wouldn't go unnoticed. "Stay still," she whispered, resting a gentle hand on his chest. "Hurts?" He nodded. Zoё closed her eyes in concentration. She let the healing process start, a silvery kind of aura escaping her hand and resting on his chest, like a misty powder that had a mind of its own. "Stay still," she said again. "It'll heal faster that way." He nodded once more.

Alive.

Zoё turned her attention back to the shackles of rust. She applied more force to her dagger this time, hacking with all her might. Even though worn with age, they didn't budge. Fine, then. They wouldn't be holding on to her husband for long. The raw power she let sink into her weapon turned the dagger from a luminescent white into an ebony that, if anything, absorbed any kind of light in its sight. She tried again, this time cutting them as easily as if they were melted butter.

Aion grunted as his hand was suddenly dumped into the blood puddle surrounding him. The edges of her mouth tilted upward. "Sorry," she said. "Watch your foot now."

Alive.

Bending over, Zoё sliced the chains that held his right foot. He sighed in relieve as he stretched out his freed limbs. Zoё moved over to his other side, relieving his other limbs of the pain. Aion lay completely still in his own blood for a moment before he caught her eyes. Zoё took that as the signal to help him stand. It was the first time, she realized, that he would properly be on his two feet in days. "Alright," she said. She grabbed under his shoulders as he her arms. Zoё steeled her hold on him as she pulled him slowly but steadily up on his feet.

He swayed a little. Zoё placed a hand on his side, supporting most of his weight, helping him gain his bearings. He went rigid from the pain but gradually relaxed. "Alright?" she asked.

Alive.

"Yes," he breathed. "Let's... Let's go. H-how far is the entrance?"

Zoё almost dreaded to tell her husband. "At least forty minutes."

Walking over to the threshold with Zoё's support, he opened the door. The brightness was almost as equally blinded as when she first went in the room. Aion squinted against the light as Zoё guided him outside the torturer's room. She closed the door behind her. Never again would she see it. Never again would she see the blood. Never again, never again.

"Let's go," he repeated.

"Let's go," she echoed.