"Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden."

The first snow of the year had begun to fall. Little white flakes falling from heaven to pepper their clothes and bury the ash. Made it so that they could behold something other than the constant dark which had relented just barely. The shift was visible to her eyes but maybe not Percy's. Perhaps in the coming days or weeks they'd be able to see the horizon… if they survived for that long.

They both trudged through the ever-thickening snow alongside each other with Artemis a step behind Percy. If the North Star was visible it would've been her in front. But now he was the navigator here with his infallible ability to sense the Hudson, apparent in the surety of his gait as he forded the snow. Deep impressions left behind. Her moccasin's touches were featherlight and would've been invisible even without the darkness.

He glanced at her. "The snow isn't bothersome, is it?"

"Not at all. Why?"

"You've been rather quiet ever since it started to snow. I could make it so that the snow stays out of your way. It's just frozen water crystals."

"Merely thinking," Artemis replied. She mused for a moment, and said, "You know, the snow is rather poorly regarded by hunters. Ongoing snow covers up tracks, and the noise underfoot sends most animals scrambling. My hunters quite despise hunting in the snow. But truth be told, I myself am quite fond of the snow."

"Yeah. Me too. It's cozy. Reminds me of winter break. You?"

"It's nature," she said simply. "Not even my immortal brethren could hope to ever compare to the grace and beauty of the natural world."

"Makes sense. Say, tell me something about nature—about snow— that I don't know."

"It insulates the ground and prevents the winter chill from harming the roots and seeds beneath. Imagine it as a blanket of sorts."

"Huh. The more you know."

"Do you know of the subnivium?"

"Sub-nivium," Percy sounded out. "Under snow?"

"Yes. You can understand Latin?"

"Yeah. You know, during my first quest, this Fury was about to kill me and all I could think to say was 'Braccas meas vescimini'. Spur-of-the-moment thing. Still don't know where the Latin comes from though I can't deny that it came in pretty handy when I was sent off to Camp Jupiter. Anyways, what were you saying about the subnivium?"

Eat my pants. Certainly did have a knack for antagonizing like the rumors said. The briefest chuckle escaped her lips before it died in the Acheronian blackness of the night. "It's a micro ecosystem that forms in between the ground and the snow. The heat emanating from the core of the earth causes an inch or two of snow to melt, which then travels upward through the air spaces between the ice crystal lattices. When it's subject to the colder air above the snow, it freezes and now a little habitat is created where beings can dwell in. Mice and the sort."

"But not anymore."

"No."

He used his sword as a walking stick. It was strange… To think that they were the only two who knew its history. When they died, who would carry on the mantle of survivorship? Who would be there to remember the history of millenia prior? Who would know of the tragedies that had struck this land? Time had proven history to be cyclical; who was to say that eternal darkness had never plagued this world before?

Walk these godless lands like the heathen that you are and sacralize it before your time is up. The cycle will start anew.

Their first sign of nature soon came into view. Basswood. The tree stood gray and haggard like the life had been constringed out of it. Bone-white leaves that were nigh invisible among the snow underfoot. Bone-white branches that rotted off as they watched. Artemis ran a hand down its spindly trunk. The bark crumbled off with her touch and the tree smoothened and a coating of white powder stuck to her hand.

"It's not dead."

"How do you know?"

He tapped the ground with Riptide. "The roots still have some water in them. Barely any, though. It'll be dead in a few hours."

Like us. "Burn it. Make a fire."

"I'm no Leo. Actually, no, I am. Can't create fires though. But you can, right?"

"Do you believe that I can?"

"I mean, you're supposed to be the goddess here."

"Yes or no."

"Yes."

"Do you truly believe in me?"

"I do."

So bright, so unyielding were the flames of belief that had sparked in Percy's core, so transcendent that Artemis could acutely sense the connection between Percy and her. She closed her eyes and embraced his piety and basked in its warmth. Tether me to this world and don't let go.

She reached above and wrapped her hand around the few branches she could grab and broke them off. A pale flame blinked itself into existence at the ends with her bidding. An alchemical creation that shined in the absence of light and warmed her soul. Standing strong despite the winds and the buffeting snow. Chasing away the darkness as she raised it high over their heads.

"The first light of the sixth age. May it never dim."

"Rather dramatic," he said. "Give me the torch."

"What for?"

He didn't respond and only held his hand out. She relented. The flames cast an orange glow onto his set face and accentuated the creases as he took it and turned his shoulders away from her. Towards the tree trunk. He raised the gray branches forwards and touched them to the bark. The fire ran up and down the length of the basswood and around the width and engulfed it wholly. An orange spire. Resplendent in its glory.

She hadn't noticed until now but the snow was parting ways around their immediate vicinity as if they were the damned. His doing? Most likely. The tree shouldn't have been able to burn even if it were dead. Not until the wood was split and even then it would take a few months for it to fully dry. The flames melted all the surrounding snow on the ground and soon they were in a clear circle of ash almost cut off from the outside world.

"Dramatic display, I must admit, although I didn't take you for an arsonist. But what was the purpose of this?"

"I learned from the best," he said. "Consider this a shrine. To you. The first shrine of the… sixth age, was it? Yeah, sixth."

"A shrine… Don't you mean altar?"

"Oh. Right." He tapped his pockets. "I'd sacrifice something but I don't have anything on me."

"I appreciate the sentiment, nonetheless. Truly." Even if the wood would only burn for a few days at most. She accepted the torch back from Percy when he held it to her.

Her temple used to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Artemision, dedicated to her by the Amazons. Originally built in what would now be present-day Turkey. It had been destroyed three times: once by flooding, once by fire, and once by raiders. Poets of her time had likened the third iteration to Olympus itself and that was the third of all the wonders to go into ruin.

Artemis vowed to never let this meet the same fate. Swore it upon her name as the last goddess of them all. She imbued the wood with a little divine energy and immortalized it. The flames would burn now and later and ad infinitum. Until the world itself ceased to exist.

Percy sat down atop this holy ground. Artemis studied him. His sword was now back in pen form and he swirled it around his fingers. He had taken his windbreaker off and laid it to the side far enough away that cinders from the fire wouldn't be able to reach it.

Earlier he had seemed far more… unwavering. Antithesis to the darkness. Each step of his was made with purpose and direction in mind. But in the firelight he seemed lesser. More human. He sat stooped and resigned. Hair reaching into his eyes. A small bead of sweat trailing its way down his forehead. Growling of his stomach that could just be heard under the roar of the flames. With the darkness clinging to his front and the fire to his back he looked like he were to be cremated.

"How did we survive?"

She sat down in front of him so that they were on the same eye level. "I suppose we were in a sort of limbo as I flashed you away. Or perhaps the shockwave going from New York to New Jersey was faster than us and so we arrived after the darkness had set in."

"And why me in particular?"

She hesitated a beat before speaking. "We Olympians have grown rather… dependent on you. You've led us through the past two wars successfully and done what no one else could have done. Repeatedly at that. There is a reason we gods and goddesses feel that we can rely on you, especially so for me ever since I witnessed firsthand how you healed the heart of my lieutenant. Out of all mortals—barring my Hunters—I trust in you the most."

"Of course. So, you expect me to get you out of this mess too?" His tone was pointed like the tip of an arrow, but who could blame him?

"No. I did, briefly. But not after I laid eyes upon this desolation."

Percy sighed and slowly shook his head from side to side.

The temperature seemed to have dropped a few dozen degrees in the span of seconds. Unbearably cold. It felt similar to the sensation of something breathing down her neck. Or perhaps it was the lack thereof. She scooted closer to the fire but it didn't warm her.

He raised an eyebrow. "You're shivering."

"You're not."

"Maybe because we're sitting in front of a fire, Artemis."

"Well then, why isn't it warming me?"

"Who knows. Maybe it's because it's your shrine. Altar. Can't have your cake and eat it too."

"I don't think you understand how to use that phrase."

"Think you're the goddess of wisdom, don't you? Guessing you know who coined it too?"

"I do, in fact. Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk. Unpleasant fellow."

"Demigod?"

"Athena's."

The conversation died off and then the silence reigned once more. She could tell that he was getting lost in his mind by the faraway look in his eyes. Of a time that they couldn't afford to dwell on anymore. It was their duty as survivors to make sure that the legacies and histories of the past subsisted. But to let yourself be continually reminded of what was gone? Never a good sign.

And Artemis couldn't sit down for much longer, either. She was freezing. Ichor and all. Moving would warm her up, plus she needed to keep him occupied. She stood up and he followed suit. "Come on. Let's walk while we talk."

"About what?"

"Tell me about New Jersey. Did you come here on a quest?" The fire benighted with every step.

"Won't let it go, will you?" He casted a short, bothered glance at her. "I did come here on a quest, yeah. Remember the Fury I mentioned? All three of them were actually there. We had just gone through the Lincoln Tunnel when they decided to attack. Then after we killed them all, ol' Zeus decided to blow the bus up. Didn't even have time to retrieve our bags."

"Were you not trying to retrieve my father's bolt?"

"Exactly. I still can't understand your father. Or immortals in general."

"Including me?"

"Hm. Not really but more so than other immortals," he replied. "We're nearing the Hudson now."

She knew there was more to his story about New Jersey. He never finished it.

The firelight was too far away to reach them now and the snow ceased and a faint wind took its place. It almost felt like they were under the shade of a great tree but then she looked up and saw nothing but the pale outline of her moon. The ash rode the wind elsewhere and more displaced ash came in to replace it. Soft, undulating currents of dust. The snowscape would have hampered them had it not been for Percy parting the snow with a flick of his hand into two great drifts.

Her utmost concentration was on keeping the flames of her torch alight and she had an inkling that it would have extinguished long ago had it not been for Percy. Past the balsamic fumidity of her torch, she could make out hints of something putrid, like decaying compost. She had a feeling that this was the very forest on the New Jersey border that one could readily see from certain parts New York. Especially so from Mount Olympus.

Blackened roots and logs soon began to litter their path. Spindly things twisted in on themselves like a towel wrung. They blended in perfectly with the night much to Percy's disfavor. After his first few stumbles, he uncapped his sword and used it as a white cane once again.

"Who do you think did this?" he asked.

"Erebos."

"Primordial of Darkness. Right?"

"Indeed."

"And how do you know it's him?"

"It stands to reason."

He hummed. "I can think of a lot more primordials that would have a reason to do this."

"Whom?"

"Night. The Pit. Erebos does make sense, though."

"Nyx is plausible. But why Tartarus?" The names left a chill on her tongue that spread to the rest of her body. But Artemis didn't care about drawing their attention; she had been feeling eyes on her already for quite some time.

"Gaea's husband, isn't he? Might be getback of some sort, for ending his wife," Percy said. "He took on a physical form too. He wasn't able to control it properly last I checked, but who knows, maybe he's accustomed to it now."

"Her spouse was Uranus. But it was Tartarus who sired Typhon with Gaea."

He absently nodded. "Forgot the whole chopping-him-to-slices business."

There were vestiges of wildlife here. Deers and eagles and vultures and groundhogs and much more. She could always sense their presences back before this ruin set in and now she could sense the dearth.

Percy stopped suddenly. He stilled in thought for a moment and then he changed directions. He held his sword out further in front of him and walked more cautiously now. When they reached a guardrail fixed in position by steel posts in the ground, he stopped again and studied them and then began following it back the way they had come.

"Why are we heading this way?" Artemis asked. "Is this not back towards New Jersey?"

"I want to visit the Hudson," Percy said simply. "There's a path on the cliff face that we can take."

"Okay,"

It was only a few minutes later that they found the stairs leading down the cliff. The wind had blown the ash off the steps and each was a different height.

"Be careful, alright? These cliffs are… three hundred feet tall, I think?" Despite his words of caution, he didn't seem perturbed at all.

She peered over the cliff edge and all she could see was the black void. It called and beckoned and called some more. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to stay away from this. She said, "I will. You be careful too."

Artemis stayed a pace or two ahead of Percy to make sure that either wouldn't knock the other off by mistake. She descended slowly and carefully. Millennia of hunting had rendered her patient and cautious and she wasn't going to throw it all away despite sensing Percy's impatience. She held her torch closer to the ground to make sure every little pebble would be illuminated. The steps twisted and turned and soon the ground grew level. Wasn't for long, though.

She had stopped scouring the rocky ground after it grew flat and when the steps suddenly resumed, she hardly expected it at all. Her foot missed a step and her heart stopped when it didn't make contact with the ground and her ankle hit the step two or three levels below and rolled. Her knee buckled and then she was careening over the edge into the nothingness. Call of the void. Clock's ticking down. Why dally? Goddesses aren't meant to trip or falter. What does that say of her? Why resist?

Percy had grabbed her by the back of her jacket and hoisted her back up but she hardly noticed.

"It was pulling me in," Artemis gasped. Her time was up and she was scared. She had stared at oblivion with her very own eyes and it had left her completely unraveled. Why was she so worried? She couldn't die… could she?

"It's okay," he said. His face was grave. He tried for a smile. "I've got you."

Percy sat her down atop the accursed flat ground and she reached for her torch but it wasn't there anymore. Must have fallen over the edge. His hand stayed on her shoulder.

"I'm scared," she said. Of what, she never elaborated, and he never asked. Her gaze traveled upwards and she hoped her moon would bring her some peace of mind but she couldn't make it out at all, not even its outline.

"I don't think we're that far from ground level. Can you walk?"

"Can't you see I just rolled my ankle?" she snapped. Curse him and his stupid plan to see the Hudson. The pain flared when she tried to move the joint and flared even when she kept it stationary.

"You? Rolled your ankle?" he said, surprise evident on his face. "You're a goddess. You can roll your ankles?"

"No," she gritted out, and then she took some deep breaths and tried moving it again. It had healed completely… no, somewhat. She tried to estimate how long it would take to fully recover and she found that she couldn't. She said, "Let us continue."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

He insisted on supporting her and so she wrapped an arm around his shoulder. How unbecoming of a goddess… The thought vanished into mist after she mulled it over a bit. Who was there to hold her to strictures that had long vanished too?

The rest of the way down proceeded without a hitch. The path grew wider and the stairs longer until finally they reached the final step. They would've heard the churning of the water had the wind opposed the tide. Even if she couldn't see her moon, Artemis could tell that the moon's pull and the wind were in sync.

Hark! The murmuring of the coursing river. The wildlife tyne, the afterglow of life. Not within her dominion, once within her domain.

They reached the rocky shore. Percy stood on a line of squared boulderstones facing the river and she sat. In another timeline she supposed he would have looked more imposing. The son of the sea standing witness to the downfall of the gods. The river spray occasionally reached her legs as she rocked them against the stone.

Is this what she had stared into the abyss for? For him to regard a river he had seen countless times? She was about to prompt him when he began to speak.

"Me and my mom used to hike here often," he said. He gestured to the left, "There's a picnic area that way that we would go to."

Her annoyance quelled, now replaced by the curiosity that had been surging for quite a while. "What did you come here for?"

"My step-father. He'd come to Jersey to gamble and so me and my mom would stay as far away from him as possible for the duration of the trip. He didn't trust us enough to leave us home by ourselves."

A gambler… "Why avoid him? Thalia told me about him, when she visited your residence last. From what I recall, she made him out to sound like a decent man."

"Oh, no, Paul's the best. But he wasn't my first step-father. That 'honor' goes to Gabe Ugliano."

"What has happened of him? I surmise he is no longer in the picture?"

He grinned. "I told you about Medusa, right?" When she shook her head no, the grin dropped and he continued, "Oh… Well. Once we were stranded in New Jersey, we stumbled upon Medusa's Garden Gnome Emporium and all of us almost got turned to stone. She tried extra hard to keep me there and put me in a stronger trance than the others. Thanks to my father and my resemblance to him, Probably could've escaped much earlier had she not wanted me to be her eternal statue of a consort in lieu of the god that she could never have."

"I remember now. You mailed her head to us during a council meeting. Father was rather irate and he adjourned the council early. For that I must thank you."

"Not my intention. But sure. You're welcome. Anyways," he said, "Poseidon returned the head and Mom used it to turn Gabe into stone."

"Good riddance?"

"Good riddance."

"Your mother sounds like a strong-willed woman," Artemis said. "I'd have liked to meet her. Why don't you sit?"

"She was," he said, nodding and then glancing at her hesitantly. "And… I want to see the ocean."

"Why?"

"It's calling to me, I think. And, I want to see if anything in there survived."

Call of the void. The achromatic maelstrom, acataleptic and bridgeless, from whence no soul had ever returned. Would he?

"The ocean is a long way away."

"I'll come back soon," he promised.

"Go on, then."

Percy dove in without a second thought and left behind a white streak in his wake as he shot off towards the ocean. Artemis sat and did nothing for a while. She drew her knees to her chest and reminisced upon times long gone. She knew it was the same thing she had averted Percy from doing earlier and yet she couldn't help herself.

Her eyes slowly lost their focus and she began to tune out the world around her. And then her thoughts wandered elsewhere from one epoch of time to another. Past to present to future. The sands of time slowly gathering in the base of the hourglass with each passing memory. Vade, goddess! Raise your hands to the sky and pray for deliverance. She missed the faint whisperings overhead which ceased when they noticed her suddenly slowly coming back to her senses. Her eyes sparked with a fierce resolve and she stared head on into the darkness.

"I am going to fade," she said out loud, speaking as if to convince herself. "Aren't I?"

She looked over her shoulder and to the heavens and fastened her gaze upon one particular point for a few seconds. The umwelt that reached far and wide; what could possibly hope to escape it, and by extension, her? The Huntress saw nothing but darkness but she did notice a faint smudge of silver: the full moon, clouded and darkened and the heavens forsaken.

Artemis let her gaze drop and waited quite some time for Percy to return. The moon had fallen some when she finally sensed a disturbance and out came Percy, fully dry. He clambered onto the shoreline rocks and pulled himself onto the stone she was on.

"Took you quite a while. Longer than I was expecting."

Percy sat down and gazed upwards like he expected to see something or someone. He said, "I had a conversation."

'With whom?"

"I don't know."

Artemis raised an eyebrow and looked at him skeptically. "How could you not know?"

"They never showed themselves. Masked their voices, too. I know I would've had a splitting headache by the end if it wasn't my domain too."

It could only be one of the primordials of the sea. But which one? Did it matter?

"What did they say?"

"They expressed regret. Said that the others went too far."

"I suppose that confirms it, then. The attack was not staged by not one lone entity."

"Yeah. Well. Knowing that doesn't really help much," he said.

"You wanted to know if anything survived," Artemis recalled.

"Yep. In the hadal region only. They tried to eat me, surprisingly. Last time something in Poseidon's domain tried to eat me was during my quest in the labyrinth. I prayed to you, remember that? "

Hadal… Artemis missed everything Percy said after that; the word brought to mind a memory she had remembered just moments prior, during her brief reverie. "Did you know that hadal is derived from the name of our uncle? He himself didn't know until Poseidon and Athena brought it to his attention, last Winter Solstice."

"Yeah. Didn't know about it until the end of my marine biology class at New Rome, though."

"I see. Would you like to check out the picnic area? Perhaps we may find some food there."

Percy seemed conflicted for whatever reason. After a brief pause he nodded and they stood. Artemis found she could walk on her ankle as long as she ignored the pain. She hadn't noticed earlier but the ground was now firmer. Concrete or asphalt, sidewalk or road, she couldn't tell, but it was laborious to walk on.

The walk to the picnic area was brief and when they arrived at the parking lot the outline of some shape began to slowly materialize out of the darkness: a blue sedan.

"What the fuck," Percy whispered.

The passenger door was lazily ajar and a crumpled body lay next to it. But rising from it was a dim corporeal being frozen in her last act of opening the door. The soul. Animum. The likeness of the human body captured perfectly. An unanimated ghost that shimmered occasionally like its tether to this world was slackening.

Artemis thought that if she looked through the front window she would've seen another eerie mock of the dead. She forced herself to turn her eyes away from the vestige and looked at Percy and saw that he stood unseeing and frozen. The yoke placed upon him by fear.

"We should keep going."

"What the fuck," he repeated. "What is that—is that a ghost?"

"No. The soul."

"And tell me what it's doing here? Why it's not in the Underworld?"

"Erebos, I should assume. He rules over the Underworld too. Perhaps he closed off the gateways of the Underworld. Hades knows the Underworld couldn't possibly contain the souls of the whole living world arriving en masse."

Artemis didn't need to look at his face to know what he was thinking. Would his soul be forever confined to this plane too? Would he continue his existence unabated in the brink between life and death?

He stood transfixed, staring at the spirit. Artemis tried to place a hand on his shoulder to turn him away but he shrugged it off.

"We should go, Percy." For your own good. "You need food—"

"No," he said. "We are not going any further. We're going to New York. Now."

He stomped off towards the shore, strode over the rocks until he reached the river, and then effortlessly continued walking atop it. She quickly went after him and when she got to the last rock, she reached a foot out and quickly retracted it before it could touch the surface.

"Well?" he said. "You can walk across it. Can't you?"

"No."

"Yes you can. Hyperion did it."

"I cannot. Let me walk with you."

He came back, seemingly begrudgingly, and she held his arm and took a step forwards, closing her eyes in the process. One foot at a time. Hovering over the bottomless chasm. She pressed down but she didn't sink. Then the other foot. When she was completely on the water, Percy immediately began moving and she with him.

The black abyss beneath her. The secrets it held that only Percy was privy to now. She had half a mind to ask him to take her under. Desensitize herself to make it easier for when her borrowed time inevitably ran out and the void engulfed her.

The words remained unsaid. She kept her eyes carefully shut and let Percy lead. The journey across the Hudson was short and she let go of his arm and opened her eyes when she finally felt solid land below her feet. Percy stood in the water for a second longer than her and when Artemis peered back at him, he looked somewhat uneasy. He met her gaze, climbing onto the shore moving next to her after a long exhale.

"New York," he said.

"Here at last."