Nothing is mine.

Percy is given new prey to hunt...

Agrotera

The clouds soared by, scattered puffs of white floating past in the blue high above the drifting gulls and the rustling leaves of the tree tops. Percy spread his arms out in the cool water and lay his head back, letting the lake lap against his cheeks.

'My lord,' Metea murmured in his ear.

Percy started, cold shock gushing through his veins. 'Don't do that, Metea. I nearly had a heart attack and died. Do you know how long Annabeth would laugh at me in Elysium if I was killed by a cute naiad after she died fighting Kronos? I would quite literally never hear the end of it.'

'Sorry, my lord.' She sank into the water, her clear blue eyes peeking out above the surface and her long hair trailing away through the water.

'More monsters?'

Metea nodded.

He sighed. 'Duty calls.' Percy swam back to the pier and hauled himself up onto the wood. 'I can try my archery out again. I'm kind of starting to get the hang of it now. Where? Up in the woods beyond the strawberry fields with Agnete?'

That's where they usually appear. And that pine tree dryad always sneaks up and laughs at me afterward too.

She smiled. 'My little sister said it bounded along her banks to the border and then prowled along the edge of your camp, my lord.'

'Percy.'

'Yes, my lord.'

'No—' he rolled his eyes at her '—you know what I mean.'

'It wouldn't be right,' Metea whispered. 'You're — you are — it isn't right, my lord.'

'You always say that,' Percy muttered. 'Like I'm any different to the other demi-gods knocking around here. All I do is try and be brave. Everyone does it.'

Her bright blue eyes watched on with a soft gleam as he gathered up his beaten bow and a fresh quiver of arrows. 'Be careful, my lord.'

'I can't die,' he said. 'Not yet, at least.'

If I keep choosing well, maybe I can't die at all. Percy jogged past his cabin and back across the surface of the lake, heading upstream along the river. If I don't abandon what she showed us, I'm bound to the mortal world, right, Zoë?

Clarisse swaggered through the strawberry fields, her spear on her shoulder and her helm tucked under her arm. Golden dust stuck to the sheen of sweat on her forehead and glittered in the strands of dark hair clinging to her temples and cheeks. 'Too slow, Sea-boy.'

'What was it?' he asked.

'Hellhound.' She grinned. 'I stomped it. None of your fancy twirly sword stuff, just rammed my spearblade right through its skull.'

'That it?' Percy tugged at the string of his bow. 'Oh.'

'Don't sulk, you've got basically all the monsters that have turned up over the last few weeks with your little naiad scouting system and all that sneaking out to fight them in the night.' Clarisse cackled. 'You know, Flower-girl's still pretty stroppy about the way they watch you and talk to you. She might start throwing tomatoes at them soon.'

Sharp cold waves of guilt churned in his stomach. 'I know.' He scratched the back of his head and strode up the hill, scanning the strawberry fields. 'Where is Katie?'

'Her cabin. Watering her flowers. And those glow-in-the-dark ones you brought back from Ogygia for whichever poor girl it was that rejected you.'

'Nobody rejected me. That… that is just not how Ogygia works.'

'Where is this girl then?' Clarisse pointed the tip of her spear at him. 'Want to go a round on the sand? That hellhound was over too quick, got me all ready to go and then poof, gone with the first good thrust I made.'

'No thanks.' Percy shook his head. 'And I didn't come back for a girl and get rejected, stop listening to Drew's Greek Demi-Gods Gossip Channel.' He prodded her in the stomach with the end of the bow. 'Are you sure you're not an Aphrodite girl with all this love talk?'

Clarisse cracked her knuckles. 'Damn sure. Right, if you're going to wimp about in the lake with the naiads, I'm going to hit the gym. Don't let the vegetable psycho catch you kissing them.'

'I don't kiss them. I haven't been kissed by any girls.' Percy swallowed a little ripple of guilt. 'Not even Calypso, and Aphrodite made a big point of telling me all about how she was really hoping I would, so…'

'Idiot.' Clarisse snorted. 'Aphrodite's just going to screw with you, all children of Ares know that.' Her fingers crept to the cloven crimson crest of her helm. 'Don't listen to her. Don't listen to any of it. I don't.'

'I try not to think about it, either. All that matters is that you choose well; if you do that and it's meant to be you, you'll die without regret and go to Elysium.'

'Honour and immortality,' she whispered. 'When I was a little snotty brat and came here for the first time, I snuck up to see that bandaged old husk in the attic. I wanted to make our dad proud; I wanted to be like Leonidas; I wanted to kick all my older brothers' teeth in for laughing at me when I was too little to really swing my spear about without falling over. So I asked. You know what she told me? She told me you will hold hope in your hand, safeguarding it at last command, but in the end you will yield, returning home without your shield.' Clarisse's jaw clenched, her knuckles whitening around the haft of her spear. 'The hell I will. When I fall, my father will be so proud he will name me a queen of war and carve a notch upon his spear haft next to his greatest children to forever remember me by.'

'Prophecies aren't always what we expect, Clarisse,' Percy murmured. 'Perhaps it's not what you fear. Perhaps it never was. I thought it was meant to be me; I stood on the sixteenth floor of the Empire State Building and I was certain that this time it was just going to be me. But it's all still to come. Kronos was just a herald of change, he was only great woe, and soon I'll be sixteen.'

Clarisse stared into the gleaming bronze back of her helm. 'You're Achilles, Sea-boy. You'll die a beautiful death in the war to come. And I'm going to be right there beside you every step of the way to the banks of the Styx itself with my shield in my hand.' She slammed her helm back onto her head. 'Now go flirt with the naiads or do whatever cringy sappy romance stuff that gets Flower-girl all hot and bothered. I've got squats to do and I hate talking about all this stuff.'

I'm not Achilles. Percy watched her go down through the neat rows of strawberry plants. Not yet, right, Zoë? I'd have to disappoint first. And I gave my word.

The breeze whispered through the strawberry fields, but he stared up, past the bright sun and the blue sky and the soaring white clouds to the stars beyond.

'I still kind of miss you, you know. It was easier with you, you knew what to do, and I just had to trust you and be brave.' He ran his thumb along the bow string. 'You'd have laughed at my archery all spring.' A faint smile flashed across his face. 'You would've been all like, thy archery sucketh, Perseus. But then you'd show me how to do it right like Artemis showed you, and it'd all be fine.'

I guess I might as well head back to the lake after all, though. Nothing to do here. He glanced into the trees.

Molten silver eyes shone in the shadows of the boughs.

Percy's heart trembled, quivering like a little drop of water clinging to the tip of a leaf. 'Artemis,' he whispered.

She prowled from the trees to the edge of their shade, lithe as a mountain cat. 'You were seeking a hunt, were you not, Perseus?' Amaranth red bled through her irises and the auburn of her hair shivered dark as thick old oak bark. 'The hunting of all wild beasts is mine.'

He gulped. 'Sorry?'

'Perseus—' the corner of her mouth twitched '—what are you sorry for?'

'Sorry—' he winced '—I just had the strangest impression I was about to be turned into a guinea pig or a jackel-whatever-it-was.'

'Jackelope.' Artemis's smile sharpened. 'I would make a stag of you, Perseus, should you disappoint me and threaten to tarnish Zoë's legacy. A suitably noble quarry for who you've proven to be.'

'But you'd still shoot me.'

'The wilderness knows no false mercy.' The amaranth in her eyes shone bright as blood, a fierce light as savage and free as a hawk on the wing. 'Prey receives no pity; not from the fangs of the wolf, the claws of the bear, or the arrow of the hunter.'

'Well…' Percy patted the top of his head. 'No antlers. Yet.'

'These last weeks you have known only my favour, have you not?' Artemis murmured. 'In the brightest moonlight even beneath the branches, aided by those spirits of nature under my patronage, and blessed behind the curve of the bow. You prayed for my aid as I bade you and I have given it freely wherever I was able, for you have made me proud.' A flicker of admiration passed through her eyes and the bottom fell out of Percy's stomach, sweeping his heart high up into the heavens among the silver of the stars. 'To stand beneath all the weight of the world and still choose well. And not just once, not by chance, but over and over, and then to remain, to play not just the part that was thrust upon you, but try to be all that you could possibly be to those who will follow in your footsteps instead of seizing an escape.'

'Thank you,' he whispered. 'It was stand or fall, and I gave my word.' Percy squirmed, staring down at the gleaming red strawberries peeking through the leaves. 'I just want to do my bit, even if it's only setting a good example and keeping camp safe from the occasional monster.'

But it won't be. It's all still to come. My destined foe and my final choice.

'They were poor prey. Challenges and choices meant for young demi-gods taking their first steps from the mortal world into ours, but no test for you, Perseus, Bearer of the Sky and Slayer of the Light Beholden to the World.' Her fierce crimson gaze pierced through him and a broad grin flashed across her face. 'Come, I will provide what you seek. The wilderness will ever test you, if you have the heart to brave it.'

'I can be brave,' he whispered.

I promised.

Artemis held one slim hand out into the light of the sun.

'I…' A touch of heat crept onto Percy's cheeks. 'You won't laugh at my hunting too much, right? I know I'm terrible at tracking and my archery… well, I'm better than I was, but…'

The corner of her mouth crooked. 'Thy archery sucketh, Perseus, but I have taught more than a thousand girls who had never held a bow before how to shoot. I can show you what to do as well.'

You've always shown me what to do. Through Zoë.

He edged forward and reached out, his trembling fingertips hovering an inch from hers.

Artemis's bright laughter scattered the birds from the trees and swept his heart up high into the heavens. 'You will step forth to challenge Hyperion alone, but baulk at taking my hand, Perseus?'

It's not the same. A fierce tingle swept across the ghostly handprint between his shoulder blades. Who cares if Hyperion is offended while trying to slaughter us all? But you…

He scrambled for something to say. 'Hyperion would have just cut me in half or something, and I'd have died vaguely respectably; you'd turn me into something unreasonably fluffy and let Thalia torment me. I won't be able to look Achilles in the eye ever again if I turn up on the banks of the Styx as a guinea pig.'

Her lips twitched. 'Only if you truly disappoint me.' She seized his wrist, her slim fingers strong and tight as the grip of the riptide. 'Close your eyes.'

Percy snapped them shut and a searing flash of silver light stabbed through his eyelids.

Artemis's hand vanished.

He cracked open one eye.

A soft humming drifted through the gnarled, thick trunks and the music of Artemis's laughter echoed after it, cupping his heart like a trickle of warm water caught in his hands and lifted on high.

It's a hunt, Perseus. Her voice whispered through his thoughts like the breeze through the branches of the forest. Your prey will not stumble to your feet and beg for the arrow. The wilderness is always a test.

He raised his bow and glanced around. 'What am I hunting?'

Nothing, if you cannot beat me to it, Perseus.

'That's not very fair,' he called out into the trees. 'You have like ten thousand years of advantage.'

If you cannot best such an old lady as me, what hope is there for you?

'Old lady who looks about twelve half the time,' Percy muttered. 'Oops—' he clapped his hands over his mouth '—you didn't hear that, so you can't curse me.'

Her laughter echoed back through dappled shade beneath the boughs and thicket of green. 'Your headstart is dwindling…'

'Gods above.' Percy scanned the forest, sharp little waves clamouring in his stomach. 'It is a monster, right? I'm not hunting something that I don't need to—'

Artemis dropped from the boughs onto the balls of her feet. 'We do not kill for the thrill alone,' she murmured. 'I give you my word, Perseus, no matter what savage joy the triumph of the wild hunt brings, it is never stirred by needless bloodlust.' Fierce crimson bled through the silver of her gaze. 'They will have earnt suffering, I assure you.'

Percy drew an arrow from his quiver. 'Do I still get my headstart? Or any clues?'

A broad grin flashed across her face as she slipped away into the dappled shadows and tangle of green.

'That's a no, isn't it.' He rolled his eyes. 'Zoë's probably laughing her ass off at me right now—' he pointed the arrow at the sky '—I'm your legacy, remember; if I suck at this, it makes you look bad too.'

Artemis's distant laughter carried through the rustling leaves.

'Right.' Percy picked his way through the tall ferns, wincing at the crunch of twigs beneath his feet as he moved from trunk to trunk. 'It better be a big monster, or I'm never going to find it in here.'

A large paw print sat in the mud between his feet.

'Not the Nemean Lion again. Can't I at least do one of Heracles's labours I haven't already ended up having to do?'

It has claw marks, Perseus. Artemis's murmur came like the distant cry of the hawk on the wind. Cats sheathe their claws when they walk.

Percy crouched and poked the tip of his finger into the dent off the end of each toe. 'So it's not a cat. Then it's what? A really big chihuahua?' He sighed. 'It's not a werewolf is it? I swear there weren't any werewolves in Gabe's stories. They're not a serious feature of Greek mythos and if I see any, I know you cheated.'

She laughed somewhere ahead and above him among the leaves.

'Fine, don't tell me,' he muttered, following the prints through the ferns. 'I'm fairly bite-proof, so I can't get turned into a werewolf anyway. Which, you know, I'm pretty happy about right now, because the last thing I need is for Drew to spice up her creepy fantasies about me with some kind of broody lovesick edgy werewolf filler arc where I run around sulking until some pretty girl comes to save me.' A little shiver swept through him. 'Hmmm, I very much wish I hadn't thought of that now, that's the sort of thing she'd spend a whole series of her gossip channel videos on.'

A pinecone bounced off the top of his head.

'Ow.' Percy glanced around. 'What kind of giant chihuahua throws pinecones?' He rubbed his head. 'I'm so bad at this tracking stuff.'

Focus, Perseus. Artemis's whisper rustled through his thoughts like a sharp wind through the forest. You cannot die while you are bound to the mortal world, but if you let the same hubris that cost Hyperion his head rob you of that anchor…

An icy trickle slid down his spine. 'Right.' He took a deep breath in and let the slow wash of the tide settle himself within the tangle of green. 'That's better.'

Percy picked his way through the brambles and ferns amongst the gnarled roots, following the paw prints, wincing at the sharp snap of each broken twig beneath his feet or the loud squelch of the mud sucking at his shoes.

You are the sea and more, Perseus. Artemis's voice rose like the rustle of the wind through the fields. When you walk through the wild, you are the slow, silent stream winding through the trees; when you must be still, you are the clear surface of the woodland pond; and when the moment is right, you are the storm, sweeping all in the forest before you.

Percy pictured Agnete's little stream bending through the roots of the dryad's pine and prowled through the trees, slipping through the ferns along the line of footprints.

You are not the wilderness. None of my companions are children of my own. Yet, those that respect the wilderness will thrive within it.

A shadow rose beneath the branches of a great beech with a low snarl.

The prey. Artemis's whisper cut through his thoughts like an arrow flashing through the trees. Or the predator, Perseus, if you fail the test.

'It looks unfriendly,' Percy muttered under his breath, nocking an arrow. 'What happened to the nice fluffy jackal things?'

Her laughter rang in his ears like birdsong filtering through the branches.

With a dull growl, the monster rose onto its hind legs, tearing great gashes through the bark of the beech as it caught itself on one huge paw. A thick, twisted bestial face glowered through the trees, golden lupine eyes peering into the tangle of green.

Percy held his breath, holding himself as still as the glassy pools of a still woodland glade. 'What is it?'

Mormolyce. She ate her demi-god children to spite their father, Zeus, for abandoning her. A wintery chill crept into Artemis's words, like the wind slicing through the bare, frosted boughs of the forest. I have no mercy for those who disregard the innocence of children, Perseus; I am their patron and protector. She will not be left to run free and devour more. Bring me her head.

Won't Mormolyce's head just turn to dust? Percy raised his bow, aiming the arrow at her chest and taking deep breath, drinking in the still of the woodland pool and releasing the shaft.

The arrow hissed across the clearing and struck Mormolyce in the chest.

She let out an ear-splitting shriek and shivered into a glowing, ice-blue spectre; the arrow dropped from her chest into the ferns.

'That's not very fair.' Percy nocked drew and released another arrow, but it swept right through her forehead and thunked into the trunk of the beech. 'I finally learnt how to shoot things and then she makes me hunt something that can turn into a ghost when I try to shoot it.'

Artemis's laughter drifted through the trees from somewhere over his shoulder.

Mormolyce dropped to all fours into the ferns, stalking in a slow circle, her fierce yellow eyes fixed on Perseus and baring the curving, dagger-sized canines jutting from her upper jaw.

Percy raised his bow. 'I dare you, unghostify yourself and see what happens.'

She ducked behind the trunk of a pine. He took a step back, glancing either side of the trunk as his heart began to race.

Mormolyce burst through it, shivering back into being and lashing out with a huge paw. Percy ducked and her claws whispered over his head.

He stumbled back, but she whirled, snapping at him with her dagger-sized canines, and he bent back away from them, flowing through her wild swipes as she tore deep gashes out of the trees and shredded the ferns into scraps of green, and rolling past her; he sprung to his feet, twisted and released the arrow.

It punched through the leather band across Mormolyce's chest and she howled, scoring her claws through the dirt.

'What big teeth you have,' Percy muttered, grabbing another arrow and taking slow steps back.

A deep snarl rumbled from Mormolyce's throat.

'Not word for word what you're meant to say,' he said, 'but something tells me you more or less got the gist of it.'

She bent her head and ripped the shaft out with her teeth, spitting it away and lunged. Percy released the bowstring.

The arrow pierced Mormolyce through the eye and she sprawled into the ruined ferns, twitching and thrashing, and dissolved into golden dust.

Percy swept his eyes across the trees. 'That was lucky. I nearly found out if I'm just scratch-proof and my bones break like normal or not.'

'A lucky shot.' Artemis leant on the gashed beech, trailing her fingertips through the marred bark. 'But luck is part of the hunt, Perseus. Take your spoils.'

He knelt and swept a hand through the golden dust; his fingers closed over a thick dagger-sized tooth.

'Hmmm.' Percy ran a thumb along the serrations. 'I'm not really a dagger person. I'd have given this to Annabeth and she would have probably loved it, but, well, she doesn't need a dagger anymore, not unless someone's being very stubborn about unevenly spacing the trees in Elysium.' A soft pang tore through him as he stared at the tip of the fang. 'For you, Artemis, for… for everything,' he whispered.

I give my word, I won't ever disappoint you or Zoë. I promise. No matter what's still to come.

The tooth melted into a wisp of silver flame and faded away.

'Strange,' Artemis murmured. 'Your thoughts are completely hidden from me, even now. Veiled, like the face of the moon behind thick cloud.'

'Aphrodite said something like that,' Percy replied, 'and Hestia, and Dionysius. Actually, I think quite a few of the Gods have.'

'It is rare—' she studied him with soft silver eyes '—of all the mortal heroes I have known, only Heracles ever shared this trait with you.' The corner of Artemis's mouth crooked. 'Yet, perhaps that makes sense, for no others have risen to stand upon the precipice of divinity but you and he.'

'Did I do well?' Percy asked. 'You're not about to fluffify me?'

A flash of mirth passed through her eyes as they bled red as amaranth and her hair turned dark as ebony. 'You passed the test of the wilderness, Perseus; you lived.'

'And Mormolyce?'

'Can no longer prey upon young demi-gods, those under my patronage.' Artemis's crimson gaze pierced through him. 'I will return you to your camp, Perseus; when you wish to face the test of the wilderness once more, you need only pray. I am free to set my companions to the hunting of any and all wild beasts.'

Percy's heart leapt. 'Your companions?'

She swept her long auburn hair back over her shoulder with a small smile. 'Do you not wish to be? You need not fear; unless you wish to join Thalia and Iphigenia as their eternal sister, I demand no vow of chastity. And nor must you endlessly accompany me and abandon your own companions.'

'I wish to be,' he whispered. 'I won't disappoint you, I give you my word.'

'I know you won't, Perseus. You'll make me proud. Like Zoë and so many of her sisters before her.' Molten, shining silver light swirled in Artemis's irises, bright and pale as the full face of the moon, but kind and soft as starlight.

All the breath slipped from Percy's lips.

AN: Same old, same old. Link's below to find all my other stuff and read ahead!

linktr . ee / mjbradley