𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

chapter ninety-four. ☄︎. *. ⋆

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I'D NEVER SEEN OLYMPUS SO OUTRIGHT DEPRESSING. No fires lit the braziers. The windows were dark. The streets were deserted and the doors were barred. The only movement was in the parks, which had been set up as field hospitals. Will and a few of my siblings scrambled around, caring for the wounded. Naiads and dryads tried to help, using nature magic songs to heal burns and poison.

    Percy told me about Leneus's death as Grover planted the laurel sapling. I thought it was kinda weird how dead satyrs could come back as plants, but it made sense. I tried not to think about how many saplings would be left behind at the end of the war.

     Percy, Annabeth, and I went around trying to cheer up the wounded. It was super easy for me, because you know how cheerful I am. (That was sarcasm.) We passed a satyr with a broken leg, a demigod who was bandaged from head to toe, and a body covered in the golden burial shroud of Apollo. My stomach twisted. I couldn't count on both hands the number of casualties between all of my siblings.

     Annabeth and Percy kinda carried the whole positivity campaign. Grover was miserable over the death of Lenus, even despite all the horrible things Leneus had said about Grover when he was alive. I couldn't find anything happy to say. And after seeing that burial shroud, every time I opened my mouth, my voice cracked with withheld tears.

     We kept walking towards the palace of the gods. It went unspoken, but we all knew that was where Kronos would head. As soon as he made it up the elevator—and I had no doubt he would, one way or another—he would destroy the throne room, the center of the gods' power.

    The bronze doors creaked open. Our footsteps echoed on the marble floor. The constellations twinkled coldly on the ceiling of the great hall. The hearth was down to a dull red glow. Hestia, in the form of a little girl in brown robes, hunched at its edge, shivering. The Ophiotaurus swam sadly in his sphere of water. He let out a half-hearted moo when he saw us.

    In the firelight, the thrones cast evil-looking shadows, like grasping hands.

    Standing at the foot of Zeus's throne, looking up at the stars, was Rachel Elizabeth Dare. She was holding a Greek ceramic vase.

    "Rachel?" Percy said. "Um, what are you doing with that?"

    She focused on us as if she were coming out of a dream. "I found it. It's Pandora's jar, isn't it?"

"Rachel," I found myself saying, "you shouldn't—"

"I can see Hope inside it." Rachel ran her fingers over the ceramic designs. "So fragile."

"Rachel."

My voice seemed to bring her back to reality. She held out the jar, and I took it. The clay felt as cold as ice. Our gazes met as our fingers brushed over the jar, and Rachel's eyes were sad. She looked the same way I did when I'd first been cursed by Ethan; like there was no other option than the one she'd been given.

     I gazed down at Pandora's jar as Percy moved to introduce Rachel to Hestia. My fingers grazed over the smooth, delicate drawings all along the outside of it. The lid was shut tight. It wasn't my burden to bear, so I didn't feel its full luring powers, but even just holding it in my hands was enough to almost break me.

     Annabeth and Grover guided the jar out of my grasp and gave it back to Percy.

     "Hestia," he said, "I give this to you as an offering."

     The goddess tilted her head. "I am the least of the gods. Why would you trust me with this?"

    "You're the last Olympian," Percy replied. "And the most important."

    "And why is that, Percy Jackson?"

    "Because Hope survives best at the hearth," he said. "Guard it for me, and I won't be tempted to give up again."

    The goddess smiled. She took the jar in her hands and it began to glow. The hearth fire burned a little brighter, which I was glad to see. A beacon of hope in such dreary times.

    "Well done, Percy Jackson," Hestia said. "May the gods bless you."

    Percy looked nervous. "We're about to find out."

     "I don't like the sound of that," I muttered, but of course I followed Percy as he marched over to his father's throne.

     The seat of Poseidon stood just to the right of Zeus's, but it wasn't nearly as grand. The molded black leather seat was attached to a swivel pedestal, with a couple of iron rings on the side for fastening a fishing pole (or a trident). Basically it looked like a chair on a deep-sea boat, that you would sit in if you wanted to hunt shark or marlin or sea monsters.

    Gods in their natural state are about twenty feet tall, so I could just reach the edge of the seat if I stretched my arms. And the only reason I knew that was because that was what Percy was doing.

    "Help me up," he said to us.

     "Percy, are you insane?" I said, overlapping with Grover's and Annabeth's baffled comments.

     "Probably," he agreed to my sentiment, giving me a nod over his shoulder. "But help me up."

     "Percy," Grover said, "the gods really don't appreciate people sitting in their thrones. I mean like turn-you-into-apile-of-ashes don't appreciate it."

    "I need to get his attention," Percy said. "It's the only way."

     I shared a look with Grover and Annabeth, all of us in insane disbelief. 

    "Well," Annabeth said, "this'll definitely get his attention."

    We linked our arms to make a step, then boosted Percy onto the throne. He looked like a baby with his feet so high off the ground.

     The rest of us took a few steps back and watched from a relatively safe distance. I wasn't sure how this would work; would Poseidon show up, suddenly summoned to Olympus by Percy's appearance? Or would he even notice? My questions were answered after only a momentary pause, as the throne rumbled in protest. Percy's eyes clouded over, like he was falling into a trance-like state.

     Finally, he woke up, his head snapping forward again and eyes back to normal.

     "Are you okay?" Grover asked him, as Percy slid down from the throne (rather ungracefully). "You turned pale and.. and you started smoking."

     "I did not," he claimed, though there was literally smoke curling off his shirt.

     "If you'd sat there any longer," I said, "you would have blown up. I hope the conversation was worth it."

     "We'll find out soon," Percy promised.

    Just then the doors of the throne room swung open. Thalia marched in. Her bow was snapped in half and her quiver was empty. I empathized with both of those problems all too well.

    "You've got to get down there," she told us. "The enemy is advancing. And Kronos is leading them."