BRIAR WATCHED IN horror as the giant king rose to his full height – almost as tall as the temple columns. His face looked just as she remembered – green as bile, with a twisted sneer, his seaweed-colored hair braided with swords and axes taken from dead demigods.

He loomed over the captives, watching them wriggle. "They arrived just as you foresaw, Enceladus! Well done!"

Briar's old nemesis bowed his head, braided bones clattering in his dreadlocks. "It was simple, my king."

The flame designs gleamed on his armor. His spear burned with purplish fire. He only needed one hand to hold his captive. Despite all of Percy Jackson's power, despite everything he had survived, in the end he was helpless against the sheer strength of the giant – and the inevitability of the prophecy.

"I knew these two would lead the assault," Enceladus continued. "I understand how they think. Athena and Poseidon . . . they were just like these children! They both came here thinking to claim this city. Their arrogance has undone them!"

Over the roar of the crowd, Briar could barely hear herself think, but she replayed Enceladus's words: these two would lead the assault. Her heart raced.

The giants had expected Percy and Annabeth. They didn't expect her. Enceladus wasn't as smart as he thought.

For once, being Briar Lovelace, the daughter of Aphrodite, the one nobody took seriously, might play to her advantage.

Annabeth tried to say something, but the giantess Periboia shook her by the neck. "Shut up! None of your silver-tongued trickery!"

The princess drew a hunting knife as long as a fucking sword. "Let me do the honors, Father!"

"Wait, Daughter." The king stepped back. "The sacrifice must be done properly. Thoon, destroyer of the Fates, come forward!"

The wizened grey giant shuffled into sight, holding an oversized meat cleaver. He fixed his milky eyes on Annabeth.

Percy shouted. At the other end of the Acropolis, a hundred yards away, a geyser of water shot into the sky.

King Porphyrion laughed. "You'll have to do better than that, son of Poseidon. The earth is too powerful here. Even your father wouldn't be able to summon more than a salty spring. But never fear. The only liquid we require from you is your blood!"

Briar scanned the sky desperately. Where was the Argo II?

Thoon knelt and touched the blade of his cleaver reverently against the earth.

"Mother Gaia . . ." His voice was impossibly deep, shaking the ruins, making the metal scaffold resonate under Briar's feet. "In ancient times, blood mixed with your soil to create life. Now, let the blood of these demigods return the favor. We bring you to full wakefulness. We greet you as our eternal mistress!"

Without thinking, Briar leaped from the scaffolding. She sailed over the heads of the Cyclopes and ogres, landed in the center of the courtyard and pushed her way into the circle of giants. As Thoon rose to use his cleaver, Briar threw her knife. She took off Thoon's hand at the wrist, quickly catching the knife before it fell.

The old giant wailed. The cleaver and severed hand lay in the dust at Briar's feet. She felt her Mist disguise burn away until she was just Briar again – one girl in the midst of an army of giants, her angelically bright knife like a rock compared to their massive weapons.

"WHAT IS THIS?" Porphyrion thundered. "How dare this weak, useless creature interrupt?"

Briar pouted. "I've had enough of you people calling me useless when I've defeated you once before, and then I do it again," she said. Then, naturally, she attacked.

Briar's advantages: she was small, she was quick, and she was absolutely insane. She drew Katoptris and threw it at Enceladus, hoping she wouldn't hit Percy by accident. She veered aside without witnessing the results, but, judging from the giant's painful howl, she'd aimed well.

Several giants ran at her at once. Briar dodged between their legs and let them bash their heads together.

She wove through the crowd, slashing her knife into dragon-scale feet at every opportunity and yelling, "RUN! RUN AWAY!" to sow confusion.

"NO! STOP HER!" Porphyrion shouted. "KILL HER!"

A spear almost impaled her. Briar swerved and kept running. It's just like capture the flag, she told herself. Only the enemy team is all thirty feet tall.

A huge sword sliced across her path. Compared to her sparring practice with Hazel, the strike was ridiculously slow. Briar leaped over the blade and zigzagged towards Annabeth, who was still kicking and writhing in Periboia's grip. Briar had to free her friend.

Unfortunately, the giantess seemed to anticipate her plan.

"I think not, demigod!" Periboia yelled. "This one bleeds!"

The giantess raised her knife.

Briar screamed in charmspeak: "MISS!"

At the same time, Annabeth kicked up with her legs to make herself a smaller target.

Periboia's knife passed beneath Annabeth's legs and stabbed the giantess's own palm.

"OWWW!"

Periboia dropped Annabeth – alive, but not unscathed. The dagger had sliced a nasty gash across the back of her thigh. As Annabeth rolled away, her blood soaked into the earth.

The blood of Olympus, Briar thought with dread.

But she couldn't do anything about that. She had to help Annabeth.

Briar lunged at the giantess. Her knife suddenly felt really hot in her hands. The surprised giantess glanced down as the knife of the war god sliced her gut. Fire spread from the gash, running up her breastplate and engulfing it in flames.

Retreating, Briar looked back to see the damage. The giantess toppled backwards – screaming and engulfed in flames. Periboia hit the ground with a thud.

"My daughter!" King Porphyrion levelled his spear and charged.

But Percy had other ideas.

Enceladus had dropped him . . . probably because the giant was busy staggering around with Briar's knife embedded in his forehead, ichor streaming into his eyes.

Percy had no weapon – perhaps his sword had been confiscated or lost in the fighting – but he didn't let that stop him. As the giant king ran towards Briar, Percy grabbed the tip of Porphyrion's spear and forced it down into the ground. The giant's own momentum lifted him off his feet in an unintentional pole-vault maneuver and he flipped over onto his back.

Meanwhile Annabeth dragged herself across the ground. Briar ran to her side. She stood over her friend, sweeping her blade back and forth to keep the giants at bay. Fire surrounded her blade, but she couldn't feel a single thing.

"Who wants to be the next target of my flammable tendencies?" she yelled, channelling anger into her charmspeak. "Who wants to go back to Tartarus?"

That seemed to hit a nerve. The giants shuffled uneasily, glancing at Periboia, where flames were rising higher every second.

And why shouldn't Briar intimidate them? She's a hero of Olympus. She'd killed a Titan with just her brain and the knife she had right now. She'd gone on multiple quests across the States and survived all of them. And, most importantly, she's pretty and a lot better than all of them.

Forty feet away, Percy bent over the giant king, trying to yank a sword from the braids of his hair. But Porphyrion wasn't as stunned as he let on.

"Fools!" Porphyrion backhanded Percy like a pesky fly. The son of Poseidon flew into a column with a sickening crunch.

Porphyrion rose. "These demigods cannot kill us! They do not have the help of the gods. Remember who you are!"

The giants closed in. A dozen spears were pointed at Briar's chest.

Annabeth struggled to her feet. She retrieved Periboia's hunting knife, but she could barely stand upright, much less fight. Each time a drop of her blood hit the ground it bubbled, turning from red to gold.

Percy tried to stand, but he was obviously dazed. He wouldn't be able to defend himself.

Briar only choice was to keep the giants focused on her.

"Come on, then!" she yelled. "I'll destroy you all myself if I have to!"

A metallic smell of storm filled the air. All the hairs on Briar's arms stood up.

"The thing is," said a voice from above, "you don't have to."

Briar grinned at the familiar voice. At the top of the nearest colonnade stood Jason, his sword gleaming gold in the sun. Frank stood at his side, his bow ready. Reyna stood on Jason's other side, her sword making her look wickedly hot. Hazel sat astride Arion, who reared and whinnied in challenge.

With a deafening blast, a white-hot bolt arced from the sky, straight through Jason's body as he leaped, wreathed in lightning, at the giant king.

* * *

For the next three minutes, life was great.

So much happened at once that only an ADHD demigod could have kept track.

Jason fell on King Porphyrion with such force that the giant crumpled to his knees – blasted with lightning and stabbed in the neck with a golden gladius.

Frank unleashed a hail of arrows, driving back the giants nearest to Percy.

The Argo II rose above the ruins and all the ballistae and catapults fired simultaneously. Leo must have programmed the weapons with surgical precision. A wall of Greek fire roared upward all around the Parthenon. It didn't touch the interior, but in a flash most of the smaller monsters around it were incinerated.

Leo's voice boomed over the loudspeaker: "SURRENDER! YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY ONE SPANKING HOT WAR MACHINE!"

The giant Enceladus howled in outrage. "Valdez!"

"WHAT'S UP, ENCHILADAS?" Leo's voice roared back. "NICE DAGGER IN YOUR FOREHEAD."

"GAH!" The giant pulled Katoptris out of his head. "Monsters: destroy that ship!"

The remaining forces tried their best. A flock of gryphons rose to attack. Festus the figurehead blew flames and chargrilled them out of the sky. A few Earthborn launched a volley of rocks, but from the sides of the hull a dozen Archimedes spheres sprayed out, intercepting the boulders and blasting them to dust.

"PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!" Buford ordered.

Hazel spurred Arion off the colonnade and they leaped into battle. The forty-foot fall would have broken any other horse's legs, but Arion hit the ground running. Hazel zipped from giant to giant, stinging them with the blade of her spatha.

With extremely bad timing, Kekrops and his snake people chose that moment to join the fight. In four or five places around the ruins, the ground turned to green goo and armed gemini burst forth, Kekrops himself in the lead.

"Kill the demigods!" he hissed. "Kill the tricksters!"

Before many of his warriors could follow, Hazel pointed her blade at the nearest tunnel. The ground rumbled. All the gooey membranes popped and the tunnels collapsed, billowing plumes of dust. Kekrops looked around at his army, now reduced to six guys.

"SLITHER AWAY!" he ordered.

Reyna threw her throwing knives at them before they could get away.

The giantess Periboia had thawed with alarming speed. She tried to grab Annabeth, but, despite her bad leg, Annabeth was holding her own. She stabbed at the giantess with her own hunting knife and led her in a deadly game of tag around the throne.

Percy was back on his feet, Riptide once again in his hands. He still looked dazed. His nose was bleeding. But he seemed to be standing his ground against the old giant Thoon, who had somehow reattached his hand and found his meat cleaver.

Briar stood back to back with Jason and Reyna, who had gotten down via a gust of wind, fighting every giant who dared to come close. For a moment she felt elated. They were actually winning!

But too soon their element of surprise faded. The giants overcame their confusion.

Frank ran out of arrows. He changed into a rhinoceros and leaped into battle, but as fast as he could knock down the giants they got up again. Their wounds seemed to be healing faster.

Annabeth lost ground against Periboia. Hazel was knocked out of her saddle at sixty miles an hour. Jason summoned another lightning strike, but this time Porphyrion simply deflected it off the tip of his spear.

The giants were bigger, stronger and more numerous. They couldn't be killed without the help of the gods. And they didn't seem to be tiring.

The seven demigods were forced into a defensive ring.

Another volley of Earthborn rocks hit the Argo II. This time Leo couldn't return fire fast enough. Rows of oars were sheared off. The ship shuddered and tilted in the sky.

Then Enceladus threw his fiery spear. It pierced the ship's hull and exploded inside, sending spouts of fire through the oar openings. An ominous black cloud billowed from the deck. The Argo II began to sink.

"Leo!" Jason cried.

Porphyrion laughed. "You demigods have learned nothing. There are no gods to aid you. We need only one more thing from you to make our victory complete."

The giant king smiled expectantly. He seemed to be looking at Percy Jackson.

Briar glanced over. Percy's nose was still bleeding. He seemed unaware that a trickle of blood had made its way down his face to the end of his chin.

"Percy, look out . . ." Briar tried to say, but for once her voice failed her.

A single drop of blood fell from his chin. It hit the ground between his feet and sizzled like water on a frying pan.

The blood of Olympus watered the ancient stones.

The Acropolis groaned and shifted as the Earth Mother woke.