The Depth Of The Darkness

Chapter 6

After a full day of jumping from class to class, I’m ready to drop. Annabeth’s still ushering me around as if she’d drank a million cups of coffee.

“Next is training,” she says as soon as we’re done picking strawberries.

“For what?” What more could we possibly do?

“First is sword practice; Don’t even start, you need to learn it. Then, hand to hand combat,” she says, shooting me a look. I scowl at her. “After that, we have special weapons practice. Oh, you can skip that one and have a bit of free time before dinner.”

“Why would we skip that one?” I ask innocently. She rolls her eyes. I had yet to show her my daggers, and she has yet to ask.

“Ta-da!” she says, holding out her arm. There’s a big circular arena full of campers, all wearing that atrocious orange shirt, milling around talking to one another. A couple of them were mock fighting in pairs.

“I thought you said we were gonna be training,” I say to Annabeth.

“We are. We just have to wait for the instructor,” she says. She has this giddy smile on her face that is driving me nuts. I figure if she’s annoyed, she would probably quit.

“Wanna see my daggers?” I ask. She narrows her eyes at me. I jingle my wrist, and her gaze locks onto my bracelets.

“Okay, everybody! Let’s get started!” somebody calls out. Ugh, I didn’t even get to finish. I turn towards the voice, and my annoyance vanishes instantly.

“Percy! Annabeth never mentioned you were gonna teach us!” I say excitedly.

“She didn’t? It doesn’t matter. I’m only filling in for someone today. Usually, Connor does this one,” he says conversationally.

“Thank god; he’s doing whatever. He’s more annoying than Annabeth,” I say with a scowl.

“Which god?” he says, smirking.

“What do you mean?”

“There are over two hundred gods. Which one are you thanking?”

“Umm, whichever one caused him to not be here?” I phrase it like a question without meaning to. It’s so easy to forget about all that craziness when nobody’s moving water or shooting fireballs. There’s still a part of me that doesn’t believe it. What if they’re all playing some huge prank on me?

“That would be his dad, I guess,” he says. I nod as if I have any idea what he’s talking about. I can’t remember which one it is. I know I stayed there last night and all, but that doesn’t mean I can recite it off the top of my head! Annabeth comes over and kisses him on the cheek.

“Are you gonna start soon?” she asks him, not even sparing me a glance.

“Yeah,” he turns to face the group. “Hey, Hermes, Ares! Listen up! We’re gonna split into pairs, and since this is a beginners lesson, I’ll show a couple of easy moves first. You’ll practice with each other, but try not to maim. No killing either!” He turns back to us. “Go find a sword and a partner before all the good ones are gone.” I start to leave, but I just gotta ask.

“You were just kidding about that...killing thing, right? I mean, nobody’s ever died before?”

“Nobody has died at practice that I know of. Don’t worry, these have dull blades meant for practicing,” he says. I nod and start walking to a rack full of swords. The first two I can barely pick up, the next one is way too big, and it just keeps going downhill from there. I have to elbow my way around people and stomp on some toes. I pick one up.