The Last Olympian: Apollo's Daughter

The Son of Hermes

"Skye," Percy groaned as he got to his feet, hobbling towards us.

This was crazy... I was crazy. I just gave him a weapon and what did I have?  The closest thing was a rock the size of a baseball from the rubble.

I watched as Luke grasped the hilt.

He unlatched the side straps of his armor, exposing a small bit of his skin just under his left arm, a place that would be very hard to hit. He looked at me then with difficulty, he stabbed himself.

It wasn't a deep cut, but Luke howled. His eyes glowed like lava. The throne room shook...

An aura of energy surrounded Luke, growing brighter and brighter. I shut my eyes and felt a force like a nuclear explosion blister my skin and crack my lips.

It was silent for a long time...

When I opened my eyes, I saw Luke sprawled at the hearth in front of me. On the floor around him was a blackened circle of ash. Kronos's scythe had liquefied into molten metal and was trickling into the coals of the hearth, which now glowed like a blacksmith's furnace.

Luke's left side was bloody. His eyes were open...His blue eyes, the way they used to be... His breath was a deep rattle.

"Good..." he croaked.

Hot salty tears streamed down my face as I slid forward on my knees.

Percy and Grover helped a limping Annabeth towards us. Tears leaked from her stormy eyes as they helped her down next to me.

Luke's gaze shifted to Annabeth. "You knew. I almost killed you, but you knew..."

"She was always the smart one..." I whispered, taking Luke's charred and burnt hand in mine.

"Shhh." Annabeth's voice trembled. "You were a hero at the end, Luke. You'll go to Elysium."

He shook his head weakly. "Think...rebirth. Try for three times. Isles of the Blest."

"You always pushed yourself too hard," I muttered, trying to keep myself together.

"Did you..." Luke coughed and his lips glistened red with his own blood. "Did you love me?" He choked out. I wasn't sure if he directed it to me or Annabeth. But I couldn't bring myself to answer.

Once... I said in my mind. I gave him a weak smile and he nodded, looking up at the ceiling. 

I remembered all the times I'd sneak from the Apollo cabin to the woods with him...We'd laugh and curse the gods together.. We'd cry for Thalia...For the girl we'd lost... All the sidelong glances and hushed words I thought once could be love. The hushed conversations in the dark when one of us couldn't sleep...

Once I had truly believed I loved him. If he had asked me before I would have said yes...But I know love now... I know what it means for someone to love me.

I would always love the Luke from before. The one I'd met in Pennsylvania, the one who fought alongside me, the one who built a misfit family of runaways...

But not now...not this Luke...

Luke had broken this family once...But parts of it still remained.

Annabeth looked at me like she was thinking the same thing. Not by any kind of blood...But we were sisters. And I'd be there for her. Always.

"You were like a brother to me, Luke," she said softly as she turned back to him. "But I didn't love you."

He nodded as if he'd expected it. He winced in pain.

"We can get ambrosia," Grover said. "We can..."

I shook my head.

"Grover," Luke gulped. "You're the bravest satyr I ever knew. But no. There's no healing..." Another cough.

He gripped Percy's sleeve, and I quickly looked across to the son of Poseidon. The world was collapsing, the man I once loved lay between us dying, but the only thing I cared about was my family...My real family was alive.

"Ethan. Me. All the unclaimed. Don't let it...Don't let it happen again."

His eyes were angry, but pleading too.

"I won't," Percy said slowly. "I promise."

Luke nodded, and his hands went slack.

The gods arrived a few minutes later in their full war regalia, thundering into the throne room and expecting a battle.

What they found were Annabeth and me in tears holding each other over his body. Grover and Percy standing over us in the dim warm light of the hearth.

"Percy," his father called "What...what is this?"

I wiped the tears from my eyes, sniffling as I stood and turned to face the Olympians.

"We need a shroud," I tried to announce, my voice cracking. 

Percy placed his hand on my shoulder, "We need a shroud... for the son of Hermes..."

...

The Three Fates themselves took Luke's body.

One of them looked at me, and even though she didn't say anything, my life literally flashed before my eyes. Suddenly I was thirty. Then I was a middle-aged woman. Then I turned old and withered. All the strength left my body, and I saw my own tombstone and an open grave, a coffin being lowered into the ground. All this happened in less than a second.

It is done, she said.

The Fate held up the snippet of blue yarn... Luke's.

They gathered up Luke's body, now wrapped in a white-and-green shroud, and began carrying it out of the throne room.

"Wait," Hermes said.

The messenger god was dressed in his classic outfit of white Greek robes, sandals, and helmet. The wings of his helm fluttered as he walked. The snakes George and Martha curled around his caduceus, murmuring, Luke, poor Luke.

I thought about May Castellan, alone in her kitchen, baking cookies and making sandwiches for a son who would never come home.

Hermes unwrapped Luke's face and kissed his forehead. He murmured a final blessing.

"Farewell," he whispered. Then he nodded and allowed the Fates to carry away his son's body.

The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap. The hero was Luke. The cursed blade was the knife he'd given Annabeth all those years ago...cursed because Luke had broken his promise and betrayed us...his family.

A single choice shall end his days. The choice to give him the knife, and to believe, as Annabeth had, that he was still capable of setting things right...

Olympus to preserve or raze. By sacrificing himself, he had saved Olympus. 

And my dream all those years ago.. My arrow, sprouting from Luke's chest... It wasn't the killing blow as I had once thought. 

When Luke had descended into the River Styx, he would've had to focus on something important that would hold him to his mortal life. Otherwise, he would've dissolved. 

I had seen Percy...heard the call of my sisters. 

He must have pictured that scene Hestia showed me...from the good old days with us. When he promised we would be a family.

Hurting Annabeth in battle had shocked him into remembering that promise. It had allowed his mortal conscience to take over again, and defeat Kronos. His weak spot...his Achilles heel...had saved us all.

Next to me, Annabeth's knees buckled. Grover caught her, but she cried out in pain, and I realized he'd grabbed her broken arm.

"Oh gods," He said quickly. "Annabeth, I'm sorry."

"It's all right," she said as she passed out.

"Skye!" Percy snapped his fingers at me.

I rushed over quickly, inspecting her arm. I held my hands over her arm but I was too tired. Nothing happened, no glow, no tendrils of light, no healing... "Shit," I muttered, closing my eyes and trying again.

"I've got this." Someone placed their hand on my shoulder. I looked up to meet my father's gaze..or should I say Ray-Bans. His armor was made of pure fire and was so bright I figured it may blind my friends if they looked at it. "God of medicine, at your service."

"Dad..." I whispered.

Apollo gave me a bright dazzling smile that would send most swooning. "You did good, Firefly"

"Please never call me that again," I mumbled.

My father chuckled and passed his hand over Annabeth's face and spoke an incantation. Immediately the bruises faded. Her cuts and scars disappeared. Her arm straightened, and she sighed in her sleep.

Apollo grinned. "She'll be fine in a few minutes. Just enough time for me to compose a poem about our victory: 'Apollo and his friends save Olympus.' Good, eh?"

"Father, please." I groaned, exhausted. "Is this really the time?"

"When is it not the time for a good poem?" Apollo feigned hurt. "Are you even my child?"

I sucked in a deep breath. Sometimes I wondered how my father was a god of anything...