This Cold Year ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase²

―xvi. a darkness she can't control

NAOMI ALMOST WEPT WITH RELIEF when she saw Annabeth alive. Injured, but beautifully and undoubtedly alive. 

The Argo II broke into the cavern, spilling sunlight into the darkness. Percy and Naomi stood at the front of the ship, calling her name. 

"Here!" Annabeth sobbed. 

As the ship descended, Naomi and Percy leaned over the rail. Naomi's eyes were wet with tears, but she didn't care. Relief was an addictive taste. 

The Argo II finally hovered to a stop about forty feet in the air. Naomi and Percy were the first ones off, going to Annabeth immediately. She was standing at the edge of a hole, looking down into it, but Naomi only saw endless and impenetrable darkness. 

Percy took Annabeth's hand, pulling her gently away from the pit and into his arms. She buried her face in his chest and broke down in tears. Naomi reached for Annabeth's free hand, letting her girlfriend squeeze the life out of it. 

"It's okay," Percy said. "We're together."

He didn't say you're okay or we're alive. After everything they'd been through over the last year, he knew the most important thing was that they were together. 

The rest of the crew gathered around them. 

"Your leg." Piper knelt next to Annabeth and examined her Bubble Wrap cast. "Oh, Annabeth, what happened?"

Annabeth explained everything she'd gone through. Naomi and Percy held onto her hands as she told them, recounting her last few hours like an Ancient Greek orator creating the next Greek epic. When she was done, the others' faces were slack with amazement. 

"Gods of Olympus," Jason said. "You did all that alone. With a broken ankle."

"Well... some of it with a broken ankle."

Percy grinned. "You made Arachne weave her own trap? I knew you were good, but Holy Hera—Annabeth, you did it. Generations of Athena kids tried and failed. You found the Athena Parthenos!"

Everyone looked at the statue. The forty-foot-tall statue of Athena loomed above them, ivory and gold and completely unbelievable. It felt too good to be true—the key to uniting the camps, to stopping the giants, right there in front of them. A statue lost to time, finally found.

"What do we do with her?" Frank asked. "She's huge."

"We'll have to take her with us to Greece," Annabeth said. "The statue is powerful. Something about it will help us stop the giants."

"The giants' bane stands gold and pale," Hazel quoted. "Won through pain from a woven jail." She looked at Annabeth with admiration. "It was Arachne's jail. You tricked her into weaving it."

"You're amazing," Naomi breathed. It felt like the understatement of the millennium. 

Leo raised his hands. He made a finger picture frame around the Athena Parthenos like he was taking measurements. "Well, it might take some rearranging, but I think we can fit her through the bay doors in the stable. If she sticks out the end, I might have to wrap a flag around her feet or something."

"What about you guys?" Annabeth asked. "What happened with the giants?"

Percy told her about rescuing Nico, the appearance of Bacchus, and the fight with the twins in the Colosseum. Nico didn't say much, so Naomi told Annabeth what he'd found out about the Doors of Death, and how they had to be closed on both sides. Even with sunlight streaming in from above, the news made the cavern seem dark again.