𝕱𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖑𝖞 𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖊 - a Leo Valdez slowburn

Chapter fifteen

Chapter fifteen. 

[It's the final countdown]

"When everything is quiet, 

who is the first to breathe?"

Aeneas realized too late they should've brought a jacket. Armor does not keep warm. 

They turned to Reyna, who held the reigns of the chariot in her hands. "You're going to be fine," they reassured her. "Like you always are." She furrowed her brows, and then relaxed her face and rolled her eyes. 

"You mean being in a cycle of almost dying, training not to die, and then almost dying again?" She chuckled at the thought of that being 'fine'. Aeneas hummed. 

"Reyna, you've done something I couldn't in what, fifteen years?" they exclaimed. Reyna raised an eyebrow. "That's because you didn't want to." "Push comes to shove, Ray," Aeneas protested, "and besides, Mars is quite an ambitious grandpa."

"As the praetor, I order you not to badmouth gods that could blast us out of the sky, thank you very much," Reyna said, smiling. Aeneas snorted. "As thE prAetoR," they mocked. "As the adult, I order you to have more respect for you elders," they said. At that, Reyna had to laugh. 

"Have you ever treated your siblings with respect, Aeneas?" she asked. "You see me as a sibling?" Aeneas cooed. "That's so sweet!" "Hylla and I have asked you to sign adoption papers before," Reyna deadpanned. "No one to be adopted by," Aeneas explained. "Unless your mother-"

"The day Bellona adopts you is the day Tartarus freezes over," Reyna teased. Her smile disappeared. "You really think I'll be okay? These people are crazy, and we're hunting them down." Aeneas raised a teasing eyebrow. 

"Ray, as your self-proclaimed older sibling, I'll tell you that you're the crazy one. They're simply running away, man! And yes, maybe they're running towards to the Mare Nostrum," Reyna shivered at the term, "but they're also just seven kids with an angry faun and a ship that breaks down every three days." 

Reyna cracked a smile again. "And the fact that those seven demigods are all more powerful than us and could take us easily?" Aeneas almost laughed. "Those kids haven't met me yet, then," they said. "Have they?" 

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It was fun to put things in perspective sometimes, Lin supposed. 

Especially that 'fake' things in real life, when magic is incorporated in real life, such fake things truly can be real. That included ghosts, apparently. Lin hadn't thought of that. 

So now that they, Aiden and Leah were surrounded by Roman legionnaire ghosts in a haunted house in Venice, and all Lin could do was sigh in frustration because fuck, why didn't they see this coming when they were the one to propose the idea? 

A transparent legionnaire lunged at Lin with their transparent gladius, which went through them. The ghost scoffed. 

"You weak barbarians!" he shouted. "You conniving, little disgruntled-" Lin narrowed their eyes. 

"You're literally a vengeful ghost that practiced slavery," Lin summed up. "You don't really get to talk, man." Another ghost stabbed them in the arm, their cavalry sword harmlessly going through. Again. 

"You really don't understand how being a ghost works, do you?" Lin asked them, brows furrowed. Aiden laughed nervously and nudged Lin. "They might not be entirely self-aware that they're not, in fact, alive," he teased. Leah snorted.