As he stood with both his brother and friends, Connor could not keep his gaze from straying towards Ariadnê as she was practically bouncing on the heels of her feet. Beckendorf and Silena had crafted her beautiful armor that was short only of his Father's skill. With Silena's direction and Ariadnê's own input, the garments had been form-fitting, each line of her undersuit made of fine thread crafted from molten celestial bronze that emphasized each curve of her body.
Her hair had been braided into dual buns at the top of her head while the rest flowed freely down her back in a mockery of a blackened waterfall. Flowers, rubies, and pearls decorated the strands like glitter as the pins holding the buns together were sharpened into small blades.
He could not see her face, but behind his own eyelids, he could almost see the bloodlust in her eyes.
(It was one of the many things he loved about her. How she personified her Father's wrath. She was clever and quick-minded. She was beautiful and skilled. She was intelligent and rational. It was no wonder that she fit so perfectly between the cabins of Apollô, Hermês, Aphroditê, and Arês. She had no equal except her own brother, but as much as Connor liked Percy... he was not in love with the dude.)
Connor and the others tensed when the five of them straightened. He knew that it meant the veil that clouded the eyes of the Olympioi and the gods around them had been removed.
Clarisse and Annabeth and Travis clenched their weapons tightly. No doubt that Travis and Annabeth wished to be at the side of their paramours, but Katie and Percy have both proven that they could handle their own. Clarisse knew the same of Ariadnê also even though he understood her shiftiness.
Neither of them trusted anyone to watch her back better than they could.
(Connor would argue and say that Percy would. Ariadnê may be blind to see it, but her brother cherishes her above all others even if he was completely oblivious to how she felt second to all others in his life.)
She shifted once more, body aimed to protect Percy even at the cost of herself. (He wondered absently if Annabeth ever felt slighted at how Ariadnê included her as a threat to Percy.) Her head was tilted to the heavens. Connor was not the only one to startle when the cry for battle roared around them.
They put their training to use (the training that all children of Hermês and Aphroditê were skilled at. Unnoticed and underestimated) as they dutifully followed as discreetly as their armor allowed. It was like standing in a slaughterhouse as the warriors from both Sparta and Athens tore into each other.
And then—
As if Zeus Astrapaios stood atop his marble throne and cast his master bolt from the sky to strike the earth.
The very air they breathed was charged with tension, static crackling throughout the atmosphere as the metallic taste of electricity sat on his tongue. The shadows around them thickened and deepened and stretched around them until the very plains of the earth were hidden beneath. But Connor could still sense them lingering under the shade of Erebus, twisting and turning and ready to cast judgment on all that trample the earth. The very ground beneath their feet trembled under the combined might of twins as their inner storm shook the earth.
(By the gods above, he was starting to sound like them. Lord Haidês and Lady Hestia would be pleased.)
Suddenly—
Ariadnê was slipping between the masses. He saw no weapon in her hands, but bodies dropped left to right as she moved between them as she was gliding along the ice. Her brother followed in her shadows, bringing storms of unseen power down onto their heads aided by Thalia as her arrows were charged with lightning that glinted under the moonlight. The Spartan warriors fell to their knees in face of their rage, not able to see the enemy that came from the shadows.
