Betrayed But Never Forgotten

Who are these people

*takes place when the warriros just come to camp*

Thaila's  pov

  

I hated every day at Camp Half-Blood. The weight of the secrets I carried made each sunrise a burden rather than a blessing. Artemis thought it was safer for us to stay close after the disappearings began—those unexplained absences that nobody seemed willing to truly investigate. Some claimed they were deaths, others suggested betrayal, but few dared to question the official narrative too deeply.

Me and Will still had our talkies these past two years since we started our clandestine investigation. Stolen moments in the forest, whispered theories under cover of darkness, signal codes tapped out during campfire songs. Will convinced Nico of what we suspected was happening, and slowly, painstakingly, Nico seemed to be coming out of some sort of trance—his eyes gradually clearing as if emerging from a fog. He agreed to help us, though sometimes I caught him staring at shadows with a haunted expression, as if seeing ghosts from the past.

After we got Nico on board, Artemis, Hestia, and Hades revealed in fragments and riddles that they had been looking for the three heroes everyone assumed were gone forever. Because they weren't dead—despite what Zeus and the others claimed. Despite the memorial services and the shrouds burned in their honor. Despite the new leadership that rose to fill their absence, a little too quickly, a little too seamlessly.

We soon figured out that there was a war brewing before anyone else sensed the signs—the increased monster activity at the borders, the peculiar astronomical events, the dreams that left campers screaming in the night. But we decided to keep it a secret, knowing that the wrong ears might hear, that whispers had a way of traveling to Olympus. There were forces moving in the shadows, manipulating events, and not all of them wore the faces of enemies.

Three gods, three demigods, six conspirators against a tide of deliberate blindness. Sometimes I wondered if we were the paranoid ones, seeing patterns where there were none. But then another unexplained event would occur, another piece would fall into place, and our secret meetings at midnight would grow more urgent, more focused.

Anyways, I was peacefully sitting at the Artemis table, pushing around the food on my plate without appetite, when a massive black vortex materialized without warning in front of the pavilion. The air crackled with unknown energy, static electricity raising the hair on my arms. Time seemed to slow as everyone turned to face the disturbance. I put down my fork and reached for my weapon like everyone else at the table, muscles tensing in preparation for whatever might emerge.

Nine figures stepped out of the swirling darkness. They all wore black cloaks that seemed to absorb the surrounding light, making it difficult to discern their features. The two in front distinguished themselves with purple trim on their cloaks—a sign of leadership, perhaps, or something more significant that I couldn't yet decipher. Two led the formation with the other seven arranged in a perfect triangle behind them, their movements synchronized with unnatural precision.

No one spoke a word. The tension in the pavilion was thick enough to cut with a knife, broken only by the soft rustle of the strangers' cloaks. The person in the front, whom I figured was male due to his body language—the set of his shoulders, the way he balanced his weight—stepped forward with deliberate grace.

"We are the Chaos Warriors," he announced, his voice resonating with power that seemed both ancient and impossibly young, "and we are here to help in the new war against Nyx."

The name hung in the air like a curse. Nyx—primordial goddess of night, older than the Olympians themselves. Many of the campers gasped, the revelation striking them like physical blows. But I remained silent, exchanging quick glances with Will across the pavilion. We had already pieced together this possibility in our midnight meetings with Nico. We'd figured it out when Pe— when he left. The name caught in my thoughts, still too painful to fully form even in the privacy of my mind.