The Shadow Summoner | Book Three - PJO Universe

fourteen

BURNINGS

Megs resolve may have been wavering, but Peaches' was not.

When Apollo hesitated to follow Megs orders, the grain spirit bared his fangs and hissed, 'Peaches,' as if that was a new forture technique.

"Fine." Apollo told Meg, his voice turning bitter.

The truth was he had no choice. Apollo faced the fused oaks and put his hands against their trunks.

"If we do this." Ariana told Meg. "Nero will destroy the grove."

The daughter of Hades stood beside Apollo, she tried to think of a plan but nothing came to her mind.

"He won't."

"He has to. He can't control Dodona. Its power is too ancient. He can't let anyone else use it." Apollo insisted.

Meg placed her hands against the trees, just below Apollos. "Concentrate. Open them. Please. You don't want to anger the Beast."

She said this in a low voice - again speaking as if the Beast was someone she had not yet met ... a bogeyman lurking under the bed, not a man in a purple suit standing a few feet away.

The free roots trembled.

Ariana glanced at Meg. She was deep in concentration, leaning against the trunks as if trying to push them over.

Everything about her was familiar: her ratty pageboy hair, her glittering cat-eye glasses, her runny nose and chewed cuticles and faint scent of apple pie.

But she was someone Ariana didnt know at all: stepdaughter to the immortal crazy Nero. A member of the Imperial Household.

What did that even mean?

Her brain hurt, she had been in this life since she was born and yet she didn't know what it meant?

Ariana pictured the Brady Bunch in purple togas, lined up on the family staircase with Nero at the bottom in Alice's maid uniform.

Having a vivid imagination is a terrible curse.
Unfortunately for the grove, Meg was also the daughter of Demeter.

The trees responded to her power.

The twin oaks rumbled. Their trunks began to move. Then they stopped. The roots settled. The bark cooled and released them.

Apollo stumbled back, exhausted, Ariana gripped onto him. Meg remained, transfixed, in the newly opened gateway.

On the other side were ... well, more trees.

Despite the winter cold, the young oaks rose fall and green, growing in concentric circles around a slightly larger specimen in the centre.

Littering the ground were acorns glowing with a faint amber light. Around the grove stood a protective wall of trees even more formidable than the ones in the antechamber.

Above, another tightly woven dome of branches guarded the place from aerial intruders. Before Ariana could warn her, Meg stepped across the threshold.

The voices exploded. Imagine forty nail guns firing into your brain from all directions at once. The words were babble, but they tore at Arianaw sanity, demanding attention.

Ariana covered her ears. The noise just got louder and more persistent.

Peaches clawed frantically at the earth, trying to bury his head. Vince and Gary writhed on the ground.

Even the unconscious demigods thrashed and moaned on their stakes.

Nero reeled, his hand raised as if to block an intense light. "Meg, control the voices! Do it now."