THE HEALER| Heroes of Olympus

6

That morning I got up and headed to cabin 1. I thought it was only fair to give some helpful parting words to Jason. Despite his acting last night I could tell how scared he was to be going up against an evil force powerful enough to kidnap Hera. 

I peered in the door.  The cabin was empty, except for the cot that the other campers had brought Jason, the cabin had no regular furniture—no chairs, tables, or dressers. As far as I could tell, it didn't even have a bathroom. The walls were carved with alcoves, each holding a bronze brazier or a golden eagle statue on a marble pedestal. In the center of the room, a twenty-foot-tall, full-color statue of Zeus in classic Greek robes stood with a shield at his side and a lightning bolt raised, ready to smite somebody. 

I saw Jason standing in a corner holding a picture. 

"Quest day, huh?" I said walking into the cabin. Jason looked up from the picture and looked at me. He was wearing a camp half-blood shirt but it didn't seem to fit him like the purple one had. It almost felt wrong of him to be wearing it. 

"Do you know these people?" He asked, handing me the photos. 

One picture showed Annabeth—much younger, maybe eight, but Jason could tell it was she: same blond hair and gray eyes, same distracted look like she was thinking a million things at once. She stood next to a sandy-haired guy about fourteen or fifteen, with a mischievous smile and ragged leather armor over a T-shirt. He was pointing to an alley behind them, like he was telling the photographer, Let's go meet things in a dark alley and killthem! 

A second photo showed Annabeth and the same guy sitting at a campfire, laughing hysterically.The last photo was a strip of pictures like you'd take in a do-it-yourself photo booth: Annabeth and the sandy-haired guy, but with another girl between them. She was maybe fifteen, with black hair—choppy like Piper's—a black leather jacket, and silver jewelry, so she looked kind of goth; but she was caught mid-laugh, and it was clear she was with her two best friends.

"The blond one is Luke.." I said, pointing him out. "He um..he was a hero in the last war. He died saving the world. We um..don't talk about him much." 

It felt wrong to out Luke. I didn't feel it was right to tell him about how Luke had betrayed the camp and freed Kronos before dying a hero. 

"The blonde girl is obviously Annabeth and then the other girl is Thalia." I said.  "She's the other child of Zeus who lived here—but not for long. I met her during the war." 

He nodded. 

 "Don't suppose you've changed your mind about coming with us?" Jason said. 

I shook my head. "This quest is for you three only." I smiled and added. "But I believe I will join you eventually on a different quest, later. Plus four is unlucky, better for me to stay here." 

He didn't seem thrilled by my response. "Hey, you'll do fine," I promised. "Something tells me this isn't your first quest."

"You know who I am," he guessed. "Don't you?"

I fiddled with my bracelet nervously. "I know more about you then I should right now. But it will be revealed to you in time. All I can say is that for one reason or another, the camp never found you, but you survived anyway by constantly moving around. Trained yourself to fight. Handled the monsters on your own. You beat the odds."

"You were there Eliana. The first thing Chiron said to me," Jason remembered, "was you should be dead."

"Most demigods would never make it on their own. And a child of Zeus—I mean, it doesn't get any more dangerous than that. The chances of you reaching age fifteen without finding Camp Half-Blood or dying—microscopic. I can't really say much but I didn't arrive at camp until I was fifteen but it's different when you're not apart of the big three but like I said, it does happen."