THE HEALER| Heroes of Olympus

seventeen

Percy tried to keep the lake churning. 

He didn't want Otis rising to join this fight, but as Ephialtes closed the last few feet, Percy had to switch focus.

Jason tried to take advantage. He stepped inside the giant's guard and stabbed at his chest, but somehow

Ephialtes parried the strike. He sliced the tip of his spear down Jason's chest, ripping his purple shirt into a vest. Jason stumbled, looking at the thin line of blood down his sternum. Ephialtes kicked him backward. 

Up in the emperor's box, Piper cried out, but her voice was drowned in the roar of the crowd. Bacchus looked on with an amused smile, munching from a bag of Doritos. 

I shot arrows at the giant giving myself a few seconds to run to Jason. 

I placed my hands on his wounds and tried to heal him as quickly as I could. 

Jason groaned. 

"Stay still." I told him. 

"Leave me Eliana, there's no need for both of us to die." Jason said weakly. 

I shook my head. "I'm not leaving you." 

"That's your fatal flaw isn't it?" Jason said. "You're too loyal, and won't leave anyone behind to die." 

I thought about it for a second. 

It was very possible that my fatal flaw was loyalty but there was another that nagged at my mind. Something that I had struggled with my entire life. Something that used to get me into trouble. My fatal flaw wasn't loyalty. 

My fatal flaw as curiosity. 

I was too curious for my own good. I had to know everything and not knowing what something was drove me insane. Which is why I feared having visions so much. I was too curious about the future. And I'm afraid that I'll be driven mad by not knowing how it ends. 

I didn't get to answer Jason because Ephialtes towered over us. Both halves of his broken spear poised over our heads. Percy's sword arm was numb. Jason's gladius had skittered across the arena floor. 

Our plan had failed.

I glanced up at Bacchus, deciding what final curse I would hurl at the useless wine god, when I saw a shape in the sky above the Colosseum—a large dark oval descending rapidly.
From the lake, Otis yelled, trying to warn his brother, but his half-dissolved face could only manage: "Uh-umh-moooo!"

"Don't worry, brother!" Ephialtes said, his eyes still fixed on us demigods. "I will make them suffer!"

The Argo II turned in the sky, presenting its port side, and green fire blazed from the ballista.

"Actually," Percy said. "Look behind you."

We rolled away as Ephialtes turned and bellowed in disbelief.

I dropped into a trench just as the explosion rocked the Colosseum.

When I climbed out again, the Argo II was coming in for a landing. Jason poked his head out from behind his improvised bomb shelter of a plastic horse. Ephialtes lay charred and groaning on the arena floor, the sand around him seared into a halo of glass by the heat of the Greek fire. 

Otis was floundering in the lake, trying to re-form, but from the arms down he looked like a puddle of burnt oatmeal.

Percy staggered over to Jason and I, and clapped Jason on the shoulder. The ghostly crowd gave us a standing ovation as the Argo II extended its landing gear and settled on the arena floor. Leo stood at the helm, Hazel and Frank grinning at his side.