Umbra

Chapter 8

Jason woke up in the sky.

Emilia was exhausted, partially leaning onto Leo as she tried to stay awake. He steered quietly while Piper sat behind Jason to keep him balanced until the nectar did its job. Finally, he woke up with a start, "Cyclops!"

"Whoa, sleepyhead," said Piper with a light laugh.

"Detroit," Jason stammered, confused. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought–?"

"It's okay," said Leo. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

Emilia looked over her shoulder as Jason blinked several times. "How did you–?" muttered Jason. "The Cyclops–?"

"Leo and Emilia ripped them apart," said Piper. She sounded proud. Emilia had never heard anyone's voice take a tone of pride when it came to her. Not good pride, anyway. "It was amazing. Emilia made a bad-ass storm of shadows around her and Leo can summon fire–"

"It was nothing," said Leo quickly. Emilia reached up to touch her own face, never having been aware that it could burn so much from a compliment.

Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it." She went into her own rendition about how it happened, describing things Emilia wasn't even aware that she or Leo did. At least not consciously.

According to Piper's perspective, Emilia looked like a battle demon, darkness swirling all around her, spear and shadows cutting into monsters. She said it was 'cold' in the most flattering way, which Emilia didn't understand, but from the way Jason raised his eyebrows, looking 'cold as fuck' during a fight was a good thing.

Jason seemed to be bummed out, but Emilia assumed it was because he was leading the quest and had been out of commission during a pretty dangerous situation. His face fell when Piper mentioned the other kid the cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin.

"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."

"Jason," Piper said, "You were never alone. You've got us."

"I–I know... but something Hera said. I was having a dream..." He explained that while he was unconscious, he'd seen Hera in her prison. It was an earthen cage with tendrils of tree roots whirled together with stone, a set of bars holding the goddess.

She said some powers were greater than the gods, that her essence was caught and concealed from the others. She spoke of herself as being both Hera and Juno, both Greek and Roman. Jupiter/Zeus was apparently convinced he could withdraw from the world to lure their enemies back to sleep, convinced that he could get out of the promise Percy Jackson made him swear by, that he and the other gods would do better about claiming them. Jupiter seemed to think the problem was the Olympians becoming too involved in the affairs of mortals and the fates of their demigod children.

Hera had been lured into the trap by a voice she couldn't explain, a trap by the stirring earth. She said that the one who the giants served could not be defeated, only kept asleep. She spoke of an exchange, of it being the only way to bring peace, about how everyone couldn't sustain being divided, otherwise they'd be destroyed. Jason was a peace offering, a bridge to overcome a millennia of hatred.

The last thing she said was that Jason's 'sister' would help and that his most dangerous mortal enemy would be waiting in Chicago.

"An exchange?" asked Piper as gears turned in Emilia's head, a horrible realization beginning to dawn. "What does that mean?"

Jason shook his head. "But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way–"