✓ | 𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, luke castellan

ᴇʟᴇᴠᴇɴ

Choosing Sides.

⚡

    NOW THAT PERCY WAS GONE, Rory stopped showing up to Luke’s training sessions.

    She offered no explanation, and Luke never asked for one. He only noted her absence with a faint tilt of his head and then continued instructing the younger campers like nothing had changed. Val, for her part, was thrilled to have her friend back.

    In Percy’s absence, the air at camp grew thick with speculation. Chiron had announced only that Percy was on a quest with Grover and Annabeth and that their deadline was the summer solstice. He had been vague on purpose. The fewer who knew the truth about the looming war between Zeus and Poseidon, the better. The last thing Camp Half-Blood needed was panic—or worse, division.

    But panic was exactly what Rory and Luke wanted.

    It started as a whisper—barely a flicker of concern passed over dinner in the pavilion. Rory leaned in, her voice just loud enough for nearby ears to catch. She tilted her head toward the western sky, where storm clouds were still churning, and murmured something about Zeus. Something about a growing storm that had nothing to do with the weather.

    Luke, seated beside her, picked up her thread without missing a beat. He spoke of a dream he’d had—completely fabricated, of course—in which a white stallion and a golden eagle had locked in battle beneath a sky split by lightning. The Ares cabin, seated at the next table, went quiet, ears perked.

    That was all they needed.

    By the next morning, the rumors had taken on a life of their own.

    Rory and Luke never needed to lie outright. They only had to plant seeds—half-truths, subtle suggestions, the occasional well-timed glance—and let the campers do the rest.

    The beauty of it was how fragmented the stories became. Some said Clarisse knew more than she let on. Others accused Annabeth of manipulating Percy to steal the bolt. There were murmurs about Chiron hiding something. Every camper began looking sideways at the person next to them, wondering where their loyalties really lay.

    And that was the point.

    The unity of Camp Half-Blood had always been its greatest strength. If you could fracture that—turn siblings against each other, cabin against cabin—then even the safest place in the world could crumble.

    Rory watched it unfold with a quiet satisfaction. No one suspected her. She wasn’t loud. She didn’t take credit. She let others speak louder, speculate harder, and in doing so, she made herself invisible.

⋆⁺₊⋆ 𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆

    “You’re so lucky,” Val said one afternoon, voice sharp with frustration as she paced. They were at their usual spot in the forest. “Your mom’s probably not even going to fight in the war. You don’t have to pick a side. You get to stay out of it.”

    Rory, lounging in the shade of a tree with her back against the trunk, only tilted her head in acknowledgment. “I thought you wanted this, Val,” she said coolly. “You wanted to see if your training had paid off, and now's the time.”

    Val stopped walking. She frowned. Rory’s words weren’t cruel—not exactly. In fact, they almost sounded supportive

    “I did want this,” Val admitted, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “I mean—I do. It’s just... a war is different. I didn’t think it’d be this real.”

    Rory hummed softly in response. Not agreement, not denial. Just a sound.

    Val sank down beside her with a sigh, eyes trained on the shifting shadows of the trees. “You remember how we used to talk about fighting monsters? Back when we thought it’d be epic? Like we were invincible?”