Maiden Grim | A Pjo Fanfic

Ch. 22: I Lose My Eye

Turns out when people say the Labyrinth is completely unmappable, they are not using hyperbole.

Sat on a rock by the creak, Isra clicked and unclicked her pen rapidly. It glowed emerald every time she unsheathed the ink nub. Her other hand fiddled with the single bead on her camp necklace. The only necklace she wore on her neck. The gray bead was painted with two crossed torches, commemorating the day she was claimed.

A spike of pain pounded at her pain. Isra massaged idly at it and refocused.

She held a large parchment placed on a wood drawing board. The sketch she had laid out on the page looked like a spaghetti portrait. She raised her right hand over it and made an upward motion. Over a dozen multicolored lines lifted up and created a three-dimensional map of everything she'd discovered so far. There were two dozen nodes every so often along the lines. Text floated by them, marking the specific rooms.

Far as Isra had scouted out, they were the only static things within the Labyrinth. The paths never stayed the same.

But the thing was—Isra had never been inside the Labyrinth after her first time.

Her right eye was covered by an enchanted leather eyepatch. It was made from the shed scales from Peleus, the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece. They were inlaid with obsidian, for scrying, and the Ancient Greek rune for Sight. A broken spherical crystal the size of a bowling ball sat by her feet. It looked exactly like her own eye. Hazel-green.

A chunk of it had been pierced off by a spear trap in the Labyrinth. Now half her vision was gone. It felt odd. Her depth perception was all off. Isra couldn't take her eyepatch off until she completed the restoration ritual. Or else she would actually lose her real eye.

The Labyrinth had been trying to thwart her mapping since she began. Now it finally succeeded.

Isra sighed heavily.

Making another crystal would be a long process, but she could and would. It was the only strategy that had worked so far. At first, Isra tried planting magical surveillance crystals on the walls and chambers. But the second she did the Labyrinth chewed and swallowed them up. Then she tried astral projecting but when entering in spirit, something about the tunnels' magic shut off the connection.

With the eye crystal, Isra had been scouting and reporting her findings straight to Chiron. But she also had her own motive: to find Nico.

He vanished so quickly after fleeing camp, Nico must've found an entrance to the Labyrinth and left that way. If Isra could find evidence of him traveling through the tunnels or better yet—the exit he used, then she finally would have a starting point that could lead to finding him.

(Isra tried not think about the very high possibility of him getting lost inside the Labyrinth. Of him turning mad like Chris Rodriguez—or worse.)

Isra had to find him. Back during Winter, Bianca had asked her to look after him. And Isra had promised Nico to have his back no matter what.

She didn't want to break those promises.

Suddenly a voice called out behind her: Grover.

"Isra!"

Isra startled and turned.

Grover Underwood came trotting down the creak side. He wore a tie-dye shirt and cargo shorts. He was followed by a surprising face, Annabeth Chase. She had on a tourist-y t-shirt of the Golden Gate Bridge, skinny jeans and red converse. Her dark hair was tied back in a poofy ponytail.

Her dark gray eyes narrowed in on the map.

Isra nodded at Grover, as a greeting. He and Annabeth stood in front of her. Both of them curiously peering at the 3-D model.