Sealed fate || Percy Jackson

I • XVII

Chapter seventeen: "Say it once again with feeling, how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving...."

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Compared to Mount Olympus, Manhattan was quiet. Friday before Christmas, but it was early in the morning, and hardly anyone was on Fifth Avenue. Argus, the many-eyed security chief, picked up Annabeth, Grover, Nara and Percy at the Empire State Building and ferried them back to camp through a light snowstorm. The Long Island Expressway was almost deserted.

As they trudged back up Half-Blood Hill to the pine tree where the Golden Fleece glittered, they half expected to see Thalia there, waiting for them. But she wasn't. She was long gone with Artemis and the rest of the Hunters, off on their next adventure.

Chiron and Giselle greeted them at the Big House with hot chocolate and toasted cheese sandwiches, the girl with a Great relief on her face.

Grover went off with his satyr friends to spread the word about our strange encounter with the magic of Pan. Within an hour, the satyrs were all running around agitated, asking where the
nearest espresso bar was.

Annabeth, Giselle, Nara and Percys sat with Chiron and some of the other senior campers—Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, and the Stoll brothers. Even Clarisse from the Ares cabin was there, back from her secretive scouting mission. Percy knew she must've had a difficult quest, because she didn't even try to pulverize me. She had a new scar on her chin, and her dirty blond hair had been cut short and ragged, like someone had attacked it with a pair of safety scissors.

"I got news," she mumbled uneasily. "Bad news."

"I'll fill you in later," Chiron said with forced cheerfulness. "The important thing is you have prevailed. And you saved Annabeth! And Nara, you came back!"

Annabeth and Nara smiled at me gratefully, which made Percy look away.
For some strange reason, he found myself thinking about Hoover Dam, and the odd mortal girl Nara and him'd run into there, Rachel Elizabeth Dare. He didn't know why, but her annoying comments kept coming back to me. Do you always kill people when they blow their nose? He was only alive because so many people had helped me, even a random mortal girl like that. He’d never even explained to her who they were.

"Luke is alive," Percy said. "Annabeth was right."

Annabeth sat up. "How do you know?"
Percy tried not to feel annoyed by her interest while Giselle give her an uneasy look. Percy told her what my dad had said about the Princess Andromeda.

"Well." Annabeth shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "If the final battle does come when Percy is eighteen, at least we have two more years to figure something out."
Chiron's expression was gloomy. Sitting by the fire in his wheelchair, he looked really old. Well… he was really old, but he usually didn't look it.

“Two years may seem like a long time," he said. "But it is the blink of an eye. I still hope you are not the child of the prophecy, Percy. But if you are, then the second Titan war is almost upon us. Kronos's first strike will be here."

"How do you know?" Nara asked. "Why would he care about camp?"

"Because the gods use heroes as their tools," Chiron said simply. "Destroy the tools, and the gods will be crippled. Luke's forces will come here. Mortal, demigod, monstrous… We must be prepared. Clarisse's news may give us a clue as to how they will attack, but—"

There was a knock on the door, and Nico di Angelo came huffing into the parlor, his cheeks bright red from the cold.
He was smiling, but he looked around anxiously. "Hey! Where's… where's my sister?"

Dead silence. Percy and Nara stared at Chiron. Nara couldn't believe nobody had told him yet. And then I realized why. They'd been waiting for them to appear, to tell Nico in person.

Percy and Nara met each other eyes and he nodded his head, that was the last thing they wanted to do. But they owed it to Bianca.