Wildflowers, Percy Jackson ₁

028, fuck fate, fuck prophecies

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

"E-Eurydice?"

Sylvie hadn't seen her older half-sister in around three weeks, so for a moment Sylvie could trick herself into cluelessness. Because three weeks ago, Eurydice's curls weren't losing their shape from lack of attention; her eyes weren't dark pools of exhaustion and hatred; her clothes weren't tattered and dreary; her presence wasn't here.

But there was no denying it. This was truly Eurydice.

The world fell out from under Sylvie's feet, leaving her suspended in the air. Free-falling, with no true end.

"No," she thought, or maybe said, or maybe screamed, "no, no, no, this wasn't how it's supposed to go—"

"Hi, Sylv," Eurydice said, her arm brushing up against Luke's.

Sylvie shook her head rapidly, in denial. "N-No, you wouldn't... He betrayed you, Eury. You wouldn't."

Something in Eurydice's eyes shifted. They did that thing when she looked at Sylvie for too long. It dawned on Sylvie now why it always made her feel-wrong footed. Seen. Scared.

"Luke never betrayed me," said Eurydice. "I knew."

"You knew."

Sylvie's mouth felt dry. Her throat was tight. Her hands were shaking.

Human hearts can only take so much hurt, Kronos had told Sylvie in that dream the night before the quest. A half-blood's heart isn't much different, especially if it's been foolishly given to the wrong people.

Was this it, then? Was this heartbreak?

And then Sylvie remembered the prophecy:

The child of grain will feel heartbreak's blow.

"I'm sorry, Sylvie," Luke winced. "I tried to keep you on the same side."

He had. He had. He had. He had.

"No," Sylvie rasped. "This isn't... No. No. No."

Idolatry shattered in what it takes to know.

Looking back, it all started to make sense now. There was no one Sylvie Duvall idolized more than Eurydice Arandel—in fact, Sylvie looked up to her big sister so much that she hadn't even considered Eurydice a culprit for the heartbreaking at hand. She believed in Eurydice more than anyone else. She believed in Eurydice more than the gods. Even despite all the odd behaviors and suspicious signs Eurydice displayed, Sylvie had held firm in her adoration.

Perhaps some part of Sylvie wanted to preserve her gilded image of her older sister—like a dead fossil crystallized in amber. Because older sisters were never wrong. Older sisters were never weak. Older sisters never led you astray. Older sisters were immortal. Sylvie held on to that belief until it was too late.