Wildflowers, Percy Jackson ₁

049, it okay i'm joy

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

There were too many good-byes.

Sylvie hated it every time she had to see camp burial shrouds being burned, and this was certainly not an exception.

Among the dead, Lee Fletcher from the Apollo cabin had been downed by a giant's club. He was wrapped in a golden shroud without any decoration. Castor was wrapped in a deep purple shroud embroidered with grapevines. He'd been seventeen years old. Pollux and Florian both tried to say a few words, but Pollux couldn't get any words out past his sobs and Florian was too haunted in his own mind to speak—Castor had taken his last breath in Florian's arms, actually. In the end, the two boys just silently took a torch. They lit the funeral pyre in the middle of the amphitheater, and within seconds the row of shrouds was engulfed in fire, sending smoke and sparks up to the stars.

They spent the next day treating the wounded, which was almost everybody. Will wanted to monitor Sylvie throughout the whole morning considering everything she'd endured without stopping, but Sylvie had a sad idea that the young boy just wanted to distract himself from his eldest brother's death. Meanwhile, Sylvie's healthy siblings, the satyrs, and the dryads all worked to repair the damage in the woods.

At noon, the Council of Cloven Elders held an emergency meeting in their sacred grove. The three senior satyrs were there, along with Chiron, who was in wheelchair form. His broken horse leg was still mending, so he would be confined to the chair for a few months, until the leg was strong en0ugh to take his weight. The grove was filled with satyrs and dryads and naiads up from the water—hundreds of them, anxious to hear what would happen. Sylvie, Percy, Annabeth, and Juniper stood by Grover's side.

Silenus wanted to exile Grover immediately, but Chiron persuaded him to at least hear evidence first, so they told everyone what happened in the crystal cavern, and what Pan had said. Then several eyewitnesses from the battle described the weird sound Grover had made, which drove the Titan's army back underground.

"It was panic," insisted Juniper. "Grover summoned the power of the wild god."

"Panic?" Percy asked.

"Percy," Chiron explained, "during the first war of the gods and the Titans, Lord Pan let forth a horrible cry that scared away the enemy armies. It is—It was his greatest power—a massive wave of fear that helped the gods win the day. The word panic is named after Pan, you see. And Grover used that power, calling it forth from within himself."

"Preposterous!" Silenus bellowed. "Sacrilege! Perhaps the wild god favored us with his blessing. Or perhaps Grover's music was so awful it scared the enemy away!"

"That wasn't it, sir," Grover said. He sounded a lot calmer than Sylvie felt. "He let his spirit pass into all of us. We must act. Each of us must work to renew the wild, to protect what's left of it. We must spread the word. Pan is dead. There is no one but us."