𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐔𝐌 • Heroes of Olympus

XIV

𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐘 woke up wrapped in blankets. Next to her, a campfire blazed, turning the air sharp with smoke. Firelight flickered against rock walls. She was in a shallow cave, but it didn’t offer much protection. Outside, the wind howled. Snow blew sideways. It might’ve been day or night. The storm made it too dark to tell.

"I really hate the cold." She ground her teeth.

"That makes two of us," Leo grumbled from where he sat on the floor, shivering. He was also wrapped in blankets.

"I'm guessing you got the precious metal treatment as well," Andy said.

"Of course." Leo pulled his blankets tighter. "And if it wasn't for Lightning Man here, I would've stayed that way forever."

Andy turned to Jason in awe. “How did you beat Midas?”

Jason told her the story, how he had chosen to fight Lityersus, tricked Midas into turning his son to gold, blasted off the ceiling with electricity and brought in rain. He talked about how he had left Midas to deal with his un-goldified victims. Andy was deeply impressed, but Jason insisted most of it had been luck.

Hedge snorted. “Kid’s being modest. You should’ve seen him. Hi-yah! Slice! Boom with the lightning!”

“Coach, you didn’t even see it,” Jason said. “You were outside eating the lawn.”

But the satyr was just warming up. “Then I came in with my club, and we dominated that room. Afterward, I told him, ‘Kid, I’m proud of you! If you could just work on your upper body strength—’”

“Coach,” said Jason.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up, please.”

“Sure.” The coach sat down at the fire and started chewing his cudgel.

"Where are we?" Andy asked.

“Pikes Peak,” Jason said. “Colorado.”

“But that’s, what—five hundred miles from Omaha?”

“Something like that,” Jason agreed. “I harnessed the storm spirits to bring us this far. They didn’t like it—went a little faster than I wanted, almost crashed us into the mountainside before I could get them back in the bag. I’m not going to be trying that again.”

Andy winced. After surviving a war with the titans, escaping a Cyclopes den, outsmarting a sorceress, being turned to gold and then back to human, crashing into a mountainside for flying over the speed limit would've been a stupid way to go. 

Then, a different thought hit her. “Why are we here?” 

Leo sniffed. “That’s what I asked him.”

Jason gazed into the storm as if watching for something.

“That glittery wind trail we saw yesterday? It was still in the sky, though it had faded a lot. I followed it until I couldn’t see it anymore. Then—honestly I’m not sure. I just felt like this was the right place to stop.”

“’Course it is.” Coach Hedge spit out some cudgel splinters. “Aeolus’s floating palace should be anchored above us, right at the peak. This is one of his favorite spots to dock.”

“Maybe that was it.” Jason knit his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Something else, too…”

“The Hunters were heading west,” Andy remembered. “Do you think they’re around here?”

Jason rubbed his forearm. For the first time since they'd met, Andy noticed the marks on it. Twelve black lines arranged like a barcode under an eagle symbol and the letters SPQR.