How Do You Say Gods- Last Olympian

20: I SIT ON THE HOT SEAT

Annabeth sighed softly as she leaned into Percy's side, ignoring Alex's jokes of Percy being thrown in a pot of soup or something. He threw his arm over her at once to have her closer with the same troubled frown only easing slightly. Her eyes stayed uncomprehending upon the new chapter title as the coming funerals lingered in her mind.

She tried to push the image away with Silena smiling up at Beckendorf. She'd grin at Annabeth finally getting her silent wish of this moment. The daughter of Aphrodite had been the best of her mother, she always smiled no matter what was going on when she'd seen someone being happy in love, and she tried to keep that thought close as she took a shaky breath to start.

..."Wouldn't, listen. Cabin would, only follow you."

Alex had, mixed feelings about that. Loyalty wasn't something she was familiar with. Blind loyalty sounded absurd in every way.

And yet...it sounded kind of nice too. To have someone so wholeheartedly believe in you...only you...

..."And NONE of you noticed?"

"Yeah, kinda with Clarisse on that one," Thalia grumbled as she adjusted her hood. Had Silena given a rousing speech? Surely she'd pulled the cabin together somehow, long enough for her own siblings to notice something was amiss. They all weren't that dense! She wouldn't be surprised to learn if Clarisse had beaten them all to a pulp not long after.

...but, well, the thought did cross her mind it was more than likely the Ares kids had wanted to come all along. They might have followed a puppet if someone had put a nice boar helmet on it.

It bothered her a bit, that her first instinct would rather the ones who wanted to be there should have ignored their head and snuck out...but then when Silena arrived to pull this ruse Clarisse never would have followed and blasted the drakon. They might not have won at all. She could feel her father's powerful blue eyes spark with joy somewhere in the back of her mind as she understood what he must always feel as a god. Sacrifice from others that lead to his own victory. It made her feel miserable.

The Ares campers developed a sudden interest in their combat boots.

"Making sure none of that monster dust got in their socks," Magnus nodded in understanding.

Alex called him an idiot in ASL, which was a nice change of pace. He had no regrets teaching her that.

"Don't blame them," Silena said. "They wanted to, to believe I was you."

Something that had been mentioned a lot these past days, Jason frowned. Wanting to hope, wanting to believe something even if you knew not to deep down it wasn't true. The idea was a cold, icy feeling he knew all to well, the kind that when it thawed out he wasn't sure what he was going to be left with. It was unpleasant, nauseating even, but almost exciting too to find out what was going to be beneath it all.

...In her palm was a silver bracelet scythe charm, the mark of Kronos.

Percy stiffened painfully as his mind splintered with understanding. He'd known there was a spy for so long, had hated and loathed this unknown face ruining so much...it felt impossible to reconcile all of that with Silena Beauregard. The two wouldn't mash together. Like someone had told him Annabeth was the spy. It didn't compute with the person he'd known.

He waited for the betrayal, for the anger to catch up with him, but he just felt tired. As he thought about Micheal, and Beckendorf, and all the other campers over the years he and Silena had both known, that he and Silena had both had a hand in their deaths. Two sides of the same coin.