The Winds Of Heaven (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

44. To Pay The Price

Arion stopped. Hazel didn't know what to think.

Percy stood, leaning on the staff with the golden eagle, gazing at the only remnants of the ancient Roman camp: the main gates, which listed sideways, and a tattered blue banner lying over a pile of snow bricks. It seemed everything else had disappeared, but upon closer investigation, she saw that the ice had actually swallowed the camp. How could that have happened so quickly?

Three hundred feet below, you could see the wreckage Percy had caused: several hundred acres of newly open water with icebergs and flotsam from the ruined camp.

When Hazel and Frank ran up to him, Percy said, "Hey," but he was visibly shaken.

"You're alive!" Frank marveled. "Gaea—she said . . . she said you'd be dead . . ."

"It'll take more than a few hundred ghost soldiers to kill me." Percy's voice was distant, and he looked about, searching for something. There were red marks on his neck, the beginnings of bruises.

Hazel asked the question: "Where is he? I mean, your friend—?"

She stopped as the air shimmered at the edge of the glacier. A tall man appeared, with dark red hair and eyes like gray gemstones. He wore his brown coat, with an orange T-shirt underneath. Now that she had a chance to take a closer look, Hazel saw the black print on the front: Camp Half-Blood. His jeans were ragged.

His footsteps sounded softly on the snow that covered the Roman camp.

"Y/N?" Percy said, raising a hand toward his friend but stopping short, as if hesitating about whether to hug him or step back. "Are you all right . . . ?"

Y/N stopped, turning sharply. He seemed surprised to find Percy, Frank, and Hazel there. With a start, Hazel realized the skin on his palms was completely raw. And that was only his hands. His whole body was red, as if he'd got sunburned everywhere. And were those wisps of vapor she could see hanging in the air, coming from him?

Y/N looked around, then breathed in deeply. "Yes. I'm all right. Finally. It's been a very long time since I've felt like I understand what I must do."

But just as he said it, he passed out and buckled forward. He would've fallen flat on his face if not for Percy, who caught him just in time and laid him down on the icy ground.

"What's happened to him?" Frank asked, kneeling down. He took Y/N's hand and gasped. "Gods, he's burning! Burning from the inside!"

It certainly looked like it. Now that Y/N lay on the snow, the wisps of vapor around him, like the mist you blow in the cold winter air, became thicker. The snow melted uncannily fast where it touched his skin. He was breathing feebly, wincing as if each of his chest's heaving up and down were painful.

Percy told Hazel and Frank what they'd missed. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself that he'd really seen what he had. "Y/N's a powerful demigod. Gods, he's probably the most powerful demigod I know other than me and a girl—Thalia. But that . . . I don't think he ever did something like that before. He's Hera's son, and he's got powers over the air because of that, but at that moment . . . he didn't use air. It was fire, like a star. I swear, I've never seen something like it until now."

There were lots of questions Hazel would've liked to ask. The son of Juno? That was impossible. The Queen of Olympus didn't bear demigod children. And what was that Camp Half-Blood? But now wasn't the time. They didn't have anything to help Y/N heal. So they watched over him, with Percy talking to him, telling him to wake up as they hoped the cold would be enough to cool him down.

Eventually Percy, powerless, said, "Is there nothing we can do?"

"I wouldn't say that." It came as a whisper. Y/N creaked his eyes open, glancing around. He didn't seem to be able to focus on anything, but he was awake.