𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐞 𝐌𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐀 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧 - 𝑷. 𝑱𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒐𝒏

𝐈 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐅𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬

Thursday afternoon, three days into my stay at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword fighting lesson. Cabin 11 had gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be teaching us how to swing swords without accidentally impaling ourselves.

"Good luck," one of the campers said with a grin. "Luke's one of the best swordsman we've had in over 300 years." "One of them? Who else?" I asked, already suspicious of the plot twists Camp Half-Blood was throwing at me.

"Lilith."

" Great. So I'm gonna get my butt kicked by one of the best, and then probably be murdered by Lilith later. Perfect." The camper snorted like I'd just made the funniest joke ever.

When we got to the field, the battle was already underway. And of course, it was Luke versus Lilith—because why ease into a lesson when you can just dive straight into the deep end of "watch these two people probably kill each other"

Lilith was a whole foot shorter than Luke, which was kind of funny because she seemed to be obliterating him. I'm not talking about a little light sparring here. I mean, every time Luke swung at her, she blocked it like she was swatting away a fly. A very, very large, very sweaty fly. Then, in one fluid motion, she sidestepped him and tripped him using his own legs. She had him on the ground, her sword practically touching his throat, while her face—her face—looked like she was still attending a spa day.

And there was Luke, sprawled on the ground, his ego probably bruised more than his body.

Lilith casually helped him up, brushed herself off like she'd just finished a light jog, and I tried not to visibly flinch at the twinge of dread settling in my stomach. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't nerves. No, it was definitely just an instinctive, primal desire to not get obliterated. So, you know, normal stuff.

"Okay, circle up!" Luke barked, probably trying to hide his embarrassment. "Percy, if you don't mind, I'm going to use you for a demo. "Oh, I minded. I minded a lot. But I wasn't about to tell him that. Not when his face looked like a mix between "Let's see how much humiliation you can take" and "You'll probably be fine." Famous last words.

"Great," I muttered, and thought, This is going to be one of those days, isn't it? Luke lunged at me faster than I expected, and I barely had time to stop myself from crying out and dropping my sword. Somehow, my instincts kicked in, and I blocked his first strike. Okay, I was alive. Good start.

Then, a weird thing happened: I actually started to see his moves before he made them. Like I had some kind of ultra-refined, sword-fighting sixth sense. My brain was like, "Hey, Percy, look at that—Luke's about to swing for your left leg. You should probably do something about it."

I countered his attack, and to my complete shock, I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it without breaking a sweat, but—oh no—his face suddenly did this thing. You know, the thing where his eyes narrowed like he'd just realized I was dangerous or something.

My sword was getting heavier by the second. It was like trying to hold a lead pipe while jogging uphill. If I didn't do something soon, I was gonna faceplant in front of the whole camp and have to live that down for the rest of my life.

So, naturally, I did the dumbest thing I could think of. I tried the disarming move.