✓ | 𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, luke castellan

ᴇɪɢʜᴛʏ-ꜰɪᴠᴇ

The Art of Surrender.

🌃

The usual doorman who operated the elevator to Olympus was gone. No surprise there. Whether he had fled or been cut down, Rory neither knew nor cared. The elevator stood open, its doors inviting her in like an open maw.

She stepped inside and pressed the red button—the one mortals never noticed, the one that led to the six hundredth floor.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the soft chime of confirmation, the doors sliding shut, and the sensation of rising faster than any human-built elevator should be able to.

Some ridiculous, outdated music played in the background. Rory barely registered it. Her fingers twitched at her sides, restless. She had dissipated her sword for now, but she knew she’d need it again soon. After all, she hadn’t seen Percy, Annabeth, or Grover in the battle below. They were here somewhere. And that meant she’d have to deal with them before this was over.

The elevator ride was unbearably slow, though in reality, it took mere seconds. She could feel the air shift, grow thinner, the energy of Olympus pressing against her skin. Then, with a cheerful ding, the doors slid open.

Rory stepped out.

This was not the Olympus she remembered.

The bridge—that magnificent white marble walkway that had once led from the elevator to the golden gates of Olympus—was gone. The slabs had crumbled, dissolved into nothingness, leaving only void. Below, the city of Manhattan stretched out, a breathtaking, dizzying drop from what felt like the height of an airplane.

To anyone else, this would have been a problem.

Not to Rory.

She didn’t hesitate.

She took a step forward, her right foot landing in the nothingness—and instead of falling, she flashed across the gap, her body reappearing at the edge of the mountaintop as though she had never left solid ground at all. She did not stop to look back.

Her path was forward.

She moved quickly through the streets of Olympus, and what she saw only confirmed what she already knew—Kronos had been thorough.

Mansions burned, their once-imposing columns cracked and collapsing. The golden statues that had once lined the streets—immortalized images of the gods in their full power—lay hacked to pieces, their faces unrecognizable. The grand gardens, once teeming with divine flora, were blasted to splinters, the air thick with the scent of smoke and destruction.

She passed by what had once been a temple to Apollo, its marble dome shattered, ivy curling around the broken columns like grasping fingers. A mosaic of the sun god, once shining and brilliant, was now reduced to rubble beneath her feet.

And then there were the bodies.

Rory did not look away.

The remains of those who had tried to stand against Kronos littered the streets. Minor gods, nature spirits, defenders of Olympus who had thought their immortality would protect them. They had not lasted long. Their shattered armor, their broken weapons, the dark stains seeping into the divine stone—these were the only traces left of their final stand.

Rory passed beneath a shattered marble archway. She had seen warzones before but this was something else entirely. This was the fall of a kingdom. The fall of gods.

Then she saw her.

Pinned beneath the broken remains of a colossal marble statue—Hera herself, reduced to rubble—was Thalia Grace.