𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄, PJ2

𝟎𝟎𝟗.𝟒

As they stared down the cliff, Juliet concentrated on the challenges at hand: keeping her footing, avoiding rockslides that would alert the empousai to their presence and of course making sure she and Annabeth didn't plummet to their deaths.

About halfway down the precipice, Annabeth said, "Stop, okay? Just a quick break."

Her legs wobbled so badly, Juliet cursed herself for not calling a rest earlier.

They sat together on a ledge next to a roaring fiery waterfall. Juliet kept blinking and shaking, it felt like she couldn't see properly, she kept thinking it was lack of sunlight but at this point she didn't even know, maybe it was something related to Patroclus? her vision kept switching between two different perspectives. She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths, she felt like she was loosing her mind, like having an out of body experience.

At least she had Annabeth. They would find a way out of Tartarus. They had to. She didn't think much of fates and prophecies, but she did believe in one thing: she had Percy waiting for her. They hadn't come back from the depths of afterlife to be separated once again. She knew no matter what she had to go back to him. She had to.

"Things could be worse,"  Annabeth ventured.

"Yeah?" Juliet didn't see how, but she tried to sound upbeat.

"We could've fallen into the River Lethe," she said. "Lost all our memories."

Juliet's skin crawled just thinking about it. She couldn't imagine not just loosing her own memories but even Patroclus's, "Yeah, the Lethe," she muttered. "Not my favourite."

She gazed across the ashen plains. The other Titans were supposed to be here in Tartarus – maybe bound in chains, or roaming aimlessly, or hiding in some of those dark crevices. They had destroyed the worst Titan, Kronos, but even his remains might be down here somewhere – a billion angry Titan particles floating through the blood-coloured clouds or lurking in that dark fog.

Juliet decided not to think about that. She held Annabeth's hand. "We should keep moving. You want some more fire to drink?"

"Ugh. I'll pass."

They struggled to their feet. The rest of the cliff looked impossible to descend – nothing more than a crosshatching of tiny ledges – but they kept climbing down. Juliet's body went on autopilot. Her fingers cramped. She felt blisters popping up on her ankles. She got shaky from hunger.

She wondered if they would die of starvation, or if the firewater would keep them going. She remembered the punishment of Tantalus, who'd been permanently stuck in a pool of water under a fruit tree but couldn't reach either food or drink.

Jeez, Juliet hadn't thought about Tantalus in years. That stupid guy had been paroled briefly to serve as director at Camp Half-Blood. Probably he was back in the Fields of Punishment. Juliet had never felt sorry for the jerk before, but now she was starting to sympathize. She could imagine what it would be like, getting hungrier and hungrier for eternity but never being able to eat.

Keep climbing, she told herself.

A billion years later, with a dozen new blisters on her feet, Juliet reached the bottom. She helped Annabeth down, and they collapsed on the ground.

Ahead of them stretched miles of wasteland, bubbling with monstrous larvae and big insect-hair trees. To their right, the Phlegethon split into branches that etched the plain, widening into a delta of smoke and fire. To the north, along the main route of the river, the ground was riddled with cave entrances. Here and there, spires of rock jutted up like exclamation points.