Drowning in the Siren's Song -II

Chapter 19

"Quietly, in the background.

Intervene only when it truly matters."

Percy kept Artemis's words in his head as he moved through the trees at dawn, Keria flying low above him, Blackjack picking his way through the undergrowth behind. It was already the plan. He'd told her that himself. Still felt strange, promising a goddess he'd do something he was already doing anyway.

He wandered around the reserve, shying away from the fluttering leaves trying to tickle his ankles. His powers kept growing and it meant nature responded just as strongly. His connection to the reserve was stronger than ever and that was exactly how he realized it smelled wrong. Something was off.

Monster. More than one, judging by the trampled trail near the ranger paths. The tracks were old too, like they'd been circling for a while, testing ground that had gone quiet the second the hunters packed up and left. It made sense. His scent alone used to keep most things away. In addition, hunters leaving all at once probably looked like an open door.

Good, he thought. Let them come. He cracked his knuckles, rolling his neck.

He spent three days doing exactly what he'd told Artemis he would. Quiet work. Background work. Nothing anyone at the reserve would ever notice happened at all.

A nest of Telkhines trying to poison the western creek got flushed out before they did any real damage. A pack of hellhounds sniffing too close to the fawn nurseries got led on a long chase through terrain Percy knew and they didn't, until he finally cornered them at the ravine, where his voice hit twice as hard off the rock walls.

Keria loved this part. She always did. She'd swoop low over every fight, talons out, diving in whenever Percy left her an opening, thrilled with herself every single time like it was the first. Blackjack mostly stayed back unless the ground opened up- he'd learned, same as Percy had, that he was a lot more useful in the sky than stuck in the trees.

By the fourth day, the reserve smelled normal again. Pine. Earth. River. Home.

Which meant he'd run out of excuses.

***

He found himself near the ranger's station without entirely meaning to- an old habit, checking the drop-off tree with the ribbon that had marked their exchange point for as long as he could remember- when he heard voices.

He should have kept walking. He almost did. But something made him pause behind the leaves instead, peering through the leaves the way he had a hundred times before, always from a safe, unseen distance.

Delilah was crouched near a cluster of wilting saplings, brow furrowed, murmuring something to one of the younger rangers about root rot and soil acidity. She looked older than he remembered- not by much, a handful of years wasn't much to a mortal, but there were new lines at the corners of her eyes, and her bun had a few more strands of grey than he remembered.

Percy had never seen her struggle with plants before. She was meticulous about everything else- animals, budgets, paperwork, her daughter- but nature itself, the system all together- had always been a little beyond her, the actual language of it. That was where he came in.

Without thinking much about it, he reached out with Pan's blessing, coaxing the saplings' roots to loosen their grip on the too-acidic soil, urging new growth up through where the rot had eaten in. It was second nature by now, quieter than breathing.

The saplings straightened. Delilah blinked.

"...Huh," she said, staring at them like they'd personally offended her by not needing her help after all. "Well. That's new."