Sorcery & Shadows (Based on the Heroes of Olympus series)

V

I stepped away from Nico, glaring at him angrily.

His jaw set stubbornly, and that's when I realized it was pointless to argue anymore, not when we had to get to Argo II as soon as we could. Together.

Also, I wasn't one to hold grudges or to stay at one emotion for a long time. My feelings ran quickly and unexpectedly like the rough seas or the unpredictable weather, which change from calm seas to tsunamis, or from sunny and cloudless to lightning and thunder, with a tornado to boot.

I sighed. That guy is going to be the end of me, I just knew it. First the only person he cares about is Percy, and now he's promising that he won't summon ghosts - one of the most powerful abilities he had - just to 'protect' me. I suddenly wished I could have a handbook on how to handle temperamental teenage male demigods.

Especially sons of the Underworld.

"Let's just go," I sighed again, and Nico smirked, knowing that he won that argument. I rolled my eyes in return - which had now returned back to normal, with no hints of bloodshot or redness - and packed my stuff, which was basically already packed. 

This time, I sat in front and Nico took the 'backseat' on Pegasus, and we soared into the air.

 "Well," Nico said, his eternal smirk still glued to his unfortunately handsome face. "We have time to kill."

I turned around on the Pegasus' back. "And I, have a certain infuriating son of Hades to kill."

His smirk grew wider. "I know."

I resisted the urge to force the winds into flinging him off the winged horse and to send him plummeting to the ground below. 

Nico's teasing smile then became a concerned frown.

"How are you holding up?" he asked. 

I knew he was talking about my revelation to him, and having to revisit such a painful time in my past. To be honest, I wasn't holding up at all. My father's voice still rang in my head, echoing his relentless threats and curses. I felt a cold chill run up my spine. I knew I was going to have to face him soon, but I wasn't sure I would prevail. After all, he already died once. People can't die twice, can they?

And another problem was in sorting out my feelings.

Yes, Nico now knew why Hecate disliked him being around me, and my similar wariness, but he was still a kind of okay guy, if you looked past the mental shield he held up to everyone. But if he didn't use his powers, for my 'safety' (I still didn't like the fact that we had armies of ghosts at command but the Ghost King himself refused to summon them), then how were we supposed to even hold up against Gaea and her army of giants, given the fact that we even managed it to Argo II?

Nico's voice intruded my thoughts again.

"What were you wielding earlier?" he questioned. He picked up my left hand, and the phoenix ring shined in the sunlight. It was crafted so the silver phoenix looked like it was sleeping, curled around my forefinger. It held a spherical diamond in its mouth as it dozed. 

I smiled, twisting the ring. Nico looked apprehensive, as if it was going to transform into twin swords again, but I laughed at his expression.

"It'll only transform into weapons if I wish it to," I said, grinning. I twisted it clockwise, and immediately, it elongated into the twin swords that I had brandished earlier, one of them jumping to my right hand.

"They are yanmaodao, or also called the goose-quill saber," I said, running a finger on one of the blades. One of the blades was bronze, while the other was made out of gold. Faint runes glowed across each sword. The handles were also similarly etched with magical symbols, and the sash hung from the ends of the swords. "Very effective type of Chinese swords, if I say so myself."