Daughter of the Gods

There is no Peace in My Dreams

By some unknown miracle, I didn't wake up anyone with my shield hijinks the night before. But sleep left me and I woke up with the sun. I instantly grabbed Thunder and went into the main room. Out of the corner of my eye, the mosaic blazed and I ignored it until I was in the center of the room. Then I sat down, took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

The mosaic burned and I knew who moved the mosaic to this building after Camp Jupiter moved San Francisco to the current Bay Area. I knew who constructed the original mosaic. Romulus. Remus. Lupa. Romulus ruled Rome, the Roman Empire, became a twink King with the defeated king of Sabine. Killed Remus and then honored him. Built a wall around the Palatine Hill. Banded with Remus to get Nimitor on the throne, they killed Amelius. Were found by sheperds. Found by Lupa. Ordered to indirect death by King Amelius.

Backwards. Their entire history backwards. Beginning with Rhea Silvia, their mother, being impregnated by Mars.

The light died in an instant and pain shot through my forehead, fast and fierce. Panting, I braced my hands on the floor, breathing through the migraine, closing my eyes against it.

"Kenze?"

I threw a hand up, halting Percy and I took a few more deep breath through my teeth.

"Give me a sec, Perce. Just one sec," I whispered and the information finished settling, and the headache ebbed. Slowly, I opened my eyes again and looked back up at the mosaic.

Nothing. No light, no burning information. I knew both of them, what they represented, the information coming to the forefront of my mind as the tiles and colors reminded me of the history the mosaic just showed me.

I huffed, wincing against the headache.

"It's a one time thing, I think,"

"What?"

"The information burst," I explained as he came closer. In his hand was a goblet of water that he held out to me and I almost cried with relief as I drank it. Sweet relief. My headache was gone in an instant.

"The information burst. I had it yesterday when I looked at the mosaic and then again when I looked at Terminus. With Terminus, the information processed really quickly, and when I looked at him a second time, nothing happened. I looked at the mosaic just now, let all of the information process and now, when I look at it, nothing happens. I think I'll be okay as long as I let the information process before looking away. A kind of one-and-done kind of deal,"

"Well that one-and-done takes a bit. You've been siting here for twenty minutes. How's your head?"

"It's fine, the water helped a lot,"

"Well, do you want to go around and collect information on Ancient Roman objects? That way, you can avoid headaches for the next couple days?"

My head was throbbing by the time I went to bed, having spent the whole day with Percy observing Roman artefacts. Annabeth then proceeded to quiz me on them so she could learn. I tumbled head over heels into sleep and didn't dream.

We spent 2 more days in New Rome before leaving. Reyna was alright with us taking Frank, and the others with us back to New York, so long as we returned them with complete memories and no major quests.

We flew off on the third morning with the intention of taking the trip slow and steady, nothing too rushed and strenuous. The Hephaestus cabin was going to meet us around the Denver area with a new flying ship similar to the Argo II. At least, it was similar in design, not to similar in functionality. It wasn't working very well, but the Hephaestus cabin was going to try. I explained Zeus' blessing to Jason, as well as my control over the wind that we discovered on our way to California. So the trip was spattered with Jason explaining wind currents and how he calls on the wind.