Percy Jackson: Night In The Land Beyond The Gods

"Timber"

Percy's POV

I looked towards the door, or what used to be the doorway.

It seemed like the frozen arrow tips had converged into a large sheet of ice, the excess water left from the prior explosion making it a good few inches thick. But despite that still sounding pretty thin, I had enough experience with malfunctioning elements and disownment curses to know that it would be too strong with magic to punch through.

"Curses," I muttered, before speaking louder, "I swear whatever you think I did it for I didn't do it because of it! – or on purpose, at the very least..."

"But how do we get out of it? It's spreading!" Hazel shivered, her voice shaky. Beside her, Frank wrapped an arm around her protectively, his body heat (as a powerful shifter) slowly splitting between them.

Panic started to pull on my ankles as I struggled to push it down, determined to trip me up, "Nico, could I borrow your sword for a moment?"

"You won't touch anyone with it or break anything?" the son of Hades asked.

"Not if I can help it," I strained to keep the smirk off of my lips.

Nico sighed, shaking his head before passing me his skull ring.

I twisted the top before feeling the heavy weight of Stygian Iron in my grip, the cool and deathly metal feeling comfortable against my skin. It sent chills up my spine, the iron of the Styx hissing thoughts of broken dreams and promises. I knew no one else could hear it, not even Nico, and I knew why.

But if only it weren't so.

Inhale. Exhale. I told myself, It's not as if this is the first time you've had a power mishap, it's not as if you can't fix it.

I braced myself, looked into the heart of the ice, where the swirling water had frozen around a single point, and ran. The sword glinted darkly as we neared the frozen barricade and I leaped forward, holding the blade in front of me as it imbedded into the ice.

Scrambling backwards, I heard the unmistakable cracking sound of ice breaking.

"Timber," Nico whistled beside me, his legs swinging as he rested on the table.

And it did just that.

The glass first seemed to split apart like a broken mirror, before gravity took its hold and ripped the shards down from where they stood. The pieces lay in smaller pieces than a broken heart, decorating the floor sadly.

A sigh escaped my lips, a small fog cloud forming and dissipating within seconds of it arriving. I held my first out in front of me, preparing to get rid of the fragments, but hesitated. I pulled my ice staff from where it lay against the walls (because apparently we're not allowed weapons at breakfast, even though everyone else can) and rapped the ground with it, causing the ice to suck into it and the points on the end to grow slightly.

Across the room, Annabeth looked at me from where she had been inspecting the door frame – probably to see if there were any scratches on there that she could blame on me. The daughter of wisdom stated, "If you don't start talking I'm going to start hitting you over the head with that stupid ice stick of yours."