Time's Darkness

Chapter 3 - The Key to Victory

"It's hopeless," I muttered as I watched to unclaimed fighting, no one in particular standing out. I saw no tendrils of darkness, no sparks of lightning or random tsunamis. Okay, not exactly logical, but at this point, I was looking for anything.

"And Hades said nothing, are you sure?"

"I'm pretty sure I would remember. He avoided to question. He said Zeus was more likely than him or Poseidon to have demigod children," I said. "And I have been looking out for any chance of Zeus."

"You are the child of Hades, it's not like you would be the most likely to see a mark of Zeus," Sandor answered. He received yet another look of disgust from a camper for walking with me. "Not that I personally think it would be that easy. If it was, then we'd have already found him."

"Still, I feel like this is hopeless. Kronos is going to gain control and I can't do a thing about it," I replied as we arrived at the arena, where the Hermes and Hades cabins were supposed to be practicing together. "Honestly, I'm about to go, prophecy or no prophecy."

Sandor drew his sword and I removed my ring and pressed the hidden button. "What's the problem with persevering? You may not have found one yet but you have managed to have all the unclaimed have a lot of training time. Whoever it is will have a fighting chance now."

"Oh gods, Caden!" Audrey yelled, who was sparring with him.

I shrugged off Sandor's blow and looked at the pair. Caden had a lightning bolt above his head, he was a child of Zeus.

We had tried to find him for ages and had failed but now Zeus was pointing it out like we were idiots. So I added Zeus to the list of people that I wanted to punch but couldn't. Sadly, it was a long list. A long list of people I shouldn't make hate me or hate me more. 

"Whoa. It's so funny to see people's reactions to a child of the Big Three being claimed," Sandor said. I had already put my sword back on my finger and began to walk toward the newly claimed son of Zeus.

"We need to talk," I said. Caden had only arrived a few days ago and we hasn't formally met yet. I had been holed up in my cabin trying to figure out some Underworld politics.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Ebony, Hades. The only other child of the Elder gods at camp." I made sure to emphasize only.

"And why do we need to talk?"

"You've heard that Kronos is gaining power according to Hermes."

"'According to Hermes'?" Sandor said.

"Yeah, I forgot to mention, Hades denies it. Anyway, there's a quest. And we need you."

"How do you know?"

"It asks for two children of the Big Three to try to stop Kronos. We're the only ones. It also wants Sandor and Saul, son of Ares." Gods, this kid asked a lot of questions, even for a newbie. If most heard they could go on a quest they'd accept and not even ask.

"What Eb means is that she knows this is really overwhelming, having gone through a similar thing herself but we really need your help if we want to save the world."

I concentrated and tried a new trick that I had figured out. I sent a small cluster of darkness in the form of a raven, quickly followed by a dark eagle. to Chiron. He would know to find me since it also meant it was urgent and that I'd found the child of Zeus.

"What was that?" Caden said suspiciously. Geez, we had barely met and he was already discriminating because of parentage.

"I wouldn't ask. It's her little secret message to Chiron."