Changing the Future

Chapter 12

I knew things were bad by the way Zeus was scowling down at me. We weren't exactly the closest, but he respected me enough to not scowl at me every time I was in his presence.

Standing in front of the Olympian Council was by far one of the scariest things I ever had to do in my life. It doesn't matter how many times I've done it, I always feel like I'm going to be sick from the amount of power overload that is the throne room when full of its inhabitants.

From the way some of the gods were seated at the edge of their thrones, their bodies tense as if expecting an attack, I could tell the pressure in the room had been extremely high before my appearance. To my left, Poseidon was gripping his trident so tightly I thought the bronze pole would snap in half. Sitting next to Poseidon, Zeus glowered at his older brother, sparks leaping in between his fingers.

Then I realized that the throne room was missing a familiar hum that always came from Zeus. As I expected, when I looked at the holster on Zeus' throne that was supposed to hold his symbol of power, it was empty, devoid of the Master Bolt.

"Oh, gods," I said, paling at what I was seeing. It's one thing to read about the Master Bolt being stolen, but witnessing it yourself, especially when you had become used to its presence, was terrifying. Luke was definitely crazy if he thought he could get away with stealing from Zeus and Hades and not get caught.

"Indeed," Zeus spoke angrily, never breaking his glare with Poseidon. "It seems as if someone has decided to steal my Master Bolt."

"Why do you look at me, brother?" Poseidon spat out the word venomously. "Stealing a god's symbol of power is prohibited by the most ancient of laws."

"Come on, Dad," Apollo said, pulling out his headphones. "It's not like Uncle P to steal."

"He tried to usurp me before!"

"So did your wife," Athena pointed out, never looking up from the book she was reading.

"As if you're so innocent," Hera hissed, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of her throne, fully prepared to launch herself at the wisdom goddess.

"Who would Poseidon even turn to?" Demeter pointed out through a mouthful of cereal, earning her some looks of disgust from some of the gods. "It's not like he's broken that oath of yours."

Poseidon did an excellent job of masking his fear, not even moving a muscle at being unknowingly called out. However, Demeter's accusation only made the situation worse, as now Zeus was debating smiting the entirety of Camp Half-Blood, earning himself death threats from every Olympian that had kids living at camp.

I waited out this argument next to Hestia, feeling safer beside the hearth than by gods who were struggling to keep their divine forms in control. Honestly, if they're going to play the blame game, I didn't want to be here to listen to them argue like children.

"Let's ask Andromeda what she thinks," Hera said at last, silencing the roar of voices that had started to give me a headache. "What do you make of this situation?"

"Hear me out before jumping to conclusions," I asked, making sure that the two main dissidents in this case understood what I was asking of them. "I don't think Lord Poseidon stole the Master Bolt or had someone do it to usurp your throne, Lord Zeus. In my honest opinion, I believe whoever stole the bolt did it in the hopes that you two would tear each other apart."

"Why would anyone do such a thing?" a horrified Aphrodite asked, fanning herself with her hand. "There's no tragic love story anywhere in this scenario, so it's not a real war!" Although the love goddess wasn't an airhead like many people made her out to be, she'd say stuff like this that made it much harder to defend her.