The Unknown Destiny

| Chapter 11 || The Sacrifice Play |

Chapter Eleven

The Sacrifice Play

*Third Person Point of View*

Artemis paced back and forth in her room at Camp Half-Blood. She and her hunters (with much protest) had taken a break from their travels to stay in the camp during this war. She knew they hated it - and the campers weren't too happy, either - but it was the safest place for them right now. There was strength in numbers, and though she didn't exactly want to admit it, her hunters were low in that prospect.

Looking out her window, Artemis saw nothing but stone bricks, strengthened by wooden supports. Before, she could look out into the depths of the forest; in the depths of the night, she'd been able to see shadows of the nocturnal animals running through the trees, hunting for their food in the darkness of the night.

They'd started building the wall right after their new enemy had disappeared with their remaining guardians. That was a few days ago, now - twelve to be exact - and the wall was eight feet high and almost spanned the entire camp. It ran along the backs of the cabins, blocking off the trees (including the one that Percy used to perch in whenever they stayed at camp). It fenced off the beach, too, and to get to the sand, one would have to unlock the heavy iron gate's twelve locks and push it open - needless to say, that no one went to the beach these days.

That is... no one had any time for fun these days. The campers were either training or building, building or training. They'd sleep less, eat less. Everyone was on edge, and most didn't even know why.

She sighed. The gods had been on edge ever since the short battle against those who they thought were their closest companions. They'd immediately contacted Chiron to begin laying defences around the camp and to train his students harder than they'd ever trained before. Even their children's trainer was in the dark about what was really going on, but even the youngest of the demigods could infer that they were at war. Against whom, not even the gods knew.

Since then, tensions only grew. Her own hunters spent all hours of daylight in the archery field - some had even set up camp so that they could keep shooting deep into the night (any harpies who interrupted them were quickly and efficiently shot down).

At this point, they were just waiting for the next attack to come, even though no one knew who or what they were fighting.

And as much as the campers were preparing physically, the gods were preparing emotionally. They would have to kill their guardians, after all - kill someone who was closer than a best friend, the closest relationship gods ever had because they knew it wasn't permanent unless they did their best to keep it so. Their lives weren't on a clock like the mortals her family mingled with, but they weren't eternal. Just the thought of killing Percy sent daggers through her heart and soul. Maybe the closest she could imagine was killing one of her own hunters - who were like sisters to her.

She knew that the campers were trying very hard to figure it all out, though. She could see it in the scrunching of their eyebrows whenever she or any of the other gods walked amongst them. Perhaps they couldn't piece together everything, but the gods were scared and sad to say the least, and that made the campers nervous.

*First Person Point of View ~ Annabeth*

Swords clashed loudly. There were more campers training now than I'd ever seen before in the arena at camp. I'd been a camper for more than twenty-six years, and yet I'd never seen anything like this before.

The classes had doubled in size, even though our number of incoming campers hadn't grown. I knew the reason for this, though. The gods were scared. Artemis and her hunters were here - for good it seemed, because they'd stayed for twelve days now, and hadn't left the archery field unoccupied since they'd arrived. The Apollo kids had taken to shooting in the volleyball courts, seeing as no one was playing any games lately.