Fate Withstands

Chapter 31

Traveling across the world with Reyna and Coach Hedge was never something Nico had seen himself doing. If you had told him so in 1945, he'd call you crazy and maybe shoot you to put you out of your misery. But now, collapsing and sleeping and shadow traveling constantly, he felt like he had done it all.

Fight in a war? Check. Die all alone? Check. Spend too long in the Fields of Asphodel? Double check.

Then there was the Titan War, Tartarus, Croatia and Cupid and outing himself in front of Jason Grace. It had all brought him to where he was now, which was yelling at the son of Hypnos in the dreamscape.

What a life, right? Killing humans, killing monsters, killing demigods and killing Tartarus (the last only attempted) had only led to this.

Well, what the fuck could he do? Fate had it out for him.

"Clovis," he growled. "for the gods' sake, stop dreaming so powerfully!"

"Oh, hi..." Clovis yawned. "Sorry, did I pull you off course again?"

Prowling through the dreamscape had been something Nico tampered with at camp but never got far in, mostly for this reason here.

"While I'm here, pass along a message for me," Nico insisted. "Tell Chiron I'm on my way with a couple of friends." Friends. Not yet. "We're bringing the Athena Parthenos."

"So it's true?" Clovis asked. "How are you bringing it?"

"Shadow travel, short jumps, trying not to die," Nico answered. "But that's not the point. We're being followed by a hunter. One of Gaea's giants, I think. Can you get that message to Thalia Grace? You're better at finding people in dreams than I am. I need her advice."

"I'll try. But before you go, do you have a second?"

Nico probably didn't have a millisecond, but he nodded anyways. "What?"

"I was thinking you should probably see what happened today at the council of war. I slept through some of it, but-"

"Show me," Nico said. And that's how he ended up seeing Will Solace for the first time in months without any preparation.

Will looked just as he always did but the war had taken its toll on him just as it had everyone else. Nico could see it in his eyes, the worry, the fear. But to anyone else in that room, Will Solace was just as relaxed as ever.

Even when they were talking about the threat of the Romans, the upcoming battle, the last days before Gaea's rising. Something in Nico's stomach tugged forward, wanted to reach out for Will, but in that moment he woke up for another day of fighting and traveling.

~~~~~~~~~

"A beautiful room, isn't it?"

When Nico heard his father's voice he felt like crying. He would never admit it, but a stray tear or two did fall. He ran into his father's arms in that old temple, buried his head in Hades's chest and tried not to feel too much like a child. "Dad."

"You're a hard one to track, Nico," Hades said. He had a hand on his son's shoulder, and that was enough of a return hug to make Nico feel warm. "For several days I've been searching. When the scepter of Diocletian exploded...well, that got my attention."

Nico wiped the tears to invisibility before pulling away. "Breaking the scepter wasn't my fault. We were about to be overrun-"

"Oh, the scepter isn't important. A relic that old, I'm surprised you got two uses out of it. The explosion simply gave me some clarity. It allowed me to pinpoint your location. I was hoping to speak to you in Pompeii, but it is so...well, Roman. This chapel was the first place where my presence was strong enough that I could appear to you as myself, by which I mean Hades, god of the dead, not split with that other manifestation."