Chapter Text
The nymphs drifted in slow peaceful circles through the lake, their gowns and hair trailing behind them in the clear, sparkling water as they giggled and whispered to each other, beckoning Perseus toward the cool water.
She said farewell. A small, slow whirlpool of worry tugged at the bottom of Perseus’s stomach. Does she know? Aphrodite knows. If she figured it out, then others could. He twisted the slim, dark band around his finger, staring deep into the soft, orange glow of the glyph for Elpis. Have I let her down?
Bright and gold, the sun rose over the trees, spilling warmth across the dock to soak into Perseus’s skin.
‘Come, my lord.’ Metea swept back her dripping cerulean fringe. ‘Join us in the lake.’
‘You look troubled, my lord,’ Theora murmured, rising from the shadows beneath the docks. ‘Come and drift with us, let your worries float away in the cool water with me and my sisters.’
Perseus shook his head. ‘Not right now, sorry.’ He touched his fingertips to the slim line of Anaklusmos in his pocket. ‘I had a disturbing dream.’
The disquiet rose within, bubbling up from some cold dark sea inside. He battled it, tried to push them back down beneath the surface and back into that bottomless black, but they slipped through his fingers — a stream of cold, trembling silver escaping into the light of the same waning moon he’d dreamt of only hours ago.
I have to know. Artemis? He closed his eyes and swallowed the last few bubbles with the little hot lump swelling in his throat. Are you still proud of me?
The naiads lingered, bobbing in the lake as the breeze swept small ripples across the water, watching him with soft and curious eyes.
Artemis?
Perseus held his breath.
‘My lord,’ Permelia whispered, poking her head out from behind one of the poles of the pier. ‘What ails your thoughts? All our waters are aquiver with your power, it pulls at us like the tug of the tide.’
‘Sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I just… never mind.’
She always answered before. Always. Perseus’s disquiet swelled, rising into a clamouring cauldron of cold, anxious waves. Dad? Is Artemis okay?
There are no enemies of Olympus that could harm a goddess left, Perseus. Poseidon’s voice swept in like the crash and rush of the foaming waves upon the sandy shore. She cannot have been captured as she was before nor harmed by any foe of ours.
Thanks, Dad.
If nothing’s wrong, then she’s not answering because she doesn’t want to. Perseus wrestled with the churning, fearful waves. Maybe she knows. Aphrodite thinks she knows and Artemis knows me better than Aphrodite does. He took a deep breath and tried to smooth those waves out, but they swelled higher, breaking in raw, rough crashes of bitter, swirling cold crests. I’m sorry; I’m sorry if Alcyoneus was right and I disappointed you by not accepting Zeus’s offer. I just wanted to make you proud.
‘Hey, Percy!’ Katie’s voice broke the silence.
The naiads slipped beneath the surface of the water.
‘Hey, Captain Crunch.’ Perseus twisted about as she walked along the decking, chewing at her lip and wringing her hands in the front pocket of her dark green hoodie. ‘All okay?’
‘Yeah.’ She wiggled in beside him, leaning against his shoulder and poking at the stray white threads escaping the ripped up patches of jeans on her left thigh. ‘Don’t really like being up at camp at the moment without you; it’s just… weird. All the familiar faces are just not there anymore. It was me and Clarisse after you disappeared, and now…’
‘She died without regret,’ he murmured. ‘Her brothers are very proud of her. So am I.’
Katie let out something half-snort, half choked sob. ‘She went out just how she wanted to, very violently and bravely killing something very big and dangerous.’
Clarisse is waiting in Elysium with everyone else; her and so many others. But none of them have any regrets. And even the others, like Piper, will have another chance.
‘I don’t know how you lit those fires,’ she whispered. ‘I was crying too much to even see what was going on.’
‘You just have to be proud of them, you know. They’re gone, but they chose well and they won’t have any regrets.’ Perseus sighed. ‘I never thought I’d make it back the first time, let alone the second, but here I am…’
‘Here you stay.’ Katie’s fingers crept across the decking, brushing his knuckles with hers. ‘You made me a promise that if you came back…’
I’d give you a chance to make me happy. Perseus let her take his hand. Maybe that’s why Artemis hasn’t replied, she wants me to keep my word.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘I gave you my word.’
A hint of pink blossomed across Katie’s cheeks. ‘So…? Us?’
‘I don’t really know how to start,’ Perseus confessed. ‘There was always something that needed to be done before, and I could never stay, but now…’
‘Now you can stay here at camp and help. Forget all the rest and just look after my garden and the strawberry plants, and sit here by your lake; you deserve it.’ Katie drew his hand across into her lap. ‘We deserve it. And—’ her green eyes fell to where she clutched his arm close ‘—I know that she’s still going to have most of your heart, because otherwise you’ll fall, but you can still be happy with me. I can still make you happy; you can love me just a little enough for that.’
Oh Katie. Perseus’s heart sank. You would have been so much happier with sisters. With Artemis instead of me.
He mustered a grin. ‘Get rid of that statue of me outside the arena and I’ll love you forever.’
‘Deal.’ Katie giggled. ‘I might keep it though, it’s a really nice statue.’
‘The Athena cabin spent ages on it, apparently; it was supposed to be for my tomb after I was dead, but, you know, it was everyone else that followed me who died again, so I guess they had to put it somewhere.’ His hand strayed from Anaklusmos to the small bump below. ‘Actually, can I ask you to do me a favour?’
‘Anything.’
Perseus pulled the crystal heart encased white flower out. ‘Can you plant this? Aphrodite said I should, so I think it will grow somehow.’
Katie accepted it in her cupped hands, her bright green eyes wide. ‘Who gave you this? Aphrodite?’
‘Gwen. A daughter of love.’ A little ripple of guilt tugged at his heart. ‘She broke that heart for me; she died following me, trying to do what I showed her we should do. I’m so proud of her, but…’ Perseus smoothed the waves out. ‘I don’t want her to be forgotten and just end up the name of some girl I left behind. She chose well and died without regret; she should have her own story.’
‘We can plant it now?’ Katie pushed herself to her feet, brushing off her ripped jeans. ‘If you want?’
‘Sure.’ Perseus jumped up. ‘Maybe we can plant it somewhere nice. Where everyone will see it.’
She wandered with him back up past the cabins, staring at the little white flower within the crystal heart. ‘Did she love you?’
Yes.
‘She wanted us to leave our world behind and go live a peaceful life like mom, Paul, and my half-sister,’ he replied. ‘But… I had to remember before I could choose anything, and then when I did, there was Alcyoneus.’
Katie opened the door to Demeter’s cabin.
Her siblings froze.
‘Perseus,’ one whispered. ‘That’s Perseus. He’s in our cabin…’
Katie took his hand and led him through to the little garden rockery in the back of the cabin. ‘I thought maybe we should plant them by your statue,’ she whispered, lifting the moonflower from its seat upon the stones. ‘Then, you know, nobody would ever forget them.’
She’s still waiting out there on that island. Perseus swallowed a small hot lump. Still trapped by her choice. Maybe, one day, someone will see her flower and when they find her, they’ll help her choose well.
‘I— ‘ the words stuck on the lump and he gave her a helpless shrug.
Katie gathered the moonflower into the crook of her elbow and glanced at the door.
He nodded.
‘Let’s go do it,’ she murmured, wiggling her fingers back through his. ‘Before my brothers and sisters faint from having you in here.’
‘I don’t really get it; I never have.’
‘Percy…’ Katie clung on to his hand as they left. ‘You’re basically a god, you know? Most people who were here when you first turned up and got to know you before all this, they’re gone. You lit their pyres either after Kronos was beaten or yesterday. All the new kids, they saw you walk back across that bridge with Hyperion’s severed head in your hand or watched you kill Alcyoneus. Those are impossible things for them. For us all.’
‘But…’
Perseus found himself in his own shadow. His statue pressed the pale stone blade of Anaklusmos to his lips with one hand, his thyreos, marked with the glyph for elpis, upon his arm, and at his feet were heaped dozens of small offerings — flowers, knives, coins, trinkets and tokens of countless kinds.
‘See?’ Katie whispered, setting the moonflower down and crouching at the statue's foot. ‘This is how they see you, Percy. This is how they all see you now.’
Percy. He stared up into his own fearless gaze. Nobody else is left to call me that.
‘You’re almost a god to all those who want to be true heroes.’ Katie stared up at the statue with a touch of colour on her cheeks and soft green eyes the hue of fresh pine-needles. ‘And you deserve it; nobody else is a greater hero than you.’
‘All I did was choose well. Everyone can do that.’
‘But nobody else seems to manage it if you're not there to show them how.’ She scooped out the soil there with her bare hands and lifted the moonflower, tucking it gently into the dirt and patting it down. ‘There.’
‘Will it grow?’
‘I’ll make sure it grows all the way up the statue,’ Katie promised, raising the little crystal heart up to the light. ‘I don’t know how this will grow, but if Aphrodite said it would, then…’ She poked it into the soil beside the moonflower and closed her eyes.
A small green shoot sprouted from dirt, unfurling bright, emerald leaves and a small, delicate white flower tinged with a familiar auburn at its petals’ tips.
‘It’s pretty,’ Katie whispered. ‘Was she?’
‘She was a daughter of love,’ Perseus managed past the lump. ‘She was pretty. But she was brave, and kind, and loyal, and after she realised I couldn't give her what she wanted she just tried to make me proud of her.’
And she died trying. He blinked back hot tears. She’s waiting in Elysium with Clarisse, and Rachel, and Reyna, and Annabeth, and Bianca, and you, right, Zoë?
‘You said you couldn’t not love Calypso a little? Was she like that?’
‘Not quite,’ Perseus said. ‘Calypso was… it was paradise with her; she was so devoted, so desperately in love, she would be everything you could ever wish for. Gwen didn’t want paradise, she wanted a small, quiet little life with someone she loved; she was Gwen and that was enough.’
‘You.’ Katie bit at her lip. ‘Right, Percy?’
‘Yes,’ he confessed. ‘But I couldn’t stay with her. She came with me, instead, like Calypso could have if she’d chosen not to try and make me stay, and now she’s in Elysium.’
‘We’ll see them one day,’ Katie told him; her green eyes were bright, fierce, and full of hope. ‘But not yet. You promised.’
‘I know.’ Perseus turned away from his statue and its small heap of offerings. ‘I couldn't become a god, part of the nature of the world, I didn’t want to turn out like Alcyoneus and disappoint everyone, so… I’ll stay with you like I gave my word I would.’
That must be what Artemis wants; she knows. His heart plummeted right down into the cold dark depths of that crushing black sea of despair. I won’t be able to make her proud again.
‘This time I’m not crying, at least.’ Katie stretched up onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his in a brief, soft kiss. ‘But I need to go and water the strawberry plants.’
Perseus smiled, tasting the faint tang of sweet strawberry jam. ‘I’ll see you later, then, Captain Crunch.’
‘Bye, Percy.’ Katie touched trembling fingers to her lips and leant back in to steal a second, short kiss. ‘Sorry—’ pink blossomed across her face and up to the tips of her ears ‘—I just wanted to make sure that it really happened.’
‘It definitely happened.’ Perseus offered her a grin. ‘You know, you’re the only person I’ve kissed more than once. Gwen got one, she tricked me into pretending to be her boyfriend, and Aphrodite kissed me, but that was for her daughters who died because of me.’
‘It’s just me left,’ Katie mumbled, rosy-cheeked. ‘So… maybe it will be me after all somehow, even though I’m not a goddess, or a nymph, or a princess, or one of those stupid flirty naiads.’
‘If it’s not you, then it’s nobody,’ Perseus promised.
She stared at him. ‘What about… her?’
‘It can’t be her,’ he murmured. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
Katie beamed. ‘I… I love you,’ she whispered, turning a brighter shade of red. ‘Which, I guess you already know that, of course, but… I wanted to… say it.’
Oh Katie. His heart sat right at the very bottom of that deep, dark sea, beneath the crushing flood of endless black; ground to a single grain of sand, just a glimmer of pale light far below the waves. I’m so sorry.
‘You don’t have to say it back. Just—’
‘I’ll always love you at least a little,’ Perseus promised. ‘You’re one of the kindest, best people I’ve ever known.’
Katie made a small choked noise. ‘Strawberry plants,’ she blurted, and fled.
You’d think I'd stop hurting girls by now. He stared down at the delicate white flower, lost somewhere beneath that ocean of despair. I guess Katie's the last one left, though.
‘Brave one…’ Hestia poked the warm tip of her smoking stick into his side. ‘Remember all that you have done, for so many who might have otherwise been lost and now walk through the sunlit green fields of Elysium, or who await a second chance.’
‘It doesn’t feel like I did well,’ Perseus confessed.
She’s not proud of me anymore. She knows.
‘Why despair now?’ Hestia rested a warm, soft hand on his arm. ‘You gave hope to all, Perseus, but you deserved a little piece of it for yourself. I entrusted you with that fragment; to discard it would be to abandon the very brightest part of your heart; the very thing that has seen you accomplish so many things others would not dare to even dream of.’
But she knows. I dreamt of her disappearing. Did she want me to become a god like Alcyoneus said I should? Is that why? Perseus twisted the ring around his finger until the glowing orange glyph was gone from his sight and stared at the silver, crescent clasp of his bracelet. Something feels wrong; I think I did something wrong.