The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5)(116)

Now Jason, Leo and Piper had to reverse that scenario. They had to keep Gaia away from her source of power – the earth – and weaken her until she could be defeated.

Together they rose. Festus creaked and groaned with the effort, but he continued to gain altitude. Jason still didn’t understand how Leo had managed to remake the dragon. Then he recalled all the hours Leo had spent working inside the hull over the last few weeks. Leo must have been planning this all along and building a new body for Festus within the framework of the ship.

He must have known in his gut that the Argo II would eventually fall apart. A ship turning into a dragon … Jason supposed it was no more amazing than the dragon turning into a suitcase back in Quebec.

However it had happened, Jason was elated to see their old friend in action once more.

‘YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!’ Gaia crumbled to sand, only to get blasted by more flames. Her body melted into a lump of glass, shattered, then re-formed again as human. ‘I AM ETERNAL!’

‘Eternally annoying!’ Leo yelled, and he urged Festus higher.

Jason and Piper rose with them.

‘Get me closer,’ Piper urged. ‘I need to be next to her.’

‘Piper, the flames and the shrapnel –’

‘I know.’

Jason moved in until they were right next to Gaia. The winds encased the goddess, keeping her solid, but it was all Jason could do to contain her blasts of sand and soil. Her eyes were solid green, like all nature had been condensed into a few spoonfuls of organic matter.

‘FOOLISH CHILDREN!’ Her face contorted with miniature earthquakes and mudslides.

‘You are so weary,’ Piper told the goddess, her voice radiating kindness and sympathy. ‘Aeons of pain and disappointment weigh on you.’

‘SILENCE!’

The force of Gaia’s anger was so great that Jason momentarily lost control of the wind. He would’ve dropped into free fall, but Festus caught him and Piper in his other huge claw.

Amazingly, Piper kept her focus. ‘Millennia of sorrow,’ she told Gaia. ‘Your husband Ouranos was abusive. Your grandchildren the gods overthrew your beloved children the Titans. Your other children, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handed Ones, were thrown into Tartarus. You are so tired of heartache.’

‘LIES!’ Gaia crumbled into a tornado of soil and grass, but her essence seemed to churn more sluggishly.

If they gained any more altitude, the air would be too thin to breathe. Jason would be too weak to control it. Piper’s talk of exhaustion affected him, too, sapping his strength, making his body feel heavy.

‘What you want,’ Piper continued, ‘more than victory, more than revenge … you want rest. You are so weary, so incomprehensibly tired of the ungrateful mortals and immortals.’

‘I – YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME – YOU CANNOT –’

‘You want one thing,’ Piper said soothingly, her voice resonating through Jason’s bones. ‘One word. You want permission to close your eyes and forget your troubles. You – want – SLEEP.’

Gaia solidified into human form. Her head lolled, her eyes closed, and she went limp in Festus’s claw.

Unfortunately, Jason started to black out, too.

The wind was dying. The storm dissipated. Dark spots danced in his eyes.

‘Leo!’ Piper gasped for breath. ‘We only have a few seconds. My charmspeak won’t –’

‘I know!’ Leo looked like he was made of fire. Flames rippled beneath his skin, illuminating his skull. Festus steamed and glowed, his claws burning through Jason’s shirt. ‘I can’t contain the fire much longer. I’ll vaporize her. Don’t worry. But you guys need to leave.’

‘No!’ Jason said. ‘We have to stay with you. Piper’s got the cure. Leo, you can’t –’

‘Hey.’ Leo grinned, which was unnerving in the flames, his teeth like molten silver ingots. ‘I told you I had a plan. When are you going to trust me? And by the way – I love you guys.’

Festus’s claw opened, and Jason and Piper fell.

Jason had no strength to stop it. He held on to Piper as she cried Leo’s name, and they plummeted earthwards.

Festus became an indistinct ball of fire in the sky – a second sun – growing smaller and hotter. Then, in the corner of Jason’s eye, a blazing comet streaked upward from the ground with a high-pitched, almost human scream. Just before Jason blacked out, the comet intercepted the ball of fire above them.

The explosion turned the entire sky gold.

LIII

Nico

NICO HAD WITNESSED MANY FORMS OF DEATH. He didn’t think anything could surprise him any more.

He was wrong.

In the middle of the battle, Will Solace ran up to him and said one word in his ear: ‘Octavian.’

That got Nico’s full attention. He had hesitated when he’d had the chance to kill Octavian, but there was no way Nico would let that scumbag augur escape justice. ‘Where?’

‘Come on,’ Will said. ‘Hurry.’

Nico turned to Jason, who was fighting next to him. ‘Jason, I have to go.’

Then he plunged into the chaos, following Will. They passed Tyson and his Cyclopes, who were bellowing, ‘Bad dog! Bad dog!’ as they bashed the heads of the cynocephali. Grover Underwood and a team of satyrs danced around with their panpipes, playing harmonies so dissonant that the earthen-shelled ghosts cracked apart. Travis Stoll ran past, arguing with his brother. ‘What do you mean we set the landmines on the wrong hill?’