The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5)(61)

‘Stop!’ Reyna yelled.

Her heart hammered in her ribcage. She needed to find the giant’s weakness.

Barrachina was only a few blocks away. If they could make it that far, Nico might be able to shadow-travel them away. And the Hunters couldn’t all be dead … They’d been patrolling the entire perimeter of the old city. Surely some of them were still out there …

‘Orion, you asked what motivates me.’ She kept her voice level. ‘Don’t you want your answer before you kill us? Surely it must puzzle you, why women keep rejecting a big handsome guy like you.’

The giant nocked his arrow. ‘Now you have mistaken me for Narcissus. I cannot be flattered.’

‘Of course not,’ Reyna said. Hylla rose with a murderous look on her face, but Reyna reached out with her senses, trying to share with her sister the most difficult kind of strength – restraint. ‘Still … it must infuriate you. First you were dumped by a mortal princess –’

‘Merope.’ Orion sneered. ‘A beautiful girl, but stupid. If she’d had any sense, she would have understood I was flirting with her.’

‘Let me guess,’ Reyna said. ‘She screamed and called for the guards instead.’

‘I was without my weapons at the time. You don’t bring your bow and knives when you’re courting a princess. The guards took me easily. Her father the king had me blinded and exiled.’

Just above Reyna’s head, a pebble skittered across a clay-tiled roof. It might have been her imagination, but she remembered that sound from the many nights Hylla would sneak out of her own locked room and creep across the roof to check on her.

It took all of Reyna’s willpower not to glance up.

‘But you got new eyes,’ she said to the giant. ‘Hephaestus took pity on you.’

‘Yes …’ Orion’s gaze became unfocused. Reyna could tell, because the laser targets disappeared from her chest. ‘I ended up on Delos, where I met Artemis. Do you know how strange it is to meet your mortal enemy and end up being attracted to her?’ He laughed. ‘Praetor, what am I saying? Of course you know. Perhaps you feel for the Greeks as I felt for Artemis – a guilty fascination, an admiration that turns to love. But too much love is poison, especially when that love is not returned. If you do not understand that already, Reyna Ramírez-Arellano, you soon will.’

Hylla limped forward, her knives still in hand. ‘Sister, why do you let this beast talk? Let’s put him down.’

‘Can you?’ Orion mused. ‘Many have tried. Even Artemis’s own brother, Apollo, was not able to kill me back in the ancient times. He had to use trickery to get rid of me.’

‘He didn’t like you hanging out with his sister?’ Reyna listened for more sounds from the roofs, but heard nothing.

‘Apollo was jealous.’ The giant’s fingers curled around his bowstring. He drew it back, setting the bow’s wheels and pulleys spinning. ‘He feared I might charm Artemis into forgetting her vows of maidenhood. And who knows? Without Apollo’s interference, perhaps I would have. She would have been happier.’

‘As your servant?’ Hylla growled. ‘Your meek little housewife?’

‘It hardly matters now,’ Orion said. ‘At any rate, Apollo inflicted me with madness – a bloodlust to kill all the beasts of the earth. I slaughtered thousands before my mother, Gaia, finally put a stop to my rampage. She summoned a giant scorpion from the earth. It stabbed me in the back and its poison killed me. I owe her for that.’

‘You owe Gaia,’ Reyna said, ‘for killing you.’

Orion’s mechanical pupils spiralled into tiny, glowing points. ‘My mother showed me the truth. I was fighting against my own nature, and it brought me nothing but misery. Giants are not meant to love mortals or gods. Gaia helped me accept what I am. Eventually we all must return home, Praetor. We must embrace our past, no matter how bitter and dark.’ He nodded his chin towards the villa behind her. ‘Just as you have done. You have your own share of ghosts, eh?’

Reyna drew her sword. You can’t learn anything from ghosts, she had told her sister. Perhaps she couldn’t learn anything from giants, either.

‘This is not my home,’ she said. ‘And we are not alike.’

‘I have seen the truth.’ The giant sounded truly sympathetic. ‘You cling to the fantasy that you can make your enemies love you. You cannot, Reyna. There is no love for you at Camp Half-Blood.’

Aphrodite’s words echoed in her head: No demigod shall heal your heart.

Reyna studied the giant’s handsome, cruel face, his glowing mechanical eyes. For a terrible moment, she could understand how even a goddess, even an eternal maiden like Artemis, might fall for Orion’s honeyed words.

‘I could have killed you twenty times by now,’ the giant said. ‘You realize that, don’t you? Let me spare you. A simple show of faith is all I need. Tell me where the statue is.’

Reyna almost dropped her sword. Where the statue is …

Orion hadn’t located the Athena Parthenos. The Hunters’ camouflage had worked. All this time, the giant had been tracking Reyna, which meant that even if she died right now Nico and Coach Hedge might stay safe. The quest was not doomed.

She felt as if she’d shed a hundred pounds of armour. She laughed. The sound echoed down the cobblestone street.