The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1)(128)

“And you took my brother!” Thalia’s voice cracked with emotion. “Here—on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaea!”

“Hey,” Jason intervened. “Thalia—Sis—I know. But this isn’t the time. You should help your Hunters.”

Thalia clenched her jaw. “Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn’t worth it.”

Thalia turned, leaped out of the pool, and stormed from the building.

Leo turned to Hera with grudging respect. “Intestinally challenged cows?”

“Focus on the cage, Leo,” she grumbled. “And Jason—you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well.”

“I’m not your champion, lady,” Jason said. “I’m only helping you because you stole my memories and you’re better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what’s going on with that?”

He nodded to the other spire that looked like the king-size granite body bag. Was Leo imagining it, or had it grown taller since they’d gotten here?

“That, Jason,” Hera said, “is the king of the giants being reborn.”

“Gross,” Piper said.

“Indeed,” Hera said. “Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again —my power. For weeks I’ve grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form.”

“So you’re like a heat lamp,” Leo guessed. “Or fertilizer.”

The goddess glared at him, but Leo didn’t care. This old lady had been making his life miserable since he was a baby. He totally had rights to rag on her.

“Joke all you wish,” Hera said in a clipped tone. “But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken.”

Leo frowned at the giant’s spire. “Can’t we blow it up or something?”

“Without me, you do not have the power,” Hera said. “You might as well try to destroy a mountain.”

“Done that once today,” Jason said.

“Just hurry up and let me out!” Hera demanded.

Jason scratched his head. “Leo, can you do it?”

“I don’t know.” Leo tried not to panic. “Besides, if she’s a goddess, why hasn’t she busted herself out?”

Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. “Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you’re intelligent. Once trapped, a god’s power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg—beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus.”

“Sounds fair,” Leo said.

Hera gave him the godly stink-eye. “I’ve watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you.”

“But it’s not a machine. It’s like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and …” Leo felt dizzy. The line of their prophecy came back to him: The forge and dove shall break the cage.“Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I’m going to need your help. And we’re going to need time.”

The air turned brittle with cold. The temperature dropped so fast, Leo’s lips cracked and his breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rushed in —but instead of winged men, these were shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackled with lightning. Some had silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.

Piper drew her dagger. Jason grabbed an ice-covered plank off the pool floor. Leo reached into his tool belt, but he was so shaken up, all he produced was a tin of breath mints. He shoved them back in, hoping nobody had noticed, and drew a hammer instead.

One of the wolves padded forward. It was dragging a human-size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its maw and dropped the statue for them to see—an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.

“Thalia!” Jason rushed forward, but Piper and Leo pulled him back. The ground around Thalia’s statue was already webbed with ice. Leo feared if Jason touched her, he might freeze too.

“Who did this?” Jason yelled. His body crackled with electricity. “I’ll kill you myself!”

From somewhere behind the monsters, Leo heard a girl’s laughter, clear and cold. She stepped out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regarded them with those deep brown eyes Leo had thought were so beautiful in Quebec.

“Bon soir, mes amis,” said Khione, the goddess of snow. She gave Leo a frosty smile. “Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time? I’m afraid time is one tool you do not have.”

AFTER THE FIGHT ON MOUNT DIABLO, Jason didn’t think he could ever feel more afraid or devastated.

Now his sister was frozen at his feet. He was surrounded by monsters. He’d broken his golden sword and replaced it with a piece of wood. He had approximately five minutes until the king of the giants busted out and destroyed them. Jason had already pulled his biggest ace, calling down Zeus’s lightning when he’d fought Enceladus, and he doubted he’d have the strength or the cooperation from above to do it again. Which meant his only assets were one whiny imprisoned goddess, one sort-of girlfriend with a dagger, and Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the armies of darkness with breath mints.