The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1)(79)

Leo picked up an orange Camp Half-Blood tee with a hole through the middle, as if it had been hit by a javelin. Next to that was a dented bronze breastplate pitted with corrosion—acid, maybe?—and a Roman toga slashed to pieces and stained with something that looked disturbingly like dried blood.

“Your Highness,” Piper said, trying to control her nerves. “Why don’t you tell the boys how you betrayed your family? I’m sure they’d like to hear that story.”

Her words didn’t have any effect on the princess, but the boys turned, suddenly interested.

“More story?” Leo asked.

“I like more story!” Jason agreed.

The princess flashed Piper an irritated look. “Oh, one will do strange things for love, Piper. You should know that. I fell for that young hero, in fact, because your mother Aphrodite had me under a spell. If it wasn’t for her—but I can’t hold a grudge against a goddess, can I?”

The princess’s tone made her meaning clear: I can take it out on you.

“But that hero took you with him when he fled Colchis,” Piper remembered. “Didn’t he, Your Highness? He married you just as he promised.”

The look in the princess’s eyes made Piper want to apologize, but she didn’t back down.

“At first,” Her Highness admitted, “it seemed he would keep his word. But even after I helped him steal my father’s treasure, he still needed my help. As we fled, my brother’s fleet came after us. His warships overtook us. He would have destroyed us, but I convinced my brother to come aboard our ship first and talk under a flag of truce. He trusted me.”

“And you killed your own brother,” Piper said, the horrible story all coming back to her, along with a name—an infamous name that began with the letter M.

“What?” Jason stirred. For a moment he looked almost like himself. “Killed your own—”

“No,” the princess snapped. “Those stories are lies. It was my new husband and his men who killed my brother, though they couldn’t have done it without my deception. They threw his body into the sea, and the pursuing fleet had to stop and search for it so they could give my brother a proper burial. This gave us time to get away. All this, I did for my husband. And he forgot our bargain. He betrayed me in the end.”

Jason still looked uncomfortable. “What did he do?”

The princess held the sliced-up toga against Jason’s chest, as if measuring him for an assassination. “Don’t you know the story, my boy? You of all people should. You were named for him.”

“Jason,” Piper said. “The original Jason. But then you’re —you should be dead!”

The princess smiled. “As I said, a new life in a new country. Certainly I made mistakes. I turned my back on my own people. I was called a traitor, a thief, a liar, a murderess. But I acted out of love.” She turned to the boys and gave them a pitiful look, batting her eyelashes. Piper could feel the sorcery washing over them, taking control more firmly than ever.

“Wouldn’t you do the same for someone you loved, my dears?”

“Oh, sure,” Jason said.

“Okay,” Leo said.

“Guys!” Piper ground her teeth in frustration. “Don’t you see who she is? Don’t you—”

“Let’s continue, shall we?” the princess said breezily. “I believe you wanted to talk about a price for the storm spirits—and your satyr.”

Leo got distracted on the second floor with the appliances.

“No way,” he said. “Is that an armored forge?”

Before Piper could stop him, he hopped off the escalator and ran over to a big oval oven that looked like a barbecue on steroids.

When they caught up with him, the princess said, “You have good taste. This is the H-2000, designed by Hephaestus himself. Hot enough to melt Celestial bronze or Imperial gold.”

Jason flinched as if he recognized that term. “Imperial gold?”

The princess nodded. “Yes, my dear. Like that weapon so cleverly concealed in your pocket. To be properly forged, Imperial gold had to be consecrated in the Temple of Jupiter on Capitoline Hill in Rome. Quite a powerful and rare metal, but like the Roman emperors, quite volatile. Be sure never to break that blade…” She smiled pleasantly. “Rome was after my time, of course, but I do hear stories. And now over here—this golden throne is one of my finest luxury items.

Hephaestus made it as a punishment for his mother, Hera. Sit in it and you’ll be immediately trapped.”

Leo apparently took this as an order. He began walking toward it in a trance.

“Leo, don’t!” Piper warned.

He blinked. “How much for both?”

“Oh, the seat I could let you have for five great deeds. The forge, seven years of servitude. And for only a bit of your strength—” She led Leo into the appliance section, giving him prices on various items.

Piper didn’t want to leave him alone with her, but she had to try reasoning with Jason. She pulled him aside and slapped him across the face.

“Ow,” he muttered sleepily. “What was that for?”

“Snap out of it!” Piper hissed.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s charmspeaking you. Can’t you feel it?”