The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus #2)(54)

“It’s too late.” Her mother’s frail voice echoed through the cavern. Hazel realized with a shock that it was her voice—not Gaea’s.

“Mother?”

Marie turned. Her eyes were open. She was awake and conscious. This should have made Hazel feel relieved, but it made her nervous. The Voice had never relinquished control while they were on the island.

“What have I done?” her mother asked helplessly. “Oh, Hazel, what did I do to you?”

She stared in horror at the thing in the pit.

For months they’d been coming here, four or five nights a week as the Voice required. Hazel had cried, she’d collapsed with exhaustion, she’d pleaded, she’d given in to despair. But the Voice that controlled her mother had urged her on relentlessly. Bring valuables from the earth. Use your powers, child. Bring my most valuable possession to me.

At first, her efforts had brought only scorn. The fissure in the earth had filled with gold and precious stones, bubbling in a thick soup of petroleum. It looked like a dragon’s treasure dumped in a tar pit. Then, slowly, a rock spire began to grow like a massive tulip bulb. It emerged so gradually, night after night, that Hazel had trouble judging its progress. Often she concentrated all night on raising it, until her mind and soul were exhausted, but she didn’t notice any difference. Yet the spire did grow. Now Hazel could see how much she’d accomplished. The thing was two stories high, a swirl of rocky tendrils jutting like a spear tip from the oily morass. Inside, something glowed with heat. Hazel couldn’t see it clearly, but she knew what was happening. A body was forming out of silver and gold, with oil for blood and raw diamonds for a heart. Hazel was resurrecting the son of Gaea. He was almost ready to wake.

Her mother fell to her knees and wept. “I’m sorry, Hazel. I’m so sorry.” She looked helpless and alone, horribly sad. Hazel should have been furious. Sorry? She’d lived in fear of her mother for years. She’d been scolded and blamed for her mother’s unfortunate life. She’d been treated like a freak, dragged away from her home in New Orleans to this cold wilderness, and worked like a slave by a merciless evil goddess. Sorry didn’t cut it. She should have despised her mother.

But she couldn’t make herself feel angry.

Hazel knelt and put her arm around her mother. There was hardly anything left of her—just skin and bones and stained work clothes. Even in the warm cave, she was trembling.

“What can we do?” Hazel said. “Tell me how to stop it.”

Her mother shook her head. “She let me go. She knows it’s too late. There’s nothing we can do.”

“She…the Voice?” Hazel was afraid to get her hopes up, but if her mother was really freed, then nothing else mattered. They could get out of here. They could run away, back to New Orleans. “Is she gone?”

Her mother glanced fearfully around the cave. “No, she’s here. There’s only one more thing she needs from me. For that, she needs my free will.”

Hazel didn’t like the sound of that.

“Let’s get out of here,” she urged. “That thing in the rock…it’s going to hatch.”

“Soon,” her mother agreed. She looked at Hazel so tenderly.…Hazel couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen that kind of affection in her mother’s eyes. She felt a sob building in her chest.

“Pluto warned me,” her mother said. “He told me my wish was too dangerous.”

“Your—your wish?”

“All the wealth under the earth,” she said. “He controlled it. I wanted it. I was so tired of being poor, Hazel. So tired. First I summoned him…just to see if I could. I never thought the old gris-gris spell would work on a god. But he courted me, told me I was brave and beautiful.…” She stared at her bent, calloused hands. “When you were born, he was so pleased and proud. He promised me anything. He swore on the River Styx. I asked for all the riches he had. He warned me the greediest wishes cause the greatest sorrows. But I insisted. I imagined living like a queen—the wife of a god! And you…you received the curse.”

Hazel felt as if she were expanding to the breaking point, just like that spire in the pit. Her misery would soon become too great to hold inside, and her skin would shatter. “That’s why I can find things under the earth?”

“And why they bring only sorrow.” Her mother gestured listlessly around the cavern. “That’s how she found me, how she was able to control me. I was angry with your father. I blamed him for my problems. I blamed you. I was so bitter, I listened to Gaea’s voice. I was a fool.”

“There’s got to be something we can do,” Hazel said. “Tell me how to stop her.”

The ground trembled. Gaea’s disembodied voice echoed through the cave.

My eldest rises, she said, the most precious thing in the earth —and you have brought him from the depths, Hazel Levesque. You have made him anew. His awakening cannot be stopped. Only one thing remains.

Hazel clenched her fists. She was terrified, but now that her mother was free, she felt like she could confront her enemy at last. This creature, this evil goddess, had ruined their lives. Hazel wasn’t going to let her win.

“I won’t help you anymore!” she yelled.

But I am done with your help, girl. I brought you here for one reason only. Your mother required…incentive.