I go where I'm needed.

For the most part, I'm alternating between the Earthborn and the wolves, but every now and then, I fire off a blast of light at Khione to give Leo a little help. Not that he really needs it. He's holding his own against the goddess with relative ease, his entire body encased in flames. Not only is his fire melting any attacks Khione tries to throw at him, but it's also raising the temperature, keeping us alive. It's so incredibly badass and impressive and I make a mental note to write a song in his honor when we get home.

I'll write songs about Piper and Jason too. Piper, who's so positively radiant on the battlefield that even the Earthborn she's fighting stop to watch. Jason's commandeered one of the storm spirits, swinging his plank of wood while the stallion he rides vaporizes its brethren. And me? I'm just doing what I can to help. I mean, I'm not battling a goddess (and winning) or looking so awe-inspiring that the enemy stops attacking or galloping around on a horse made of storm clouds and lightning, but I'm definitely contributing.

I think.

One second, I'm slicing through one of the last Earthborn, and the next, all of our enemies are dead or incapacitated save for Khione. Though, judging by the look on her face, she doesn't seem to plan on sticking around much longer.

"You're too late." She's scowling fiercely, but I can see the panic in her eyes. This didn't go how she wanted it to, and now she's scrambling to regain some semblance of control. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can ever stop us."

I roll my eyes, chest heaving as I sheathe my sword. "Does she ever stop talking?"

"She will," Leo says. He sets the silver-tipped hammers he's been wielding on fire, which looks super fucking epic by the way, and just chucks them at her. Unfortunately, the goddess of snow is a coward, and she turns into a her-shaped snowwoman. Lame. Still, pretty cool to see the flaming hammers melt snow-Khione into mush.

"Nice horse," Piper says, smiling up at Jason while she tries to catch her breath. The horse promptly shows off for her, rearing on his hind legs while electricity arcs across his hooves. 

I rake my fingers through my hair, trying to comb out the mud. When I get home, I'm taking a six-hour shower, and then a two-week nap and anyone who dares to judge me for it will get a light blast to the face. I make eye contact with Jason. He looks like he wants to say something, but before he can so much as open his mouth, there's this cracking noise behind us. We whip around to see the ice melt off of Hera's cage.

"Oh, don't mind me!" Hera yells. "Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!"

Jason dismounts and tells his horse to stay put. Then the four of us drop down into the pool and rush over to Hera's cage. Something's clearly wrong, but it takes my brain a second to figure it out.

"Uh, Tía Callida," Leo says, frowning, "are you getting shorter?"

"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"

Fuck, she's right. The prison is sinking, yeah, but it's so much worse than that. The ground is rising, surging up around her, and trying to swallow her whole. It's only up to her shins at the moment, but that's still far too high for my liking.

"The giant wakes!" Hera warns us. "You only have seconds!"

"On it," Leo assures her. He turns to Piper. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."

Piper's eyes widen. "What?"

"Talk to it. Use everything you've got. Convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I—"

"Right!" Piper clears her throat, shakes out her hands, and starts talking to the cage. "Hey, Gaea. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"

I shake my head and clamp my hands over my ears. I'm running on nothing but adrenaline at the moment. If I listen to Piper, I'll take a nap right here in the pool. Luckily, her words aren't just having an effect on me — the mud is rising slower and the tendrils are softening. I reach for my sword to start hacking at the bars, but Leo has a better idea: a circular saw.

"I don't have anywhere to plug it in!" Leo complains, looking at the cord.

"You couldn't have asked for a wireless circular saw?" I ask. Leo probably has a snarky reply on the tip of his tongue, but Jason's horse jumps down to join us and whinnies.

"Really?" Jason asks, raising his eyebrows.

The horse bows his head and moves closer to an incredulous Leo. He holds up the plug and miraculously, a breeze guides it right into the horse's flank. Lightning flashes and the next thing we know, the circular saw is whirring fast enough to make me slightly worried.

"Sweet!" Leo exclaims. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"

"Cordelia, I need you to do something for me," Hera starts to say, but she's cut off by the giant's spire at the other end of the pool. It crumbles and its outer tendrils explode. Pieces of stone and wood rain down as Porphyrion frees himself from the earth.

Porphyrion is somehow bigger and badder than Enceladus. He's built like Enceladus, with a humanoid torso and dragon's legs, but he's green. Like, green-green to the point that if he wasn't so ripped and murderous, I'd probably laugh. His skin is green and his hair is green too, braided and decorated with tarnished and bloody weapons. His eyes, I think, are the worst part. They're completely blank — no pupil, no iris, just white sclera.

He takes a deep breath and spreads his arms wide, throwing his head back as he crows, "Alive! Praise to Gaea!"

This guy is massive. Massive and ripped and terrifying. Jason whimpers, and I can't say I blame him. I feel like I shouldn't be here. Jason is a child of the big three. Piper and Leo, their parents are both Olympians. My mom is the rainbow goddess. She's a messenger. Sure, I have cool rainbow light powers, but I'm not meant for shit like this. I shouldn't be here.

But I'm here, so I might as well give it all I got, right?

"Leo," Jason says.

"Huh?" Leo's jaw had dropped at the sight of Porphyrion. Piper isn't gaping like Leo, but her eyes have gone wide and her lips are parted in shock.

"You guys keep working," Jason says. "Get Hera free!"

"What are you going to do?" Piper asks. It's a pretty good question. "You can't seriously—"

"Entertain a giant?" Jason shakes his head. "I've got no choice."

"And he's not doing it alone," I say, reaching for my sword.

Hera nods. "Yes, he is."

I turn to gape at her. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Jason, go," she says, making a shooing motion. Jason glances at me apprehensively but approaches the giant alone. I watch him go, my heart heavy in my chest. Hera turns her attention to me. "Cordelia, go climb that chimney."

"What?" I'm so dumbfounded by her request that I can't even be mad at her for making Jason fight a giant alone. I follow her gaze to the chimney that had caught my eye earlier and then look at her with narrowed eyes. "There's a giant and you want me to climb a chimney?"

Hera doesn't budge. "Was I not clear? Climb that chimney and bring me what's inside!"

"I—" I cut myself off, shaking my head. "You know what? I'm not going to question it."

While my friends do important things like freeing the queen of the heavens from her prison and fighting the giant king, I start climbing the nearest wall. I figure the sooner I get it over with, the sooner I can help Jason with Porphyrion. As I clamber up a wall that looks like it's going to crumble beneath me, I tune into Jason's conversation with our murderous giant buddy.

"If you knew who I was," Jason is yelling, his hands empty — wait, where did his wood plank go? Did he drop it? Did that crazy son of a bitch drop the only weapon he had? I should've given him my sword. Maybe I can throw it to him. Despite his lack of a weapon, Jason looks perfectly confident, "you'd be worried about me, not my father. I hope you enjoyed your two and a half minutes of rebirth, giant, because I'm going to send you right back to Tartarus."

And I'm up on the wall. Cool. Now I walk along it, towards the chimney, moving like a tightrope walker. The stone walls are definitely thicker than a tightrope, but this feels like the best tactic — arms out wide, one foot in front of the other, never lifting one until the other is firmly planted. In the background, Porphyrion is boasting about all he's accomplished and how wonderful he is, and how high his grades were in Giant School. 

Okay, not that last part, but you get the gist.

"The Titans sought to attack your new home in New York," Porphyrion says, and my breath catches in my throat. "Bold, but ineffective. Gaea is wiser and more patient. And we, her greatest children, are much, much stronger than Kronos. We know how to kill you Olympians once and for all. You must be dug up completely like rotten trees — your eldest roots torn out and burned."

That sounds bad. That sounds really bad. 

"You said a demigod killed you," Jason shouts. "How, if we're so puny?"

Porphyrion doesn't take the bait, unfortunately. "Ha! You think I would explain it to you? I was created to be Zeus's replacement, born to destroy the lord of the sky. I shall take his throne. I shall take his wife — or, if she will not have me, I will let the earth consume her life force. What you see before you, child, is only my weakened form. I will grow stronger by the hour, until I am invincible. But I am already quite capable of smashing you to a grease spot!"

Finally, I'm just a leap away from the chimney. Unfortunately, Porphyrion chooses this exact moment to rise to full height and summon a twenty-foot spear out of the ground. He stomps and the ruins quake. I nearly lose my footing. I launch myself forward, latching on the best I can and holding on tight until the shaking stops. When I look up, it's to the sight of all of the monsters we'd already defeated reforming or recuperating.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I grumble as I push myself back up onto my feet. "That's so unfucking fair."

I take a deep breath. I'm about to take the jump when Porphyrion decides to inconvenience me yet again by raking his spear across the top of the ruins, toppling the chimney I was supposed to climb, and forcing me to jump to the ground, hitting a particularly solid patch of snow with a thud. My right shoulder takes the brunt of the impact, and I grimace as pain shoots through my right arm when I get to my feet. Of course. Just my luck. I fucking dislocated my fucking shoulder.

I lay there for a second. Hera's voice echoes in my head. Do you stay down, or do you get back up and try again?

I shake my head at myself. "Haven't we been over this?"

Getting up is the easy part. Now I have to finish running my stupid little errand with a dislocated shoulder.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," I chant under my breath as I run around, trying to figure out where the remains of the chimney landed all while trying not to move my right arm too much. It's pretty much useless at the moment. Thank the gods I'm ambidextrous. 

Inside, I can hear Jason yelling, "I'm the son of Jupiter! I'm a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the First Legion."

"Holy shit," I say to myself. "He made praetor?" I do a double-take. "Wait, I know what that means?"

"I slew the Trojan sea monster," Jason adds, voice booming. "I toppled the black throne of Kronos, and destroyed the Titan Krios with my own hands. And now I'm going to destroy you, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves."

"Gods, he's so hot when he's confident," I sigh. 

I weave between frozen Hunters who are slowly starting to thaw now that Khione's ditched. I should melt them, get more bodies into the fight. But that would take a lot of energy that I'm not sure I have right now, so I decide to focus on my stupid fucking chimney mission. Side note: I really need to improve my vocabulary and cut back on the cursing.

A bolt of lightning catches my eye. So that means Jason's still alive. Good. That's good. Better than good. Wonderful. Dear gods, it hurts to dislocate your shoulder. I've partially dislocated a shoulder before, but it didn't hurt as much as this. This is searing pain and honestly, if it wasn't for the biting cold still lingering from Khione's bullshit, I probably would've passed out by now, so...thanks Khione?

It feels like it takes fucking forever (maybe a swear jar would help?), but finally, my eyes land on the chimney. It's landed perfectly, just barely avoiding crushing a Hunter I vaguely recognize from the Battle of Manhattan. I kneel by the top and reach in with my good arm, saying a silent prayer to literally anyone that I won't just find spiders and dead animals.

The first thing I touch is definitely a web. I yelp and yank my hand back, then shake my head at myself. It's just a spiderweb. You fought in a fucking war. You've got this.

I reach back in and push through the web, wincing and whining the entire time. I don't know what I expect to feel next, but I probably should've guessed feathers. I pull out a dead bird and toss it aside. I sincerely doubt that's what Hera wants. I shift to lie on my belly and light up my left hand so I can reach deeper and (kind of) see what I'm doing. I see more webs, dead bugs, and...is that a box?

Yeah, it's a box. A jewelry box, maybe. From the way the light's glinting off of it, it seems to be metal. A tarnished metal, but metal nonetheless. Gold, maybe? Or brass? A mixture of both, most likely. I burn away some of the webs to get a better look. The design on the box is intricate — curling filigree and a pendant shaped like a caduceus. Usually a symbol of Hermes or Mercury, but it can also be a symbol for my mom.

It's a stretch, but I get my fingers around one of the little legs and I pull it free. I squeal triumphantly just as I hear Leo holler, "Got it!"

I rush to get up and run back to my friends, the box under my good arm. I arrive just in time to see Porphyrion disappear into the ground like fucking Mario. Hera, now free of her cage, stands tall in a white gown, looking just as powerful and regal as I remember her. She's glowing. Not in like a healthy way, in a literal way. The monsters are running around in a panic, trying desperately to escape their fate.

I can't help but smirk. Any demigod could tell them their efforts were futile. No one can escape their destiny.

Hera's glow intensifies, and I realize what she's going to do. I screw my eyes shut and cover them with my hand for good measure before she can tell us to. I wait for the blinding glow to fade before I let my hand drop and my eyes open. At first, all I can do is smile. The battle is over. We won. Hera's wiped all of the monsters off of the map, melted away the winter, and restored the ruins of Wolf House to its slightly-less damaged state.

And then I see Jason.

"Jason!" I hardly register dropping the box. It's like one second I'm at the edge of the courtyard and the next I'm kneeling at his side, trying to shake him awake. But he won't open his eyes. Steam curls off of his body. His eyes are rolled back in his head. I can't bring myself to check his pulse. "Jason!"

Piper drops down next to me, pulls him into her arms, and starts calling his name too, but it doesn't work. He's dead.

"Jason!" I beg. I'm begging. Now that he's in Piper's arms, I can't keep shaking him, so I take his hand and I squeeze. He doesn't squeeze back. I shake my head, my vision blurring with tears. "No, no, no, you can't do this. You can't leave me. It's not fair."

"It's no use, child," Hera says, clad in her black robes and shawl once more. 

She's right, but I don't care. Tears are streaming down my face. I don't even feel my shoulder anymore. "Jason, please. Please, Jay, wake up. I-I just got you back, I can't lose you. Please."

He's dead.

A newly defrosted Thalia comes to kneel at my other side. She lays a hand on Jason's forehead and shoots Hera a dirty look. "This is your fault. Do something!"

"Do not address me that way, girl. I am the queen—"

"Fix him!"

"I did warn him," Hera says, sounding only vaguely regretful. "I would never intentionally hurt the boy. He was to be my champion. I told them to close their eyes before I revealed my true form."

"Um...true form is bad, right?" Leo asks. "So why did you do it?"

Hera scoffs. "I unleashed my power to help you, fool! I became pure energy so I could disintegrate the monsters, restore this place, and even save the miserable Hunters from the ice."

"But mortals can't look upon you in that form!" Thalia shouts over my babbling. I'm not sure what I'm saying anymore, what makes it out in between sobs. She moves her hand from Jason's forehead to my uninjured shoulder. A small act of comfort, but it means a lot coming from her. "You've killed him!"

He's dead.

"That's what our prophecy meant," Leo realizes. His voice sounds weirdly far-off. "Death unleash, through Hera's rage. Come on, lady. You're a goddess. Do some voodoo magic on him! Bring him back."

I shake my head, squeezing his hand desperately. "We don't need her." I look at Thalia, sniffling and snotty, chest burning with the effort of breathing. Of being alive when Jason isn't. She's all blurred and soft, like a watercolor painting. "We'll go to LA, to the Underworld. We'll-We'll march down to Hades's palace and demand...demand he gives us Jason back. Orpheus won over Persephone with his tale of sorrow. We can too."

"Cordy—"

There's a pressure on my hand, like squeezing, but I hardly notice it in my current state. "No! No, I need to tell him...Thalia, I never told him, I...I never told him. I need to...I have to—"

"Cordy." This time, it's Piper who interjects. There's a look on her face like a child seeing magic for the first time. She tears her eyes away from Jason to meet my gaze. "He's breathing."

*

i hope i made at least one person cry with this chapter. ik that sounds evil but!! i'm a writer!! it's what we do!!

we're so so so close to the end of this fic. just four more chapters left!! any theories as to what's next? lmk and i MIGHT give you a hint or two ;)