Annabeth's POV:

"Today we honor tradition, and no Red devil will impede that. Now is the rite of Queenstrial, to bring forth the most talented daughter to wed the most noble son. In this, we find strength, to bind the High Houses, and power, to ensure Silver rule until the end of days, to defeat our enemies, on the borders, and within them," my father's voice booms through the Spiral Garden.

"Strength," the High Houses rumble back at him. They sound like a cult, and it's frightening. "Power."

"The time has come again to uphold this ideal, and both my sons and my daughter honor our most solemn custom." He waves a hand, and my brothers and I step forward. "The Princess Annabeth, of House Calore and Merandus, daughter of my royal wife, the Queen Elara." I flinch at the title.

Of course, Elara wasn't really my mother, but that was what my father and that she-demon told the people of Norta in order to hide my true parentage. Hecate had helped a bit, manipulating the mist to make the people of Norta believe that the queen had been pregnant.

I had always been the odd one in the family; they all thought I was weird and mentally unstable, and on top of that I had a weird and unique ability (as most Silver demigods do). I was a burner like my father and half brothers, I could manipulate and produce heat; but I couldn't manipulate normal fire like they could. No, I could create and manipulate Greek Fire, and I didn't need those burner bracelets to use my ability.

"The Prince Maven, of House Calore and Merandus, son of my royal wife, the Queen Elara." Maven raises a hand in stern greeting. Though he has a regal, serious look to him, he's only seventeen. Sharp-featured and blue-eyed, he could freeze fire with his smile - he despises this pageantry.

"And the crown prince of House Calore and Jacos, son of my late wife, the Queen Coriane, heir to the Kingdom of Norta and the Burning Crown, Tiberias the Seventh." Cal gives a small wave in greeting.

"All of you have come to honor my son and the kingdom, and so I honor you," Father continues. He raises his arms, gesturing to the many boxes of people. "I honor your right to rule. The future king, the son of my son, will be of your silverblood, as he will be of mine. Who will claim their right?"

Lord Samos is the first to respond. "I claim Queenstrial!"

All over the spiral, the leaders of the different houses shout in unison. "I claim Queenstrial!" they echo. A few claim Princestrial, but only a few. A lot of the men eligible to compete for my hand were already married or betrothed.

Father smiles and nods. "Then it has begun. Lord Provos, if you would."

Father turns on the spot, looking toward House Provos. Lord Provos steps forward. When he twitches his hand, the boxes move sideways along prebuilt tracks. The entire structure twists under his command until the garden floor widens into a huge circle. The lower terraces pull back, aligning with the upper levels, and the spiral becomes a massive cylinder open to the sky. As the terraces move, the floor lowers, until it stops nearly twenty feet below the lowest box. The fountains turn into waterfalls, spilling from the top of the cylinder to the bottom, where they fill deep narrow pools.

When Lord Provos is done the lightning shield is turned on. Its purpose is to protect the audience from any debris during the performances, but we all know that Lady Mareena Titanos will be using it for her own performance.

The girls competing in Queenstrial perform first. I tune most of their performances out, instead, focusing on plans for the war with Kronos.

I'm so lost in thought I don't realize that Princetrial has started until it's Istvan Osanos's turn to perform. Like the rest of House Osanos, Istvan was a nymph. He was probably the most powerful nymph in Norta, but he was nowhere near as powerful as Percy. Istvan was also one of the most vain people I've ever met, and I've met the Olympian Gods. He took the meaning of his name - man with crown - to heart, insisting that he was destined to be my husband. And based on how I was to choose a husband, he might be right. Istvan had dedicated his life to training to win Princetrial; he was powerful enough to control someone's actions using the water in their body.

I watch as he walks around the arena, taking his time. Then the contents in everyone's cups start making their way to the center of the Spiral Garden. Istvan clenches his fist, and the liquid concoction starts to spin, faster and faster, until it's a liquid tornado.

After a minute, it seems that Istvan must have gotten bored and moved on while keeping the tornado going, because there were many gasps coming from the boxes on the lower levels. I leaned forward to see what all the fuss was about. There, lying on the ground, was a Red servant, a male from the looks of it. Anger boils inside me. Had Istvan really taken control of an innocent Red servant, forcing them to commit suicide, just for some stupid performance!

Then the boy moves, standing up. I have to stop myself from gasping. His eyes, I realize, are sea green, Percy's sea green. My Percy had somehow gotten a job at the palace, only to be thrown into an arena, survive, and was now probably going to get interrogated.

"Hi," Percy says. It takes everything in me to resist the urge to facepalm. Really, Seaweed Brain, really?

In response, Istvan sends a blast of water toward Percy. If I wasn't in such a state of shock, I would've laughed. Percy reacted instantly, thrusting his hands out and sending the water back in the opposite direction. Then the walls explode and the arena floods with water. The earth shakes, and the wind rips violently through the Spiral Garden as a small hurricane forms in the sky.

Istvan clearly didn't expect Percy to do anything, because when the water had drained, going Gods know where, he was on his hands and knees coughing up water. How ironic, the most powerful nymph in Norta almost drownded. But Percy was nowhere to be found.

"Sentinels!" Father ordered.

Percy's POV:

I'm on Mount Othrys, running in slow motion, trying to get away from Kronos as he approaches leisurely, swinging his scythe. I hear Rachel yell my name as she throws her blue plastic hairbrush at Kronos's eye. For the split second of time that I have, while Kronos is distracted, I run as fast as I've ever run, straight out of the fortress, toward the Labyrinth entrance. Shadows swirled. The world spins around me, and then I'm falling.

I land in the winter before the Labyrinth at the Hoover Dam.

'Let's find the dam snack bar,' Zoë says. 'We should eat while we can'

'The dam snack bar?' Grover asks, smiling.

'Yes. What is funny?' Zoë responds.

'Nothing,' Grover says, trying to keep a straight face. 'I could use some dam French Fries.'

'And I need to use the dam restroom,' Thalia adds, smiling.

Grover, Thalia, and I start cracking up, while Zoë just looks at us. 'I do not understand.'

'I want to use the dam water fountain,' Grover says.

'And...' Thalia tries to catch her breath. 'I want to buy a dam T-shirt.'

The shadows swirl around me again. This time I land in the middle of my fight with the Hydra. Annabeth, Tyson, and I are trying to avoid the Hydra's acid. Clarisse has just given her dead Confederates the order to fire at will. 'Hit the dirt!' Annabeth yells as an earth-shattering BOOM echoes from the river. There is a flash of light, a column of smoke, and the Hydra explodes right in front of us, showering us with nasty green slime that vaporizes as soon as it hit, the way monster guts tend to do.

The shadows swirl around me yet again, and this time I'm in the DOA lobby talking to Charon.

'We want to go to the Underworld,' Annabeth says.

Charon's mouth twitches. 'Well, that's refreshing.'

'It is?' she asks.

'Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No "There must be a mistake, Mr. Charon".' He looks us over. 'How did you die, then?'

'Oh,' Grover says. 'Um...drowned...in the bathtub.'

'All three of you?' Charon asks.

We nod. 'Big bathtub.'

This time I feel the shadows before I see them. And it feels angry. It drags me through a parade of memories. Some of them are even dreams. No, they're nightmares. My worst nightmares.

A new world materializes around me. It's Camp Half-Blood, but it's completely destroyed. I watch as Kronos kills Annabeth, Tyson, Grover, Nico, Thalia, Blackjack, Chiron, my mom, Paul, and hundreds of others. And I'm helpless to save them.

The scene shifts and this time I see Kronos leading an army of monsters and half-bloods through Olympus, destroying everything in sight.

"Stop!" I manage to scream. The shadows are back, swirling around me. They engulf me in darkness until a wave of memories overtakes me again. My first encounter with the Oracle. Annabeth kissing me at Mount Saint Helens. Calypso. My fight with Ares. Holding up the sky. Bianca di Angelo's death. Almost falling into Tartarus. My time as a guinea pig. Getting claimed during capture the flag. Meeting my father for the first time. Zoë's death. My fight with the Minotaur on Half-Blood Hill. Apollo's awful haikus. And then there are the moments I can't possibly remember: learning to speak and walk, my mom holding me as an infant, my mom marrying Smelly Gabe (no scratch that, I remember my mom marrying Smelly Gabe very vividly). This is impossible.

"Impossible," the shadows say to me. The voice is so sharp, I fear it might crack my skull. I fall to my knees, colliding with what feels like concrete.

And then they're gone. My friends, my brother, Annabeth, my mom and Paul, my memories, my nightmares, gone. Concrete and steel bars rise around me. A cage.

I struggle to my feet, one hand on my aching head as things come into focus. A figure stares at me from beyond the bars. A crown glitters on her head.

"I'd bow, but I might fall over," I say to Queen Elara. She just smirks. A wave of nausea washes over me when I meet her eyes, and I double over again.

"That looks like a bow to me," she purrs, enjoying my pain.

I fight the urge to vomit and reach out to grab the bars. My fist clenches around cold steel. "What are you doing to me?"

"Not much of anything anymore. But this - " She reaches through the bars to touch my temple. I'm too weak to stop her, but nothing happens. What a disappointment. "This is to keep you from doing anything silly."

"Like stand on my own two feet?" I manage to spit out.

"Like flood the entire palace," she snaps.

"I guarantee you, Your Majesty, that flooding the entire palace isn't the only thing that I'm capable of," I say calmly.

"You are not Silver. Your parents are Red, you are Red, and your blood is Red," the queen murmurs, prowling before the bars of my cage. "You are a miracle, Perseus Jackson, an impossibility. Something even I can't understand, and I have seen all of you."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't recommend trying to understand my family, it will only result in a massive headache," I say. "So that was you? You were in my mind? My memories? My nightmares?"

"If you know someone's fear, you know them." She blinks at me like I'm some stupid creature. "And I had to know what it is we're dealing with."

"I am not an it. I'm -"

"What you are remains to be seen. But be thankful for one thing little water boy," she sneers. "You did that in front of hundreds of Silvers, people who will ask questions, people with power. That is the only reason you are still alive."

"Three things. One: don't ever call me water boy. Two: if you think that the Silvers who witnessed what I did are people with power, then you don't know what true power looks like. And three: you sound like Annabeth when she's explaining things."

"Well, I am her mother."

I stare at her, confused. "Um, no, you're not. Annabeth's mother is Athena," I say, still not sure why the queen was claiming to be Annabeth's mother.

"Yes, but the people don't know that. And you shouldn't know that either." Stars explode behind my eyes, clouding my vision, but I hear her go in a swirl of rustling silk. My sight returns just in time to see her dress disappear around a corner.

"Nice talking to ya, Your Majesty," I call after her. I walk over to the bench and lie down. Exhaustion overcomes me and I fall into a dreamless sleep, thankfully.

A/N:

Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this chapter. In case any of you are wondering, Mare is a Silver in this book and she destroyed the lightning shield during her performance. That is why Percy didn't land on it. Also, Istvan is a completely original character.

If you liked this chapter then leave a comment, in fact, leave a comment even if you didn't like it. I want to know what you guys think and how I can improve.

Hope you all have a lovely day or night.

XOXO, HamiltonFanGirl1508