OPHELIA DROWNED IN NIGHT SHADOWS AND FIRE. All around her, heat blazed in her face, burning but not killing. She could still breathe amidst smoke. She couldn't see beyond her arms. Reds, oranges, golds spun around her.

Chaos. Entirely chaos. All around her, black and fire. Ophelia tried to scream. As she opened her mouth, sulfur and smoke choked her cry. Tears steamed down her face. She reached out. She reached for where the sky must be.

But no one reached back. Ophelia screamed. Fire consumed her. Hot, blazing, but not deadly. Eternal flames. Stumbling forward, the flames moved but didn't depart. She fell to her knees. She hit gravel. The pieces of rock dug into her bare skin as she clawed forward beneath the inferno.

How had she gotten here? Last she remembered, Alex had unlocked the doors. Another burst of flames shot into her face. Ophelia hid, choking. She had been beside him, together. Then a crash, shrapnel.

Had she died?

Was this it?

Ophelia glanced around. Flames forever? No. She dug her nails into black gravel and ash and pulled herself forward. Her hands were stained black.

This couldn't be it.

Strangled by ash and fire, Ophelia carried on. She couldn't be dead. She couldn't. Not alone forever in the Fields of Punishment.

Ophelia narrowed her eyes. Did she see someone beyond the fire? Still and silent, a shadow swayed like a man beyond a curtain. Inching forward, the flames moved and allowed her sight.

Samuel. Her half brother sat cross-legged as if meditating, surrounded by fire. Ash covered him, hands and feet scabbed. All around him flames danced and suffocated. Samuel, killed by fire, sentenced to sit in it for all eternity.

Anger filled a deep pit of her stomach. How could the gods do this? He had smiled while her friends burned, but still. To burn forever?

Another flash of flames caught Ophelia in the face. She screamed as it left a hot white scar across her arms and cheeks. But crying only made it worse. This had to be a dream. It had to be. Ophelia willed herself awake. Out. She needed out!

Samuel looked over, flames separating them again. "Ophelia!"

You need to leave, now!

Blackness.

Infinite black. Stretching on as far as her dark-piercing eyes could see, Ophelia watched men and women struggle against their deepest sins and regrets. Acting as servants for Hades unto eternity, at his whims. She floated above it all. Riches below, below screams and cries and tears. Ice and fire, blood and bones.

Why did they deserve this? Her siblings, their cousins who had been tricked and schemed into fighting for the Titan lord, why did they deserve to suffer eternally? Freedom of choice meant nothing to the god of the Underworld. He wanted subjects. He couldn't get the living so he stole the dead.

Ophelia heard a great wind. All around her, shadows swirled until she felt she could explode from energy. She saw everything. She saw what would happen. They had to succeed.

This couldn't happen. This couldn't be allowed.

In a catastrophic explosion, flames shot forth from the base of the Underworld. Ophelia screamed as her skin burned, clawing at the flames trying to get free. She screamed, but smoke choked her.

Silver flashed across her vision.

Ophelia panted, gasping for breath as she rolled over on a blanket in some kind of fancy tent. Fresh air filled her lungs. But she had to get out. She had to leave this, too frazzled to sleep.

Her chest ached. But she scrambled up, almost tripping over Kitty in the process, and all but fell out into a clearing. A few identical silver tents lined the open space and in the center stood a young girl, about fourteen, arms crossed on her chest. Somehow, Ophelia knew her without introduction. The goddess of the moon.

"Ophelia Byrd, daughter of Hecate?"

No point trying to lie to a goddess who seemed intent on talking. "Yes."

"Come here."

Ophelia walked over to Artemis. Not bowing, but drawing no weapon, she just nodded. Hecate and Artemis sometimes shared worshippers. But here, a fourteen year old girl with attitude and confidence, Artemis didn't seem anything like Hecate.

"My brother can be an idiot," Artemis said. She took a deep breath, looking Ophelia up and down. "But he knows prophecies. He says you are dangerous."

They don't trust you. After all you've done to help, they don't trust you!

"Of course I am," Ophelia said. She crossed her arms, regretting it a bit as fresh pain coursed through her chest. "We're all dangerous."

Artemis didn't seem amused. "You are called Strife's Heir in the prophecy."

Ophelia could feel the blood drain from her face. Only Alex knew about her voice, and the voices of the Underworld that lay like background music in her mind more often than not. What would the goddess do to her? Surely she'd be cast into the Fields of Punishment with the others.

"I have her blood, yes," she said.

"She is dangerous," Artemis said. Moving closer, the goddess took Ophelia's Hecate necklace in her hands. "Follow your mother, not Discord."

They're afraid of that word. Heir. Makes them panic and see all others as enemies.

Ophelia paused. She tried to ignore Eris, to focus on the night around her. Artemis made no move to leave. Shadows surrounded her as she tried to calm down. She could still feel her hands shaking from the vision, the dream.

"What did she do?" Ophelia said.

The goddess paled beneath the moon. Not often did gods look scared, least of all one as composed as Artemis. But she moved away. She looked into the woods.

"She fosters evil war and battle," Artemis said. "Often with Ares, always cruel. She is jealous of the Olympians and seeks to use the Night for evil, born of darkness."

Ophelia didn't answer. Eris stayed silent. She knew the tale of the Trojan War. She wasn't stupid. But so many were jealous of the Olympians. It didn't make them evil.

Samuel had always been jealous of Camp Half-Blood. Did he deserve the fire forever? Her hands shook in her pockets.

They are so scared of Night. Even the goddess of the moon. No wonder they distrust you.

"I'll be careful," Ophelia said.

Artemis looked up at her closer, several inches shorter. Her eyes sparkled like some kind of metallic coating covered them. Or was it simply the reflection of the moon above them? Ophelia didn't know. But she took a half step back. The goddess sighed.

"There is another option," Artemis said. When Ophelia didn't speak, she continued on. "I offer you a chance to join the Hunt. Forget your lover. He is bitter and resentful. As a Hunter you can leave those behind."

Ophelia paused. Become a Hunter? With their silver circlets and shining bows and arrows. Immortality, hunting monsters. She'd never considered it.

And as she turned from Artemis back to the tent where Alex lay still covered in dirt and blood, she knew there was nothing to consider. Her memories started coming back. Faint ones, scattered. One constant. Alex placing his body between her and Kitty and the Colchis Bull.

She turned back to Artemis. "No. No thank you," she said. "I have a quest and a boy I love and I will not leave him for anything."

Artemis didn't respond. She narrowed her eyes but didn't yell or reprimand. Hands on her hips, she sighed. "I expected as much. A foolish choice, but demigods and mortals alike follow passion more than they probably should." Artemis frowned. "Beware of the goddess of Strife, Ophelia Byrd."

She would ask you to desert the one you love and give all power back to her. She wants worshippers just as Hades does.

As Eris whispered in her mind, Artemis faded into shimmering moonlight. Ophelia found herself in the clearing, alone. Surrounded by trees and crickets, humidity still pressing upon her skin from every angle, she wished her mother would come.

Ophelia closed her eyes. In her mind she conjured the symbol of Hecate's Wheel, praying to her mother. She needed her. She needed guidance. No words came to her. But she felt a hand on her shoulder. Ophelia turned. No one was there.

But she knew the power that had radiated from the squeeze. Hecate had come. Her mother stood with her. She had a mission, to save her siblings. She had a lover, a boy who needed to remember that the anger to their parents might keep them from their mission. She had a friend, Kitty, who would stand by their side and fight for those who could not fight for themselves.

Ophelia turned away from the small, dying fire with a shiver. She remembered Samuel in the Fields of Punishment. That couldn't happen. It couldn't be allowed. She would stop this.

It wasn't hard to find a washcloth and some water. Alex deserved to be free of the blood and oil and grime as much as she and Kitty. If the Hunters wouldn't touch him, she would.

Blood covered every inch of him. As she sat down beside him, she took his hand. Tears filled her eyes at the warmth, the callouses. The boy who had loved her darkness and her fight against it. Ophelia couldn't stop her tears from cascading down her face. She wanted to bury her face in his chest.

Alex stirred. His breaths halted for a moment as he turned on the animal hide blanket. she wiped her eyes quickly and forced a smile, using the water and cloth on his face.

"What time?" He said, trying to sit up, brow creased.

"Shh." Ophelia closed her eyes and tries to feel the darkness. The world was at its darkest. "Somewhere between two and four AM. Stay still."

Alex didn't protest. He gripped her hand tighter and laid back against the soft blanket. It didn't take long for him to drift off again as she cleaned him up. If helped, being close to him. Artemis said he held bitterness and resentment. And he did. But he also held a heart bigger than any she'd ever seen. That's why he held hate. He had wanted to love the gods. She just knew. By the way he averted his eyes from Hermes, unable to face him the way he could face the others.

But his love could only take so much. And she knew the gods were capable of evil. True evil. Ophelia grabbed his hand again, no more blood or grime. The caduceus weapon, Vindication, glinted from light unseen. Maybe Hermes could mend the bridges. Maybe. They needed to. Ophelia could feel darkness coming. A crossroads. Soon.