CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
SILVIANA       DUVALL

Losing her sight had been bad enough. Being isolated from Percy had been horrible. Breaking multiple ribs was one of the worst pains Sylvie ever had to withstand.

But watching Percy die slowly from gorgon's blood poison and being unable to do anything about it—that was the worst curse of all.

Nemo slung Percy over her shoulder like a bag of sports equipment while the skeleton kitten Marlin curled up on Percy's back and purring. Nemo floated along at a fast pace, even for a Titaness, which made it impossible for Sylvie to keep up.

Walking with broken ribs was incredibly excruciating. It felt like her entire body was on fire, and there was an intense, sharp pain whenever she moved. Sylvie winced with every step. She tried keeping her torso as still as possible, so her movements were jerky, trying to compensate for the pain. But the agony was radiating outward, making her feel lightheaded and dizzy.

Her arms instinctively hugged her body, but that didn't provide much relief. Her lungs rattled. Her skin had started to blister again. She probably needed another drink of firewater, but they'd left the River Phlegethon behind. Her body was so sore and battered that she'd forgotten what it was like not to be in pain.

"How much longer?" she wheezed.

"Almost too long," Nemo called back. "But maybe not."

Very helpful, Sylvie thought, but she was too winded to say it. Her breath was already so shallow and rapid, instinctively trying to avoid deep inhales because the slightest expansion of her chest sent waves of searing pain across her broken ribs.

The landscape changed again. They were still going downhill, which should have made traveling easier; but the ground sloped at just the wrong angle—too steep to jog, too treacherous to let her guard down even for a moment. The surface was sometimes loose gravel, sometimes patches of slime. Sylvie stepped around random bristles sharp enough to impale her foot, and clusters of... well, not rocks exactly. More like warts the size of watermelons. If Sylvie had to guess (and she didn't want to) she supposed Nemo was leading her down the length of Tartarus's large intestine.

The air got thicker and stank of sewage. The darkness maybe wasn't quite as intense, but she could only see Nemo because of the mistiness fogging off her body and the point of her wiper spear. Sylvie noticed Nemo hadn't retracted the spearhead on her windshield wiper since their fight with the arai. That didn't reassure her.

Percy flopped around, causing the kitten to readjust his nest in the small of Percy's back. Occasionally Percy would groan in pain, and Sylvie felt like a fist was squeezing her heart.

She flashed back to her tea party with Annabeth, Finley, Piper, and Aphrodite in Charleston. That seemed so long ago now. Aphrodite had sighed and waxed nostalgia about the good old days—how love and war always went hand in hand.

Sylvie had always been on relatively good terms with Aphrodite. According to Grover, she'd talked Sylvie up to Percy back when Sylvie was still pining hopelessly for him. She tried nudging Sylvie's love life in the right direction, with the claims that she was "fond" of Sylvie, for whatever reasons. Because of this, Sylvie started thinking that maybe, just maybe, Aphrodite had happy plans for Sylvie's future.

But now Sylvie had stopped holding out hope for her happy ending. She knew what the legends said about tragic heroes. Sylvie was never an exception, in any category. She'd suffered tirelessly through her entire life. Percy had too, but Sylvie was doubtful that they would receive a grand prize for being the couple who struggled the most. At best, they would just join Greek mythology's Hall of Fame for the most tragic love stories. Orpheus and Eurydice. Paris and Helen. Achilles and Patroclus. Conan and Demeter.

Right next to them, scribbled in a barely-legible font, she could see it: Perseus and Silviana.

She thought about Percy's daydream of New Rome—the two of them settling down there, going to college together. Sylvie would do anything to accomplish that ending for them. She would do anything to get far, far away from the list of couples ending in that of Greek tragedy. Maybe she could even have a daydream for herself. She and Percy comfortably home, safe from the dangers of this horrible demigod life; Percy smiling at her, carefree and at peace, and Sylvie smiling back at him, happy and calm; both of them possibly smiling down at children of their own. Yeah. That sounded nice.

If only they survived this. If only Reyna had gotten her message. If only a million other long shots paid off.

Stop it, she chided herself.

She had to concentrate on the present, taking slow breaths, putting one foot in front of the other, taking this downhill intestinal hike one giant wart at a time.

Her knees felt warm and wobbly, like wire hangers bent to the point of snapping. Percy groaned and muttered something she couldn't make out.

Nemo stopped suddenly. "Look."

Ahead in the gloom, the terrain leveled out into a black swamp. Sulfur-yellow mist hung in the air. Even without sunlight, there were actual plants—clumps of reeds, scrawny leafless trees, even a few sickly-looking flowers blooming in the muck. Sylvie didn't care how desolate this vegetation was. She still felt her heart soar. It was the closest thing she would get to home—to the earth, to her siblings, to her mother.

Mossy trails wound between bubbling tar pits. Directly in front of Sylvie, sunken into the bog, were footprints the size of trash-can lids, with long, pointed toes.

Sylvie's heart fell back down. "Drakon?"

She didn't have a good history with drakons. Last summer, she'd tried fighting one with Percy and Annabeth. Her fatal flaw had glued her in place, and Percy barely had time to throw Sylvie out the way before she was the creature's next meal. Still, it was able to slice one of its unruly claws down the side of Sylvie's face. It was how she ended up with the face scar she had now, one that was identical to that of Luke Castellan's. As if it couldn't get any worse, that same drakon was the one that ended in Silena Beauregard's death. That same drakon was the one that ended in Micheline Hayes becoming the head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin.

She really missed Mickey.

"Yes." Nemo grinned at her. "That is good!"

"Uh... why?"

Nemo marched into the swamp.

Sylvie wanted to scream. She hated being at the mercy of a Titaness—especially one who had previously tried killing her, and was now slowly recovering lost memories, bringing them to see a "good" giant. She hated forging through the stomping grounds of a drakon.

But Nemo had Percy. If she hesitated, she would lose them in the dark. She hurried after him, pushing through her rattling pain, hopping from moss patch to moss patch and praying to Demeter that she didn't fall in a sinkhole.

At least the terrain forced Nemo to go slower, and gave Sylvie the strength to go a little faster. Once Sylvie caught up, she could walk right behind her and keep an eye on Percy, who was mumbling deliriously, his forehead dangerously hot. Several times he muttered Sylv, and she fought back a sob. The kitten just purred louder and snuggled up.

Finally the yellow mist parted, revealing a muddy clearing like an island in the muck. The ground was dotted with stunted trees and wart mounds. In the center loomed a large, domed hut made of bones and greenish leather. Smoke rose from a hole in the top. The entrance was covered with curtains of scaly reptile skin, and flanking the entrance, two torches made from colossal femur bones burned bright yellow.

What really caught Sylvie's attention was the drakon skull. Fifty yards into the clearing, about halfway to the hut, a massive oak tree jutted from the ground at a forty-five-degree angle. The jaws of a drakon skill encircled the trunk, as if the oak tree were the dead monster's tongue.

"Yes," Nemo murmured. "This is very good."

Nothing about this place felt good to Sylvie.

Before she could protest, Marlin arched his back and hissed. Behind them, a mighty roar echoed through the swamp—a sound Sylvie had last heard in the Battle of Manhattan.

She turned and saw the drakon charging toward them.

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The most insulting part?

The drakon was easily the most beautiful thing Sylvie had seen since she had fallen into Tartarus (beside Percy). Its hide was dappled green and yellow, like sunlight through a forest canopy. Its reptilian eyes were Sylvie's favorite shade of sea green (just like Percy's). When its frills unfurled around its head, Sylvie couldn't help but think what a regal and amazing monster it was that was about to kill her.

It was easily as long as a subway train. Its massive talons dug into the mud as it pulled itself forward, its tail whipping from side to side. The drakon hissed, spitting jets of green poison that smoked on the mossy ground and set tar pits on fire, filling the air with the scent of fresh pine and ginger. The monster even smelled good. Like most drakons, it was wingless, longer and more snakelike than a dragon, and it looked hungry.

"Nemo," Sylvie heaved. "What're we facin' here?"

"Maeonian drakon," Nemo said. "From Maeonia."

More helpful information. Sylvie would've stabbed Nemo in the chest a second time if she had the strength for broad movements. "Any way we can kill it?"

"Us?" Nemo said. "No."

"Awesome."

The drakon roared as if to accentuate the point, filling the air with more pine-ginger poison, which would have made an excellent car-freshener scent.

"Get Percy to safety," Sylvie said. "I'll distract it."

She had no idea how she would do that, but it was her only choice. She couldn't let Percy die—not if she still had the strength to somewhat stand.

"You don't have to," Nemo said. "Any minute—"

"ROOOOOAAAR!"

Sylvie turned her head as the giant emerged from his hut.

He was about twenty feet tall—typical giant height—with a humanoid upper body, and scaly reptilian legs, like a bipedal dinosaur. He held no weapon. Instead of armor, he wore only a shirt stitched together from sheep hides and green-spotted leather. His skin was cherry red; his beard and hair the color of iron rust, braided with tufts of grass, leaves, and swamp flowers.

He shouted in challenge, but thankfully he wasn't looking at Sylvie. Nemo pulled her out of the way as the giant stormed toward the drakon.

They clashed like some sort of weird Christmas combat scene—the red versus the green. The drakon spewed poison. The giant lunged to one side. He grabbed the oak tree and pulled it from the ground, roots and all. The old skull crumbled to dust as the giant hefted the tree like a baseball bat.

The drakon's tail lashed around the giant's waist, dragging him closer to its gnashing teeth. But as soon as the giant was in range, he shoved the tree straight down the monster's throat.

Sylvie hoped she never had to see such a gruesome scene again. The tree pierced the drakon's gullet and impaled it to the ground. The roots began to move, digging deeper as they touched the earth, anchoring the oak until it looked like it had stood in that spot for centuries. The drakon shook and thrashed, but it was pinned fast.

The giant brought his fist down on the drakon's neck. CRACK. The monster went limp. It began to dissolve, leaving only scraps of bone, meat, hide, and a new drakon skull whose open jaws ringed the oak tree.

Nemo hummed. "Good one."

The kitten purred in agreement and started cleaning his paws.

The giant kicked at the drakon's remains, examining them critically. "No good bones," he complained. "I wanted a new walking stick. Hmpf. Some good skin for the outhouse, though."

He ripped some soft hide from the drakon's frills and tucked it in his belt.

"Uh..." Sylvie wanted to ask if the giant really used drakon hide for toilet paper, but she decided against it. "Nemo, do you... wanna introduce us?"

"Sylvie..." Nemo patted Percy's legs. "This is Percy."

Sylvie hoped the Titaness was just messing with her, and Nemo's face definitely revealed a hint of attitude.

She gritted her teeth. "I meant the giant. You promised... he could help."

"Promise?" The giant glanced over from his work. His eyes narrowed under his bushy red eyebrows. "A big thing, a promise. Why would Nemo promise my help?"

Nemo shifted her weight. Titans were big and scary, but Sylvie had never seen one next to a giant before. Compared to the drakon-killer, Nemo looked downright runty.

"Damasen is a good giant," Nemo said. "He is peaceful. He can cure poisons."

Sylvie watched the giant Damasen, who was now ripping chunks of bloody meat from the drakon carcass with his bare hands.

"Peaceful," she said. "Yeah, I can see that."

"Good meat for dinner." Damasen stood up straight and studied Sylvie, as if she were another potential source of protein. "Come inside. We will have stew. Then we will see about this promise."

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Cozy.

Sylvie never thought she would describe anything in Tartarus that way, but despite the fact that the giant's hut was as big as a planetarium and constructed of bones, mud, and drakon skin, it felt cozy.

In the center blazed a bonfire made of pitch and bone; yet the smoke was white and odorless, rising through the hole in the middle of the ceiling. The floor was covered with dry marsh grass and gray wool rugs. At one end lay a massive bed of sheepskins and drakon leather. At the other end, freestanding racks were hung with drying plants, cured leather, and what looked like strips of drakon jerky. The whole place smelled of stew, smoke, basil, and thyme.

The only thing that worried Sylvie was the flock of sheep huddled in a pen at the back of the hut.

Sylvie wasn't a fan of sheep, just as she wasn't a fan of drakons. Before Sylvie was even born, her father had met her mother by catching her on the farm, talking to a sheep. Then Demeter left Conan Duvall without a word of goodbye, and the last thing on the farm she visited was that same sheep, running her fingers through its coat one last time. Back in the cave of Polyphemus the Cyclops, he ate demigods and sheep indiscriminately. She wondered if giants had similar tastes.

Part of her was tempted to run, but Nemo had already placed Percy in the giant's bed, where he nearly disappeared in the wool and leather. Marlin hopped off Percy and kneaded the blankets, purring so strongly the bed rattled like a Thousand-Finger Massage.

Damasen plodded to the bonfire. He tossed his drakon meat into a hanging pot that seemed to be made from an old monster skull, then picked up a ladle and began to stir.

Sylvie didn't want to be the next ingredient in his stew, but she'd come here for a reason. She took a rattling breath and hobbled over to Damasen. "My boyfriend's dyin'. Can you cure him or not?"

Her voice caught on the word boyfriend. Percy was a lot more than that. It didn't really cover it. They'd been through so much together, that at this point Percy was part of her. Sylvie never believed in soulmates before knowing Percy, and she still didn't know how she felt about the topic, but she did understand one thing: If anyone had to provide evidence, Sylvie and Percy made a pretty convincing argument that soulmates did exist.

She couldn't live without him. She would ignore any broken bone in her body—including numerous amounts of ribs—if it meant all of Percy's injuries got healed.

Damasen looked down at her, glowering under his bushy red eyebrows. Sylvie had met large scary humanoids before, but Damasen unsettled her in a different way. He didn't seem hostile. He radiated sorrow and bitterness, as if he were so wrapped up in his own misery that he resented Sylvie for trying to make him focus on anything else.

"I don't hear words like those in Tartarus," the giant grumbled. "Boyfriend. Promise."

Sylvie hugged around her ribs for support, though that didn't provide much relief. "How about gorgon's blood? Because—listen, dude—he is... actively dyin' from its poison, and I am one more shattered rib away from just, like, shittin' my pants. Just straight up. Out of fear. I'm in Tartarus, and now he's about to die. So... yeah. If you don't cure him, I'm gonna just shit my pants. All over your floor."

Damasen scowled at her. "You question my talents? A half-dead mortal straggles into my swamp, threatens to defecate in my house, and questions my talents?"

"Yes."

"Hmph." Damasen handed Nemo the ladle. "Stir."

As Nemo tended the stew, Damasen perused his drying racks, plucking various leaves and roots. He popped a fistful of plant material into his mouth, chewed it up, then spat it into a clump of wool.

"Cup of broth," Damasen ordered.

Nemo ladled some stew juice into a hollow gourd. She handed it to Damasen, who dunked the chewed-up gunk ball and stirred it with his finger.

"Gorgon's blood," he muttered. "Hardly a challenge for my talents."

Sylvie's aching ribs worsened at his words. She knew she should probably ask Damasen if he could heal her injuries too, but she forced herself to suffer in silence.

Sylvie couldn't think about her own issues right now. She didn't even want to. In the back of her mind, she could register her stomach growling and her ribs throbbing, but every other part of her worried for Percy. There's issues here far bigger than you, her brain told her. That was what it had been telling her this entire time. She wasn't about to start believing anything else now—not when Percy needed her the most.

Damasen lumbered to the bedside and propped up Percy with one hand. Marlin the kitten sniffed the broth and hissed. He scratched his sheets with his paws like he wanted to bury it.

Sylvie watched as the giant made Percy sip the broth. Damasen handled him with surprising gentleness, murmuring words of encouragement that she couldn't quite catch.

With each sip, Percy's color improved. He drained the cup, and his eyes fluttered open. He looked around with a dazed expression, spotted Sylvie, and gave her a drunken grin. "Score."

His eyes rolled up in his head. He fell back in the bed and began to snore.

"A few hours of sleep," Damasen pronounced. "He'll be good as new."

Sylvie could have sobbed with relief.

"Thank you," she said.

Damasen stared at her mournfully. "Oh, don't thank me. You're still doomed. And I require payment for my services."

Sylvie's mouth went dry. "Uh... what sorta payment?"

"A story." The giant's eyes glittered. "It gets boring in Tartarus. You can tell me your story while we eat, eh?"

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Sylvie felt uneasy telling a giant about their plans.

Well, mostly because speaking for so long felt like pushing her lungs against splintered glass.

Still, Damasen was a good host. He hadn't gotten too upset when Sylvie threatened to poo all over his floor. He'd saved Percy. His drakon-meat stew was excellent—or, it probably was. Sylvie was vegetarian, and it was already hard enough to eat with her shrinking stomach and fractured ribs. She just pretended to eat it instead and told him it was excellent. His hut was warm and comfortable, and Sylvie felt the safest she'd been in Tartarus. Which was ironic, since she was having dinner with a Titan and a giant.

She tried telling Damasen about her life and her adventures with Percy. She even explained—though with much struggle—how Sylvie had met Nemo, wiped her memory, and watched her fall into Tartarus.

"It's like I said," she promised Nemo. "You were tryna kill me. Like... to death. I didn't—think that either of us would end up so far off."

Even to her, it didn't sound convincing. Sylvie had created a special poison just to steal Nemo's power and title.

Nemo adjusted her shoulders sassily and stared off into the distance, hands picking at the chiton fabric in her lap.

Damasen made a rolling gesture with his spoon. "Continue your story, Silviana Duvall."

She backtracked and explained about their quest on the Argo II. When she got to the part about stopping Gaea from waking, she faltered. "She's, um... she's your mom, right?"

And Nemo's, she thought.

Damasen scraped his bowl. His face was covered with old poison burns, gouges, and scar tissue, so it looked like the surface of an asteroid.

"Yes," he said. "And Tartarus is my father." He gestured around the hut. "As you can see, I was a disappointment to my parents. They expected... more from me."

Sylvie couldn't quite wrap her mind around the fact that she was watching a twenty-foot-tall lizard-legged man sip soup, and his parents were the Earth and the Pit of Darkness. Nemo's parents were the Earth and the Heavens.

Olympian gods were hard enough to imagine as parents, but at least they resembled humans. The old primordial gods like Gaea, Tartarus, and Ouranos... How could you leave home and ever be independent of your parents, when they literally encompassed the entire world?

"So—" Sylvie felt a sharp-shooting pain in her ribs and wheezed before straightening. "You don't mind us fightin' your mom?"

Damasen snorted like a bull. "Best of luck. At present, it's my father you should worry about. With him opposing you, you have no chance to survive."

Suddenly, Sylvie couldn't even pretend to eat anymore. She put her bowl on the floor. Marlin came over to check it out.

"Opposin' us... how?" she asked.

"All of this." Damasen cracked a drakon bone and used a splinter as a toothpick. "All that you see is the body of Tartarus, or at least one manifestation of it. He knows you are here. He tries to thwart your progress at every step. My brethren hunt you. It is remarkable you have lived this long, even with the help of Mnemosyne."

Nemo scowled when she heard her name. "The defeated ones hunt us, yes. They will be close behind now."

Damasen spat out his toothpick. "I can obscure your path for a while, long enough for you to rest. I have power in this swamp. But eventually, they will catch you."

"My friends must reach the Doors of Death," Nemo said. "That is the way out."

"Impossible," Damasen muttered. "The Doors are too well guarded."

Sylvie sat forward—Well, she tried to. "But you know where they are?"

"Of course. All of Tartarus flows down to one place: his heart. The Doors of Death are there. But you cannot make it there alive with only Mnemosyne."

"Then come with us," Sylvie said. "Help us."

"HA!"

Sylvie jumped. Then groaned in pain. In the bed, Percy muttered deliriously in his sleep, "It's fine. Jus' you an' me."

"Child of Demeter," the giant said, "I am not your friend. I helped mortals once, and you see where it got me."

"You helped mortals?" Sylvie searched her newfound abilities for knowledge of this Greek legend. She inhaled a short gasp when she actually unlocked something. "You did. It's a bad story... isn't it? You—were created to oppose Ares."

"Yes," the giant agreed. "Like all my brethren, I was born to answer a certain god. My foe was Ares. But Ares was the god of war. And so, when I was born—"

"You were his opposite," Sylvie finished. "You were peaceful."

"Peaceful for a giant, at least." Damasen sighed. "I wandered the fields of Maeonia, in the land you now call Turkey. I tended my sheep and collected my herbs—not unlike what you do back at home. It was a good life. But I would not fight the gods. My mother and father cursed me for that. The final insult: One day the Maeonian drakon killed a human shepherd, a friend of mine, so I hunted the creature down and slew it, thrusting a tree straight through its mouth. I used the power of the earth to regrow the tree's roots, planting the drakon firmly in the ground. I made sure it would terrorize mortals no more. That was a deed Gaea could not forgive."

Gaea's voice from a past interaction rang in Sylvie's head: You really thought you could walk on my earth, controlling it, thinking it's your domain?

"Because you helped someone using her domain," she whispered.

"Yes." Damasen looked ashamed. "Gaea opened the earth, and I was consumed, exiled here in the belly of my father Tartarus, where all the useless flotsam collects—all the bits of creation he does not care for." The giant plucked a flower out of his hair and regarded it absently. "They let me live, tending my sheep, collecting my herbs, so I might know the uselessness of the life I chose. Every day—or what passes for day in this lightless place—the Maeonian drakon re-forms and attacks me. Killing it is my endless task."

Sylvie gazed around the hut, unable to stop thinking that Damasen actually reminded her a little bit of herself. The farming, the flowers in his hair, the torture from Gaea, the endless suffering. She tried to imagine how many eons Damasen had been exiled here—slaying the drakon, collecting its bones and hide meat, knowing it would attack again the next day. She could barely imagine surviving a week in Tartarus. Exiling your own son here for centuries? That was beyond cruel.

"Break the curse," she blurted out. "Come with us."

Damasen chuckled sourly. "As simple as that. Don't you think I have tried to leave this place? It is impossible. No matter which direction I travel, I end up here again. The swamp is the only thing I know—the only destination I can imagine. No, little demigod. My curse has overtaken me. I have no hope left."

"No hope," Nemo echoed.

"There's gotta be a way." Sylvie couldn't stand the expression on the giant's face. He looked so sad and defeated, wishing for something he believed was impossible. "Nemo's gotta plan to reach the Doors of—Death. She said we... could hide in some sort of Death Mist."

"Death Mist?" Damasen scowled at Nemo. "You would take them to Akhlys?"

"It is the only way," Nemo said.

"You will die," Damasen said. "Painfully. In darkness. Akhlys trusts no one and helps no one."

Nemo looked like she wanted to argue, but she pressed her lips together and remained silent.

"Is there another way?" Sylvie asked.

"No," Damasen said. "The Death Mist... that is the best plan. Unfortunately, it is a terrible plan."

Sylvie felt like she was hanging over the pit again, unable to pull herself up, unable to maintain her grip—left with no good options.

"But isn't it worth trying?" she asked. "You could return to the mortal world. You could see... the sun again. I can help you. I can—fight your mother, just as I'm prophesied to."

Damasen's eyes were like the socket of the drakon's skull—dark and hollow, devoid of hope. He flicked a broken bone into the fire and rose to his full height—a massive red warrior in sheepskin and drakon leather, with dried flowers and herbs in his hair. Sylvie could see how he was the anti-Ares. Ares was the worst god, blustery and violent. Damasen was the best giant, kind and helpful... and for that, he'd been cursed to eternal torment.

"Get some sleep," the giant said. "I will prepare supplies for your journey. I am sorry, but I cannot do more."

Sylvie wanted to argue, but as soon as he said sleep, her body betrayed her, despite her resolution never to sleep in Tartarus again. Despite her growling stomach. Despite her agonizing ribs.

The fire made a pleasant crackling sound. The herbs in the air reminded her of the hills around Camp Half-Blood in the summer, when the satyrs and naiads gathered wild plants in the lazy afternoons.

"Maybe a little sleep," she agreed.

Nemo scooped her up as gently as she could. Sylvie didn't protest. She was set next to Percy on the giant's bed, and she closed her eyes.

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Sylvie woke staring at the shadows dancing across the hut's ceiling. She hadn't had a single dream. That was so unusual, she wouldn't have been sure if she'd actually woken up if her shattered ribs weren't screaming at her.

As she lay there, Percy snoring next to her and Marlin purring under her arm, she heard Nemo and Damasen deep in conversation.

"You haven't told her," Damasen said.

"No," Nemo admitted. "She is already scared."

The giant grumbled. "She should be. And if you cannot guide them past Night?"

Damasen said Night like it was a proper name—an evil name.

"I have to," Nemo said.

"Why?" Damasen wondered. "What have the demigods given you? They have erased your old self, everything you were. Titans and giants... we are meant to be the foes of the gods and their children. Are we not?"

"Then why did you heal the boy?"

Damasen exhaled. "I have been wondering that myself. Perhaps because the girl goaded me, or perhaps... I find these two demigods intriguing. They are resilient to have made it so far. That is admirable. Still, how can we help them any further? It is not our fate."

"Perhaps," Nemo said, uncomfortably. "But... do you like our fate?"

"What a question. Does anyone like their fate?"

"I liked being Nemo," Nemo murmured. "Before I started to remember..."

"Huh." There was a shuffling sound, as if Damasen was stuffing a leather bag.

"Damasen," the Titan asked, "do you remember the sun?"

The shuffling stopped. Sylvie heard the giant exhale through his nostrils. "Yes. It was yellow. When it touched the horizon, it turned the sky beautiful colors."

"Mother never let me see it. I miss the sun," Nemo said. "The stars, too. I would like to say hello to the stars again."

"Stars..." Damasen said the word as if he'd forgotten its meaning. "Yes. They made silver patterns in the night sky." He threw something to the floor with a thump. "Bah. This is useless talk. We cannot—"

In the distance, the Maeonian drakon roared.

Percy sat bolt upright. "What? Silena—where—what?"

"It's okay." Sylvie wrapped her fingers around his wrist, and ran her thumb along the inside of it.

When he registered that they were together in a giant's bed with a skeleton cat, he looked more confused than ever. "That noise... where are we?"

"How much do you remember?" she asked.

Percy frowned. His eyes seemed alert. All his wounds had vanished. Except for his tattered date clothes and a few layers of dirt and grime, he looked as beautiful as the first day she'd seen him. He always did.

"I—the demon grandmothers—and then... not much."

Damasen loomed over the bed. "There is no time, little mortals. The drakon is returning. I fear its roar will draw the others—my brethren, hunting you. They will be here within minutes."

Sylvie's pulse quickened. "What'll you tell them when they get here?"

Damasen's mouth twitched. "What is there to tell? Nothing of significance, as long as you are gone."

He tossed them two drakon-leather satchels.

"Clothes, food, drink."

Nemo was wearing a similar but larger pack. She leaned on her windshield wiper, gazing at Sylvie as if still pondering Damasen's words: What have the demigods given you? We are meant to be the foes of the gods and their children.

Sylvie herself thought about her own words: I can—fight your mother, just as I'm prophesied to.

Suddenly Sylvie was struck by a thought so dire that she gasped, causing her ribs to flare up with agony in response.

"The Prophecy of Nine," she ignored her pain.

Percy had already climbed out of the bed and was shouldering his pack. He frowned at her. "What about it?"

Sylvie grabbed Damasen's hand, startling the giant. His brow furrowed. His skin was as rough as sandstone.

"You have to come with us," she pleaded. "The prophecy says foes bear arms to the Doors of Death. I thought it meant—Romans and Greeks, but... that's not it. The line means us—demigods, a Titaness, a giant. We need you to close the Doors."

The drakon roared outside, closer this time. Damasen gently pulled his hand away.

"No, child," he murmured. "My curse is here. I cannot escape it."

"Yes—you can," Sylvie heaved. "Don't fight the drakon. Figure out a way to... break the cycle. Find another fate."

Damasen shook his head. "Even if I could, I cannot leave this swamp. It is the only destination I can picture."

Sylvie's mind raced. "There is another destination. Look at me! Remember my face. When you're ready—come find me. We'll take you to the mortal world with us. You can... see the sunlight and stars."

The ground shook. Sylvie groaned. The drakon was close now, stomping through the marsh, blasting trees and moss with its poison spray. Farther away, Sylvie heard the voice of the giant Polybotes, urging his followers forward. "THE SEA GOD'S SON! HE IS CLOSE!"

"Sylv," Percy said urgently, "that's our cue to leave."

Damasen turned towards Sylvie, possibly for the last time.

"Thank you for everything you've shared with me, child of Demeter," rumbled the giant. "I don't think I've seen a heart like yours in any of my time. Now, go! Before it is too late."

Sylvie wanted to sob. She couldn't even make herself say thank you in return. She knew the giant was meant to fight at their side. That was the answer—but Damasen turned away.

"We must leave," Nemo urged as her kitten climbed onto her shoulder.

"He's right, Sylv." Percy squeezed her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

They ran for the entrance. Sylvie compartmentalized her pain. She didn't look back as she followed Percy and Nemo into the swamp, but she heard Damasen behind them, shouting his battle cry at the advancing drakon, his voice cracking with despair as he faced his old enemy yet again.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

BAILEY YAPS...

When she threatens to shit all over the floor for you ❤️❤️❤️

All jokes aside, how Sylvie described Percy/her relationship with Percy actually give me light at the end of the tunnel

Her ribs and eating habits don't tho lmfaoaoaoosoaos

Anyways Sylvie has 3 dads and they are Conan, Eurytion, and Damasen 

Title goes out to Damasen but also Nemo cus she really is a diva fr and sorry not sorry but I stan her... Screw the Mnemosyne boycott...