Wild Heart ⋆ Riordanverse¹

viii. the pearls

viii. the pearls

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THE FIELDS OF ASPHODEL ARE GRIMMER THAN THEA HAD PICTURED. She knew it would be dreary, that it would feel like death itself, and while she had done research on it and heard stories from her mother, it outlives its name. It's as dark as a night on a full moon and Thea feels like at any moment one of the spirits is going to grab her and drag her into the crowd.

The worst part is that it doesn't feel as bad as it should. Anxiety curls deep within her, enough to make her feel sick, but despite it all, Thea doesn't feel out of place. Death doesn't feel foreign to her. She doesn't know what's scarier, that it doesn't scare her, or that she isn't scared of the Underworld. It seemed so daunting before, but now it somehow falls short. Nothing scares her anymore, not with the sinking hole in her chest that the Underworld makes her feel.

She searches the crowd desperately, trying to find her mother's face, but it's hard. The spirits shift constantly, their faces a million expressions at once, all of them shimmering with a white glow, making them appear paler than they are. Above all, she can't understand them. She would risk screaming for her mother despite the security spirits looking for them if she could understand her. Everything the spirits say sounds like nothing, a chatter against the wind.

Thea has heard the stories about people who brought back dead from the Underworld. It's possible. And if, somehow, she manages to do it, and makes it back to the land of the living, there's the other problem: Hades, the gods, the Olympians. They won't let it stand. Thea has heard enough from her mother. She knows how powerful they are, but somehow she isn't scared of them right now. She would defy them to bring back her mother a thousand times over, only if she knew she could get away with it.

It makes her eyes sting and her chest seize up. She knows it's a long shot, but she has to try—her mom is all she has left. She doesn't have anywhere to go, she doesn't know anything but her mother.

"Thea," Annabeth hisses, grabbing her by the wrists. "Come on, they'll catch us!"

She nods and casts another look over her shoulder. "Y-Yeah, I'm coming."

It seems like it finally dawns on Annabeth, and they trail only a foot behind the boys, but thankfully, over the groans of the spirits, they can't hear a word. "Are you looking for your mom?"

"What—'m not—"

"Is that why you came with us?" she whispers, her cheeks flushed. "What about the Bolt?"

"It's nothing, okay?" Thea strides ahead of her. "It doesn't matter. Let's just—let's just find that damn Bolt and get out of this place. It's giving me the creeps."

The line feeds through the fields, all the way to where it forks for judgment. Elysium or eternal punishment.

"Elysium," she whispers grimly. "What a load of shit."

Annabeth looks furious, but she doesn't argue with her. Not yet, at least.

Thea doesn't look at Elysium or the Fields of Punishment, but Percy's transfixed by Elysium.

They pass through, past the lines, deeper into the fields. The spirits get thinner, the chatter quiets, and Thea begins to feel lighter, her body tingling. She tries not to think about how that's what she felt like when she was turned to stone.

Her muscles slowly go from aching to numb, miles between them and where they entered from. She can see the glittering palace ahead of them, and that lives up to her expectations. It's grand, so grand she can't even begin to describe it—something about it is so dark and illusive that it draws her in like a moth to a flame. Above it swirls three black, winged creatures—the Furies.