moonlight || heroes of olympus (discontinued)

|| chapter twelve ||

"Porphyrion." Piper nodded. "He was the giant king, I think."

Since Luna offered no explanation or confirmation, seeing as she was too busy looking around nervously, Jason spoke instead. "I'm going to take a wild guess. In the old stories, Pophyrion kidnapped Hera. That was the first shot between a war between the giants and the gods."

"Yes." Luna finally confirmed for him grimly. She shot a look at both of them over her shoulder. "And it's not a story. It happened. And if we don't get Hera soon, it's going to happen again. Only this time, all of us are going to be fighting in it."

They all stared at her in surprise and even Leo seemed to stiffen in her arms. She slowly drew back so that the cold wind encased her frame again, afraid she'd only added to the pressure they felt. But it was the cold hard truth of what they were doing.

"They were almost impossible to kill, weren't they?" Piper finally broke the tense silence. Luna nodded back wordlessly in response.

Jason finally averted his gaze from the side of Luna's face. "Heroes and gods have to work together. That's what Hera told me."

"Kind of hard to do," Leo grumbled. "If the gods won't even talk to us."

Everyone turned quiet again and Luna wrapped her arms around herself. This quest seemed almost impossible. They were short on time, chasing wind spirits to appease a god she didn't even think would hold their end of the bargain— because they almost always never did— and they still didn't know where Hera was or how they were even going to free her from this cage when they did find her.

Judging by what Hera showed Jason in his dream, if the power of a god couldn't reduce that jail to cinders, then what luck did four demigods who didn't even completely know the full extent of their powers have?

Jason must've noticed that she was shaking, because he placed a firm palm on her shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?"

She didn't answer his question. Instead she turned and lowered her voice so that only they could hear what she asked. "Back in Quebec, you said your last name was Grace. What... when did you remember?"

Jason's mouth twisted as he contemplated telling her, and it was then that she noticed the scar on his lip, roughly the size of a staple. She wondered how he'd gotten it. Did he receive it during combat with another demigod with a purple shirt? Fighting monsters he couldn't remember? Or something mundane and ridiculous?

"I remembered this morning. Or technically, yesterday morning." He leaned forward so she could hear him more clearly. "In my cabin, when I saw this picture of Annabeth, a blond guy—"

"Luke." Luna's voice was bitter, but her eyes were slightly hurt. "The picture you have in your pocket of Annabeth, Luke, and Thalia."

Jason nodded gently, cupping his jeans as if he didn't need to see it to know what it looked like. "I remembered when I saw it. I think Hera left me this one thing on purpose for some reason. Thalia... she's my sister. My last name is Grace."

Jason must've seen the mix of emotions clear on her face, because he quickly shook his head. "I don't know what any of it means, either. I just know, deep down, that we're related. I just wish... I wish Hera would've left me more."

Luna's face suddenly looked like she hadn't slept in over a year. She chuckled humorlessly. "There wouldn't be much of a plot if she would have. The gods loving doing cryptic stuff like this. Like they enjoy watching us as some form of reality TV. I'm sorry that I can't offer you more information about Thalia. I only met her a few years ago and then..."

Jason eyed her curiously as she trailed off.

And then she joined the hunters and was quite possibly told to pretend Luna didn't exist because she was the result of a broken vow. A mistake.