This Cold Year ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase²

epilogue

EVERY YEAR, WHEN THE DAYLILIES BLOOM, a goddess walks the earth.

She never has a destination in mind; her feet take her to the places she needs to go, and without fail, she finds her daughter.

Through dozens of pairs of eyes, she watches her daughter's life. Her daughter does not see her, but the goddess wonders if she feels her, just as the goddess can feel her own mother in every field and every garden.

She hopes, perhaps selfishly, that she can.

Hazel eyes track Naomi Sakura as she walks across a stage, taking the diploma with a grin that reminds the goddess of her late lover. If life were kind and fate were fair, he would be in the audience, cheering her on. But his family is there, and they cheer louder to make up for his absence. Her grandfather, her aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins, friends and lovers all watch from the crowd, the pride in all of them as tangible as the June warmth.

The goddess sits away from them, holding her husband's hand at the back of the auditorium. They have accepted their role, their place on the outskirts of their children's lives. And though it hurts, and there are too many days when she feels her mother's grief spur her toward destruction and devastation, the goddess survives.

On crumbs of her daughter's life, she survives.

Brown eyes track her across a different stage, to a degree that is hard-earned and well-loved, and years later, darker eyes watch her again, walking toward the final step in her education. Her daughter's older, and she carries herself differently, with more confidence than the goddess remembers from her temporary youth. It makes her smile, even as tears blur her daughter's triumphant smile.

This is the goddess's life, now—that of a shadow, a casual observer, a nameless passerby. Every spring, her feet bring her to her daughter, and she watches her child grow into a woman. She watches her grow deeper in love with the two her soul is forever connected to. She watches her discover all the goals and dreams she never let herself have, too afraid it could all be snatched away by a monster's clawed grasp or a god's cruel design.

The goddess browses the shelves of a local grocery store, out of sight of the squabbling trio as they play rock-paper-scissors to decide whose turn it is to cook that night; more often than not, the boy forfeits, and his loves kiss him on either cheek as thanks. She jogs along the sidewalk that passes the café they frequent on quiet Sunday mornings; they favor the corner booth so they can sit side-by-side, and the barista knows their orders by heart. She works the register at the flower shop her daughter favors because it's within walking distance of their home and the owner gives her a special discount; every Saturday, she buys a bouquet for each of her loves—she prefers a variety, but a stalk or two of yarrow for everlasting love is always there.

The goddess is the florist at their not-wedding, the ceremony lovely in its simplicity. They never marry legally, both because they don't want to bother with the logistics and legalities and because they refuse to let the goddess of such a union hold that kind of power over them, over their future.

They've learned better than to trust the gods to be kind.

She is an onlooker at the grand-opening of Olympia Academy; she and her husband are anonymous donors at every fundraiser for the boarding school built to teach and protect demigods and legacies out in the mortal world. Her daughter is a counselor there, her door forever-open to any child in need of help or advice or simple company.

The goddess watches the school grow until there are hundreds of demigods and legacies in attendance, able to learn and grow away from the threat of monsters and quests. The camps are still there, but they become more and more relegated to breaks.