𐌙/𐌍 Ᏽ𐌵𐌀𐌋𐌄 & 𐌕𐋅𐌄 Ᏽ𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌕 𐌌𐌙𐌕𐋅𐌔 ¹

Chapter 2

  I heard a content sigh on my other side. "Your brain is working," said Percy.

  I wasn't so sure. My body felt weightless and cold. My voice sounded wrong. I could hear Tyson and Percy, but it was more like I was hearing vibrations inside my skull, not the regular sounds.

  I sat up, and a gossamer sheet floated away. I was on a bed made of silky woven kelp, in a room paneled with abalone shell. Glowing pearls the size of basketballs floated around the ceiling, providing light. I was under water.

  It wasn't as bad as it sounded. I was son of the goddess of the moon, and the moon controlled the tides, so I had some time to breathe underwater. But it was always a limited time, I couldn't stay a whole day. Percy could. He was the son of Poseidon.

  Just then, I noticed I wasn't wet, like I was supposed to be. Then I saw Percy's hand holding my wrist. He was keeping me dry and breathing. I learned to get used to that, but it still made me quite flustered everytime Percy did that.

  Even with all that, it was still a bit of a shock when a hammerhead shark drifted through the bedroom window, regarded me, and then swam calmly out the opposite side of the room.

  "Where—"

  "Daddy's palace," Tyson said.

  It sounded quite exciting. Being in god's palace and being alive. But I didn't want to anger Poseidon and suffer from his fury. And my head was hurt. My shirt was still speckled with burn marks from the explosion. My arm and leg wounds had healed but I still felt like I'd been trampled by a Laistrygonian soccer team in cleats.

  "How long—"

  "We found you two last night," Tyson said, "sinking through the water."

  "The Princess Andromeda?"

  "Went ka-boom," Tyson confirmed.

  "Beckendorf was on board. Did you find ..."

  Percy frowned and shook his head. "Not a sign."

  I stared out the window into deep blue water. Beckendorf was supposed to go to college in the fall. He had a girlfriend, lots of friends, his whole life ahead of him. He couldn't be gone. Maybe he'd made it off the ship like I had. Maybe he'd jumped over the side ... and what? He couldn't have survived a hundred-foot fall into the water, and Percy wasn't there to save him. He couldn't have put enough distance between himself and the explosion.

  I knew in my gut he was dead. He'd sacrificed himself to take out the Princess Andromeda, and I had abandoned him.

  I thought about my dream: the Titans discussing the explosion as if it didn't matter, Nico warning me that I would never beat Kronos without following his plan—a dangerous idea I'd been avoiding for more than a year.

  A distant blast shook the room. Green light blazed outside, turning the whole sea as bright as noon.

  "What was that?" I asked.

  Tyson looked worried. "Daddy will explain. Come, he is blowing up monsters."

The palace might have been the most amazing place I'd ever seen if it hadn't been in the process of getting destroyed. We swam to the end of a long hallway and shot upward on a geyser. As we rose over the rooftops I caught my breath—well, if you can catch your breath underwater.

  The palace was as big as the city on Mount Olympus, with wide courtyards, gardens, and columned pavilions. The gardens were sculpted with coral colonies and glowing sea plants. Twenty or thirty buildings were made of abalone, white but gleaming with rainbow colors. Fish and octopi darted in and out of the windows. The paths were lined with glowing pearls like Christmas lights.