Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 6

Leo dropped into the pool and approached the cage. "Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?"

Cressida seemed surprised that she didn't realise that he spoke Spanish earlier before she asked him the very question in said language and Leo fell even more in love with her. She was beautiful, she could fight and she spoke Spanish? Could she be any more perfect and out of his league?!

Before he could answer, Hera crossed her arms over her chest and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I'm one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!"

Thalia stepped next to him and looked at the cage with distaste—or maybe she was looking at the goddess. "We tried everything we could think of, Leo, but maybe my heart wasn't in it. If it was up to me, I'd just leave her in there."

"Now that is a splendid idea," Cressida smiled.

"Ohh, Thalia Grace, Cressida Lynn," the goddess said. "When I get out of here, you'll be sorry you were ever born."

"Save it!" Thalia snapped. "You've been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. You sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth—"

"You dropped a statue on my legs." 

"It was an accident!" 

"And you took my brother!" Thalia's voice cracked with emotion. "Here—on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaia!"

"That'd be more merciful than what I'll do to you, Queen Hera," Cressida said lowly in a voice that made all of them tremble in their shoes. "For taking Percy from me not once, but twice. For having my brother killed. For trying to kill Nico because he didn't fit into your perfect family. For everything you've ever done to me."

"Uh," Jason muttered, turning to Thalia. "Sis, I know you're upset and angry but this isn't the time. You should help your Hunters and maybe take Cressida with you."

Thalia clenched her jaw. "Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn't worth it."

"Agreed," Cressida said as she took a seat at the edge of the pool. "But I'm not going anywhere. I plan on enjoying the sight of Hera in a cage before I take out all my rage on that giant when he rises."

"Don't tire yourself out," Thalia warned as she leapt out of the pool. "You die before we find Percy and he'll kill me."

"I'll be fine," she retorted. "I have my Solace Solution and for the record, if Percy was to kill anyone because I died, it would be...." and her purple eyes fixed on Hera, the irises seeming much darker than before.

"Just wait until I get out of this cage," Hera sneered and Cressida leaned forward.

"Bring it on! Can't be much worse than anything you've already put me through."

"Alright, enough!" Piper exclaimed.

"Focus on the cage, Leo," Hera grumbled. "And Jason—you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well."

"I'm not your champion, lady," Jason said. "I'm only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what's going on with that?" He nodded to the other spire that looked like the king-size granite body bag that had definitely grown bigger since they got there.

"That, Jason," Hera said, "is the king of the giants being reborn."

"Gross," Piper said. 

"Indeed," Hera said. "Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaia needed a great deal of power to raise him again —my power. For weeks I've grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form."

"So you're like a heat lamp," Leo guessed. "Or fertilizer.

That earned a laugh from Cressida.

The goddess glared at them but Leo didn't care. This old lady had been making his life miserable since he was a baby - maybe not as miserable as Cressida's life but miserable nonetheless. He totally had rights to rag on her.

"Joke all you wish," Hera said in a clipped tone. "But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaia will awaken."

"And you wonder why we don't like you," Cressida remarked as she inspected the charms on her bracelet, cleaning snow off some of them. "Not a positive bone in your body."

Leo frowned at the giant's spire. "Can't we blow it up or something?"

"Without me, you do not have the power," Hera said. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain."

"Done that once today," Jason said.

"That was the second mountain I've blown up. Well, technically Percy blew up the first one but I was there. It still counts," Cressida rambled.

"Just hurry up and let me out!" Hera demanded. 

Jason scratched his head. "Leo, can you do it?"

"I don't know." Leo tried not to panic. "Besides, if she's a goddess, why hasn't she busted herself out?"

Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. "Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you're intelligent. Once trapped, a god's power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg—beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus."

"Sounds fair," Leo said.

"It's one of my favourite stories," Cressida said. "Your father is one of the better gods, Leo," she continued and he smiled.

"That he is."

"I've watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you." 

"But it's not a machine. It's like Gaia thrust her hand out of the ground and ..." Leo looked a little scared at first before an idea lit up his eyes."Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I'm going to need your help. And we're going to need time."

The air turned brittle with cold. The temperature dropped so fast, Leo's lips cracked and his breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rushed in —but instead of winged men, these were shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackled with lightning. Some had silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.

Piper drew her dagger. Jason grabbed an ice-covered plank off the pool floor. Leo reached into his tool belt, but he was so shaken up, all he produced was a tin of breath mints. He shoved them back in, hoping nobody had noticed, and drew a hammer instead.

Cressida let out an annoyed sound. "Monsters always have the worst timing," she sighed as she begrudgingly got to her feet, her spear gripped lazily in one hand. And all three demigods wondered how she could be so nonchalant about the army of monsters that they faced and suddenly her hatred towards Hera made sense if she'd been forced to face something worse than what they did.

One of the wolves padded forward. It was dragging a human-size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its maw and dropped the statue for them to see—an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.

"Thalia!" Jason rushed forward, but Piper and Leo pulled him back. The ground around Thalia's statue was already webbed with ice. Leo feared if Jason touched her, he might freeze too.

"Ok," Cressida said as she cracked her neck. "Now I'm angry."

"Who did this?" Jason yelled. His body crackled with electricity. "I'll kill you myself!"

From somewhere behind the monsters, Leo heard a girl's laughter, clear and cold. She stepped out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regarded them with those deep brown eyes Leo had thought were so beautiful in Quebec.

"Bon soir, mes amis," said Khione, the goddess of snow. She gave Leo a frosty smile. "Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time? I'm afraid time is one tool you do not have."