Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 7

Thanks to the army of predatory cats that Cressida had summoned, soon they were running out of enemies. Wolves lay in dazed heaps. Some slunk away into the ruins, yelping from their wounds, some being scared off by the roars of leopards and lions. Piper and Cressida took out the last of the earthborn as Cressida's lion reared up on its hind legs and let out a thundering roar.

Jason rode Tempest through the last ventus, breaking it into vapour. Then he wheeled around and saw Leo bearing down on the goddess of snow. "You're too late," Khione snarled. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can ever stop us." Leo set his hammers ablaze and threw them at the goddess, but she turned into snow—a white powdery image of herself. Leo's hammers slammed into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.

The melting ice on Hera's cage sloughed off in a curtain of slush, and the goddess called, "Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!"

Cressida rolled her eyes as she dismounted her lion, pressing her forehead to its before it glowed along with the rest of the surviving cats, all of them turning into small grapevines, ready for their mistress' command as they approached Hera's cage, all of them jumping into the pool.

Leo frowned. "Uh, Tía Callida, are you getting shorter?"

"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"

Not only was Hera sinking, but the ground was also rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock had already covered her shins. "The giant wakes!" Hera warned. "You only have seconds!"

"On it," Leo said. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."

"What?" she said. "Talk to it. Use everything you've got. Convince Gaia to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I —" "

Right!" Piper cleared her throat and said, "Hey, Gaia. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"

"Cressida, you said your power is stronger. Can you-"

"No," she interrupted. "You want to free Hera, by all means, go ahead. I'll fight the giant king, but I will not be freeing the queen of the gods."

Even if they could force her to help, none of them would want to because they could hear the pain in the words she'd said before with Thalia, about everything Hera had taken from her.

Jason felt his own eyes getting heavy, and he had to force himself not to focus on her words after Cressida slapped his shoulder to wake him up.

Piper's words seemed to have some effect on the cage. The mud was rising more slowly. The tendrils seemed to soften just a little—becoming more like tree roots than rock. Leo pulled a circular saw out of his tool belt.

Then Leo looked at the cord and grunted in frustration. "I don't have anywhere to plug it in!"

The spirit horse Tempest jumped into the pit and whinnied. "Really?" Jason asked. Tempest dipped his head and trotted over to Leo. Leo looked dubious, but he held up the plug, and a breeze whisked it into the horse's flank. Lighting sparked, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirred to life.

"Sweet!" Leo grinned. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"

Cressida, in the meantime, had pulled another vial of that golden liquid out of her boot, Blackjack having kept hold of her gear while she fought Enceladus. She pulled the cork out with her teeth and spat it to the side as the giant's spire began to crumble.

Jason hadn't thought anything could be scarier than Enceladus. He was wrong. Porphyrion was even taller, and even more ripped. He didn't radiate heat, or show any signs of breathing fire, but there was something more terrible about him—a kind of strength, even magnetism, as if the giant were so huge and dense he had his own gravitational field. Like Enceladus, the giant king was humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armour, and from the waist down he had scaly dragon's legs; but his skin was the colour of lima beans. His hair was green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons—daggers, axes, and full-size swords, some of them bent and bloody—maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opened his eyes, they were blank white, like polished marble. He took a deep breath.

"Alive!" he bellowed. "Praise to Gaia!"

Cressida downed the gold liquid in one go as one would down a shot for courage before she went charging at the giant.

It was completely ridiculous. Porphyrion could lift mountains and though Cressida was powerful, he was certain the giant could crush her with one finger. So either she was unbelievably brave or unbelievably crazy.

If Jason had the guts to ask her the question, she would've said both.

"Leo," Jason said.

"Huh?" Leo's mouth was wide open. Even Piper seemed dazed, both of them not noticing Cressida's absence.

"You guys keep working," Jason said. "Get Hera free!"

"What are you going to do?" Piper asked. "You can't seriously—"

"Entertain a giant?" Jason said. "I've got no choice. And Cressida's already way ahead of me."

And with their mouths on the floor, they watched as Jason chased after her, probably running towards their deaths.