The Truths Spoken In The Sea Of Lies

Holy Cows!

"Rhea—"

"Shush!" Rhea silenced Annabeth and turned back to Briares. "Do you think any of us want to face monsters rising from Tartarus or go to war? No! We're kids! It's not our job to face Kampê and the like. It's the gods' duty! But they're not as powerful as they were during the first war!" Rhea's frustration was palpable.

Annabeth made another attempt to intervene, but she was pushed aside.

"They'll never admit that the lack of human faith weakened them compared to before, even though it's glaringly obvious and an open secret! And most of the monsters are their own creations. Curse this mortal for being better than me, curse that one for insulting me, and I'm too childish to ignore their words, so let's turn them into monsters for heroes to deal with! Let's curse a mortal to fall in love with a bull because Poseidon has too much of an ego and got angry about the bull not being sacrificed, which resulted in the birth of the Minotaur that I have to deal with nearly every week!" Rhea shouted. "So, they need support from us, demigods! They need us! They need our support, and they can't say it, so they drop hints everywhere! We're the reason why they haven't faded yet, yet they treat us like trash!"

"RHEA!"

"What?" Rhea glared.

Annabeth wore a sad frown and turned to Briares, who looked at Rhea with his pure brown eyes, his face cycling through expressions of shame, sadness, despair, and dejection.

Rhea sneered before taking a deep breath and sighing. "Get out of here," she said, pointing towards the shadows. "And remember, you're either with us or you can stay in your corner being useless, knowing you could have done something."

Briares stood up, turned, and trudged down the corridor until he disappeared into the shadows.

Tyson sobbed.

"It's okay," Grover hesitantly patted his shoulder, summoning all his courage.

Tyson sneezed. "It's not okay, goat boy. He was my hero."

Finally, Annabeth spoke, shouldering her backpack. "Come on, guys. This pit is making me nervous. Let's find a better place to camp for the night."

Tyson turned to Rhea. "Sister...do you hate Dad?"

Rhea glared. "Why does it matter to you?"

Tyson's shoulders slumped. Behind them, Annabeth and Grover exchanged worried glances. This was bad. Rhea had never been this rude or snapped at Tyson before.

***

They settled in a corridor made of huge marble blocks. It looked like it could've been part of a Greek tomb, with bronze torch holders fastened to the walls. It had to be an older part of the maze, and Annabeth decided this was a good sign.

"We must be close to Daedalus's workshop," she said. "Get some rest, everybody. We'll keep going in the morning."

"How do we know when it's morning?" Grover asked.

"Just rest," she insisted.

Grover didn't need to be told twice. He pulled a heap of straw out of his pack, ate some of it, made a pillow out of the rest, and was snoring in no time.

Tyson took longer getting to sleep. He tinkered with some metal scraps from his building kit for a while, but whatever he was making, he wasn't happy with it. He kept disassembling the pieces.

Rhea approached him and sat. "I'm sorry."

Tyson looked up. His eye was bloodshot from crying and sniffed.