The Titans Curse: Apollo's Daughter

Rest in the Garden

Skyler's POV

I stared out the window of the war room on the Princess Andromeda. Luke was hunched over the table where he had been when I was first brought aboard. We were moving relatively fast through the bay. "Where are we going?" I asked softly, looking over my shoulder to Luke who ignored my question and continued muttering to himself.

I turned toward him, taking hesitant steps until I was on the other side of the table from him. "Luke," I said, placing my hand over the map he was looking at. He slowly blinked then followed my arm until his blue eyes met mine. "Take a break."

"I don't have time for a 'break' Skyler." He hissed, his eyes narrowing at me.

"Just for a few minutes. You're no use to Kronos..." I paused for a moment "If you are a brain dead fool cause you haven't slept for a week." I said softly.

Luke stared at me before nodding slowly. He slowly turned and began walking towards the leather couch on the other side of the room. He collapsed onto the leather-like he hadn't laid down in ages. I sat at the end of the couch towards his feet but he soon turned around and laid his head on my lap.

"Rest," I whispered, placing a had on his head. After a few minutes, Luke was asleep. I watched him sleep calmly. Something he most likely hadn't had in a very long time. I noticed the sun was setting in the distance. Soon it'd be too late to save Artemis...and Annabeth. I hoped my friends found a way to get to them.

"No," Luke mumbled in his sleep which jolted me from my thoughts. I glanced down at him and his once calm face looked pained and conflicted. I didn't notice my hand slowly started to glow the way they would if I was healing but that only happened when I had my bracelet...

"You're the key little one," Kronos spoke in my mind.

Unlike other times the Titan had spoken to me I was awake and I didn't feel scared of the voice.

"You will keep him stable enough till I need him."

I watched my hand glow a faint warm light over Luke's temple as he began to calm back down into a peaceful slumber...

Percy's POV

"Can't this thing go any faster?" Thalia demanded as we drove towards the mountain.

Zoe glared at her. "I cannot control traffic."

"You both sound like my mother," I said.

"Shut up!" they said in unison.

Zoe weaved in and out of traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun was sinking on the horizon when we finally got into Marin County and exited the highway. The roads were insanely narrow, winding through forests and up the sides of hills and around the edges of steep ravines. Zoe didn't slow down at all.

"Why does everything smell like cough drops?" I asked.

"Eucalyptus." Zoe pointed to the huge trees all around us.

"The stuff koala bears eat?"

"And monsters," she said. "They love chewing the leaves. Especially dragons."

"Dragons chew eucalyptus leaves?"

"Believe me," Zoe said, "if you had dragon breath, you would chew eucalyptus too."

I didn't question her, but I did keep my eyes peeled more closely as we drove. Ahead of us loomed Mount Tamalpais. I guess, in terms of mountains, it was a small one, but it looked plenty huge as we were driving toward it.

"So that's the Mountain of Despair?" I asked.

"Yes," Zoe said tightly.

"Why do they call it that?"

She was silent for almost a mile before answering. "After the war between the Titans and the gods, many of the Titans were punished and imprisoned. Kronos was sliced to pieces and thrown into Tartarus. Kronos's right-hand man, the general of his forces, was imprisoned up there, on the summit, just beyond the Garden of the Hesperides."

"The General," I said. Clouds seemed to be swirling around its peak, as though the mountain was drawing them in, spinning them like a top. "What's going on up there? A storm?"

Zoe didn't answer. I got the feeling she knew exactly what the clouds meant, and she didn't like it. "We have to concentrate," Thalia said. "The Mist is really strong here."

"The magical kind or the natural kind?" I asked.

"Both."