WORTH | jason grace¹

18

Jason frowned. "Why does this look so familiar?"

"Jason, it's like yours," Piper said. "Now we really have to leave."

But Lorna wasn't sure Jason could even hear Piper anymore through the princess's enchantment.

"Nonsense," the princess said. "The boys aren't done, are they? And yes, my dear. Those shirts are very popular —trade-ins from previous customers. It suits you."

Leo picked up an orange Camp Half-Blood tee with a hole through the middle, as if it had been hit by a javelin. Next to that was a dented bronze breastplate pitted with corrosion—acid, maybe?—and a Roman toga slashed to pieces and stained with something that looked disturbingly like dried blood.

"Your Highness," Piper said. "Why don't you tell the boys how you betrayed your family? I'm sure they'd like to hear that story."

Her words didn't have any effect on the princess, but the boys turned, suddenly interested.

"More story?" Leo asked.

"I like more story!" Jason agreed.

"Crap." Lorna facepalmed. "They act like kids."

The princess flashed Piper an irritated look. "Oh, one will do strange things for love, Piper. You should know that. I fell for that young hero, in fact, because your mother Aphrodite had me under a spell. If it wasn't for her—but I can't hold a grudge against a goddess, can I?"

The princess's tone made her meaning clear: I can take it out on you.

"But that hero took you with him when he fled Colchis," Piper remembered. "Didn't he, Your Highness? He married you just as he promised."

The look in the princess's eyes made Lorna sympathise with her.

"At first," Her Highness admitted, "it seemed he would keep his word. But even after I helped him steal my father's treasure, he still needed my help. As we fled, my brother's fleet came after us. His warships overtook us. He would have destroyed us, but I convinced my brother to come aboard our ship first and talk under a flag of truce. He trusted me."

"And you killed your own brother," Lorna said, the horrible story all coming back to her, along with a name—an infamous name that began with the letter M.

"What?" Jason stirred. For a moment he looked almost like himself. "Killed your own—"

"No," the princess snapped. "Those stories are lies. It was my new husband and his men who killed my brother, though they couldn't have done it without my deception. They threw his body into the sea, and the pursuing fleet had to stop and search for it so they could give my brother a proper burial. This gave us time to get away. All this, I did for my husband. And he forgot our bargain. He betrayed me in the end."

Jason still looked uncomfortable. "What did he do?"

The princess held the sliced-up toga against Jason's chest, as if measuring him for an assassination. "Don't you know the story, my boy? You of all people should. You were named for him."

"Jason," Lorna said. "The original Jason. But then you're —you should be dead!"

The princess smiled. "As I said, a new life in a new country. Certainly I made mistakes. I turned my back on my own people. I was called a traitor, a thief, a liar, a murderess. But I acted out of love."

She turned to the boys and gave them a pitiful look, batting her eyelashes. Lorna could feel the sorcery washing over them, taking control more firmly than ever. "Wouldn't you do the same for someone you loved, my dears?"