orenda [leo valdez]

vii. The Grass Laughs at Kira

"Sorry?" Piper punched his arm. "That was amazing, Valdez! You saved our lives. What are you sorry about?"

Leo only looked to Kira, though. He only cared what she thought of him. Slowly, a smile formed on her bruised face.

"I'm so proud of you, L," She said softly, shaking her head. "That was incredible."

Leo blinked before a bright smile crossed his lips, his cheeks turning a light pink.

"They're forming again," Leo said. "Look."

Kira turned, annoyed. She couldn't catch a break. But Leo was right. The yellow dust was shifting across the floor.

Piper stepped away from the dust. "That's not possible. Annabeth told me monsters dissipate when they're killed. They go back to Tartarus and can't return for a long time."

"Well, nobody told the dust that."

"Oh, god." Piper turned pale. "Boreas said something about this—the earth yielding up horrors. 'When monsters no longer stay in Tartarus, and souls are no longer confined to Hades.' How long do you think we have?"

"I don't know," he said. "But we need to get out of here."

They managed to get back onto Festus in time and away from the three killer Cyclops. Piper tended Jason in the back, and so Kira and Leo fell into comfortable silence.

"Kira," He said, and she smiled at her name on his lips.

"Leo," She murmured.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner." He said, his fingers fumbling with some screws. "I really did want you to be the first to know."

"It's okay, Le," Kira told him sweetly. "We ran out of time, I totally understand that." Leo nodded, drumming his fingers on Festus.

Behind them, they could hear Jason wake up.

"Cyclops!"

"Whoa, sleepyhead." Piper said.

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you and Kira both got nasty concussions. How you feeling?"

"How did you—the Cyclops—"

"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"

"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.

Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."

She told the group how Leo single-handedly defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory. Piper told him about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin.

"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."

"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."

"I—I know...but something Hera said. I was having a dream..."

He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.

"An exchange?" Piper asked. "What does that mean?"

"But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—"

"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy—that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."

Leo cleared his throat. "About that...she kind of appeared to me back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge."

"Did you say ... Porta-Potty?"

Leo told them about the big face in the factory yard. "I don't know if she's completely unkillable," he said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'"

"She's trying to divide us."

"I guess now is a good time to tell you guys about my dream, too," Kira spoke up, glancing into the horizon. Leo turned to face her, eyebrows furrowed, worried.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"When the cyclops knocked me out, I had one," Kira told them. She told them how she had tried to get her to help her destroy the gods, specifically her dad.

"It was like she knew that I wasn't fond of him, you know?" She finished, leaving the group in silence.

"Why are they toying with us? Who is this lady, and how is she connected to Enceladus?" Piper spoke up.

"Enceladus?"

"I mean..." Piper's voice quavered. "That's one of the giants. Just one of the names I could remember."

"Well, I dunno about Enchiladas—" Leo started, causing Kira to let out a soft snort.

"Enceladus," Piper corrected.

"Whatever. But Old Potty Face mentioned another name. Porpoise Fear, or something?"

"Porphyrion?" Piper asked. "He was the giant king, I think."

"I'm going to take wild guess," he said. "In the old stories, Porphyrion kidnapped Hera. That was the first shot in the war between the giants and the gods."

"I think so," Piper agreed. "But those myths are really garbled and conflicted. It's almost like nobody wanted that story to survive. I just remember there was a war, and the giants were almost impossible to kill."

"Heroes and gods had to work together," Jason said. "That's what Hera told me."

"Kind of hard to do," Leo grumbled, "if the gods won't even talk to us."

Again, the group fell into silence. Kira drifted in and out of consciousness, but with her head rested on Leo's shoulder, she felt safe. She had no dreams.