The chariot ride passed by Sol in an excruciatingly long blur. Percy was missing. Travis was dating someone else.
Luke was dead. Sol had heard Annabeth say this at some point. She had heard a lot of snippets of facts, names that she both knew and didn't know. But there was one outstanding piece of information; Silena had died. Silena was the spy.
Silena meant so much to Sol. How could she be gone, how could she have betrayed them?
"How?" she whispered.
"Sol? You good?" Leo scooted closer to her. "You're being all spacey. You've said 'how' about a hundred times."
Sol looked into Leo's eyes. She was usually good at reading people, but Leo's story must have been in some other language.
"I'm okay."
"Sure," Leo said nonchalantly, and he left her alone.
~~~~~~~~
Sol didn't sense anything again until she heard Annabeth saying, "Hold on. This is going to get rough."
Suddenly the pegasi jerked forward, and the landscape around them blurred. When the chariot slowed down, they were in a whole new place. Sol trained her eyes on the green, springtime valley in the middle of snow covered hills and a frigid ocean. Camp Half-Blood, Sol thought. Home.
She didn't have long to savor the view. The pegasi were exhausted, rapidly plummeting towards the ground.
"The lake!" Annabeth yelled. "Aim for the lake!"
They spiraled downward, and then- BOOM.
Sol twisted around in the cold, murky water. She felt the hands of the lake's Naiads on her shoulders as they hauled her up.
Sol clambered up onto the shore, gasping from the cold.
Someone grabbed her by the arm and helped her up. "Here's a blanket- Sol?"
Sol looked up into the face of Connor Stoll. "Uh, hey, Connor. Surprise, I'm not dead! Or missing. Clearly, I mean, you can see that." Sol chuckled weakly. Seeing Travis's brother made her nervous.
Connor gaped at her like she was someone foreign. After so long, she pretty much was. "You- how- what?"
By now, other campers had begun to notice the commotion, and by proxy, Sol.
"Is that Sol Salazar?"
"I thought she died!"
"Where was she during the Battle of Manhattan?"
"Who's Sol?"
"You don't know Sol Salazar? She's legendary!"
Was she? Sol was beginning to realize how much she had missed during her mission. She only recognized about half of the demigods surrounding them. Annabeth had said something about Percy forcing all of the gods to claim their kids, including the minor deities. There were probably tons of new campers that Sol had never met. And the ones she did know had changed.
A blast of hot air brought her back from her thoughts.
Everyone looked at the demigods with the giant bronze leaf blower, and they shuffled away. Someone pushed through the crowd to get to Sol.
"Sol? Is that... really you?" Travis Stoll seemed to be cycling through a lot of emotions. Confusion, wonder, ecstasy, worry, anger, anxiety. Not many of those were good for Sol.
"Yep. Just me. Regular, not legendary, Sol."
Travis opened his mouth to respond, but someone pushed him out of the way. The kid looked to be about twelve years old, one of his front teeth missing and his hair messy. "Are you kidding? You're Consolación Salazar, you're like... a hero! Everyone knows you! And pretty much everyone thought you were dead, but you're not, so now you're a living legend!"
Sol tensed at the use of her full name, and the fact that this kid, and presumably a lot of others based on the excited murmurs running through the crowd, thought she was some kind of Greek hero end-all-be-all.
"Nope. Kid, I'm nothing special, just Sol. Just Sol," she repeated, quieter, like she was talking to herself.
Leo, Piper, Jason, Annabeth, Travis, and Connor looked at her like she was going crazy. She could have been, Sol wouldn't have known.
"Well, I've kinda been here before, so I'm just gonna go now. Bye." Sol turned on her heel and walked toward the forest.
"Hey, Sol, wait!" Annabeth called out, but Sol sped up.
No one else called out to her.
~~~~~~~~
"Oh my gods, why am I like this? Damn it," Sol muttered. She had totally freaked out about the whole legendary thing and made a complete fool of herself.
Sol took a deep breath, trying to clear her mind. She was in a spot of the woods that she had been in many times before. As far as Sol knew, no one else had ever been in this clearing, aside from the dryads that knew not to bother her when she was there. It was the one place where Sol could be completely alone, where she could take her mind off the stress of being a demigod.
Sol closed her eyes. She normally liked the quiet, but right now, it was too quiet. She couldn't remember the last time she had sang, but it was never to late to start again. Plus, something had been itching at her mind for months, and as she opened her mouth to sing the first note, that something came to the surface.
"Here's to the people who light the fires, here's to the ones that let them burn. Here's to the ones that build them up, those people never learn.
"Wait until someone lights a fire, but never be the one to let it burn. Don't build them up, break them down. A dying light to match the hurt."
"That's pretty. Did you write it?"
Sol whipped towards the voice. "N-no, um... yeah, yeah, I did."
Katie Gardner walked over to a tree next to the one Sol was sitting by. "Listen, Sol," she began.
Sol sighed. "If this is about Travis, it's fine. I'm glad that he found someone who could really love him. I don't know if... if I could do that after being gone for so long."
Katie smiled. "Travis did miss you. A lot." Katie let out a small laugh. "I was always so worried that he was only dating me to get over you, that's how much he cared about you. But he... he had a hard time when you didn't come back. He thought maybe he did something to make you leave. And after about five months, he just gave up. He convinced himself that you were dead and tried to move on. I know that he's ecstatic that you're alive, and you're back. He's also scared now."
"Why? Does he think I'm mad at him?"
"Pretty much," Katie shrugged. "That's why I told him to let me talk to you first." They sat in silence until Katie spoke again. "You really should talk to him, Sol."
"Okay. Yeah, okay, I will."
Katie patted Sol's shoulder and stood up. "Thanks for the chat, Sol." She began to walk away.
"Hey Katie?"
"Yeah?"
Sol smiled slightly. "Out of anyone, I'm glad Travis found you."
Katie just grinned, waved, and left Sol to be by herself.
~~~~~~~~
Sol finally found Travis on the docks. She remembered sitting here with him during the weeks leading up to the Battle of Manhattan and her disappearance just to get away from the chaos for a moment. It was like Sol's clearing in the woods, but for the two of them.
"I talked to Katie." Travis said before she could.
Sol sat down on the edge of the dock. "Me too."
She was met with silence.
"I'm sorry." They looked at each other, mentally deciding who would speak first.
It ended up being Sol. "I wish I hadn't just disappeared like that. I couldn't have done anything about it, but I know it still hurt you. And I should have tried harder to come home sooner, I really did try, just not hard enough, I guess. But I couldn't do much about that either."
When Travis didn't immediately respond, Sol dipped her hand into the lake. A naiad floated up to her and touched her fingers before Sol pulled away. The naiads of the lake had never bothered Sol before when she was here with Travis. But, they were different then.
"Why?" Travis asked quietly. "Why couldn't you come back? Why did you ever leave?"
Sol tensed. "I want to tell you but... I don't know. I just kinda woke up one morning and I wasn't here. And maybe I would try to come back, but then I'd go to sleep, and in the morning I'd be somewhere new. And I would tell you where, but I don't know that either. It's all a blur." She sighed, then stood up. "So yeah. I'm sorry."
"Wait! I'm sorry too, Sol." Travis called out to her as she walked away.
"Don't be." Sol quickly wiped her eyes, and continued towards the ring of cabins. She had seen Rachel enter Hera's cabin earlier, and she needed to speak to her.
When Sol got to the entrance of the cabin she didn't hesitate to push open the door. A figure covered in a black shawl sat on the floor in front of a ten foot tall statue of the queen of the gods. "Rachel. I need to talk to you."
Rachel Dare turned and pushed back the shawl, revealing her mass of fiery red hair and her bright green eyes. Her freckled face was covered in shock when she saw who had called her name. "Sol? Wha- you were dead!"
"Not really, but I have been getting that a lot."
Rachel stared at Sol for another second before breaking into a grin. "Well, I guess you're here now!"
"Yeah, and I'm here for a reason."
Rachel cocked an eye at Sol. "What is it?"
"That's what I need you to tell me."
The door was pushed open, and both girls turned to see who had walked in.
Piper was looking around the room, with Annabeth behind her.
Annabeth gasped. "Rachel?"
"Hey!" She ran to give Annabeth a hug. "Im so sorry, I cane as fast as I could."
They talked for a few minutes about Percy and how there was no news, et cetera, with Sol trying to pick up anything she could and Piper standing uncomfortably.
"I'm being rude," Annabeth apologized. "Rachel, this is Piper, one of the half-bloods we rescued today. Piper, this is Rachel Elizabeth Dare, our oracle."
"The friend who lives in the cave," Piper guessed.
Rachel grinned. "That's me."
"So you're an oracle?" Piper asked. "You can tell the future?"
"More like the future mugs me from time to time," Rachel said. "I speak prophecies. The oracle's spirit kind of hijacks me every once in a while and speaks important stuff that doesn't make any sense to anybody. But yeah, the prophecies tell the future."
"Oh." Piper shifted from foot to foot. "That's cool."
Rachel laughed. "Don't worry. Everybody finds it a little creepy. Even me. But usually I'm harmless."
"You're a demigod?"
"Nope," Rachel said. "Just mortal."
"Then what are you..." Piper waved her hand around the room.
Rachel's smile faded. She glanced at Annabeth, then back at Piper. "Just a hunch. Something about this cabin and Percy's disappearance. They're connected somehow. I've learned to follow my hunches, especially the last month, since the gods went silent."
"Went silent?" Piper and Sol asked simultaneously.
Rachel frowned at Annabeth. "You haven't told them yet?"
"I was getting to that," Annabeth said. "Piper, for the last month... well, it's normal for the gods not to talk to their children very much, but usually we can count on some messages now and then. Some of us can even visit Olympus. I spent practically all semester at the Empire State Building."
"Excuse me?"
"The entrance to Mount Olympus these days."
"Oh," Piper said. "Sure, why not?"
"Annabeth was redesigning Olympus after it was damaged in the Titan War," Rachel explained. "She's an amazing architect. You should see the salad bar-"
"Anyway," Annabeth said, "starting about a month ago, Olympus fell silent. The entrance closed, and no one could get in. Nobody knows why. It's like the gods have sealed themselves off. Even my mom won't answer my prayers, and our camp director, Dionysus, was recalled."
"Your camp director was the god of... wine?"
"Yeah, it's a-"
"Long story," Piper guessed. "Right. Go on."
"That's it, really," Anmabeth said. "Demigods still got claimed, but nothing else. No messages. No visis. No sign the gods are even listening. I'm sure you've noticed something, Sol. Your mom always seemed to be in contact with you. It's like something has happened- something really bad. Then Percy disappeared."
"And Jason showed up on our field trip," Piper supplied. "With no memory."
"Who's Jason?" Rachel asked.
"My-" Piper stopped herself before she could say "boyfriend." "My friend. But Annabeth, you said Hera sent you a dream vision."
"Right," Annabeth said. "The first communication from a god in a month, and it's Hera, the least helpful goddess, and she contacts me, her least favorite demigod. She tells me I'll find out what happened to Percy if I go to the Grand Canyon skywalk and look for a guy with one shoe. Instead, I find you guys, and the guy with one shoe is Jason. It doesn't make sense."
"Something bad is happening," Rachel agreed. She looked at Piper, and then to Sol. All Sol wanted was to have Rachel tell her what was going on.
"Guys," she said. "I--I need to-"
Before she could continue, Rachel's body stiffened. Her eyes began to glow with a greenish light, and she grabbed Piper by the shoulders.
Piper tried to back away, but Rachel's hands were like steel clamps.
Free me, she said. But it wasn't Rachel's voice. It sounded like an older woman, speaking from somewhere far away, down a long, echoing pipe. Free me, Piper McLean, or the earth shall swallow us. It must be by the solstice.
Annabeth tried to separate Piper from Rachel, but it was no use. Green smoke enveloped them. Piper looked to be in a daze.
It spoke in the same echoing voice: Our enemies stir. The fiery one is only the first. Bow to his will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all. FREE ME!
Piper's knees buckled, and she collapsed.
~~~~~~~~
Word count: 2,381