It didn't take long to kill Clytius. Nico wasn't sure what he had expected, but once the giant was killed and Hecate was gone, he felt amped up on the win. And there was Percy and Annabeth, exhausted but alive, and for a split second Nico felt like anything was possible.
You will never escape me, son of Hades. You will never escape-!
Nico pushed the voice out of his head as he looked where the doors once stood. They were closed, for good. The giant was dead, the sorceress was defeated. Tartarus couldn't get him, not after this victory.
"Hey." Hazel beckened him over.
Nico walked over to her and kissed her forehead. "I'm glad you're okay. The ghosts were right. Only one of us made it to the Doors of Death. You...you would have made dad proud."
She put a hand on his cheek. "We couldn't have done it without you."
"We've got to get out of here," Jason cut in. "Uh...Frank?"
Frank shook his head. "I think one favor from the dead is all I can manage today."
"Wait, what?" Hazel asked.
Nico looked over to Percy, shared a small smile with the son of Poseidon. They were both still alive, though Nico could only wonder if Tartarus was also speaking to the two newest survivors.
Don't trust a survivor until you know what he did to stay alive. Nico still trusted Percy despite the old saying. They were brothers, after all. Blood didn't mean anything.
Hazel grabbed his arm. "We'll have to shadow travel."
Nico winced, remembering the dark passages of the dead. "Hazel, I don't think I can-"
"I'll help you," she assured.
A piece of the ceiling decided to come down right then, inches away from crushing some of them.
"Everyone, grab hands!" Nico yelled. He took ahold of Hazel and Percy, knew they were who he cared most about in the group. Once the last hand was joined and the shadows came closer, they slipped into them.
They stepped out of the shadows onto a hillside, the sun too bright for their darkened eyes but welcomed regardless. Nico felt himself sink into the grass, thankful now more than ever after his latest experience with almost becoming one of the dead.
The demigods around him exchanged stories, told of their own fights and the fights of their comrades. Nico spent his time looking at Percy, tried to fight whatever crush was left. Will Solace, he told himself. Will Solace is the boy you love. Percy Jackson is your brother.
"How are you feeling after that shadow travel?" Percy asked him, their hands still clasped together with dirt and blood and whatever else Percy's skin had picked up down in the depths of Tartarus himself. Their fingernails were all cracked and broken, some still bleeding and others black with dried blood. Maybe this was the blood that officially made them brothers, brothers of the battlefield and brothers at the hearth.
"Fine." Nico found himself easily looking away from Percy Jackson, tilting his head to the sun and basking in its rays. "If he speaks to you, just shut him out. He has no power over you, anymore."
The other demigods didn't seem to understand the sentence, but Percy and Annabeth both seemed to already have experience with the voice.
Percy gave Nico's hand one last squeeze as the Argo II came closer to the mound of resting demigods. "We're going to get back to mom, Nico. We've gone through Tartarus, we can go through the rest."
Nico found himself believing Percy's words despite his hesitation to ever go back to the Jackson apartment. He gave Percy a nod, tried to hide the hesitation, but brothers saw right through each other.
"We'll get through the rest," Percy corrected. "We'll win this war."
Nico's blood-caked lips twisted into a smile. "That we will."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The high died down rather quickly. Reyna arrived with her own blood stained face and broken eyes, with a dead pegasus she once called a trusted friend. They sat around and ate, decided to discuss everything, but Nico could see in Reyna's eyes a hopelessness that started to leak into his own.
The victory of a battle wasn't the victory of a war.
"According to Annabeth, it must be returned to Camp Half-Blood by a Roman leader," Reyna said. "Do I understand correctly?"
Annabeth nodded. "I had a dream down in...you know, Tartarus."
Names have power.
She shuddered but continued on, ignoring it just as Nico had learned to. Percy looked ready to be sick, maybe just then realizing that the voice would never truly go away.
"I was on Half-Blood Hill, and Athena's voice said, 'I must stand here. The Roman must bring me.'" Annabeth finished.
"It makes sense," Nico said. He kept a water bottle in hand and played with the lid. "The statue is a powerful symbol. A Roman returning it to the Greeks... That could heal the historic rift, maybe even heal the gods of their split personalities."
Nico looked back down at the water bottle, crinkled the plastic in his hand and wondered where it would eventually end up. He used to think he could trust the blood soaked earth beneath his feet, but now it was the enemy.
He had woken up to the smell of earth, the fresh dotted dirt having drifted to his nose sometime in the early morning. He opened his eyes to see it, to see the bugs crawling about and the life it produced. The blood in it was still metaphorical.
Nico had wiped it off his face in one quick motion but the smell was still there, still as strong as ever. It reminded him of the days of childhood, of playing with Bianca or running through fields on the outskirts of the city. It was earth, it was here and it was home and it was everywhere he needed the comfort from it. It was neutral. It didn't fight for them or the others, didn't rise up to defend or defeat.
It was later that day when he saw the same dirt, but the blood that soaked it was no longer metaphorical.
Percy accidentally elbowing him knocked him out of the flashback and back into real life. He was still sitting on that hilltop, still underneath the sun, the others still talking and conversing. Nico looked down at the ground and saw it looked normal, the dirt was just dirt. He took a handful as he tuned back into the conversation, as his brain snapped to a new idea he knew he couldn't turn down.
"No, Frank Zhang," Reyna said. "I hope we will work side by side in the future, but for now your place is with the crew of this ship. You are one of the seven of the prophesy."
"I'm not," Nico said.
That effectively shut the group up. Even Leo stopped with a screwdriver halfway to his mouth, the strawberry at the end dropping onto the grass at his feet.
"Nico-"
"I'll go with Reyna," Nico said. "I can transport the statue with shadow travel."
"Nico." Percy eyed him, looked like he wanted to lean forward and grab him before he could get far. "I know you just got all eight of us to the surface, and it was awesome... But a year ago you could barely transport yourself. Remember how many times you came back half dissolved? You're not going to have Will Solace this time, and you could end up in China again."
"Things have changed," Nico insisted.
"Nico," Jason cut in. "We're not questioning your power. We're just making sure you don't kill yourself trying-"
"My death isn't something that would be a deal breaker," Nico retorted. "I'm dead and I should be in the Underworld. If I die then I'm just going back to where I'm supposed to. But I'm not planning on dying. I'll make short jumps, a few hundred miles at a time. When we land I'll probably pass out immediately, so I'll have to rely on Reyna to protect me and the statue from monsters."
Reyna's face remained neutral. "Any objections?"
The group was silent again.
"Very well," she said. "I see no better option. But there will be many monster attacks. I would feel better taking a third person. That's the optimal number for a quest."
"Coach Hedge," Frank blurted. "The coach is the best choice, the only choice. He's a good fighter. He's a certified protector. He'll get the job done."
"A faun," Reyna said.
"Satyr!" Coach Hedge yelled. "And, yeah, I'll go. Besides, when you get to Camp Half-Blood, you'll need somebody with connections and diplomatic skills to keep the Greeks from attacking you. Just let me go make a call...er, I mean, get my baseball bat."
Nico stood up and stretched his aching bones. "I should go, too, and rest before the first passage. We'll meet at the statue at sunset."
He followed Coach Hedge to the ship without another word. He was parting ways with Percy again, with Hazel, and he was on his way back to the one place he swore not to return to.
He cursed fate and Tartarus in the same breath.