"Annabeth XXXIV," Phoebe read.
Annabeth crossed her arms, mouth in a tight frown. She kept her face stoic, ignoring the anxiousness building inside her.
Percy's forehead was beading with sweat, his heart was beating so fast, he was surprised that the others couldn't hear it.
This is it. No more drawing things out with eating bad pizza, scooter rides, and rope work, Annabeth was really starting her quest now.
Percy took a deep breath and shakily exhaled.
AS ANNABETH HUNG IN THE AIR, descending hand over hand with the ladder swinging wildly, she thanked Chiron for all those years of training on the climbing course at Camp Half-Blood. She'd complained loudly and often that rope climbing would never help her defeat a monster. Chiron had just smiled, like he knew this day would come.
"Maybe not this exact day, but he knew you'd need to know rope climbing eventually," Athena said, and she couldn't help but feel grateful that Chiron had taught her.
Annabeth's eyes widened in disbelief. She hated the Climbing Wall with a burning passion, even before that one time she had fallen off. She was always so sure it was pointless, after all, what were the odds that she would have to climb a volcano with loose boulders and pouring lava?
"I guess it came in handy after all..." she muttered, grimacing as she thought back to the last time she reached the top. After this, I need to start practicing again.
...She missed the brickwork edge and landed in the canal, but it turned out to be only a few inches deep...
Annabeth cringed. And maybe ask Chiron for advice.
She held up her glowing dagger. The shallow channel ran down the middle of a brickwork tunnel. Every few yards, ceramic pipes jutted from the walls. She guessed that the pipes were drains, part of the ancient Roman plumbing system...
A sudden thought chilled her even more than the water. A few years ago, Percy and she had gone on a quest in Daedalus's labyrinth—a secret network of tunnels and rooms, heavily enchanted and trapped, which ran under all the cities of America.
The demigods froze. Dionysus grimaced at the reminder.
"You think this could be part of the labyrinth?" Percy guessed, frown deepening. Taking Annabeth's grim expression as a yes, he argued, "but wasn't Daedalus' life force tied with it? It should've collapsed after he died."
"It is possible that a portion of the labyrinth is gone, but not all of it." Athena said, her expression becoming more somber. "Something as powerful as that does cease to exist so easily."
The demigods were horrified by the very idea. After all they went through with the Battle of the Labyrinth, there was a chance that another entrance could open back up in Camp?
"You gotta be kidding me," Travis said, face expressionless.
Taking in the teens' solemn faces, Leo shifted uncomfortably.
"So, if this was part of the Labyrinth Annabeth could get lost, right?" he recalled, thinking back to the bits and pieces he heard about the myth. "Can't she use the string as a trail in case she needs to find her way back?"
"It would've been better with Ariadne's String, but yeah, that's the next best thing." Annabeth sighed, playing with her college ring. "I hope I'm just being paranoid. I don't need to go through the Labyrinth again on top of finding the statue."
"I know right?" Percy agreed miserably.
...Just to be safe, she tied a new ball of string to the end of her rope ladder. She could unravel it behind her as she explored. An old trick, but a good one.
Annabeth nodded her head in approval.
She debated which way to go. The tunnel seemed the same in both directions. Then, about fifty feet to her left, the Mark of Athena blazed against the wall. Annabeth could swear it was glaring at her with those big fiery eyes, as if to say, What's your problem? Hurry up!
The daughter of Athena rolled her eyes. At least they know where they're going.
She was really starting to hate that owl.
"It does sound annoying," Poseidon agreed, he glanced at the goddess of wisdom as if to say: Like someone I know.
Said goddess glared at him.
By the time she reached the spot, the image had faded, and she'd run out of string on her first spool.
"Great, at this rate I'm going to run out before the half-way point." Annabeth grumbled.
As she was attaching a new line, she glanced across the tunnel. There was a broken section in the brickwork, as if a sledgehammer had knocked a hole in the wall...Sticking her dagger through the opening for light, Annabeth could see a lower chamber, long and narrow, with a mosaic floor, painted walls, and benches running down either side. It was shaped sort of like a subway car.
Everyone tensed. Was this just another passage way or something more?
She stuck her head into the hole, hoping nothing would bite it off.
Percy winced.
At the near end of the room was a bricked-off doorway. At the far end was a stone table, or maybe an altar.
The readers perked up.
"This must be for the foreign god," Annabeth said, stiffening. She hadn't been expecting to run into the situation so soon.
Still holding her string, she lowered herself down.
"Here we go," Percy muttered, subconsciously leaning forward in his chair.
The room's ceiling was barrel-shaped with brick arches, but Annabeth didn't like the look of the supports. Directly above her head, on the arch nearest to the bricked-in doorway, the capstone was cracked in half. Stress fractures ran across the ceiling.
Athena and Annabeth frowned worriedly.
"How has the ceiling not collapsed yet?" the teen found herself asking.
"Let's not jinx it, that thing sounds like it could fall any minute," Percy said worriedly.
...The floor was a long narrow mosaic with seven pictures in a row, like a time line. At Annabeth's feet was a raven. Next was a lion. Several others looked like Roman warriors with various weapons. The rest were too damaged or covered in dust for Annabeth to make out details. The benches on either side were littered with broken pottery. The walls were painted with scenes of a banquet: a robed man with a curved cap like an ice cream scoop, sitting next to a larger guy who radiated sunbeams. Standing around them were torchbearers and servants, and various animals like crows and lions wandered in the background...
Recognizing the description immediately, Aphrodite groaned loudly in frustration.
"It's Mithras," she declared in heavy exasperation.
"I-is that a bad?" Lacy asked hesitantly.
"It's annoying but not bad. This room sounds like it's been abandoned for centuries with all the dust and broken pottery." the goddess sniffed. "You should be safe...Maybe."
The demigods tensed.
"Maybe?" Annabeth pressed.
Aphrodite braided her hair.
"Well, Mithras's followers were big on the whole 'secrecy' thing, to the point that they were paranoid about it..." she explained, frowning. "I wouldn't be surprised if this place was rigged with booby-traps."
"That would explain why it looks so empty." Annabeth muttered, narrowing her eyes. She thought back to the description and tried to think of anything that could be a trap.
At the far end of the room, the altar was elaborately carved with a frieze showing the man with the ice-cream-scoop hat holding a knife to the neck of a bull. On the altar stood a stone figure of a man sunk to his knees in rock, a dagger and a torch in his outraised hands...
The goddess of love scoffed at the statue. "He was so arrogant for a new god."
"He's a war god, they're always arrogant," Pluto said offhandedly. He winced before his form flickered back to his Greek side.
She took one step toward the altar. Her foot went CRUNCH. She looked down and realized she'd just put her shoe through a human rib cage.
The gods winced.
Athena reared back in her seat, her face twisted in a pained expression.
The demigods gasped, a few squeezing their eyes shut with a grimace.
Annabeth's face paled drastically.
How could I miss seeing something like that? she thought, swallowing what felt like sand. She couldn't help but remind herself that that rib cage had once belonged to a child of Athena like herself.
Annabeth shuddered.
Percy wrapped his arm around her.
"Are you okay?" he asked, voice full of concern. She didn't feel okay, in fact she was feeling nauseous, but Annabeth nodded her head.
"I'll be fine." she said in a soft voice. With the others giving her sympathetic looks, she gave Phoebe an encouraging nod to keep reading.
Annabeth swallowed back a scream...She had glanced down only a moment before and hadn't seen any bones. Now the floor was littered with them. The rib cage was obviously old. It crumbled to dust as she removed her foot. Nearby lay a corroded bronze dagger very much like her own. Either this dead person had been carrying the weapon, or it had killed him.
Everyone stiffened.
"O-o-oh my gods," Katie stammered, wrapping her arms around herself.
"Where are all these bones coming from?" Chris said, eyes wide in horror.
"Did she somehow set off a trap?" Thalia said worriedly, her voice raising. She tightened the grip on her bow. "What's happening?"
"Where's the exit is there any way to leave?" Percy said urgently.
"I don't think so, the book hasn't mentioned one yet..." Annabeth said tightly, trying to keep calm. She forced herself to not think about the bones littering the room, in favor of focusing on the dagger.
What had caused all these people to die? Was that dagger really the dead person's weapon or was it something else? She recalled how the earlier description mentioned a dagger.
A man sunk in to his knees in rock with a dagger in his hand... I don't think this is a coincidence. Why would that be the only weapon mentioned?
She held out her blade to see in front of her. A little farther down the mosaic path sprawled a more complete skeleton in the remains of an embroidered red doublet, like a man from the Renaissance. His frilled collar and skull had been badly burned, as if the guy had decided to wash his hair with a blowtorch.
The teens winced. Some started whispering to each other, glancing back at the daughter of Athena.
Annabeth's eyes widened in realization. "Not a blowtorch, a torch..."
This earned her confused frowns from the others.
"Wha..." Travis' eyes widened. "Oooh, like what the rock guy had."
"Right," Annabeth said, sounding more sure. "And there was a dagger, just like what Mithras is depicted to have in the statue. This has to be part of a test, maybe the two had to do something with the torch and dagger but failed."
"Maybe, but what would the test be?" Katie wondered.
Annabeth played with her necklace. "I'm not sure, maybe I can find a clue written somewhere."
...She lifted her eyes to the altar statue, which held a dagger and a torch.
Some kind of test, Annabeth decided. These two guys had failed. Correction: not just two guys. More bones and scraps of clothing were scattered all the way to the altar. She couldn't guess how many skeletons were represented, but she was willing to bet they were all demigods from the past, children of Athena on the same quest.
Athena's expression darkened.
The demigods shuddered.
Annabeth twisted her necklace around her finger and bit her lip.
Percy pulled her closer in his embrace. He couldn't help but admire how strong Annabeth was being. She was surrounded by skeletons of people who failed the quest she was on right now, yet she was able to stay levelheaded and make observations. Even now, Annabeth was still able to focus on her mission.
She's amazing. he thought, giving his girlfriend's shoulder a comforting squeeze.
"I will not be another skeleton on your floor," she called to the statue, hoping she sounded brave.
"Right," Athena nodded her head in approval.
"You tell'em Annabeth!" Connor cheered, trying to be optimistic. Some of the demigods joined him and added words of encouragement.
"You got this!"
"We believe in you!"
"Let's go Annabeth!"
Annabeth's expression softened, her shoulders slumped a bit.
"Thanks guys," she said with a small smile.
A girl, said a watery voice, echoing through the room. Girls are not allowed. Phoebe scowled.
Everyone tensed.
"Who was that?" Lacy squeaked.
"Sounds like a Mithras follower," Aphrodite sniffed.
"But isn't this place abandoned?" Percy said, eyes narrowed.
"Not if it's infested with ghosts," Nico said gravely.
A female demigod, said a second voice. Inexcusable.
Aphrodite and a few other gods rolled their eyes.
Artemis, her hunters, and the demigods glared at the book.
The chamber rumbled. Dust fell from the cracked ceiling.
Athena grimaced in concern. Don't fall, not now...
Annabeth bolted for the hole she'd come through, but it had disappeared. Her string had been severed. She clambered up on the bench and pounded on the wall where the hole had been, hoping the hole's absence was just an illusion, but the wall felt solid.
"No way out now," Annabeth grumbled, taking in the situation. Surrounded by enemies she couldn't see, an alter with a dagger and torch that involved some sort of test, okay. What can I do here?
They could have attacked her when she wasn't aware of their presence, maybe they were waiting for her to perform the test? She might be able to talk with the ghosts.
Along the benches, a dozen ghosts shimmered into existence—glowing purple men in Roman togas, like the Lares she'd seen at Camp Jupiter. They glared at her as if she'd interrupted their meeting.
She did the only thing she could. She stepped down from the bench and put her back to the bricked-in doorway. She tried to look confident, though the scowling purple ghosts and the demigod skeletons at her feet made her want to turtle in her T-shirt and scream.
"Can't blame you for that," Katie shivered.
"I'm a child of Athena," she said, as boldly as she could manage.
Athena proudly sat upright in her throne, she gave her daughter a smile.
Annabeth gave her a strained smile back.
"A Greek," one of the ghosts said with disgust. "That is even worse."
"Please don't tell me we're stuck with them for the whole chapter," Travis complained.
At the other end of the chamber, an old-looking ghost rose with some difficulty (do ghosts have arthritis?)
"He shouldn't. I don't know why he's acting like he's in pain," Hades said.
"Maybe it's phantom pains," Leo grinned, looking up from his screws and bolts.
Nico groaned. "Stop."
"And wait 'til October to use these jokes? No way, I'm just getting started." he snickered at the other's exasperated expression.
"Jokes? There's more?" Nico complained.
and stood by the altar, his dark eyes fixed on Annabeth...
"This is the cavern of Mithras," said the old ghost. "You have disturbed our sacred rituals. You cannot look upon our mysteries and live."
"I don't want to see any of your secrets, just let me leave." Annabeth said, crossing her arms.
"I don't want to look upon your mysteries," Annabeth assured him. "I'm following the Mark of Athena. Show me the exit, and I'll be on my way."
Her voice sounded calm, which surprised her.
"I don't know how you're doing it but keep going, you're doing great." Percy encouraged her.
She had no idea how to get out of here, but she knew she had to succeed where her siblings had failed. Her path led farther on—deeper into the underground layers of Rome.
...The ghosts mumbled to each other in Latin. Annabeth caught a few unkind words about female demigods and Athena.
Athena and Annabeth gritted their teeth.
Finally the ghost with the pope hat struck his shepherd's crook against the floor. The other Lares fell silent.
"Your Greek goddess is powerless here," said the pope. "Mithras is the god of Roman warriors! He is the god of the legion, the god of the empire!"
"Oh really? Then where has he been all these centuries?" Athena sneered.
"He wasn't even Roman," Annabeth protested. "Wasn't he, like, Persian or something?"
"They don't care," Aphrodite shrugged.
"Sacrilege!" the old man yelped, banging his staff on the floor a few more times. "Mithras protects us! I am the pater of this brotherhood—"
"The father," Annabeth translated, filing this information away for later.
..."Do not interrupt! As pater, I must protect our mysteries."
"Then let me go! The longer I stay here, the longer I'm exposed to your 'mysteries'." Annabeth argued with air quotes.
"What mysteries?" Annabeth asked. "A dozen dead guys in togas sitting around in a cave?"
"Pppffftt!" Hermes covered his mouth and started chuckling.
Will cringed. "I don't think it's a good idea to make them angry..."
"Maybe," Annabeth said, brushing a stray lock of hair away from her face. But it's true.
The ghosts muttered and complained, until the pater got them under control with a taxi cab whistle.
"With no lungs?" Will said, perplexed.
"It's magic." Nico said as if that explained everything.
..."You are clearly an unbeliever. Like the others, you must die."
The others... Everyone grimaced, trying not to think about the skeletons in the room.
...Her mind worked furiously, grasping for anything she knew about Mithras. He had a secret cult for warriors. He was popular in the legion. He was one of the gods who'd supplanted Athena as a war deity.
Athena scowled.
Aphrodite had mentioned him during their teatime chat in Charleston. Aside from that, Annabeth had no idea.
"Knew more than I did..." Annabeth grumbled with a hint of embarrassment. She really need to start studying more about Roman mythology.
Mithras just wasn't one of the gods they talked about at Camp Half-Blood. She doubted the ghosts would wait while she whipped out Daedalus's laptop and did a search.
"So what are you going to do?" Mitchell asked nervously.
"I think I'll try to stall as long as I can," Annabeth said. Then hope I can think of a way to get out of this mess.
She scanned the floor mosaic—seven pictures in a row. She studied the ghosts and noticed all of them wore some sort of badge on their toga—a raven, or a torch, or a bow.
Like membership badges... Annabeth silently thought.
"You have rites of passage," she blurted out. "Seven levels of membership. And the top level is the pater."
The demigods gave Annabeth confused looks.
"How do you know that?" Percy asked.
Annabeth squeezed her college ring. "It was just a guess. I could be wrong."
"It sounds right to me," Travis said with a shrug.
"You're not part of a secret cult," she pointed out.
"None that you know of," he smirked. Katie shuddered.
"Don't even joke about that," she said.
The ghosts let out a collective gasp. Then they all began shouting at once.
"How does she know this?" one demanded.
Annabeth sighed with relief. "I can't believe that actually worked..."
"It's not over yet," Athena warned.
"I know." she said, relaxing a bit despite this. She leaned against Percy's chest.
"The girl has gleaned our secrets!
"Silence!" the pater ordered.
"But she might know about the ordeals!" another cried.
"The ordeals!" Annabeth said. "I know about them!"
"Just don't me ask what they are," Annabeth said, earning snickers from the Stolls.
"You can't tell them anyways, you've been sworn to secrecy," Connor said.
"What happens in the Mithras cult, stays in the Mithras cult." Travis recited.
Another round of incredulous gasping.
Some of the listeners started laughing at the cultists' reactions.
"Over dramatic much?" Thalia smirked.
"Ridiculous!" The pater yelled. "The girl lies! Daughter of Athena, choose your way of death. If you do not choose, the god will choose for you!"
"Lemme guess: Fire or dagger?" Annabeth said.
...Even the pater looked stunned. Apparently he hadn't remembered there were victims of past punishments lying on the floor.
"Don't know how'd you forget that..." Chris said.
"How—how did you... ?" He gulped. "Who are you?"
"Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena and Architect of Olympus," Annabeth bragged with a smirk. This was too easy, she hoped the other trials were going to be like this!
"A child of Athena," Annabeth said again. "But not just any child. I am...uh, the mater in my sisterhood. The magna mater, in fact. There are no mysteries to me. Mithras cannot hide anything from my sight."
"That's right! Annabeth knows and sees all!" Connor exclaimed.
"Tremble before her magma matter power," Travis added.
"Magna mater," Percy repeated, he hesitated for a bit before translating. "It means 'big mother', right?"
Annabeth nodded her head, still smirking.
"The magna mater!" a ghost wailed in despair. "The big mother!"
More people started smiling in amusement, others were just snickering at the situation.
"Kill her!" One of the ghosts charged, his hands out to strangle her, but he passed right through her.
"You're dead," Annabeth reminded him. "Sit down."
The ghost looked embarrassed and took his seat.
Everyone in the room burst out laughing.
"I'm surprised he stuck around after that. If that happened to me, I would've just phased out in embarrassment." Chris chuckled.
"Ouch! Wow Annabeth, you really dampened his spirits," Leo said in between his laughter. He laughed harder at his own joke.
Nico stopped laughing and buried his face in his hands. He groaned loudly as if in pain. "That wasn't even funny."
"You don't get it?" Leo asked in mock innocence, earning a dry look from the son of Hades. Leo's smile grew a bit wider as he patiently explained. "It's funny because he's a ghost and dampen his spirits means-"
"I get it and it's still dumb," Nico huffed, making a show of rolling his eyes.
"We do not need to kill you ourselves," the pater growled. "Mithras shall do that for us!"
The statue on the altar began to glow.
Any traces of laughter stopped at that, everyone tensed.
Annabeth's smirk vanished with a worried frown in its place.
Annabeth pressed her hands against the bricked-in doorway at her back. That had to be the exit. The mortar was crumbling, but it was not weak enough for her to break through with brute force.
She looked desperately around the room—the cracked ceiling, the floor mosaic, the wall paintings, and the carved altar. She began to talk, pulling deductions from the top of her head.
Annabeth's mind was racing. She sat upright in her seat.
"It is no good," she said. "I know all. You test your initiates with fire because the torch is the symbol of Mithras. His other symbol is the dagger, which is why you can also be tested with the blade. You want to kill me, just as...uh, as Mithras killed the sacred bull."
"I think," Annabeth inserted with a helpless shrug.
It was a total guess, but the altar showed Mithras killing a bull, so Annabeth figured it must be important. The ghosts wailed and covered their ears. Some slapped their faces as if to wake up from a bad dream.
Everyone relaxed. Percy let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.
"The big mother knows!" one said. "It is impossible!"
"Unless you look around the room," Annabeth smirked, confidence quickly coming back. "You have to work on keeping your mysteries a secret."
...She glared at the ghost who had just spoken. He had a raven badge on his toga—the same symbol as on the floor at her feet.
"You are just a raven," she scolded. "That is the lowest rank. Be silent and let me speak to your pater."
The ghost cringed. "Mercy! Mercy!"
"Annabeth's really putting all of these ghosts in their place," Hermes chuckled.
At the front of the room, the pater trembled—either from rage or fear, Annabeth wasn't sure which.
"Probably both." Annabeth shrugged, not exactly threatened but not dismissing him altogether.
His pope hat tilted sideways on his head like a gas gauge dropping toward empty. "Truly, you know much, big mother. Your wisdom is great, but that is all the more reason why you cannot leave. The weaver warned us you would come."
Annabeth faltered at that. She should've known that Arachne was working with them, yet she still felt a jolt of surprise.
"The weaver..." Annabeth realized with a sinking feeling what the pater was talking about..."The weaver fears me. She doesn't want me to follow the Mark of Athena. But you will let me pass."
"You must choose an ordeal!" the pater insisted. "Fire or dagger! Survive one, and then, perhaps!"
"That must be what happened to the others," Hestia realized with a wince.
Annabeth looked down at the bones of her siblings. The failures of your predecessors will guide you. They'd all chosen one or the other: fire or dagger. Maybe they'd thought they could beat the ordeal. But they had all died.
Athena grimaced, feeling as though someone punched her in the gut.
Annabeth needed a third choice.
She stared at the altar statue, which was glowing brighter by the second. She could feel its heat across the room. Her instinct was to focus on the dagger or the torch, but instead she concentrated on the statue's base. She wondered why its legs were stuck in stone. Then it occurred to her: maybe the little statue of Mithras wasn't stuck in the rock. Maybe he was emerging from the rock.
"That's right," Aphrodite said.
"Not the most unconventional way a god was born, but still weird." Percy said.
"Neither torch nor dagger," Annabeth said firmly. "There is a third test, which I will pass."
"A third test?" the pater demanded.
"Mithras was born from rock," Annabeth said, hoping she was right. "He emerged fully grown from the stone, holding his dagger and torch."
The screaming and wailing told her she had guessed correctly.
"The big mother knows all!" a ghost cried. "That is our most closely guarded secret!"
"Why are they so surprised? Don't they have their biggest secret on the alter for everyone to see?" Leo laughed, swinging his legs back and forth.
"They should have allowed women into their club, then they'd have more common sense." Artemis stated.
...Annabeth gestured dramatically to the wall she'd come from. "I was born from stone, just as Mithras was! Therefore, I have already passed your ordeal!"
"You really think that's going to work?" Travis snickered.
"Why not? They believed everything else I told them." Annabeth said smugly.
"Bah!" the pater spat. "You came from a hole in the wall! That's not the same thing."
"Okay, okay, so the pater isn't a complete moron." Annabeth said, rolling her eyes.
"You'd have to be brain dead to fall for that." Clarisse said.
Leo snickered. "Brain dead,"
"Stop." Nico deadpanned.
...Annabeth remained confident. She glanced at the ceiling, and another idea came to her—all the details clicking together.
"I have control over the very stones." She raised her arms. "I will prove my power is greater than Mithras. With a single strike, I will bring down this chamber."
Having an idea where she was going with this, Athena's face lit up.
The ghosts wailed and trembled and looked at the ceiling, but Annabeth knew they didn't see what she saw. These ghosts were warriors, not engineers. The children of Athena had many skills, and not just in combat. Annabeth had studied architecture for years. She knew this ancient chamber was on the verge of collapse. She recognized what the stress fractures in the ceiling meant, all emanating from a single point—the top of the stone arch just above her. The capstone was about to crumble, and when that happened, assuming she could time it correctly...
"And if you don't..." Will said nervously.
"Then I'll be crushed," Annabeth stated, earning a wince from Percy.
"I want to say how dangerous that is, but we've done worse." the son of Poseidon said.
"Way worse," she agreed with a confident smile. "I can handle this."
"Impossible!" the pater shouted. "The weaver has paid us much tribute to destroy any children of Athena who would dare enter our shrine.
Athena's hands curled into fists.
We have never let her down.
"Yeah? Well, you will today." Annabeth said.
We cannot let you pass."
"Then you fear my power!" Annabeth said. "You admit that I could destroy your sacred chamber!"
The pater scowled. He straightened his hat uneasily. Annabeth knew she'd put him in an impossible position. He couldn't back down without looking cowardly.
"Do your worst, child of Athena," he decided. "No one can bring down the cavern of Mithras, especially with one strike. Especially not a girl!" Phoebe rolled her eyes.
The other hunters scoffed.
Artemis glared at the book.
Annabeth hefted her dagger. The ceiling was low. She could reach the capstone easily, but she'd have to make her one strike count.
The doorway behind her was blocked, but in theory, if the room started to collapse, those bricks should weaken and crumble. She should be able to bust her way through before the entire ceiling came down—assuming, of course, that there was something behind the brick wall, not just solid earth; and assuming that Annabeth was quick enough and strong enough and lucky enough. Otherwise, she was about to be a demigod pancake.
Everyone sat on the edges of their seats, holding their breaths. The room was quiet expect for the sound of Phoebe's voice.
"Well, boys," she said. "Looks like you chose the wrong war god."
Aphrodite and Athena (form flickering) laughed at that.
She struck the capstone. The Celestial bronze blade shattered it like a sugar cube. For a moment, nothing happened.
The demigods' shoulders slumped in confusion. Some exchanged looks.
"Wait for it," Athena practically purred. She was already beaming, smiling widely from ear to ear.
"Ha!" the pater gloated. "You see? Athena has no power here!"
The room shook. A fissure ran across the length of the ceiling and the far end of the cavern collapsed, burying the altar and the pater. More cracks widened. Bricks fell from the arches. Ghosts screamed and ran, but they couldn't seem to pass through the walls. Apparently they were bound to this chamber even in death.
Annabeth turned. She slammed against the blocked entrance with all her might, and the bricks gave way. As the cavern of Mithras imploded behind her, she lunged into darkness and found herself falling.
Silence.
The demigods broke out in cheer.
"Anna-beth! Anna-beth!" some yelled, their rhythm clashed against the others: "Here we go, Annabeth! Here we go!" followed by a series of claps.
"You did it!" Lacy squealed, bouncing up and down in her seat.
"I knew you could," Athena boasted, smirking at the other gods who couldn't help but be impressed.
"Those guys didn't stand a ghost of a chance," Leo snickered. Nico pretended to gag, but Annabeth gave a hearty laughed. Not because the joke was actually funny (gods no), but more out of a sense of relief. She survived!
I did it! she thought with giddy, smiling so hard it was starting to hurt. Her heart was racing from adrenaline, Annabeth pulled Percy into a hug and kissed him. I did it!
"And here you were, worried about me." Annabeth said once they pulled apart.
"I'm your boyfriend, I'm supposed to worry when you go off on dangerous quests," Percy said good-naturedly. He was wearing a toothy smile. "You did it! You're going to find that statue in no time!"
"You're celebrating too early, she still hasn't fought the weaver yet." Hera warned, earning glares from Athena and Annabeth.
"Settle down Hera, let them enjoy this moment. Children of Athena never made it this far before, they have a reason for some celebration." Poseidon pointed out. He didn't care about Athena's feelings but he did want Annabeth to celebrate for a little while. The god was happy for her and was impressed with how resourceful she had been in the situation.
Percy made the right choice in dating her. he thought.
Hera crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
The room was filled with cheers, laughter, and excited conversations. It took a while, but eventually everyone settled down.
Athena, chest puffed out in pride, announced, "I'll read next."
Annabeth wasn't exactly gung-ho about her mother reading her point-of-view, but it didn't ruin her moment. I'm going to do it. I'm going to find the statue and save my mom and put an end to this stupid rivalry.
"Annabeth XXXV,"