𝟬𝟭𝟱. you presume much

"PERCY JACKSON!" Poseidon announced in front of the entire council of the gods.

His name echoed around the chamber, rattling its walls and rumbling the floors. All talking died down. The room was silent except for the occasional crackle of the hearth fire, where Hestia, goddess of the hearth, sat tending the flames. Everyone's eyes were on Aera's least favorite mass of fishbones—all the gods, the demigods, the Cyclopes, the spirits.

From where she knelt, four limbs locked in enchanted metal chains, (courtesy of Hephaestus, who had not been happy with her lounging around in his throne before blasting it apart), Aera watched with enough vengeance to raise the dead as Percy walked into the middle of the demolished throne room. He bowed to Zeus and then knelt at his father's feet, shaking like the wet dog he was.

"Rise, my son," Poseidon ordered with a proud voice. Percy stood uneasily. "A great hero must be rewarded."

Hero.

Hero. Hero. Hero.

Aera clenched her fists so tight her fingernails broke her skin. If Percy Jackson was such a hero, then why was Luke dead? And Silena? Beckendorf? Or even Jolina and her minions? Why didn't he save them?

Poseidon surveyed the circle of gods. "Is there anyone here who would deny that my son is deserving?"

Aera waited for someone to object. Those moron Olympians never agreed on anything, not in over a millennia, but not a single one protested. She tried to steady her uneven breathing, but it was hard when she was in such a vulnerable state. Her body was overcome. Her open wounds were still bleeding from battle.

Aera was about a hair away from collapsing. She fought it with all she could. There would be no medic to revive her if she gave in. Those abominable gods would not allow it. They would celebrate and jest to her pain and Aera couldn't have that. But as spiteful as she was, it felt worse than it did when she had briefly held up the sky. Only this time, the world had been yanked out right under her feet.

Just like that, her crown had been stolen, her castle toppled to ruin. Aera didn't even have a grave to mourn over.

When she refused to be separated from his body, Hermes had ordered the guards to yank her back while the Fates carried Luke away to Aphrodite knows where. She couldn't let them take him away. She feared what they would do to him now that he was just another disposable case of mortal flesh and bone. Hephaestus sprouted chains from the ground then, binding her in place. Aera fought and fought until her body gave out and she fell to the floor on her knees.

Not even an hour before that, Aera had watched Silena die by a monstrous creature under her command.

Eyes climbing the winding branches of fractures in the marbled floor, Aera's entire body trembled as the gods went on and on about Percy Jackson. For the first time in a long time, what was coming next terrified her.

It was inevitable.

Aera was going to die a horrible death.

The gods would find the sickest ways to torture her before they executed her. They would drag out her death, playing her like a harp. Then she was going to burn alive in the most harrowing section of the Fields of Punishment for an eternity. Her soul would never be reincarnated. She would never get to see Luke or Silena ever again.

Cruelest of all, Aera's existence would be erased. In a few years' time, no one would know her name or what she stood for. Aera would be forgotten forever, lost to the victors of history.

How did I get to here? she internally lamented on her knees. Her tattered battle gown splayed around her lap like a bloody wedding dress. Where did things go wrong?

"From now on..." Percy's voice resonated through the deepest pits of her despair. It was because his voice was such nails to chalkboard to her ears that she tuned back into her surroundings. "I want to you properly recognize the children of the gods. All the children...of all the gods."

The Olympians shifted uncomfortably. Aera's attention was seized at once. What was making them so nervous?

"Percy," Poseidon boomed, "what exactly do you mean?"

But Percy wasn't even looking at his godly father. His eyes were on Aera.

"Kronos couldn't have risen if it hadn't been for a lot of demigods who felt abandoned by their parents," he had the nerve to say while in steady eye contact with Aera. "They felt angry, resentful, and unloved, and they had a good reason."

Zeus's royal nostrils flared. "You dare accuse—"

"No more undetermined children," Percy cut him off, staring Zeus square in the eye. "I want you to promise to claim your children—all your demigod children—by the time they turn thirteen. They won't be left out in the world on their own at the mercy of monsters. I want them claimed and brought to camp so they can be trained right, and survive."

Aera studied the reaction of the gods, who seemed just as astonished as she was at his request. What was Percy Jackson playing at now?

"Now, wait just a moment," Apollo said, but Percy wasn't finished.

"And the minor gods," he added. "Nemesis, Hecate, Morpheus, Janus, Hebe—they all deserve a general amnesty and a place at Camp Half-Blood. Their children shouldn't be ignored. Calypso and the other peaceful Titan-kind should be forgiven too. And Hades—"

"Are you calling me a minor god?" Hades bellowed, deathly eyebrow raised as if ready to blast him to ash.

"No, my lord," fishbones said quickly. "But your children should not be left out. They should have a cabin at camp. Nico has proven that. No unclaimed demigods will be crammed into the Hermes cabin anymore, wondering who their parents are. They'll have their own cabins, for all the gods. And no more pact of the Big Three. That didn't work anyway. You've got to stop trying to get rid of powerful demigods. We're going to train them and accept them instead. All children of the gods will be welcome and treated with respect. That is my wish."

Zeus snorted. "Is that all?"

Percy hesitated. He exchanged a momentary glance with Annabeth, who was standing at Athena's feet. She was starting to pale for whatever reason. Then Percy did something that really shocked Aera.

He turned away from his father's throne to stand next to her.

"For all her crimes against Olympus," he declared, "Aera should be pardoned."

Another civil war almost broke out among the gods. The gods all started protesting at the same time, a thundering and rustling cacophony of powerful noise. The particles in the air turned hot like a nuclear bomb was about to explode at any moment.

"Aera Kim was one of the main agitators of the war," Ares growled. "To let her go would be asking for another." He rolled his shoulders back, flexing his biceps. "Which I wouldn't be entirely opposed to."

"Some of my oldest huntresses have perished by her hand," Artemis added grimly, rubbing the silver circlet around her wrist. "This kind of massacre cannot simply be forgiven."

"Percy," Poseidon said, the most amicable of the gods, "you ask much. You presume much."

"Aera saved Olympus," Percy argued, seeming unfazed by the rage of the gods. "If it wasn't for her, none of us would be alive."

In the near distance, thunder crackled far louder than the gentle flames at the hearth. Annabeth put a foot forward as if she wanted to stop him.

"She might have been against us for awhile," Percy conceded, not seeming to notice Annabeth or maybe for once, she wasn't all he thought about, "but it was her choice that mattered the most. In the end, Aera defeated Kronos. She risked her life. She gave up her power. She..." Percy's voice broke off a little. He looked at her again. Aera's fatigue must have been catching up to her or something but it appeared as if his eyes were misty in the light. She could imagine hearing a faint crack, like the sound of a heart breaking. "She sacrificed a lot to make things right. Punishing her would be a mistake." When the gods moved to argue again, Percy played more cunning than Aera thought him capable of, "I hold you to your oath. All of you."

Unsurprisingly, he got a lot of steely looks.

Surprisingly, it was Athena who spoke up: "The boy is correct. We have been unwise to ignore our children. It proved a strategic weakness in this war and almost caused our destruction. Aera Kim is a quintessential demonstration of this. If her mother had taken a more accountable approach in guiding her on the right path..." Aphrodite sat straighter in her rose-covered throne, silent and neglectful, as usual. Athena cleared her throat. "No matter. To give up immortality to spare the life of a mortal like her...Percy Jackson, I have had my doubts about you, but perhaps"—she glanced at Annabeth, and then wrinkled her nose as if the words had a sour taste—"perhaps I was mistaken. I move that we accept the boy's plan."

"I never thought I would say this," Aphrodite opened. All heads turned to her, stunned that she would even participate in such a serious discussion. "But I agree with Athena. Aera and the rest of our defected children deserve a second chance to prove their love and loyalty to us. We are fabulous, generous gods, are we not?"

Defected children... The word was different but Aera silently seethed as a terrible memory rose to the surface of her mind.

"Children of Aphrodite are the most beautiful products this universe has to offer," Jolina said.

She squatted down to a camper who had forced herself to throw up in the toilet. Aera and Silena watched in horror from the entrance of the bathroom stall. The camper couldn't be older than thirteen, tears streaking down her face as she retched.

Aera recognized her scurrying from corner to corner in their cabin, but she didn't know her name. She was on the list of Cabin 10 campers Aera wasn't allowed to talk to. Aera had always presumed that those on Jolina's black list had done something really bad like steal or cheat but looking at the camper now, Aera wondered what she could have done to deserve that.

Jolina hovered over her, calmly stroking the camper's hair with long red fingernails the shape of bloody talons. "We are manufactured to be the figments of Mom's very essence. We are gorgeous, meticulous, desirable..."

Her hand stopped in its path, blocked by a tangle in the camper's hair. In a flash, her expression warped from gentle to venomous the way an empousai shows her true form from time to time. "Still, every cargo shipment is bound to have defective goods."

The camper slowly lifted her head, tears shining in her eyes, vomit trickling from the corner of her mouth. Jolina ripped a square of toilet paper from the dispenser, wiping the camper's mouth with an aggressive disdain.

"Do not be discouraged, little sister," Jolina cooed, her voice dripping with fake kindness as she roughly dragged the paper across the camper's lips. "Some of us are just not made to be loved."

Jolina threw the paper in the toilet and flushed.

Like mother, like daughter, Aera thought bitterly. Jolina had to have learned that from somewhere. Of course it was from Aphrodite.

"Humph," Zeus scoffed, just as cynically as Aera felt inside. "Being told what to do by a mere child. But I suppose..."

"All in favor," Hermes said, the first time he had spoken since Luke was carried out.

All the gods raised their hands.

"Um, thanks," Percy said, rubbing the back of his neck. He turned to Aera again. His beady little eyes would not leave Aera for long since Luke died.

Then Poseidon called, "Honor guard!"

Immediately the army of Cyclopes came forward and made two lines from the thrones to the door—an aisle for Percy to walk through. They came to attention.

"All hail, Perseus Jackson," Tyson declared. "Hero of Olympus...and my big brother!"

As the crowd cheered and swarmed around Percy Jackson, blocking her from his view, Aera remained in her chains. She was crying and shaking on the floor, but it wasn't because she was happy to be alive. They should have killed her, instead of forcing her live in such insult.

She sacrificed a lot to make things right.

What did Percy know about her suffering? He knew nothing.

Aera made a solemn vow then, to herself, knelt at the feet of the gods, that she would never be at the mercy of any god or demigod ever again.

As soon as she saw Boreas' castle, Aera knew they were being led into a trap. She was pretty but she wasn't gullible. Aera didn't know what kind of idiotic god propaganda that two-dollar fisherman Annabeth had reeled in Jason with, but there was no god in this universe that was willing to help out a demigod for free. They were all selfish and prideful, only doing things for their own benefit. She had tried to warn Jason, but he was just a stubborn knucklehead with no taste just like the rest of the brainwashed clones at Camp Half-Dead.

The rich people honestly made things easier for her. Aera had left Leo with Cal to slip away to the hotel lobby. All she had to do was nab a fur winter coat from a bell cart and act posh and an elderly couple told her everything she needed to know about the hotel and its famed history. She worked fast, infiltrating The Mist side of things before heading back upstairs to see what kind of leverage she could pull on the Boreads and their frosty father.

Cal's room was straightforwardly filled with hockey equipment, with the occasional, highly questionable frozen slab of meat littered on the floor (yeah, Aera didn't understand that one either. Was he going for a meat locker concept?). Zethes' room was clear ice on the walls so he would catch every hideous angle of his reflection and basic furniture that wasn't anything noteworthy.

Khione's room, though, was fit for a princess decked out in a light blue four poster bed with icy curtains and unique wardrobe Aera swore she saw in a magazine about the fashion of the French Revolution. Naturally, she had to go through the ice princess' closet. It would be a fashion crime if she didn't. Khione had the attitude of a spoiled brat, but dang, was she dressed to the nines.

There were a few cute pieces here and there—snowflake hair clips, icicle pointed high heels—but none stood out more to Aera than the Elsa dress. Ooh, Aera felt so sparkly, putting it on! Admittedly, the fabric was a bit prickly on the inside, with all the small shards of ice, but nothing Aera's years worth of runway modeling couldn't handle.

Aera loved a grand entrance and she had made it just in time to wow all those losers. Now, it was up to Boreas whether he would be graced with an encore or not.

No one moved for a long stretch of time after Aera's extremely commendable speech. Even the frost suspended in the air seemed to hold its breath. Aera did a head count of 18 ice warriors, a bratty snow goddess, a knocked out Walmart Justin Timberlake, and Boreas, who, despite his outer composure, probably wanted to have Aera's head on a spike for a snowman. They also had home field advantage and Aera was starting to get a little cold.

Okay, so they were at a clear disadvantage here, but Aera couldn't help it. She wanted to walk out of here in this stunning ice dress so bad.

"Well?" Aera asked. "What's it gonna be, Your Majesty?"

Boras contemplated some more on his throne. Aera could picture him weighing the weight of Aera's words to discern if she was bluffing or not.

"Father!" Khione urged. "We need to take care of this problem now before—"

"Girl, you're gorgeous, but please shut up." Aera rolled her eyes, hitting the brunt of Zethes' spear on the ground with a heavy thud. She was so tired of this icy hottie running her mouth.

Her movement caught Boreas' eye.

"What's that on your forearm?" he questioned.

Aera hadn't taken into account that Khione's dress was short sleeved, leaving her forearms bare for those vile tattoos to be seen.

"Oh, nothing," Aera said breezily, putting her arms behind her back, "just some cute battle scars. Nothing to see—"

Then Jason stepped forward and reluctantly showed Boreas his matching marks. Aera just wanted to hurl a snowball at him. Ugh, did he have to ruin everything?

The god's eyes widened. Khione actually hissed and stepped away.

Then Boreas did something totally weird and totally unexpected. He threw his head back and laughed so loudly, an icicle cracked from the ceiling and crashed next to his throne.

The god's form began to flicker. His beard disappeared. He grew taller and thinner, and his clothes changed into a barbaric Roman-styled toga, lined with gold and purple. His head was crowned with a frosty laurel wreath, and a gold sword—just like Jason's—hung at his side. His Santa Claus demeanor had been shed, making him appear more serious and formidable.

"Aquilon," Jason uttered out of the blue.

"Is that the name of your stylist?" Aera said in disgust. "Cause, purple is so not your color, Your Majesty."

The god ignored her rudely, inclining his head at Jason with an ease of curiosity. "You recognize me better in this form, yes? And yet you said you came from Camp Half-Blood? "

Jason exchanged an uneasy look with Aera. "Uh...yes, Your Majesty."

"And Hera sent you there..." The winter god's eyes were full of mirth as they swept over to Aera where they lit up with a devious glint. "I understand now. Oh, she plays a dangerous game. Bold, but dangerous! No wonder Olympus is closed. They must be trembling at the gamble she has taken. They were reluctant to spare her and now this..."

"Jason," Piper said nervously, "why did Boreas change shape? The toga, the wreath. What's going on?"

"What's he talking about?" Aera demanded.

"It's his Roman form," Jason explained hastily. "But what he's talking about—I don't know."

The god laughed. "No, I'm sure you don't. This should be very interesting to watch."

"Does that mean you'll let us go?" Piper asked, asking the right question.

"My dear," Boreas said, "there is no reason for me to kill you. If Hera's plan fails, which I think it will, you will tear each other apart. Aeolus will never have to worry about demigods again."

Aera felt as if the ice on Khione's dress grew colder, but it wasn't the clothes—it was just the feeling that Boreas was right. There was a sense of wrongness lingering on Aera's chest since she woke up next to Jason on the school bus, like she had been to someplace she shouldn't have. Hera and Chiron had been utterly useless being all cryptic about their amnesia situation—but Boreas knew what they meant. He knew what was coming for them and it made him laugh.

"I don't suppose you're going to explain?" Aera asked. She didn't like this. At all. Aera hated being entertainment for the gods.

"Oh, perish the thought!" Boreas chuckled, apparently still having a great time imagining demigods tearing each other apart. "It is not for me to interfere in Hera's plan. No wonder she took your memory! You must have caused trouble again. I was wondering why the Olympians didn't finish you when they had the chance. This is why. They must have had more plans for you!"

"You know," he said, excitement blooming, "I have a reputation as a helpful wind god. Unlike my brethren, I've been known to fall in love with mortals. Why, my sons Zethes and Calais started as demigods—"

"Which explains why they are incompetent," Khione growled.

"Stop it!" Zethes somehow had the energy to snap back, rising to his feet with difficulty. "Just because you were born a full goddess—"

"Both of you, freeze," Boreas ordered. Apparently, that word carried a lot of weight in the household, because the two siblings went absolutely still. "Now, as I was saying, I have a good reputation, but it is rare that Boreas plays an important role in the affairs of gods. As you so kindly mentioned, this land was unclaimed for a reason. I sit here in my palace, at the edge of civilization, and so rarely have amusements. Why, even that fool Notus, the South Wind, gets spring break in Cancún. What do I get? A winter festival with naked Québécois rolling around in the snow!"

"I like the winter festival," Zethes muttered.

"My point," Boreas snapped sourly, "is that I now have a chance to be the center." He smirked at Aera. "Oh, yes, I will let you go on this quest, Ravager of Olympus. Then we shall see who has the last laugh. You will find your storm spirits in the windy city, of course. Chicago—"

"Father!" Khione protested.

Boreas disregarded his daughter. "If you can capture the winds, you may be able to gain safe entrance to the court of Aeolus. If by some miracle you succeed, be sure to tell him you captured the winds on my orders."

"Okay, sure," Jason agreed before Aera could find a way to twist the truth out of him. "So Chicago is where we'll find this lady who's controlling the winds? She's the one who's trapped Hera?"

"Ah." Boreas grinned. "Those are two different questions, son of Jupiter."

Aera was so over it. "You—"

Piper held Aera back by both arms before she charged the god. How she side stepped Zethes' pointy spear Aera had no idea.

"Relax," Piper murmured, her voice rolling over Aera's tense muscles. "You should chill."

Aera couldn't help but be guided back. Since when was Piper's voice this convincing?

"The one who controls the winds," Boreas broke in again, "yes, you will find her in Chicago. But she is only a servant—a servant who is very likely to destroy you. If you succeed against her and take the winds, then you may go to Aeolus. Only he has knowledge of all the winds on the earth. All secrets come to his fortress eventually. If anyone can tell you where Hera is imprisoned, it is Aeolus. As for who you will meet when you finally find Hera's cage—truly, if I told you that, you would all beg me to freeze you."

"Father," Khione protested, "you can't simply let them—"

"I can do what I like," he said, his voice hardening. "I am still master here, am I not?"

The way Boreas glared at his daughter, it was obvious they had some ongoing argument. Aera couldn't be bothered to figure out what it was about. If Boreas was telling the truth—and Aera had an aching suspicion that exaggerated theatrics wasn't really his style—then that meant Hera was playing them all for fools again. Her life would be made a spectacle once again...

Khione's eyes flashed with anger, but she clenched her teeth. "As you wish, Father."

"Now go, demigods," Boreas said, "before I change my mind. Zethes, see to it that our guests are escorted out safely."

They, minus Aera, all bowed, and the god of the North Wind dissolved into mist.