The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

where the weatherwas controlled even in the winter. The images she’d seen in her knife recently … well, they didn’t give her much to look forward to.
    Jason squeezed her shoulder. ‘Hey, it’ll be fine. We’re close to Epirus now. Another day or so, if Nico’s directions are right.’
    ‘Yep.’ Leo tinkered with his sphere, tapping and nudging one of the jewels on its surface. ‘By tomorrow morning, we’ll reach the western coast of Greece. Then another hour inland, and bang – House of Hades! I’ma get me the T-shirt!’
    ‘Yay,’ Piper muttered.
    She wasn’t anxious to plunge into the darkness again. She still had nightmares about the nymphaeum and the hypogeum under Rome. In the blade of Katoptris , she’d seen images similar to what Leo and Hazel had described from their dreams – a pale sorceress in a gold dress, her hands weaving golden light in the air like silk on a loom; a giant wrapped in shadows, marching down a long corridor lined with torches. As he passed each one, the flames died. She saw a huge cavern filled with monsters – Cyclopes, Earthborn and stranger things – surrounding her and her friends, hopelessly outnumbering them.
    Every time she saw those images, a voice in her head kept repeating one line over and over.
    ‘Guys,’ she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about the Prophecy of Seven.’
    It took a lot to get Leo’s attention away from his work, but that did the trick.
    ‘What about it?’ he asked. ‘Like … good stuff, I hope?’
    She readjusted her cornucopia’s shoulder strap. Sometimes the horn of plenty seemed so light she forgot about it. Other times it felt like an anvil, as if the river god Achelous were sending out bad thoughts, trying to punish her for taking his horn.
    ‘In Katoptris,’ she started, ‘I keep seeing that giant Clytius – the guy who’s wrapped in shadows. I know his weakness is fire, but in my visions he snuffs out flames wherever he goes. Any kind of light just gets sucked into his cloud of darkness.’
    ‘Sounds like Nico,’ Leo said. ‘You think they’re related?’
    Jason scowled. ‘Hey, man, cut Nico some slack. So, Piper, what about this giant? What are you thinking?’
    She and Leo exchanged a quizzical look, like:
Since when does Jason defend Nico di Angelo?
She decided not to comment.
    ‘I keep thinking about fire,’ Piper said. ‘How we expect Leo to beat this giant because he’s …’
    ‘Hot?’ Leo suggested with a grin.
    ‘Um, let’s go with
flammable
. Anyway, that line from the prophecy bothers me:
To storm or fire the world must fall.
’
    ‘Yeah, we know all about it,’ Leo promised. ‘You’re gonna say I’m fire. And Jason here is storm.’
    Piper nodded reluctantly. She knew that none of them liked talking about this, but they all must have
felt
it was the truth.
    The ship pitched to starboard. Jason grabbed the icy railing. ‘So you’re worried one of us will endanger the quest, maybe accidentally destroy the world?’
    ‘No,’ Piper said. ‘I think we’ve been reading that line thewrong way. The
world
 … the earth. In Greek, the word for that would be …’
    She hesitated, not wanting to say the name aloud, even at sea.
    ‘Gaia.’ Jason’s eyes gleamed with sudden interest. ‘You mean,
to storm or fire Gaia must fall
?’
    ‘Oh …’ Leo grinned even wider. ‘You know, I like your version a lot better. ’Cause if Gaia falls to me, Mr Fire, that is absolutely copacetic.’
    ‘Or to me … storm.’ Jason kissed her. ‘Piper, that’s brilliant! If you’re right, this is great news. We just have to figure out which of us destroys Gaia.’
    ‘Maybe.’ She felt uneasy getting their hopes up. ‘But, see, it’s storm
or
fire …’
    She unsheathed Katoptris and set it on the console. Immediately, the blade flickered, showing the dark shape of the giant Clytius moving through a corridor, snuffing out torches.
    ‘I’m worried about Leo and this fight with Clytius,’ she said. ‘That line in the prophecy makes it sound like only
one
of you can succeed. And if the
storm or fire
part is connected to the third line,
an oath to keep with a final breath …
’
    She didn’t finish the thought, but from Jason’s and Leo’s expressions she saw that they understood. If she was reading the prophecy right, either Leo or Jason would defeat Gaia. The other one would die.

XLII
     

PIPER
     
    L EO STARED AT THE DAGGER. ‘Okay … so I don’t like your idea as much as