The Titan's Curse

Titan war is almost upon us. Kronos’s first strike will be here.”
    “How do you know?” I asked. “Why would he care about camp?”
    “Because the gods use heroes as their tools,” Chiron said simply. “Destroy the tools, and the gods will be crippled. Luke’s forces will come here. Mortal, demigod, monstrous . . . We must be prepared. Clarisse’s news may give us a clue as to how they will attack, but—”
    There was a knock on the door, and Nico di Angelo came huffing into the parlor, his cheeks bright red from the cold.
    He was smiling, but he looked around anxiously. “Hey! Where’s . . . where’s my sister?”
    Dead silence. I stared at Chiron. I couldn’t believe nobody had told him yet. And then I realized why. They’d been waiting for us to appear, to tell Nico in person.
    That was the last thing I wanted to do. But I owed it to Bianca.
    “Hey, Nico.” I got up from my comfortable chair. “Let’s take a walk, okay? We need to talk.”
    He took the news in silence, which somehow made it worse. I kept talking, trying to explain how it had happened, how Bianca had sacrificed herself to save the quest. But I felt like I was only making things worse.
    “She wanted you to have this.” I brought out the little god figurine Bianca had found in the junkyard. Nico held it in his palm and stared at it.
    We were standing at the dining pavilion, just where we’d last spoken before I went on the quest. The wind was bitter cold, even with the camp’s magical weather protection. Snow fell lightly against the marble steps. I figured outside the camp borders, there must be a blizzard happening.
    “You promised you would protect her,” Nico said.
    He might as well have stabbed me with a rusty dagger.
    It would’ve hurt less than reminding me of my promise.
    “Nico,” I said. “I tried. But Bianca gave herself up to save the rest of us. I told her not to. But she—”
    “You promised!”
    He glared at me, his eyes rimmed with red. He closed his small fist around the god statue.
    “I shouldn’t have trusted you.” His voice broke. “You lied to me. My nightmares were right!”
    “Wait. What nightmares?”
    He flung the god statue to the ground. It clattered across the icy marble. “I hate you!”
    “She might be alive,” I said desperately. “I don’t know for sure—”
    “She’s dead.” He closed his eyes. His whole body trembled with rage. “I should’ve known it earlier. She’s in the Fields of Asphodel, standing before the judges right now, being evaluated. I can feel it.”
    “What do you mean, you can feel it?”
    Before he could answer, I heard a new sound behind me. A hissing, clattering noise I recognized all too well.
    I drew my sword and Nico gasped. I whirled and found myself facing four skeleton warriors. They grinned fleshless grins and advanced with swords drawn. I wasn’t sure how they’d made it inside the camp, but it didn’t matter. I’d never get help in time.
    “You’re trying to kill me!” Nico screamed. “You brought these . . . these things?”
    “No! I mean, yes, they followed me, but no ! Nico, run. They can’t be destroyed.”
    “I don’t trust you!”
    The first skeleton charged. I knocked aside its blade, but the other three kept coming. I sliced one in half, but immediately it began to knit back together. I knocked another’s head off but it just kept fighting.
    “Run, Nico!” I yelled. “Get help!”
    “No!” He pressed his hands to his ears.
    I couldn’t fight four at once, not if they wouldn’t die. I slashed, whirled, blocked, jabbed, but they just kept advancing. It was only a matter of seconds before the zombies overpowered me.
    “No!” Nico shouted louder. “Go away!”
    The ground rumbled beneath me. The skeletons froze. I rolled out of the way just as a crack opened at the feet of the four warriors. The ground ripped apart like a snapping mouth. Flames erupted from the fissure, and the earth swallowed the skeletons in one loud CRUNCH!
    Silence.
    In the place where the skeletons had stood, a twenty-foot-long scar wove across the marble floor of the pavilion. Otherwise there was no sign of the warriors.
    Awestruck, I looked to Nico. “How did you—”
    “Go away!” he yelled. “I hate you! I wish you were dead!”
    The ground didn’t swallow me up, but Nico ran down the steps, heading toward the woods. I started to follow but slipped and fell to the icy steps. When I got up, I noticed what I’d slipped on.
    I