A Crown of Golden Leaves: A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Capvt XVII: The Precipice

Capvt XVII: The Precipice

ANNABETH walked with Piper, listening with an idle ear as her friend chattered on about who was courting whom, Lady Constance was going to have a baby and, "Did you know that Lord Constantine and Lady Margaret got divorced last month?"

"Oh, how awful," she murmured. She only vaguely remembered Lady Margaret; she and some lady friend of hers kept whispering about whether or not she was infertile as she wasn't with child, whenever they thought her back was turned and she couldn't hear them. Once, one of them had suggested a surrogate to bear him a child. She had had to conciously restrain herself from punching Margaret. 

Rumors like that had begun to spread like wildfire. She should have expected something like this to happen, and she shouldn't let them make her too upset. So long as she and Percy were doing this on purpose, it didn't matter what anyone else thought. 

It didn't stop the pangs in her chest whenever she thought of it though. It was only made worse by the fact that she was still terrified at the idea of doing anything physically intimate with him. Just the idea! 

Though, at the same time, there was a strange appeal in the idea too . . . 

"And that's not all!" Piper's eyes were sparkling in the way they did whenever she was excited over something—or scheming something like putting someone's hands in warm water (Leo had attempted to murder her). "Lady Margaret is getting married—again—to Senator Augustus!"

"Now, that is interesting," she said as her mind tracked toward the Odyssey . . . Odyssus' wife had been really clever, since she tricked him into getting annoyed that their bed was movable. He had proved he wasn't someone in disguise . . . That was what happened, right? She hadn't heard the story since she was a girl.

"You're not listening to me, are you?" She grumbled. "You've got that distant quality in your voice, and that look in your eyes . . ."

She froze. Out of the corner of her eye, she had seen a shadow twist in a way that reminded her remarkably of whenever Nico manipulated the shadows. But it couldn't be . . . he was incredibly subtle about it, and he was only seen when he wanted to be seen. And he had made it clear he didn't want to have anything to do with her since Bianca died. He and Luke and Thalia. 

She spun around, but no one was there. Or, at least, visible to her eye.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She turned ahead again, her eyebrows furrowing together. "I just thought . . . never mind." She shook her head. Had Nico been there, standing hidden in the shadows? The thought made her feel a bizarre mixture of security and resentment. 

But he couldn't be— surely he would announced himself. Was she going insane? Or had she just imagined things again? But no, she was pretty sure that was real . . . but why would Nico allow it to be seen? Was it even Nico? 

She felt like she was on the edge of a cliff suddenly— and a single poke to the small of her back would cause her to fall down. 

 "Okay," Piper's drawl drew her out of her thoughts. It was obviously she didn't fully believe her.  "Anyway, apparently, there have been rumors of another revolt in Tarentum . . ."

The uneasy feeling stayed with her throughout the day.

~...~

"You've been distracted all day," Percy observed as she wheeled to a halt in front of him. She dropped to the ground, stretched out on her back, and attempted to catch her breath. "Is something wrong?"