Percy Jackson and the World of Magic

Chapter 8: Fallen Fate

3rd Person P.O.V.

Percy was frozen in place. 

His mother's chest was heaving; the arrow was moving with every breath he took. It had shattered his breastplate and pierced her left side. Atlanna touched her finger to the wound. They came in crimson. The sight of blood-on his mother's hand, dripping down her skirt-broke Percy's trance.

"Mom!" he screamed, lurching towards her, but it was too late. Janicari had already encircled her, shielding Percy from harm, but also preventing him from getting to his mother. "Let me go!" he cried, trying to fight his way through them. 

He heard the shouts of Atlanteans , felt their bodies thrashing in the water. The spectators were in a frenzy of fear-swimming into one another, pushing and shoving. Children, separated from their parents, were screaming in terror. A little girl was knocked down, a boy was battered by a lashing tail. 

Unable to break through the Janicari, Percy pressed his face between two of them and glimpsed at his mother. Atlanna was still staring down at the arrow in her side. The Janicari were trying to surround her as they had Percy, but she angrily ordered them to leaver her and go to the Matalis and her children. With a swift, merciless motion, she pulled the arrow out of her body and threw it  down. Blood pulsed from her wound, but there was no fear on her face-only terrible fury. 

"Coward!" she shouted, her fierce voice rising above the cries of the crowd. "Show yourself!"

She swam above the royal enclosure, whirling in a circle, her eyes searching the Kolisseo for the sniper. "Come out bottom feeder! Finish your work! Here is my heart!" she cried, pounding her chest. 

Percy was frantic, expecting another arrow to come for his mother any second.

"I am Atlanna, former ruler of Atlantis! And I will never be frightened by sea scum who strikes from the shadows!"

"Atlanna take cover!" someone shouted. Percy knew that voice; it was his father. He spotted him, he looking straight up. "No!" he shouted. 

He shot out of the enclosure like a blur, a split second later he was swimming up over the amphitheater -between his lover and a man in black above from her who was holding a loaded crossbow. 

The assassin, barely visible in the darker waters, fired. The arrow buried itself in Poseidon's chest. He was dead, send to Tartarus to reform, by the time his body hit the seafloor. Right beside the fallen bodies of Amphitrite and Triton.

Percy felt as if someone had reached inside of him and tore his heart out, "Dad!" he screamed. He clawed at the Janicari, trying to get to his father but they held him fast. 

More Janicari, led by his uncle Vallerio, surrounded Atlanna. The Mehterabasi had ordered another group to the royal enclosure, where they'd encircled the Matalis and their court. 

"Bakmak, Bakmak!" the Mehterabasi shouted. Look up, Look up. 

Out of the night waters descended more men, humans by the looks of it, all in black. Hundreds of them, riding hippocamps. They fired on the royal enclosure and on the people. Janicari raced through the water to fight them off, but they were no match for their crossbows. 

"To the palace!" Vallerio shouted "Get everyone inside! Go"

Two guards took Percy by his arms and swam him out of the Kolisseo at breakneck speeds. Two more swam above them, shielding him. In only seconds, they were back inside the city walls and safely under the thicket of the Devil's Tail. They continued onto the palace. When they reached the Regents Courtyard, the guards broke their formation and hurried to his side.