Walk With the Shadows [ Percy Jackson OC ]

THREE | Ophelia

OPHELIA CAUGHT HER BREATH in the last, deep hour of darkness before sunrise. The top floors of the Plaza Hotel shined amidst the quiet, filled with wounded demigods. Behind her lay Demeter's daughter Aimee. A hellhound had torn her arm to pieces. The fourteen year old had been sobbing when Ophelia got the call that her particular skills were necessary yet again.

As she stood on the balcony in the open air, Ophelia's skin tingled. Hecate had woven the magic so thick here that she could feel it permeating her skin and filling her lungs. Night was always darkest just before dawn, and as Ophelia closed her eyes, allowing the shadows to fill her mind, she revelled in the last few moments before the emptiness of day would consume her.

She could hear Kitty groaning as one of the Apollo boys wrapped her burns and gave her nectar to drink. If the unclaimed kid, Sylvia, in the Hermes cabin hadn't risked a phone call to the hotel about their cabinmate Samantha, Ophelia wouldn't even have known about Kitty's injuries, let alone been there in time to shadow-travel her away.

Ophelia liked Kitty. When she'd first come to Camp Half-Blood with Alex only a few hours before Kronos's army exploded up through Daedelus's damned Labyrinth, Tyche's daughter had been one of the few to speak in their favor. She'd said it was worth the gamble. Camp needed the swords. Fortune favored the bold, and all that. She was fond of that saying.

Turning around to look through the glass balcony doors, Ophelia just shook her head. Fortune favored the bold until it got someone killed. She'd never met a child of Tyche before Kitty, but she knew several of Nemesis's children, as well as her own half siblings through Hecate. Seemed as though the children of the minor gods were always the ones pulling off bold stunts.

At the thought of her mother, the voices, whispers on the edge of her mind, grew louder. Ophelia didn't know what they said but she knew who they were; the cries of her fallen siblings. Anger twisted her stomach into knots. That wasn't how her mother played games. Sure, she could torment Ophelia easily. But that wasn't her nature.

No, Ophelia knew she had another goddess to thank for the voices. Eris. Unforgiving, unrelenting, rageful, discordant. Also, apparently, a huge fan of any demigod associated with her bloodline. There weren't many, go figure. She liked to follow their progress. Stalk them, more like. Which, unfortunately, included Ophelia.

Eris also did not seem to appreciate any demigod in her bloodline who fought for the Olympians. Though from what she could tell about her paternal great great grandmother, Eris just wanted bloodshed. Wasn't Nemesis's domain Revenge?

"Hey."

The balcony lights on the building across sparked and went out as the voice stole Ophelia from her thoughts. She spun around. The familiar face of Will Solace, Apollo's kid and their best healer, depend into a frown. She apologized for the light show.

"We need you." Then he glanced past her, where the tiniest bit of light had just begun to creep over the horizon. "Still up for it?"

"Of course."