Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 63

Once again, Cressida was so very, very grateful for her brother. She didn't think she'd have survived without him distracting her. Being blind had been horrible and she didn't even want to try and describe how awful her insides felt when she thought Percy had abandoned her. And now she had her sight back, she was watching Percy flop over Bob's shoulder like a bag of sports equipment as Small Bob sat on his back and her boyfriend died slowly from gorgon's blood poisoning.

He forced her to talk about things, about the future and the life that she wanted once they got out of there because they, as in both her and Percy, were going to get out of there.

But as she talked, her lungs rattled. Her skin had started to blister again. She probably needed another drink of firewater, which she took as she coughed and spluttered, no amount of it ever making it drinkable. They'd arrived in Tartarus with five vials, four filled and one empty after they'd both split it. Cressida had the foresight to fill that empty vial with the fiery water and she made sure to tell Castor to tell Beckendorf that she loved him because he'd made glass vials that were interwoven with Celestial Bronze which wouldn't break, not even when you put liquid fire inside.

But even that didn't help much. Her body was so sore and battered that she'd forgotten what it was like not to be in pain.

Castor was helping her along since Bob was going at a fast pace, even for a Titan, but even still they were barely keeping up with him.

"How much longer?" she wheezed.

"Almost too long," Bob called back. "But maybe not."

The landscape changed again. They were still going downhill, which should have made travelling easier; but the ground sloped at just the wrong angle—too steep to jog, too treacherous to let her guard down even for a moment. The surface was sometimes loose gravel, sometimes patches of slime.

As the air stank and got thicker, Cressida swore to throttle both Aphrodite for that comment she made about the massive tragedy she had to endure, and she wanted to make Hera suffer for everything.

Castor kept her talking and she silently realised something. Something she'd have to remember to talk to Percy about once they were ok and out of hell and if Reyna and Rachel and Pollux got her message.

She took back any resentment she had about the Romans taking Percy, they could keep him as long as they kept her too. Whatever he wanted to do, she'd do with him. Because it meant that he was ok.

Percy groaned and muttered something she couldn't make out.

Bob stopped suddenly. "Look."

Ahead in the gloom, the terrain levelled out into a black swamp. Sulphur-yellow mist hung in the air. Even without sunlight, there were actual plants —clumps of reeds, scrawny leafless trees, and even a few sickly-looking flowers blooming in the muck. Mossy trails wound between bubbling tar pits. Directly in front of them, sunk into the bog, were footprints the size of trash-can lids, with long, pointed toes.

Sadly, Cressida was pretty sure she knew what had made them. "Drakon?"

"Yes." Bob grinned at her. "That is good!"

"Why would that be good?!" Cressida exclaimed.

"Because we are close."

Bob marched into the swamp.

Cressida huffed as her arm was still around Castor and they followed after him, her brother assuring her that it was going to be fine.

She wasn't crying but there were still tears cleaning a path down her cheeks when she heard Percy calling her name as he mumbled deliriously - at least she didn't think she was crying.