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OLDEN CROWN ━━chapter fourteen
━━ELISA KEPT LOOKING over her shoulder every hundred feet or so. She half expected to see those nasty sun dragons toting a flying chariot with a screaming magical saleswoman throwing potions, but nothing followed them.
Leo steered the dragon toward the southwest. Eventually, the smoke from the burning department store faded in the distance, but Elisa didn't relax until the suburbs of Chicago gave way to snowy fields, and the sun began to set.
She had never felt so utterly ... stupid. Her entire life, Elisa prided herself on being strong, and unable to be easily broken down by others, but then Medea just read her like an open book. It was like the witch pulled the darkest secrets from Elisa's mind and laid them out for all to see.
Elisa wasn't vulnerable, but Medea forced her to be. She felt like her skin was crawling. Her insides lurched from fear. It was a heavy feeling that made her want to vomit. Fear is a mind-killer, Medea told her. Fear is a sickness—a plague.
She was lying when she told Medea that the witch didn't know her. Medea read Elisa like she was an open book. All she wanted was to just leave peacefully with Percy. She never wanted to have to worry about anything again. That's all she wanted. She wasn't getting it, of course, 'cause here she was on a life-threatening quest.
And the fire—Elisa nearly let her dreams become a reality. For years one dream had plagued her, like a sickness. An empty space filled with nothing but raging fires and the screams of what she had left behind in Durango. That raging fire from her dreams was something she could never escape; no matter how far she ran, it followed her and consumed her body whole. And stupidly, Elisa had almost let that become true at Medea's warehouse. If it hadn't been for Piper, she would've died. She would have been consumed by something plaguing her for years.
Child of madness, beware the plague.
Elisa wasn't sure if that was all the prophecy line was referring to, but she certainly had to confront her fears if she wanted to make it out alive.
But she was sure if it hadn't been for Delaney bringing up that fucking name—Brian Anders—she wouldn't have been as bothered. It was a name she swore to never hear again, and for the most part, she almost got that wish.
Anders was a vile man; a son of Bia, Goddess of Force. And he took it literally. When Elisa ran away from Durango, Colorado at twelve, she was hunted by the monsters—emposai—that drove her away. Maurelle was the sort of leader among the emposai, and the only one remaining after attacking Elisa that first time in Durango. And while on the run to Camp Half-Blood ( which was across the country ), Maurelle tormented Elisa. At some point, for survival, Elisa agreed to join Kronos and Luke, the people Maurelle worked for. It was for pure survival. Elisa didn't like her father, no, but she saw what Kronos had planned—what he wanted to do. She wanted no part in that.
