Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 98

The next day, there weren't many answers.

After the explosion, Piper and Jason – free-falling and unconscious – were plucked out of the sky by giant eagles and brought to safety. Cressida's vines had sunk back into the earth as she'd passed out for a few hours, which wasn't that long considering what she'd just done. Percy and Pollux expected her to be out of it a lot longer than she was. Pollux had actually been very impressed with Percy's idea to save his sister which was something he actually told him.

Leo didn't reappear though.

The entire Hephaestus cabin scoured the valley, finding bits and pieces of the Argo II's broken hull, but no sign of Festus the dragon or his master. All the monsters had been destroyed or scattered. Greek and Roman casualties were heavy, but not nearly as bad as they might have been. Overnight, the satyrs and nymphs disappeared into the woods for a convocation of the Cloven Elders. In the morning, Grover Underwood reappeared to announce that they could not sense the Earth Mother's presence. Nature was more or less back to normal.

They'd actually done it. It actually worked.

Gaia had been separated from her source of power and further weakened by Cressida taking back her power over the earth, charmed to sleep, and then atomized in the combined explosion of Leo's fire and Octavian's man-made comet.

An immortal could never die, but now Gaia would be like her husband, Ouranos. The earth would continue to function as normal, just as the sky did, but Gaia was now so dispersed and powerless that she could never again form a consciousness.

At least, that was the hope ...

Octavian would be remembered for saving Rome by hurling himself into the sky in a fiery ball of death. But it was Leo Valdez who had made the real sacrifice.

The victory celebration at camp was muted, due to grief – not just for Leo but also for the many others who had died in battle. Shrouded demigods, both Greek and Roman, were burned at the campfire, and Chiron asked Nico to oversee the burial rites.

Nico agreed immediately. He was grateful for the opportunity to honour the dead. Even the hundreds of spectators didn't bother him.

The hardest part was afterwards, when Nico and the now seven demigods from the Argo II met on the porch of the Big House.

When Hazel revealed Leo's true plan.

Piper never had the Physician's Cure. Leo had pulled her and Frank aside in Delos and asked for their help. He'd spoken with Nike and Apollo about his plan to destroy Gaia with fire, but he had to get far away from everyone because he'd been certain that such an explosion would kill any mortal within a quarter of a mile.

He thought there'd be a chance that he, the son of Hephaestus could survive the blast and that no one else would agree to him doing it alone.

Cressida had started crying at that. Because that was the best Lunatic Let's-do-it Leo Valdez plan she'd ever heard, and it was the last one she'd ever hear.

Percy had been hopeful that he'd come back any minute, but Cressida caught the look that the children of Hades and Pluto exchanged.

Leo was gone.

But at least he was with his mother now. Both of them were in Elysium, she was sure of that.

It made her smile to think of all the mischief he and Castor would get up to.

The next day, the second since the battle, Romans and Greeks worked side by side to clean up the warzone and tend the wounded. Blackjack the pegasus was recovering nicely from his arrow wound (his boss and boss lady were not happy when they heard their precious pegasus was injured). Guido had decided to adopt Reyna as his human. Reluctantly, Lou Ellen had agreed to turn her new pet piglets back into Romans.