CATHARSIS, jason grace¹

𝟬𝟯𝟬. when all else fails

AERA DROVE THE SWORD through Jason's heart. Whereas time had slowed down in his fight with Enceladus, with Aera, it accelerated. Blood gushed from his chest and came spewing out of his mouth. His capillaries bursted. Dark spots blurred his vision. The shock was greater than the pain by tenfold. The blow knocked the oxygen from his lungs, his breath jammed up in his throat.

Jason crumbled to his knees, and then there was Aera standing above him, her shadow covering him in darkness. Her face was stony and victorious, like the statue of a merciless war goddess. She delivered only one word, one cruel sentence: "Die."

In a split second, Jason saw the gruesome scene play out in the reflection of Aera's bloodshot eyes. There was a tightening pressure around his neck, as though Aera held his throat in a vice. Jason could see just how badly she wanted to do it in her eyes. For the briefest moment, he almost wanted her to.

Then reality crashed into him.

Aera reached for the ice sword Khione created and Jason's battle instincts kicked into overdrive.

Jason knelt for the sword and picked up the hilt just in time to block Aera's strike. Their swords clashed with a resounding clang, ice against bronze. Aera twisted around, catching his blade on the edge of hers. Jason jumped back to avoid a nasty slash that would've cut right into the artery in his thigh. She came at him again, faster, furiously. Her eyes told him she wouldn't back down. That she would get him back even if it cost her own life.

Jason could hear Piper and Leo shouting at them in the near distance, urging them to stop and remember why they were there, but their voices were drowned out in the heat of the moment. This was between the two of them, Jason and Aera. There was a score to be settled.

"She has to be eliminated," Bobby had said to Jason when the demigods of the Fifth Cohort crowded together in a huddle to decide what to do with Aera, who was still bound to the barren tree. "We could make it look like an accident. Our enemies took out demigods at the random. We could report to the Senate we found her this way."

The others murmured in solemn agreement. It was not the ideal choice, but one that seemed necessary to safeguard the legion. Jason took another look back at the graecus, who had reclined her back against the trunk and was now playing with the ends of her hair. She didn't have a clue what was conspiring among them.

"We can't just kill a half-blood!" Hazel argued, bringing Jason's attention back. "She deserves at least a fair trial."

"Do we know if she's a half-blood?" Gwen mused darkly. "She could be working with those monsters. We would be responsible for inviting the enemy within our walls." She placed her hands on her hips and blew the hair our of her face. "If Octavian were to get a load of this..."

"Ad infernum cum Octavian." Hazel cursed in Latin, to Jason's surprise. He had never seen the timid legionnaire this riled up before. "This is a person's life we're talking about. Not some stuffed animal."

"She wouldn't be a normal monster or a demigod or even a legacy." Dakota belched. "Rules don't apply."

"Jason," Bobby entreated, a feverish look in his eye, "you spent most of your life restoring the reputation of the Fifth Cohort from the ground up. The Lares warned you of a graecus with a saltwater pearl for years. The longer that graecus lives, the greater the threat she'll be to you and to camp. What's one girl compared to the fate of our empire?"

"Please," Hazel implored, "we should not be brash about this."

Nothing compared to the conflict Jason felt in that moment. He thought he had seen everything, learned everything there was to be a great leader and now he was at a complete crossroads. Jason would do anything to protect his home and his friends but was this the only way? Did they have to go that far? Was this what she deserved?