El Héroe Perdido (Alma del Olimpo Libro 1)

VI - Prophecies

The next time Sol woke up, she was in an empty Athena cabin.

She sat up, then groaned as she remembered what had just happened.

"Fuck. Annabeth's going to be worried about me." Sol was less concerned for her own pride (although that was also now in rough shape) as she was concerned for Annabeth. She had enough on her plate already, what with Percy's disappearance and Jason, Piper, and Leo's arrival.

Sol got up and walked over to the window. The sky wasn't much darker then it was when she was with Chiron, so the rest of the campers were probably at the campfire.

She slipped on her shoes and started out the door towards the amphitheater. As she got closer, she heard a female voice call out, "Well? You're the oracle, has it started or not?"

Silence followed, until Rachel Dare spoke up. "Yes. The Great Prophecy has begun."

Voices swelled up from the crowd, and Sol broke out into a run. She reached the amphitheater right as the crowd quieted.

"For those of you have not heard it," Rachel said, "the Great Prophecy was my first prediction. It arrived in August. It goes like this:

"Eight half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire the world must fall-"

Jason shot to his feet. His eyes looked wild, like he'd just been tased.

Even Rachel seemed caught off guard. "Jason? What's-"

"Ut cum spiritu postrema sacramentum dejuremus," he chanted in a language Sol recognized as Latin, "Et hostes ornamenta addent ad ianuam necem."

An uneasy silence settled onto the crowd. Sol stared at Jason, and when he caught her eye, he seemed taken aback by how piercing her gaze was.

"You just... finished the prophecy," Rachel stammered. "An oath to keep with a final breath, and foes bear arms to the Doors of Death. How did you-"

"I know those lines." Jason winced and put his hands to his temples. "I don't know how, but I know that prophecy."

"In Latin, no less," Drew Tanaka, the voice who announced the prophecy, called out. "Handsome and smart."

The Aphrodite cabin started giggling. Sol saw Piper glaring at them with a look of disgust on her face. Sol was doing the same, and it wasn't even her maybe-maybe-not-boyfriend that they were talking about.

The campfire glowed a chaotic, nervous shade of green, but as Sol watched it, it seemed to briefly flicker a deep indigo.
Sol blinked rapidly, but the campfire stayed green. She refocused on Jason, who had sat down, looking embarrassed. Annabeth had her hand on his shoulder.

Rachel glanced at Chiron, who didn't interfere, for a moment before continuing her explanation. "Well. So, yeah, that's the Great Prophecy. We hoped it might not happen for years, but I fear it's starting now. I can't give you proof. It's just a feeling. And like Drew said, some weird stuff is happening. The Eight demigods, whoever they are, have no been gathered yet. I get the feeling some are here tonight. Some are not here."

The campers began to stir and mutter, looking at each other nervously, until a drowsy voice in the crowd called out,
"I'm here! Oh. .. were you calling roll?"

"Go back to sleep, Clovis," someone yelled, and a lot of people laughed. Sol didn't, and she noticed that Annabeth, Jason, and Piper didn't either. Leo, however, did. She couldn't tell whether it made her angry or something else that she couldn't define, so she stuck with anger.

"Anyway," Rachel continued, "we don't know what the Great Prophecy means. We don't know what challenge the demigods will face, but since the first Great Prophecy predicted the Titan War, we can guess the second Great Prophecy will predict something at least that bad."