The Nature of a Demigod

The Helping Dead

[Percy's POV]

"What were you thinking?" Clarisse cradled Silena's head in her lap. Silena tried to swallow, but her lips were dry and cracked. "Wouldn't... listen. Cabin would... only follow you."

"So you stole my armor," Clarisse said in disbelief. "You waited until Chris and I went out on patrol; you stole my armor and pretended to be me." She glared at her siblings. "And NONE of you noticed?"

The Ares campers developed a sudden interest in their combat boots. "Don't blame them," Silena said. "They wanted to... to believe I was you."

"You stupid Aphrodite girl," Clarisse sobbed. "You charged a drakon? Why?"

"All my fault," Silena said, a tear streaking the side of her face. "The drakon, Charlie's death... camp endangered-"

"Stop it!" Clarisse said. "That's not true." Silena opened her hand. In her palm was a silver bracelet with a scythe charm, the mark of Kronos. A cold fist closed around my heart. "You were the spy."

Silena tried to nod. "Before... before I liked Charlie, Luke was nice to me. He was so... charming. Handsome. Later, I wanted to stop helping him, but he threatened to tell. He promised... he promised I was saving lives. Fewer people would get hurt. He told me he wouldn't hurt... Charlie. He lied to me."

I met Annabeth's eyes. Her face was chalky. She looked like somebody had just yanked the world out from under her feet. Y/N looked almost enraged, and he was shaking. He was struggling to restrain himself from doing something irrational.

Behind us, the battle raged. Clarisse scowled at her cabinmates. "Go, help the centaurs. Protect the doors. GO!" They scrambled off to join the fight. Silena took a heavy, painful breath. "Forgive me."

"You're not dying," Clarisse insisted. "Charlie..." Silena's eyes were a million miles away. "See Charlie..." She didn't speak again.

Clarisse held her and wept. Chris put a hand on her shoulder. Finally Annabeth closed Silena's eyes. "We have to fight." Annabeth's voice was brittle. "She gave her life to help us. We have to honor her."

Clarisse sniffled and wiped her nose. "She was a hero, understand? A hero." I nodded. "Come on, Clarisse." She picked up a sword from one of her fallen siblings. "Kronos is going to pay."

[Y/N's POV]

I won't sit here and pretend like I was Silena's best friend or even that good of a friend of hers. But I knew her. I trusted her. She was a nice girl. And that's probably why we should have seen it coming.

Once she had moved on from this life, I swallowed my anger and prepared to keep battling. And I'd love to lie to you and say I was the one driving the enemy away from the Empire State Building.

But no, that was all Clarisse. She was fighting in a blind and violent rage. Without her armor or her spear, she rode her chariot right into the titan's army, crushing anything that dared to get in her way.

She fought so hard that even the freaked out centaurs picked up the pace. The hunters snagged some stray arrows from the fallen and launched volley after volley of silver tipped death into the hordes.

The Ares cabin slashed and hacked, which seemed to come from a deeper place than normal. They'd been waiting to fight in a real war for a while. They got the monsters to start retreating too.

Clarisse rode toward the drakon's corpse and tied a grappling line through its eye sockets. She lashed her horses and they took off, dragging the drakon behind her like she were a tow truck.