Hecate's Kin

Chapter 1 - Lost Friends and Prophecies

Percy's POV

I was sitting on the beach with Annabeth. My feet were in the water and my hand was in hers. Neither of us were speaking but I still found her presence comforting. The war had finished just over 2 weeks ago and I still couldn't believe we'd won, I should've been happy but I still felt like Leo's death was on my shoulders. I should've done something to save him, anything.

"It's not your fault you know," Annabeth said as if she could read my mind. "We're having the funeral tonight and he wouldn't want you to blame yourself. It was his choice." She squeezed my hand comfortingly.

"I know," I said squeezing her hand back. "It's just hard, we spent so long together, all seven of us and now Frank and Hazel are going off to camp Jupiter tomorrow, Jason is going to be travelling around building shrines to the minor gods and Leo is..." I choked on the last word, unable to say it.

"We should go," she said standing up and giving my hand another squeeze. "We don't want to miss the ceremony."

Over the past week and a bit, we'd been burning all the dead from the battle. Although the battle had been short, there were still many fatalities and the Apollo cabin had been working overtime on the injured. Leo was the last one to be burned, being the only one of the seven to die and the one who all in all managed to finally finish Gaia. At first we had hoped that he'd somehow taken the physicians cure, but with no one there to give it to him how could he have done and anyway, Nico had felt his death. But a small part of me still felt that he wasn't telling the whole truth.

I still couldn't fully understand Nico, he'd changed so much since I first met him, he'd gone from the scared little mythomagic playing kid who lost his sister to the creepy antisocial hades kid who somehow faced Tartarus alone to now. I'm not quite sure what now is but he seems happy. He's got lots of friends and is finally staying put for once. The other day he told me that he had once had a crush on me which had kind of explained a lot. It was awkward at first cause I'd been almost certain the he had a thing for Annabeth but he seemed to be over me now and after he'd said it he'd gone off to see Will Solace and seems to have been in the Apollo cabin ever since. No clue what that's about, I asked Piper the other day but all she did was laugh.

Annabeth's POV

Everyone was coming into the clearing in the middle of the circle of cabins for Leo's ceremony. We didn't have his body so the Hephaestus cabin had piled up the remains of the Argo II and covered that with a shroud instead. The shroud was beautiful, it was chain mail but some how it was as light as silk and whenever it caught the light it looked like it was on fire. The way it fell on the pile, I could almost imagine that Leo was under there. As much as I told Percy that Leo's death was no ones fault I still felt like I could have done something to stop it, after all I'm meant to come up with all the plans being a daughter of Athena. But I hadn't even been smart enough to realise what he was going to do until it was too late.

But mourning won't bring him back. He'd want us to move on with our life's and that's what I'm planning to do. When the summer is over, I'm going to go to New Rome with Percy like he kept saying he wanted to and we can have normal lives there away from the chaos of monsters, immortal deities and her royal annoyingness Queen Hera who I don't think I'll ever forgive.

I walked to the front of the crowd with Percy where we had reserved seats along with the remainder of the seven, Nico, Thalia and Rachel Elizabeth Dare. The only other three important members of the war weren't in attendance: Reyna had returned to Camp Jupiter almost straight away so as to keep the legion in order by herself until Frank came to join her; Coach Hedge was in the woods with Mellie looking after baby Chuck and of course Leo was the reason we were here anyway.

Jason was walking up to light the funeral pyre but paused when a glowing hammer appeared above it, a blessing from Leo's father showing that he was watching. I smiled, it was rare that the gods showed care towards there children, it would've made Leo happy to know his dad had noticed him. I could hear a few people crying behind me as Jason continued to walk forward with the torch but he was once again stopped by Rachel Elizabeth Dare who had suddenly gone rigid and was giving off green mist. When she spoke it sounded like there were three of her speaking, but we all knew it wasn't really her, the oracle of Delphi was giving another prophecy

"Five of the elements four combine

With the great desires of all our time

With one who changes and one now free

To worlds which they have yet to see

The land which now holds Hecate's kin

Is where the quest should soon begin

To learn new ways and make friends

Or cause a war to make worlds end"

I lowered Rachael back into her chair as she collapsed at the end of the prophecy. I looked over at Percy, another prophecy could ruin all of our plans for a normal life together. Everyone was suddenly talking about what the prophecy could mean until Chiron came to the front and called for silence. "As you have heard, we now have a new prophecy. I would normally call for a counsellors meeting to discuss the quest but as it sounds like it will involve many people it may be better if we discuss it now while everyone is here." He looked around to check the everyone approved and then continued, "so, does anyone have any ideas."

I might have been wrong, but I felt like Chiron looked at me for ideas so I raised my hand and spoke "We should work out who's going first," I said. "By the sounds of it there will be 10 of us, the five element people, the three desires the one who changes and the one now free." I looked to Chiron who nodded so I continued. "The 3 greatest desires which I can think of are wisdom, beauty and riches so that means Athena, Hades and Aphrodite."

Nico raised his hand to interrupt me and Chiron nodded at him to speak "how is Hades riches, all I can do is raise the dead?"

"Not so much Hades," I replied, "but Pluto. Hazel can control precious metals and jewels which basically covers riches."

Now it was Jason's turn to interrupt: "So those three should be you Piper and Hazel." I heard Drew mutter something about favouritism towards Piper but Jason ignored her and continued. "The one who changes is obviously Frank, I mean he can literally change into other animals. And that just leaves the four elements and the freed one."

"The elements are the easy part," Frank butted in. "The four elements are Fire, Water, Earth and Air. So water means Percy, Earth is Nico I'm guessing as Hades' realm is under the Earth. I think there are two for Air because both Jason and Thalia are sons of Jupiter." I heard Thalia mutter something which sounded rather like 'It's Zeus' under her breath but Frank either didn't notice or care, "so that just leaves fire which must just be someone from the Hephaestus cabin." He looked hopefully in the direction of the cabin 9 campers.

"I hate to burst your bubble," said Jake Mason, one of the Hephaestus kids, "but none of us can actually control fire. The only one who could do that was..."

And that's when the enormous metal dragon fell out of the sky.

A.N - So, that's the first chapter done. I hope is was alright and I apologies for any spelling mistakes (I did try to get rid of all of them). As I said earlier, please vote and comment

Thank you all,

Gellybean19