Confused by Storm

Chapter 22 - Nothing But A Shell

There was ash falling from the burning sky when Percy woke, along with a fierce burning in his side.

His hand moved to his side and he hissed as the pain made black spots dance in his vision. Percy had been stabbed, he remembered. Kronos had stabbed him – no, wait, he'd been looking at Kronos, but it wasn't Kronos who'd done it.

Nico had stabbed him through the back with Backbiter.

"Easy, Percy," Poseidon murmured, his hand gripping Percy's shoulder tight enough to bruise.

"You shouldn't be up yet," Apollo agreed lowly. "I healed it externally, but there's some internal injuries that-"

"I don't care," Percy said fiercely, swatting his father away as he stubbornly sat up. The ground rumbled beneath him. "The volcano... did it...?"

"No," Poseidon said quietly. "Hephaestus was able to stop it." His hand hovered near Percy.

Percy felt sick as he realised he was still covered in ichor, some not even his. He shut his eyes. "Kronos?" He whispered.

Poseidon pressed his lips together. "Percy... you can't always save everyone," Poseidon said softly.

"Where is he?" Percy demanded, his voice surprisingly strong considering everything that had just happened. "Dad... I have to see him."

Poseidon stubbornly stayed put.

"Poseidon," Hyperion's voice sneered, "move out of the fucking way."

Poseidon's jaw tightened as he searched Percy's expression for something only he knew before reluctantly moving aside.

Hyperion was crouched, previously hidden, behind Poseidon and next to Kronos. He was holding his brother's head to the side, down towards the ground. As Percy watched, deep purple shards of stone fell from Kronos' mouth along with the occasional drop of ichor.

"Is he...?"

Hyperion pressed his lips together. "The purple dust is what's left of Tartarus," he avoided. "Kronos started coughing him up shortly after you fainted."

"I didn't faint," Percy snapped. He was just about able to crawl over to Kronos, wading through swirling ichor an inch deep. He hesitantly reached out, avoiding Backbiter which was still buried in Kronos' chest – not a good sign – but paused. "Hyperion," he said quietly. The older Titan still had Kronos' face turned towards the ground. Hyperion sighed before he let Percy turn Kronos' head to see his eyes – two brilliant golden orbs – that looked as fragile as glass.

Kronos' eyes stared unseeingly back up at Percy.

Percy sat back into the golden ichor, not caring that he was covered in the substance now. Kronos' head dropped to the side, his eyes seemingly following Percy, if not for the fact that they were the eyes of a corpse.

"What went wrong?" Percy demanded, his voice breaking slightly.

Hyperion moved to help the particles that remained of Tartarus drop out of Kronos, aided by gravity. "Iapetus can explain. I'm confused about the details."

Percy looked up to find Iapetus, catching him watching from a dozen or so yards away. "What...?"

Iapetus settled down just outside of the puddle of ichor. "Backbiter separated the soul from the body, as it is supposed to. But the problem is that Tartarus had taken Kronos' soul. So the only soul in the body was Tartarus'."

"So where's Kronos' soul?" Percy asked fiercely. "That... that wasn't supposed to happen."

"I would assume Kronos' soul is in the Pit and Tartarus' soul has been destroyed." Iapetus smiled thinly. "All is not lost," he promised.