THE HOUSE OF MEMORIES [J. GRACE]

TWENTY-ONE

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ THE HOUSE OF MEMORIES ༉‧₊˚.[THE HEROES OF OLYMPUS]

J A S O N
chapter twenty-one: while i'm knocked out, hera holds an open house for her newly furnished jail cell

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JASON DREAMED he was wrapped in chains, and hanging upside down like a hunk of meat.

every part of him pulsed with pain. and when he said everything, jason meant absolutely everything — his arms, his legs, his chest, and his head. especially his head. it felt like an overinflated water balloon, and he longed for some type of aspirin, or relief from the throbbing. "if i'm dead," he murmured, his eyes fluttering behind the bright light shining through his eyelids, "why does it hurt so much?"

"you're not dead, my hero," said a woman's voice, a hauntingly familiar voice cooed to him. "it is not your time. come, speak with me."

jason's thoughts floated away from his body. he heard monsters yelling, his friends screaming, fiery explosions, but it all seemed to be happening on another plane of existence, getting farther, and farther away. he found himself standing in an earthen cage. tendrils of tree roots, and stone whirled together, confining him. outside the bars, he could see the floor of a dry reflecting pool, another earthen spire growing at the far end, and above them, the ruined red stones of a burned-out house.

next to him in the cage, a woman sat cross-legged in black robes, her head covered by a shroud. she pushed aside her veil, revealing a face that was proud, and beautiful, but also hardened with suffering. "hera," jason breathed, not sure if he was surprised, and delighted to see her, or disgusted, and angered as she had stolen his memories.

"welcome to my prison," welcomed the queen of gods, waving her arms about as if she were on olympus itself. her smile was wry, and movements sarcastic as she was very much unimpressed with her surroundings. a small, fond smile replaced the bitterness as soon as she assured him. "you will not die today, jason. your friends will see you through — for now."

"for now?"

hera gestured at the tendrils of her cage again, this time without her theatrics from before. "there are worse trials to come. the very earth stirs against us."

"you're a goddess," jason blinked at her, as if the solution to her problem was blindingly to obvious, and she was missing something apparent. "why can't you just, you know, escape?" hera smiled sadly. her form began to glow brighter, and brighter until her brilliance filled the cage with painful light. the air hummed with power, molecules splitting apart like a nuclear explosion. jason suspected if he were actually there in the flesh, he would've been vaporized completely.

the cage should've been blasted to absolute rubble. the house should've been leveled. but when the glow died, the cage hadn't budged. nothing outside the bars had changed. only hera looked different — a little more stooped and tired. "some powers are even greater than the gods," she said, her chest heaving a bit as she tried to catch her breath. he'd never seen a goddess tired before. "i am not easily contained. i can be in many places at once. but when the greater part of my essence is caught, it is like a foot in a bear trap, you might say. i can't escape, and i am concealed from the eyes of the other gods. only you can find me, and i grow weaker by the day."

"then, why did you come here?" jason questioned her, his eyebrows furrowed together, not understanding her reasoning. it wasn't very logical of her to come to a place such as this without a good reason. "how were you caught?"