Death's Reason

Chapter 4

Nico sat next to Chiron at dinner that night, staring at his food but refusing to touch it. Who would he offer it up to? Hades for ignoring him? Zeus for not killing him? The gods he knew weren't the gods of his new reality.

Percy was eating alone at his table. Bianca was with the hunters. All Nico could do was take in her happiness while it lasted. If only she could live-

No. That was a lesson he couldn't afford to learn again.

His stomach was empty but nowhere near as it once was. His eyes were heavy but could stay open for longer than anyone could think possible.

After dinner, Chiron led him to a guest bedroom in the Big House. He stopped in the hallway outside the room, his eyes on Nico's empty ones. "How long will you be staying with us?"

Flashes, memories. Bianca's death, running away, Minos and the Labyrinth... "I can't say."

Chiron put a hand on his shoulder. "You're weary, young demigod, and I understand. Rest."

Nico's first reaction was to stab a blade through Chiron's hand, but his grip on the knife in his pocket loosened before it could come out. "I'll try."

Chiron must have noticed his tension. He soon took his hand away, but the supporting look never left his face. "I'll leave you here. Ask if you need anything, Nico. We all want the gods to stay on the throne. We're on the same side. The side of life."

Nico nodded once before stepping into his new room, closing the door behind him before collapsing to his knees. The side of life...was he? To sacrifice others for the good of the cause, was that on the side of life at all? Many were to be sacrificed, after all. He was going to willingly let them all die. Bianca, Beckendorf, Leo, Silena.

But if they didn't die, many more would.

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The city was in flames. The heat scorched his back as he fought but never came close enough to burn him alive. His shirt had caught on fire at some point, however, and had been thrown aside to forever become part of the ashes.

All around him was chaos. Hazel rode by on a horse, her hair flying behind her, her helmet thrown off, every inch of her screaming the praetor she could have been. Something about the way she fought was a little too beautiful, like the poems about blood, the way it stands out in the snow. Tragedy. The loving of Romeo and Juliet.

Nico never stopped swinging his weapons. He wasn't sure what monsters he was killing anymore, only that he was killing. So much blood. He bathed in it. It rained it.

How did it come to this...how did it come to this...how did it come to this...

Nico broke through the monsters momentarily, enough to sprint toward any safe zone he could. He found himself running for some space between a few crumbling buildings, somewhere safe to breathe. He just needed to breathe. It hurt to fucking breathe.

Trip. Smack. Blood. His face hit the dirt so hard it bounced back off. Blood filled his vision and tastebuds and nostrils, and for a split second that was all the world was. Blood. It filled his every sense. He seemed to be living in it. Then he was rolling over, holding his face in pain, fighting off a few monsters more before looking down to see what had caused him to fall.

How did it come to this...how did it come to this...

That arm. He knew that arm. The coloring of the skin, even after being soaked in blood. The pieces of clothing still attached to it. Not far, the rest of the body, that curly hair and soft face.