The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

18. Dearest Uncle

A hot wind blew down the corridor, and the doors swung open. The guards stepped aside.

"I guess that means entrez-vous," Annabeth said.

The room was . . . grand, to say the least. Maybe it was better to just say it was as any other throne room, except the throne was occupied by a god.

He was the first god who really struck Y/N as godlike.

He was at least ten feet tall, for one thing, and dressed in black silk robes and a crown of braided gold. His skin was albino white, his hair shoulder-length and jet black. He wasn't bulked like Ares, but he radiated power. He lounged on his throne of fused human bones, looking lithe, graceful, and dangerous as a panther.

Y/N immediately felt like he should be giving the orders. He knew more than Y/N did. He should be his master. Then Y/N told himself to snap out of it.

Hades's aura was affecting him, just as Ares's had. The Lord of the Dead resembled pictures he had seen of Adolph Hitler, or the terrorist leaders who direct suicide bombers. Hades had the same intense eyes, the same kind of mesmerizing, evil charisma.

"You are brave to come here, Son of Poseidon," he said in an oily voice. "After what you have done to me, very brave indeed. Or perhaps you are simply very foolish."

Numbness crept into Y/N's joints, tempting him to lie down and just take a little nap at Hades's feet. Curl up here and sleep forever. He fought the feeling and stepped backward.

Percy stepped forward. "Lord and Uncle, I come with two requests."

Hades raised an eyebrow. When he sat forward in his throne, shadowy faces appeared in the folds of his black robes, faces of torment, as if the garment were stitched of trapped souls from the Fields of Punishment, trying to get out. The ADHD part of Y/N wondered, off-task, whether the rest of his clothes were made the same way. What would you have to do in your life to get into Hades's underwear?

"Only two requests?" Hades said. "Arrogant child. As if you have not already taken enough. Speak, then. It amuses me not to strike you dead yet."

Y/N glanced at the empty, smaller throne next to Hades's. It was shaped like a black flower, gilded with gold. He wished Queen Persephone were here. He recalled something in the myths about how she could calm her husband's moods. But it was summer. Of course, Persephone would be above in the world of light with her mother, the goddess of agriculture, Demeter. Her visits, not the tilt of the planet, create the seasons.

Annabeth cleared her throat. She pushed Percy a little more forward.

"Lord Hades," Percy said. "Look, sir, there can't be a war among the gods. It would be . . . bad."

"Really bad," Grover added helpfully.

"A disaster for the production of fries," Ethan said, quite serious.

"Return Zeus's master bolt to me," Percy said. "Please, sir. Let me carry it to Olympus."

Hades's eyes grew dangerously bright. "You dare keep up this pretense, after what you have done?"

Percy glanced back at the others. Y/N was as confused as he was.

"Um . . . Uncle," Percy said. "You keep saying 'after what you've done.' What exactly have I done?"

The throne room shook with a tremor so strong, they probably felt it upstairs in Los Angeles. Debris fell from the cavern ceiling. Doors burst open all along the walls, and skeletal warriors marched in, hundreds of them, from every time period and nation in Western civilization. They lined the perimeter of the room, blocking the exits.