The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

71. Step Into The Ring

The metal door was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of dirty hotel towels. They didn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel showed them where to look. Etched in the metal was a faint blue symbol.

"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth said.

"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut."

"No." Annabeth stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half-blood."

Sure enough, as soon as Annabeth put her hand on the mark, it glowed blue. The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down.

"Wow," Rachel said.

Ethan shivered. "Yeah . . . awesome."

Ethan's anxiety didn't stop Rachel from looking calm—whether she really was, that was a different matter altogether. She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and marker-colored jeans, her blue plastic hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. More or less, she was as ready as they were.

Percy had one hand in his pocket, probably the one where he kept Riptide. Ethan adjusted his banana sunhat on his head—strange to bring that down into the maze—and grabbed his spear. Annabeth held her bronze knife in one hand, a flashlight in the other. Y/N put his lion coat on.

Rachel said, "So . . . after you?"

"You're the guide," Annabeth said with mock politeness. "Lead on."

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark that Y/N couldn't see two feet in front of them. It didn't bother him. What did was the simple fact of being back down here.

As soon as Annabeth switched her flashlight on, Rachel yelped.

A skeleton was grinning at them. It wasn't human. It was huge, for one thing—at least ten feet tall. It had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a giant X over the tunnel.

"A Cyclops," Annabeth said, pointing at the single black eye socket in the center of its skull. "It's very old. It's not . . . anybody we know."

Rachel swallowed. "You have a friend who's a Cyclops?"

"Tyson," Percy said. "My half brother."

"Your half brother?"

"Gods have a lot of children with a lot of different kinds of people," Ethan said.

"Hopefully we'll find him down here," Percy went on. "And Grover. He's a satyr."

"Oh." Rachel's voice was small. "Well then, we'd better keep moving."

She stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking. Y/N and Annabeth exchanged looks. Annabeth shrugged. They followed Ethan and Percy, who already stepped deeper into the maze after Rachel.

After fifty feet they came to a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots.

Percy pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."

Ethan shook his head. "No. There's no particular smell of wilderness there. Only the smell of monsters."

Annabeth frowned. "The architecture to the right—those old stones—that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop."

"We need to go straight," Rachel said.

They all looked at her.

"That's the least likely choice," Y/N said.