The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

73. Out Of A Coffin

Y/N plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. Around him, the others were flapping their arms like ducks, trying to fly as best they could with bronze wings.

"Spread your arms!" he yelled. "Keep them extended!"

He transformed into an eagle and spread his wings out. They caught the wind, and his descent slowed. Underneath he saw Annabeth's wings stiffening, and she soared downward at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive.

Next to him, Percy experimentally flapped his arms once. He arced into the sky and yelled, "Yeah!"

Y/N turned and saw Ethan, Rachel, and Nico spiraling above him, glinting in the sunlight. Behind them, smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop.

"Land!" Annabeth yelled. "These wings won't last forever."

"How long?" Rachel cried.

"I don't want to find out!" Ethan said.

They all swooped down toward the Garden of the Gods. Y/N did a complete circle around a pine tree and narrowly dodged a hiker's face. Then the six of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor center. It was late afternoon and the place looked pretty empty, but Annabeth, Ethan, Percy, Nico and Rachel ripped off their wings as quickly as they could and stuffed them in the trash bin outside the cafeteria.

Y/N used his eagle eyes to look up at the hill where Daedalus's workshop had been, but it had vanished. No more smoke. No broken windows. Just the side of a hill.

He changed back to human shape. "The workshop moved," he guessed. "No telling where."

"So what do we do now?" Percy asked. "How do we get back into the maze?"

"Maybe we can't." Annabeth gazed at the summit of Pikes Peak in the distance. "If Daedalus died. . . . He said his life force was tied to the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe that will stop Luke's invasion."

"No," Nico said. "He isn't dead."

"How can you be sure?" Rachel asked.

"I know when people die. It's this feeling I get, like a buzzing in my ears."

"What about Tyson and Grover, then?" Percy asked.

Nico shook his head. "That's harder. They're not humans or half-bloods. They don't have mortal souls."

"We have to get into town," Annabeth decided. "Our chances will be better finding an entrance to the Labyrinth. We have to make it back to camp before Luke and his army."

"We could just take a plane," Rachel said.

Percy shuddered. "I don't fly."

"But you just did."

"That was low flying," Y/N said. "Too low to say that we really were in the sky. Flying up really high—that's Zeus's territory. Percy can't do it, being the son of Poseidon. Besides, we don't even have time for a flight. The Labyrinth is the quickest way back."

"So we need a car to take us into the city," Annabeth said.

Rachel looked down into the parking lot. She grimaced, as if she were about to do something she regretted. "I'll take care of it."

"How?" Ethan asked.

"Just trust me."

"I'm going to buy a prism in the gift shop," Annabeth said, "try to make a rainbow, and send an Iris-message to camp."

"I'll go with you," Y/N said.

"Me too," Nico said. "I'm hungry."

"You'll give me your napkin?" Ethan asked him. "I'd like a little snack myself."