Daughter of Wine

Callida

I'm briefly aware of Jason riding a storm spirit, Piper swinging her knife at Earthborn, and Leo fighting Khione, which is very impressive. But I'm locked in on the battle happening around me. I can't grow grape vines. Khione has frozen the ground solid. But I have Earthborn running around, clutching their heads and bumping into each other. I also can talk to the wolves better now that Lycaon is gone. I'm telling them they're bad dogs and swinging my thyrsus through anything that manages to break through what Leo calls my "psychological terror."

I'm getting more comfortable with this pinecone on a stick. It's deadly sharp, and can cut through anything it comes in contact with. I kind of love it. It's like a sword but with less work. 

I catch a glimpse of Leo, and actually stop for a minute. While fighting a goddess should be suicide, Leo is the right man for the job. She keeps summoning ice daggers to throw at him, blasts of winter air, tornadoes of snow. But Leo burns through all of it. His whole body flickers with tongues of flame like he's been doused with gasoline. He advances on the goddess, using two silver-tipped ball-peen hammers to smash any monsters that get in his way. 

I realize Leo is the only reason we're still alive. His fiery aura is heating up the whole courtyard, countering Khione's winter magic. Without him, we would've been frozen like the Hunters long ago. Wherever Leo goes, ice melts off the stones. Even Thalia starts to defrost a little when Leo steps near her. 

Khione slowly backs away. Her expression goes from enraged to shocked to slightly panicked as Leo gets closer. 

I feel a pang in my chest as I fight off more wolves. I turned Leo down. He was being so sweet and kind, and I said no because of something my dad said? What does he know? He sent me into this blind and got me mixed up in this whole mess. 

I swing the thyrsus, cutting through venti and wolves like butter. The more I fight with it, the more natural it feels. I'm not even tempted to draw my dagger. Something so short range is inefficient in a fight like this. 

I'm running out of enemies. Wolves lay in dazed heaps, while other wounded ones slink away into the ruins of the house, yelping from their wounds. Piper stabs the last Earthborn, who topples to the ground in a pile of sludge. Jason rides his venti through the last enemy storm spirit, breaking it into vapor. Then, he wheels around and sees what I'm seeing. 

Leo is bearing down on the goddess of snow. 

"You're too late." Khione snarls. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can even stop us."

Leo sets his hammers ablaze and throws them at the goddess, but she turns to snow, a white powdery image of herself. Leo's hammers slam into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming pound of mush. 

Piper is breathing hard, but she smiles at Jason. "Nice horse."

Jason's storm spirit  rears on his hind legs, arcing electricity across his hooves. 

"Show off." I mutter involuntarily. 

I hear a cracking sound behind me. The melting Ice on Hera's cage sloughs off in a curtain of mush, and the goddess calls, "Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!'

We all jump into the pool and run over to her. 

Leo frowns. "Uh, Tia Callida, are you getting shorter?'

I shudder. "Don't call her that. Please." 

"You dolts!" Hera yells at us. "The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"

As much as I dislike Hera, what I see inside the cage is quite alarming. Not only is she sinking, the ground is rising above her, like water in a tank. Liquid rock has already covered her shins. "The giant wakes!" Hera warns. "You only have seconds!"