orenda [leo valdez]

xxxviii. Thank the Gods and Pass the Hot Sauce

❝my smile blooms under your sunlight❞

⤷ zack grey

△△△

Leo thought Kira was dead for two days, two hours, and forty minutes.

And it had been the worst two days of his entire life.

He hadn't eaten, he hadn't steered the ship, hadn't talked to anyone, or even left her room until Jason had told him he had good news about Kira.

The demigods ate lunch, and Leo didn't touch his until Jason blurted out his dream.

"A note from Annabeth." Piper shook her head in amazement. "I don't see how that's possible, but if it is—"

"But Kira wrote the front?" Leo asked, his voice filled with dangerous hope, speaking for the first time since he dreamed of her death.

Jason nodded. Leo let out a weak smile, a gleam of hope that she could still be alive.

Of course, she could have written that before she had died, but Leo hadn't seen Annabeth in his dream. She must have found them down there.

He began to eat his lunch.

"She's alive," Leo breathed. "Thank the gods and pass the hot sauce."

Frank frowned. "What does that mean?"

Leo wiped the chip crumbs off his face. "It means pass the hot sauce, Zhang. I'm still hungry."

Frank slid over a jar of salsa. "I can't believe Reyna would try to find us. It's taboo, coming to the ancient lands. She'll be stripped of her praetorship."

"If she lives," Hazel said. "It was hard enough for us to make it this far with seven demigods and a warship."

"And me." Coach Hedge belched. "Don't forget, cupcake, you got the satyr advantage."

Jason's eye glazed over, like he was thinking about something.

Leo was too. In his head, he was jumping up and down with glee. He had something to hope for again.

In fact, Leo never tuned back into the conversation. He finished his lunch hungrily after not eating for two days, and blissfully walked to the rails of the deck.

The demigods continued to argue, but Leo branded a wide smile, looking out onto the lands below him.

He was going to see Kira again.

△△△

First, it was just a stab somewhere, the occasional breaking of a bone, and the overwhelming fear that there was a rat behind her.

But nothing slowed her down. She knew she was dying.

But everything came to an end.

She was making peace with her end, when the arai turned into Leo.