Nico

NICO HAD WITNESSED MANY FORMS OF DEATH. He didn't think anything could surprise him any more.

He was wrong.

In the middle of the battle, Will Solace ran up to him and said one word in his ear: 'Octavian.'

That got Nico's full attention. He had hesitated when he'd had the chance to kill Octavian, but there was no way Nico would let that scumbag augur escape justice. 'Where?'

'Come on,' Will said. 'Hurry.'

Nico turned to Jason, who was fighting next to him. 'Jason, I have to go.'

Then he plunged into the chaos, following Will. They passed Tyson and his Cyclopes, who were bellowing, 'Bad dog! Bad dog!' as they bashed the heads of the cynocephali. Grover Underwood and a team of satyrs danced around with their panpipes, playing harmonies so dissonant that the earthen-shelled ghosts cracked apart. Travis Stoll ran past, arguing with his brother. 'What do you mean we set the landmines on the wrong hill?'

Nico and Will were halfway down the hill when the ground trembled under their feet. Like everyone else monster and demigod alike they froze in horror and watched as the whirling column of earth erupted from the top of the next hill, and Gaia appeared in all her glory.

Then something large and bronze swooped out of the sky.

FOOOOMP!.

Festus the bronze dragon snatched up the Earth Mother and soared away with her.

'What how ?' Nico stammered.

'I don't know,' Will said. 'But I doubt there's much we can do about that. We have other problems.'

Will sprinted towards the nearest onager. As they got closer, Nico spotted Octavian furiously re-adjusting the machine's targeting levers. The throwing arm was already primed with a full payload of Imperial gold and explosives. The augur rushed about, tripping over gears and anchor spikes, fumbling with the ropes. Every so often he glanced up at Festus the dragon.

'Octavian!' Nico yelled.

The augur spun, then backed up against the huge sphere of ammunition. His fine purple robes snagged on the trigger rope, but Octavian didn't notice. Fumes from the payload curled about him as if drawn to the Imperial gold jewellery around his arms and neck, the golden wreath in his hair.

'Oh, I see!' Octavian's laughter was brittle and quite insane. 'Trying to steal my glory, eh? No, no, son of Pluto. I am the saviour of Rome. I was promised!'

Will raised his hands in a placating gesture. 'Octavian, get away from the onager. That isn't safe.'

'Of course it's not! I will shoot Gaia down with this machine!'

Out of the corner of his eye, Nico saw Jason Grace rocket into the sky with Piper in his arms, flying straight towards Festus.

Around the son of Jupiter, storm clouds gathered, swirling into a hurricane. Thunder boomed.

'You see?' Octavian cried. The gold on his body was definitely smoking now, attracted to the catapult's payload like iron to a giant magnet. 'The gods approve of my actions!'

'Jason is making that storm,' Nico said. 'If you fire the onager, you'll kill him and Piper, and '

'Good!' Octavian yelled. 'They're traitors! All traitors!'

'Listen to me,' Will tried again. 'This is not what Apollo would want. Besides, your robes are '

'You know nothing, Graecus!' Octavian wrapped his hand around the release lever. 'I must act before they get any higher. Only an onager such as this can make the shot. I will singlehandedly '

'Centurion,' said a voice behind him.

From the back of the siege engine, Michael Kahale appeared. He had a large red knot on his forehead where Tyson had knocked him unconscious. He stumbled as he walked. But somehow he had found his way here from the shore, and along the way he'd picked up a sword and shield.

'Michael!' Octavian shrieked with glee. 'Excellent! Guard me while I fire this onager. Then we will kill these Graeci together!'

Michael Kahale took in the scene his boss's robes tangled in the trigger rope, Octavian's jewellery fuming from proximity to the Imperial gold ammunition. He glanced up at the dragon, now high in the air, surrounded by rings of storm clouds like the circles of an archery target. Then he scowled at Nico.

Nico readied his own sword.

Surely Michael Kahale would warn his leader to step away from the onager. Surely he would attack.

'Are you certain, Octavian?' asked the son of Venus.

'Yes!'

'Are you absolutely certain?'

'Yes, you fool! I will be remembered as the saviour of Rome. Now keep them away while I destroy Gaia!'

'Octavian, don't,' Will pleaded. 'We can't allow you '

'Will,' Nico said, 'we can't stop him.'

Solace stared at him in disbelief, but Nico remembered his father's words in the Chapel of Bones: Some deaths cannot be prevented.

Octavian's eyes gleamed. 'That's right, son of Pluto. You are helpless to stop me! It is my destiny! Kahale, stand guard!'

'As you wish.' Michael moved in front of the machine, interposing himself between Octavian and the two Greek demigods. 'Centurion, do what you must.'

Octavian turned to release the catch. 'A good friend to the last.'

Nico almost lost his nerve. If the onager really did fire true if it scored a hit on Festus the dragon, and Nico allowed his friends to be hurt or killed ... But he stayed where he was. For once, he decided to trust the wisdom of his father. Some deaths should not be prevented.

'Goodbye, Gaia!' Octavian yelled. 'Goodbye, Jason Grace the traitor!'

Octavian cut the release wire with his augur's knife.

And he disappeared.

The catapult arm sprang upward faster than Nico's eye could follow, launching Octavian along with the ammunition. The augur's scream faded until he was simply part of the fiery comet soaring skyward.

'Goodbye, Octavian,' Michael Kahale said.

He glared at Will and Nico one last time, as if daring them to speak. Then he turned his back and trudged away.

Nico could have lived with Octavian's end.

He might even have said good riddance.

But his heart sank as the comet kept gaining altitude. It disappeared into the storm clouds, and the sky exploded in a dome of fire.

LIV.

Nico

THE NEXT DAY, THERE WEREN'T MANY ANSWERS.

After the explosion, Piper and Jason free-falling and unconscious were plucked out of the sky by giant eagles and brought to safety, but Leo did not reappear. The entire Hephaestus cabin scoured the valley, finding bits and pieces of the Argo II's broken hull, but no sign of Festus the dragon or his master.

All the monsters had been destroyed or scattered. Greek and Roman casualties were heavy, but not nearly as bad as they might have been.

Overnight, the satyrs and nymphs disappeared into the woods for a convocation of the Cloven Elders. In the morning, Grover Underwood reappeared to announce that they could not sense the Earth Mother's presence. Nature was more or less back to normal. Apparently, Jason, Piper and Leo's plan had worked. Gaia had been separated from her source of power, charmed to sleep and then atomized in the combined explosion of Leo's fire and Octavian's man-made comet.

An immortal could never die, but now Gaia would be like her husband, Ouranos. The earth would continue to function as normal, just as the sky did, but Gaia was now so dispersed and powerless that she could never again form a consciousness.

At least, that was the hope ...

Octavian would be remembered for saving Rome by hurling himself into the sky in a fiery ball of death. But it was Leo Valdez who had made the real sacrifice.

The victory celebration at camp was muted, due to grief not just for Leo but also for the many others who had died in battle. Shrouded demigods, both Greek and Roman, were burned at the campfire, and Chiron asked Nico to oversee the burial rites.

Nico agreed immediately. He was grateful for the opportunity to honour the dead. Even the hundreds of spectators didn't bother him.

The hardest part was afterwards, when Nico and the six demigods from the Argo II met on the porch of the Big House.

Jason hung his head, even his glasses lost in shadow. 'We should have been there at the end. We could've helped Leo.'

'It's not right,' Piper agreed, wiping away her tears. 'All that work getting the physician's cure, for nothing.'

Hazel broke down crying. 'Piper, where's the cure? Bring it out.'

Bewildered, Piper reached into her belt pouch. She produced the chamois-cloth package, but when she unfolded the cloth it was empty.

All eyes turned to Hazel.

'How?' Annabeth asked.

Frank put his arm around Hazel. 'In Delos, Leo pulled the two of us aside. He pleaded with us to help him.'

Through her tears, Hazel explained how she had switched the physician's cure for an illusion a trick of the Mist so that Leo could keep the real vial. Frank told them about Leo's plan to destroy a weakened Gaia with one massive fiery explosion. After talking with Nike and Apollo, Leo had been certain that such an explosion would kill any mortal within a quarter of a mile, so he knew he would have to get far away from everyone.

'He wanted to do it alone,' Frank said. 'He thought there would be a slim chance that he, a son of Hephaestus, could survive the fire, but if anyone was with him ... He said that Hazel and I, being Roman, would understand about sacrifice. But he knew the rest of you would never allow it.'

At first the others looked angry, like they wanted to scream and throw things. But, as Frank and Hazel talked, the group's rage seemed to dissipate. It was hard to be mad at Frank and Hazel when they were both crying. Also ... the plan sounded exactly like the sneaky, twisted, ridiculously annoying and noble sort of thing Leo Valdez would do.

Finally Piper let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. 'If he were here right now, I would kill him. How was he planning to take the cure? He was alone!'

'Maybe he found a way,' Percy said. 'This is Leo we're talking about. He might come back any minute. Then we can take turns strangling him.'

Nico and Hazel exchanged looks. They both knew better, but they said nothing.

The next day, the second since the battle, Romans and Greeks worked side by side to clean up the warzone and tend the wounded. Blackjack the pegasus was recovering nicely from his arrow wound. Guido had decided to adopt Reyna as his human. Reluctantly, Lou Ellen had agreed to turn her new pet piglets back into Romans.

Will Solace hadn't spoken with Nico since the encounter at the onager. The son of Apollo spent most of his time in the infirmary, but whenever Nico saw him running across camp to fetch more medical supplies, or make a house call on some wounded demigod, he felt a strange twinge of melancholy. No doubt Will Solace thought Nico was a monster now, for letting Octavian kill himself.

The Romans bivouacked next to the strawberry fields, where they insisted on building their standard field camp. The Greeks pitched in to help them raise the earthen walls and dig the trenches. Nico had never seen anything stranger or cooler. Dakota shared Kool-Aid with the kids from the Dionysus cabin. The children of Hermes and Mercury laughed and told stories and brazenly stole things from just about everyone. Reyna, Annabeth and Piper were inseparable, roaming the camp as a trio to check on the progress of the repairs. Chiron, escorted by Frank and Hazel, inspected the Roman troops and praised them for their bravery.

By evening, the general mood had improved somewhat. The dining hall pavilion had never been so crowded. The Romans were welcomed like old friends. Coach Hedge roamed among the demigods, beaming and holding his baby boy and saying, 'Hey, you want to meet Chuck? This is my boy, Chuck!'

The Aphrodite and Athena girls alike cooed over the feisty little satyr baby, who waved his pudgy fists, kicked his tiny hooves and bleated, 'Baaaa! Baaaa!'

Clarisse, who had been named the baby's godmother, trailed behind the coach like a bodyguard and occasionally muttered, 'All right, all right. Give the kid some space.'

At announcement time, Chiron stepped forward and raised his goblet.

'Out of every tragedy,' he said, 'comes new strength. Today, we thank the gods for this victory. To the gods!'

The demigods all joined the toast, but their enthusiasm seemed muted. Nico understood the feeling: We saved the gods again, and now we're supposed to thank them?

Then Chiron said, 'And to new friends!'

'TO NEW FRIENDS!'

Hundreds of demigod voices echoed across the hills.

At the campfire, everyone kept looking at the stars, as if they expected Leo to come back in some dramatic, last-minute surprise. Maybe he'd swoop in, jump off Festus's back and launch into corny jokes. It didn't happen.