The Blood of Olympus Read Online Free Page B

was a scared and vulnerable two-year-old again. Even the scar on his lip, from when he’d tried to eat a stapler as a toddler, stung like a fresh wound.
    ‘Mom?’ he managed.
    ‘Yes, dearest.’ Her image flickered. ‘Come, embrace me.’
    ‘You’re – you’re not real.’
    ‘Of course she is real.’ Michael Varus’s voice sounded far away. ‘Did you think Gaia would let such an important spirit languish in the Underworld? She is your mother, Beryl Grace, star of television, sweetheart to the king of Olympus, who rejected her not once but twice, in both his Greek and Roman aspects. She deserves justice as much as any of us.’
    Jason’s heart felt wobbly. The suitors crowded around him, watching.
    I’m their entertainment
, Jason realized. The ghosts probably found this even more amusing than two beggars fighting to the death.
    Piper’s voice cut through the buzzing in his head. ‘Jason, look at me.’
    She stood twenty feet away, holding her ceramic amphora. Her smile was gone. Her gaze was fierce and commanding – as impossible to ignore as the blue harpy feather in her hair. ‘That isn’t your mother. Her voice is working some kind of magic on you – like charmspeak, but more dangerous. Can’t you sense it?’
    ‘She’s right.’ Annabeth climbed onto the nearest table. Shekicked aside a platter, startling a dozen suitors. ‘Jason, that’s only a remnant of your mother, like an ara , maybe, or –’
    ‘A remnant!’ His mother’s ghost sobbed. ‘Yes, look what I have been reduced to. It’s Jupiter’s fault. He abandoned us. He wouldn’t help me! I didn’t want to leave you in Sonoma, my dear, but Juno and Jupiter gave me no choice. They wouldn’t allow us to stay together. Why fight for them now? Join these suitors. Lead them. We can be a family again!’
    Jason felt hundreds of eyes on him.
    This has been the story of my life, he thought bitterly. Everyone had always watched him, expecting him to lead the way. From the moment he’d arrived at Camp Jupiter, the Roman demigods had treated him like a prince in waiting. Despite his attempts to alter his destiny – joining the worst cohort, trying to change the camp traditions, taking the least glamorous missions and befriending the least popular kids – he had been made praetor anyway. As a son of Jupiter, his future had been assured.
    He remembered what Hercules had said to him at the Straits of Gibraltar:
It’s not easy being a son of Zeus. Too much pressure. Eventually, it can make a guy snap.
    Now Jason was here, drawn as taut as a bowstring.
    ‘You left me,’ he told his mother. ‘That wasn’t Jupiter or Juno. That was
you
.’
    Beryl Grace stepped forward. The worry lines around her eyes, the pained tightness in her mouth reminded Jason of his sister, Thalia.
    ‘Dearest, I told you I would come back. Those were my last words to you. Don’t you remember?’
    Jason shivered. In the ruins of the Wolf House his mother had hugged him one last time. She had smiled, but her eyes were full of tears.
    It’s all right
, she had promised. But even as a little kid Jason had known it wasn’t all right.
Wait here. I will be back for you, dearest. I will see you soon.
    She hadn’t come back. Instead, Jason had wandered the ruins, crying and alone, calling for his mother and for Thalia – until the wolves came for him.
    His mother’s unkept promise was at the core of who he was. He’d built his whole life around the irritation of her words, like the grain of sand at the centre of a pearl.
    People lie. Promises are broken.
    That was why, as much as it chafed him, Jason followed rules. He kept his promises. He never wanted to abandon anyone the way he’d been abandoned and lied to.
    Now his mom was back, erasing the one certainty Jason had about her – that she’d left him forever.
    Across the table, Antinous raised his goblet. ‘So pleased to meet you, son of Jupiter. Listen to your mother. You have many grievances against the gods.