The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan

If you hate me, fine

Just don’t hit me in the gut

Or, well, anywhere

THE NEXT FEW DAYSwere almost as hard as battle itself. War leaves a huge mess that cannot simply be addressed with a mop and a bucket.

We cleared the rubble and shored up the most precarious damaged buildings. We put out fires, both literal and figurative. Terminus had made it through the battle, though he was weak and shaken. His first announcement was that he was formally adopting little Julia. The girl seemed delighted, though I wasn’t sure how Roman law would work out adoption-by-statue. Tyson and Ella were safely accounted for. Once Ella learned that I hadn’t messed up the summoning after all, she announced that she and Tyson were going back to the bookstore to clean up the mess, finish the Sibylline Books, and feed the cat, not necessarily in that order. Oh, and she was also gratified Frank was alive. As for me…I got the feeling she was still making up her mind.

Peaches left us once more to go help the local dryads and fauns, but he promised us, “Peaches,” which I took to mean that we would see him again soon.

With Thalia’s help, Reyna somehow managed to find One Eye and Short Ears, the abused pegasi from the emperors’ chariot. She talked to them in soothing tones, promised them healing, and convinced them to come back with her to camp, where she spent most of her time dressing their wounds and providing them with good food and plenty of open air. The animals seemed to recognize that Reyna was a friend of their immortal forefather, the great Pegasus himself. After what they’d been through, I doubted they would have trusted anyone else to care for them.

We didn’t count the dead. They weren’t numbers. They were people we had known, friends we had fought with.

We lit the funeral pyres all on one night, at the base of Jupiter’s temple, and shared the traditional feast for the dead to send our fallen comrades off to the Underworld. The Lares turned out in full force until the hillside was a glowing field of purple, ghosts outnumbering the living.

I noticed that Reyna stood back and let Frank officiate. Praetor Zhang had quickly regained his strength. Dressed in full armor and his maroon cloak, he gave his eulogy while the legionnaires listened with awed reverence, as one does when the speaker has recently sacrificed himself in a fiery explosion and then, somehow, made it out alive with his underwear and cape intact.

Hazel helped, too, going through the ranks and comforting those who were crying or looking shell-shocked. Reyna stayed at the edge of the crowd, leaning on her crutches, gazing wistfully at the legionnaires as if they were loved ones she hadn’t seen in a decade and now barely recognized.

As Frank finished his speech, a voice next to me said, “Hey.”

Thalia Grace wore her usual black and silver. In the light of the funeral pyres, her electric-blue eyes turned piercing violet. Over the past few days, we had spoken a few times, but it had all been surface talk: where to bring supplies, how to help the wounded. We had avoided the subject.

“Hey,” I said, my voice hoarse.

She folded her arms and stared at the fire. “I don’t blame you, Apollo. My brother…” She hesitated, steadying her breath. “Jason made his own choices. Heroes have to do that.”

Somehow, having her not blame me only made me feel guiltier and more unworthy. Ugh, human emotions were like barbed wire. There was just no safe way to grab hold of them or get through them.

“I’m so sorry,” I said at last.

“Yeah. I know.” She closed her eyes as if listening for a distant sound—a wolf cry in the forest, perhaps. “I got Reyna’s letter, a few hours before Diana received your summons. An aura—one of the breeze nymphs—she plucked it out of the mail and flew it to me personally. So dangerous for her, but she did it anyway.” Thalia picked at one of the buttons on her lapel: Iggy and the Stooges, a band older than she was by several generations. “We came as fast as we could, but still…I had some time to cry and scream and throw things.”

I remained very still. I had vivid memories of Iggy Pop throwing peanut butter, ice cubes, watermelons, and other dangerous objects at his fans during his concerts. I found Thalia more intimidating than him by far.

“It seems so cruel,” she continued. “We lose someone and finally get them back, only to lose them again.”

I wondered why she used the word we. She seemed to be saying that she and I shared this experience—the loss of an only sibling. But she had suffered so much worse. My sister couldn’t die. I couldn’t lose her permanently.

Then, after a moment of disorientation, like I’d been flipped upside down, I realized she wasn’t talking about me losing someone. She was talking about Artemis—Diana.

Was she suggesting that my sister missed me, even grieved for me as Thalia grieved for Jason?

Thalia must have read my expression. “The goddess has been beside herself,” she said. “I mean that literally. Sometimes she gets so worried she splits into two forms, Roman and Greek, right in front of me. She’ll probably get mad at me for telling you this, but she loves you more than anyone else in the world.”

A marble seemed to have lodged in my throat. I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded.

“Diana didn’t want to leave camp so suddenly like that,” Thalia continued. “But you know how it is. Gods can’t stick around. Once the danger to New Rome had passed, she couldn’t risk overstaying her summons. Jupiter…Dad wouldn’t approve.”

I shivered. How easy it was to forget that this young woman was also my sister. And Jason was my brother. At one time, I would have discounted that connection. They’re just demigods, I would have said. Not really family.

Now I found the idea hard to accept for a different reason. I didn’t feel worthy of that family. Or Thalia’s forgiveness.

Gradually, the funeral picnic began to break up. Romans drifted off in twos and threes, heading for New Rome, where a special nighttime meeting was being held at the Senate House. Sadly, the valley’s population was so reduced that the entire legion and the citizenry of New Rome could now fit inside that one building.

Reyna hobbled over to us.

Thalia gave her a smile. “So, Praetor Ramírez-Arellano, you ready?”

“Yes.” Reyna answered without hesitation, though I wasn’t sure what she was ready for. “Do you mind if…” She nodded at me.

Thalia gripped her friend’s shoulder. “Of course. See you at the Senate House.” She strode away into the darkness.

“Come on, Lester.” Reyna winked. “Limp with me.”

The limping was easy. Even though I was healed, I tired easily. It was no problem to walk at Reyna’s pace. Her dogs, Aurum and Argentum, weren’t with her, I noticed, perhaps because Terminus didn’t approve of deadly weapons inside the city limits.

We made our way slowly down the road from Temple Hill toward New Rome. Other legionnaires gave us a wide berth, apparently sensing we had private business to discuss.

Reyna kept me in suspense until we reached the bridge spanning the Little Tiber.

“I wanted to thank you,” she said.

Her smile was a ghost of the one she’d had on the hillside of Sutro Tower, when I’d offered to be her boyfriend. That left me in no doubt as to what she meant—not Thank you for helping to save the camp, but Thank you for giving me a good laugh.

“No problem,” I grumbled.

“I don’t mean it in a negative way.” Seeing my dubious look, she sighed and stared out at the dark river, its ripples curling silver in the moonlight. “I don’t know if I can explain this. My whole life, I’ve been living with other people’s expectations of what I’m supposed to be. Be this. Be that. You know?”

“You’re talking to a former god. Dealing with people’s expectations is our job description.”

Reyna conceded this with a nod. “For years, I was supposed to be a good little sister to Hylla in a tough family situation. Then, on Calypso’s island, I was supposed to be an obedient servant. Then I was a pirate for a while. Then a legionnaire. Then a praetor.”

“You do have an impressive résumé,” I admitted.

“But the whole time I’ve been a leader here,” she forged on, “I was looking for a partner. Praetors often partner up. In power. But also romantically, I mean. I thought Jason. Then for a hot minute, Percy Jackson. Gods help me, I even considered Octavian.” She shuddered. “Everybody was always trying to ship me with somebody. Thalia. Jason. Gwen. Even Frank. Oh, you’d be perfect together! That’s who you need! But I was never really sure if I wanted that, or if I just felt like I was supposed to want it. People, well-meaning, would be like, Oh, you poor thing. You deserve somebody in your life. Date him. Date her. Date whoever. Find your soul mate.”

She looked at me to see if I was following. Her words came out hot and fast, as if she’d been holding them in for a long time. “And that meeting with Venus. That really messed me up. No demigod will heal your heart. What was that supposed to mean? Then finally, you came along.”

“Do we have to review that part again? I am quite embarrassed enough.”

“But you showed me. When you proposed dating…” She took a deep breath, her body shaking with silent giggles. “Oh, gods. I saw how ridiculous I’d been. How ridiculous the whole situation was. That’s what healed my heart—being able to laugh at myself again, at my stupid ideas about destiny. That allowed me to break free—just like Frank broke free of his firewood. I don’t need another person to heal my heart. I don’t need a partner…at least, not until and unless I’m ready on my own terms. I don’t need to be force-shipped with anyone or wear anybody else’s label. For the first time in a long time, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. So thank you.”

“You’re welcome?”

She laughed. “Don’t you see, though? Venus put you up to the job. She tricked you into it, because she knew you are the only one in the cosmos with an ego big enough to handle the rejection. I could laugh in your face, and you would heal.”

“Hmph.” I suspected she was right about Venus manipulating me. I wasn’t so sure the goddess cared whether or not I would heal, though. “So what does this mean for you, exactly? What’s next for Praetor Reyna?”

Even as I asked the question, I realized I knew the answer.

“Come along to the Senate House,” she said. “We’ve got a few surprises in store.”