Chapter 103 103
Kaelen's POV:
We stayed like that for a long time.
Marlen's sobs eventually quieted into hiccups, then into shaky breathing, then into silence. Lucian stopped crying somewhere in there too, though he kept sniffling and wiping his nose on my shirt, which was already covered in blood anyway so what difference did it make.
I stared up at the gray sky and thought about Annabeth.
The bond was still silent. I reached for her again, and again, and again, but there was nothing. Just that horrible emptiness where she should've been. Either she was dead... no. No, I couldn't think that. Marcus had said if she were dead I'd KNOW, the bond breaking would feel different, would feel like getting torn in half.
This was something else. This was... suppression, maybe. Some kind of drug or device blocking our connection.
She was alive. She HAD to be alive.
"Kaelen?" Marlen's voice was muffled against my neck.
"Yeah?"
"We have to get her back."
I looked down at my sister's blonde head, matted with dirt and tears and probably some of my blood. She wasn't asking permission. She was stating a fact.
"Yeah," I said. "We do."
"I want to help." Lucian sat up, wiping his face. He looked wrecked, exhausted, maybe ten years older than his actual fifteen. But there was something in his eyes I'd never seen before. Steel. Determination. "I'm not staying behind this time. I'm not hiding while you guys fight. I'm done being the kid who needs protecting."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to send them both somewhere safe, somewhere far from the Order and their weapons and their harpoons designed to kill dragons. That's what I'd always done. Protect them at all costs.
But they'd just saved my life.
Marlen, who was thirteen and should've been worrying about homework and stupid crushes, had just channeled more healing energy than I'd ever seen anyone produce. Lucian, who still made bad puns and played too many video games, had kept his hands on my chest and poured his fire into me even when he was dizzy and scared.
They weren't kids anymore. Maybe they never really had been.
"Okay," I said quietly.
Lucian blinked. "What?"
"Okay. You help. Both of you." I looked at Marlen, who had lifted her head to stare at me. "We do this together. No more hiding. No more treating you like you can't handle it."
Marlen's face did something complicated. Surprise, maybe. Or validation. The acknowledgment she'd been waiting for since she was eight years old and serious.
"Really?" Lucian said.
"Really. But you listen to me. You do what I say. If I tell you to run, you RUN, no questions, no coming back for me like heroes. If we're doing this together, we're doing it smart. Got it?"
"Got it," they said in unison.
I started to sit up. The pain hit immediately, a deep burning ache in my chest that made me grit my teeth and hiss through them. The wound wasn't completely closed yet, I could feel the edges still raw and tender, the new tissue fragile. But I was alive. I was breathing. My heart was beating.
My siblings had brought me back from the dead.
"Help me up," I said.
Marlen got under one arm, Lucian under the other. Together they hauled me to my feet. The world spun for a second, gray sky and pine trees and the ruins of the cabin all blurring together, but it steadied. I steadied.
Around us, the aftermath of the fight. Bodies everywhere, broken and burned, operatives I'd killed in dragon form. The cabin was destroyed, barely standing, walls caved in and roof collapsed from when I'd transformed inside it. Scorch marks on the ground, on the trees, evidence of the golden fire I'd unleashed.
And there, maybe twenty feet away, the harpoon. Three feet of metal, slick with my blood. I stared at it and felt something cold settle in my chest.
Next time I saw the person who'd fired that thing, I was going to kill them. Slowly. Thoroughly.
"Marcus," Marlen said suddenly. "We need to find Marcus. He'll know what to do."
Right. Marcus. Who'd gone to meet his contact this morning, who'd been ambushed or distracted or something while the real attack happened here. He was probably going crazy trying to find us, assuming he was still alive.
"Can you walk?" Lucian asked me.
I took a step. Then another. It hurt like hell, but I could do it.
"Yeah," I said. "I can walk."
We started moving. Slowly, painfully, the three of us supporting each other through the ruins of our temporary home. Marlen kept looking back at the cabin, at the bodies, at the destruction.
"Kaelen?"
"Yeah?"
"You were kind of amazing. I mean, the dragon thing. I've never seen you transform before. I've never seen ANYONE transform before."
They hadn’t because it had always been too dangerous, too risky. Only I had transformed a couple times when our parents were still with us and helping me to train my powers.
"It was terrifying," Lucian added. "But also, like, really cool? Is that weird to say? You were huge. And golden. And you were killing people, which was scary, but they were trying to take Annabeth so I didn't feel bad about it."
"You shouldn't feel bad about it," I said.
"I don't. I feel bad that they got her anyway."
Yeah. So did I.
The forest swallowed us, trees closing in on either side, hiding us from anyone who might still be watching. My chest ached with every step, my body screaming at me to stop and rest and let the healing finish, but I kept going.
Annabeth was out there somewhere. In the hands of the Order, probably drugged, probably scared, probably thinking I was dead.
But I was coming for her.
Whatever it took, however long it took, I was getting her back.
And god help anyone who got in my way.