Luke Castellan, to his credit, had excellent timing.
In the captain's quarters of the Andromeda, he wiped blood from his upper lip and thought about Aditya.
Better prepare yourself, Aditya.
Dramatic. Precise. Devastating.
Really good villain moment.
Meanwhile —
SNOOOOORE.
I was asleep.
Face-down. One arm under the pillow. The other hanging off the side of the bed because gravity exists and I had stopped arguing with it somewhere around midnight. The sword on the floor within arm's reach because the rack was across the room and across the room was an objectively unreasonable distance when you were already horizontal and had eaten enough for three people and had decided, conclusively, that tomorrow's problems could wait until tomorrow.
The window was open.
Late October. Cold.
I had the blanket.
I did not care.
SNOOOOORE.
Luke Castellan was preparing his war.
The anomaly. The one who beat Perses. The one who walked out of Alcatraz.
Snoring.
In the Big House.
Loudly.
I woke up at eleven.
Lay there.
Assessed the situation.
Decided I had no feelings about it and got up.
Shirt. Sword on back — automatic, like breathing. Opened the door.
Chiron was standing there.
I stopped.
He looked at me.
His expression was not angry. It was worse than angry.
It was patient.
DUN.
DUN.
DUUUUUN.
I don't know where that came from. Some part of my brain had apparently decided this moment needed a musical cue and provided one without asking permission.
Some other part screamed MOUNT A DEFENCE.
I had no idea what I was defending. I hadn't done anything. Probably. But the situation CLEARLY demanded it and my brain knew before I did so I opened my mouth —
"I can explain —"
"It has been," Chiron said pleasantly, "one week since Percy and Thalia left camp."
I closed my mouth.
"One week," he continued, with the serenity of a man who had done this for three thousand years and had therefore achieved a state of devastation completely indistinguishable from calm, "during which Beckendorf completed two full projects. The Demeter cabin harvested the east field. Will Solace reorganized the entire infirmary."
A pause.
"When," Chiron said, "did you last practice with the Dhanush."
Not a question.
A trap wearing a question's clothes.
I opened my mouth.
My brain ran the numbers.
My brain reported back.
My brain and I had a very fast silent conversation that went:
When.
....
WHEN.
New York. January. Before New York.
THAT WAS ALMOST A YEAR AGO.
I KNOW.
YOU HAVE BEEN USING IT IN COMBAT WITHOUT PRACTICING IT FOR ALMOST AN ENTIRE YEAR.
I AM AWARE OF THE SITUATION THANK YOU —
"Recently," I said.
The vein appeared.
I had never seen it before. In all my time at camp, in every conversation in Chiron's office, in every session where he had looked at me with the patience of eternity and told me things I didn't want to hear — I had never seen a vein on Chiron's temple.
It was there now.
Small. Faint. But there.
Pulsing.
OH NO.
OH NO OH NO OH NO —
"Define," Chiron said, "recently."
"It's a relative term —"
"Aditya."
"Temporally speaking —"
"Aditya."
"Before New York," I said. Very quietly.
Silence.
The vein pulsed so hard I could see it from where I was standing.
"Before New York," Chiron said.
"Yes."
"You left for New York in January."
"Yes."
"It is October."
"...Yes."
"You have been using the Dhanush in combat," Chiron said, "for almost an entire year. Without once practicing it at a target."
I opened my mouth.
"You manifested it against Perses," he said.
I closed my mouth.
"You manifested it at Alcatraz."
The vein was still there.
I was looking at the wall slightly to the left of his face.
"Last summer," Chiron said, quieter now, "you hit sixteen out of twenty on your best day. That was real progress. That was ground you earned." He let that sit for a moment. "You walked away from it for a year."
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE. CRITICAL HIT. RIGHT IN THE SIXTEEN-OUT-OF-TWENTY.
"The sword —"
"Is not a bow," Chiron said.
"The constructs —"
"Are not a bow," Chiron said.
"I —"
"Are you," Chiron said, very quietly, very precisely, "about to tell me something that is not the bow?"
I closed my mouth.
The vein pulsed.
Somewhere in the cosmos I was absolutely certain three women at a loom were watching this and enjoying themselves enormously.
"And you," Chiron said, "have not practiced at a target in almost a year."
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE. AGAIN. HE DID IT AGAIN.
"Arena," he said. The vein was still there. "One o'clock. Bow only. I will be there." He turned. Already done with the conversation. "Eat something first."
"It's eleven —"
"Brunch," Chiron said. Already moving. "One o'clock, Aditya."
He left.
He left and took the vein with him.
I stood in the doorway.
The Demon Centaur, I thought.
That was his name now. In my head. Permanently. The Demon Centaur. I was going to tell everyone. Beckendorf. The Stolls. Malcolm. I was going to spread this across camp and let it become legend and Chiron would never know and it would be the greatest act of revenge in the history of —
I forgot about it by the time I reached the stairs.
I went to find brunch.
One o'clock.
The arena.
Chiron was already there.
Targets set up across the range. Twenty of them. Neat. Evenly spaced.
He looked at me. Gestured at the range.
No preamble. No speech.
Shoot.
Fine.
I summoned the Dhanush. Rolled my shoulders. Twenty arrows, twenty targets — I'd done this before, I knew this, my body knew this. Whatever Chiron thought had deteriorated couldn't be that bad. I had used this bow in actual combat. Against actual things trying to actually kill me. Targets didn't fight back.
I nocked. Drew. Released.
Ran through all twenty.
Fifteen out of twenty.
I stared at the results.
Fifteen.
My best last summer had been sixteen. One below my personal best after almost a year away. That was — actually that was fine. That was not catastrophic. That was one arrow. The boon had held the ground, the muscle memory had held, I was one arrow below my peak and —
"Again," Chiron said.
I ran it again.
Fifteen.
Again.
Fifteen.
I stood there.
Fifteen. Fifteen. Fifteen. The same number every single round. The boon was right there — weapon mastery, accelerated development, months of progress compressed — why was it stopping at fifteen, why wasn't it moving —
"Fourteen," Chiron said, after the fourth round.
I looked at the targets.
Fourteen.
I had gone DOWN.
"Frustration affects the release," Chiron said pleasantly. "You are getting angry and the anger is tightening your grip and the grip is pulling the shot left."
I breathed out through my nose.
"Fifteen was your floor," he continued. "Not your ceiling. The floor is where you are without practice. The ceiling —" He paused. "The ceiling is what we're here to build."
He walked to the large crate sitting against the arena wall.
I had not noticed the crate before.
I noticed it now.
He opened it.
Inside: weights. Not ankle weights. Forearm weights — thick, heavy, strapped around the forearm. He lifted two out and set them down in front of me.
Five kilograms each.
On each arm.
I looked at them.
I looked at Chiron.
"These are for the forearms," I said.
"Yes."
"Not the ankles."
"No."
"Because the ankles would be —"
"Too easy," Chiron said.
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE.
He reached back into the crate.
Pulled out a bow.
Not the Dhanush. Not my bow. A physical bow — composite, recurve, built for someone with significantly more arm strength than I currently possessed. He set it on top of the weights.
I looked at it.
It looked heavy.
"What draw weight is that," I said.
"One hundred and twenty pounds," Chiron said.
I picked it up.
I immediately set it back down.
"Chiron —"
"Yes?"
"This is —"
"Yes?"
I looked at the bow. I looked at the range. I looked at the arena exit, which was right there, close, approximately fifteen steps away, and if I moved fast enough —
Chiron stepped to his left. Exit blocked. Three thousand years of practice.
I looked at him.
He looked back.
I picked up the forearm weights.
The first arrow missed the target entirely.
Not the edge. Not barely on. Missed. Flew wide and hit the arena wall three feet to the left of the target and clattered to the ground in what I felt was a deeply personal insult.
The bow was heavy. The weights were heavy. The combination meant my draw was slower, my anchor point was wrong because my arms were fighting the resistance instead of moving through it, and my release was all over the place.
Fifteen had seemed bad twenty minutes ago.
Fifteen seemed like a golden age now.
"Power down," Chiron said. "You're pulling with your arms. The back does the work. The arms are just the delivery system."
I tried again.
The arrow hit the bottom edge of the target.
"Better," Chiron said.
That was the most charitable definition of better I had ever encountered.
I tried again.
Miss.
Again.
Edge.
Again.
Miss again but at least this time it missed in the right direction which felt like progress even if technically it was not.
The weights on my forearms were burning. The bow was fighting me on every single draw. My shoulder was starting to disagree with the whole situation.
"You're rushing the draw," Chiron said. "The weight is making you rush because your body wants it over. Slow down."
"Slowing down feels like dying," I said.
I slowed down.
The next arrow hit the target. Center-adjacent. Not center but close enough that I felt something in my chest that was almost satisfaction.
"Again," Chiron said.
Two hours later I had hit ten out of twenty.
Ten.
With the forearm weights. With the hundred-and-twenty-pound bow. Ten shots landing where I aimed out of twenty. By the end they were landing with intention instead of accident.
I stood in the arena with my forearms on fire and my shoulder filing a formal complaint and my brain trying to calculate what ten-out-of-twenty with these weights meant for what I'd eventually hit without them.
"Ten," Chiron said.
"Ten," I confirmed.
"With one hundred and twenty pounds and five kilograms on each forearm."
"Yes."
He nodded once.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Same time."
He left.
I stood there.
The Demon Centaur, I thought.
That was absolutely his name. I was going to tell Beckendorf. I was going to tell Malcolm and every single camper who would listen and it would become the name everyone used and Chiron would never know and it would be the greatest act of —
I forgot about it before I reached the arena exit.
The Demon Centaur HIJACKED the entire month.
That is the only accurate description of what happened to the last week of October and all of November. Chiron at one o'clock every single day — with the forearm weights, with the hundred-and-twenty-pound bow, with the patience of someone who had been doing this since before Rome was a city and had absolutely no intention of stopping.
The wind got cold.
The air got chill.
November came.
Ten became twelve became fourteen became fifteen — the ceiling cracking open week by week. Sixteen hit on a Wednesday without ceremony. Seventeen. Eighteen on the heavy bow. Nineteen out of twenty on the Dhanush, which Chiron noted in his book and said nothing about, which was somehow more satisfying than if he'd said something.
And then the divine adaptation decided to show up.
It started during a mock archery bout — Chiron moving targets, varying distances, some stationary some swinging, me tracking and releasing and tracking again. Standard drill. I'd done it forty times.
Except this time Chiron added incoming.
Blunt-tipped arrows. Fast. From the side. Designed to break concentration and force a flinch.
The first one caught me across the shoulder.
I didn't flinch.
I didn't stagger.
I registered it — impact, location, force — filed it, and kept shooting.
I hit the next target.
Chiron fired three more in quick succession. Shoulder. Ribs. Upper arm. Blunt weapon force. Six months ago that would have knocked the breath out of me and sent me sideways.
I kept shooting.
Eighteen out of twenty. Three blunt arrows in me. Still standing. Still accurate.
I stopped and looked at my shoulder.
Then at my ribs.
Then at Chiron.
FINALLY, I thought.
FINALLY MY DIVINE ADAPTATION IS ACTUALLY WORKING.
I HAVE BEEN GETTING HIT BY THINGS FOR TWO YEARS AND NOW IT IS PAYING DIVIDENDS AND I WOULD LIKE TO FORMALLY THANK EVERY HELLHOUND EVERY DRACAENA AND EVERY TITAN ADJACENT CREATURE THAT CONTRIBUTED TO THIS MOMENT —
"Don't celebrate yet," Chiron said. "You're denser not invincible. Anything fast enough still hurts. Anything divine still hurts. You've built a foundation not a wall."
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE. BUT LESS THAN USUAL.
November went.
December arrived with frost on the ground and the back muscles came with it.
That was the only way to describe what two months of hundred-and-twenty-pound draws with five kilogram forearm weights had done. I noticed it when Beckendorf stopped mid-conversation to stare and said, with the complete unfiltered honesty of someone who spent most of his time with metal:
"Your back looks like it's angry."
I went and looked in a mirror.
Beckendorf was not wrong.
The months of pulls had built something across the upper back and shoulders that had not been there before — dense, wide, archer's muscle, built from drawing heavy weight repeatedly. Will Solace called it archer's development. Beckendorf called it impressive. Travis Stoll called it deeply unfair.
I called it two months of the Demon Centaur's fault.
Around this time I made a joke.
To Chiron. At the end of a session. The kind of joke that felt safe because the session had gone well and I'd hit nineteen out of twenty and the endorphins were making me bold.
"I could probably match Zoe one on one now," I said. "Archery. Right?"
Chiron looked at me.
Long pause.
"In terms of raw strength on the draw," Chiron said, "and accuracy at distance — possibly."
I felt very good about myself.
"Add in hundreds of years of experience," Chiron continued. "Her ability to read wind, terrain, and a moving target simultaneously. Her knowledge of every bow style developed between 500 BC and the present day. Her habit of putting three arrows in the air before most archers have nocked their first." He looked at me. "And you are not yet at her level."
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE. CRITICAL HIT.
"...Right," I said.
"Good session," Chiron said.
He left.
The sword work told its own story.
I'd been swinging at trees on the camp border — the dead ones, the ones Chiron had designated for this, which meant he'd planned the whole month in advance and said nothing about it.
Three blows. One tree.
Not clean. Not the smooth decisive cut I wanted. Three heavy swings, the third one finishing it, the tree coming down loud enough that campers looked up from whatever they were doing.
No fire. No Kavach. Just the sword and the body behind it.
Will Solace found me on the third day of this and stood there watching for a moment.
"You're going to hurt yourself," Will said.
"I haven't yet," I said.
"That's not the same as not going to," Will said.
He came back the next day with a notebook anyway.
First week of December, Chiron finally relented and gave me the week off.
"Take the week off," he said.
I turned around very slowly.
"The week," I said.
"The week."
"This week."
"This week."
"From training."
"From training."
"From YOU specifically."
"From me specifically."
I looked at him.
Chiron looked back.
Three thousand years.
"Okay," I said. Very calmly. Very professionally.
I turned around.
Walked out of the arena.
Got exactly twelve steps.
YESYESYESYESYESYES —
I was not running. I was walking with great purpose and full dignity in the direction of the Big House and if that walk happened to be extremely fast that was simply the natural pace of a person who had places to be.
FREEDOM.
ONE WHOLE WEEK.
THE DEMON CENTAUR HAD BLINKED.
I HAD WON.
I — ADITYA RUDRANSH — ANOMALY — BEATER OF PERSES — SURVIVOR OF ALCATRAZ — HAD OUTLASTED THE THREE THOUSAND YEAR OLD CENTAUR AND EARNED ONE WHOLE WEEK OFF AND THIS WAS WITHOUT QUESTION THE GREATEST VICTORY OF EITHER OF MY LIVES —
I walked into the Big House. Up the stairs. Into my room.
Face-planted onto the bed.
SNOOOOORE.
Oh but would the universe allow me one peaceful week after two months of Demon Centaur training?
Oh my sweet summer readers.
No.
No it would not.
The universe, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to conspire with Fate and reenact another comet entry into Camp Half-Blood — a callback to Chapter One, except this time considerably louder, considerably brighter, and involving a sun chariot, several demigods, a company of Hunters, and a canoe lake that had done absolutely nothing to deserve what was about to happen to it.
Downstairs, Chiron heard it before he saw it.
He walked to the window.
And the canoe lake lit up.