The Blood of Olympus - Shake Walls

The ghost led Nico to another public plaza, anchored at one end by a large square church with whitewashed walls and limestone arches. The ghost passed through the portico and disappeared inside.

Nico hesitated. He had nothing against churches, but this one radiated death. Inside would be tombs, or perhaps something less pleasant...

He ducked through the doorway. His eyes were drawn to a side chapel, lit from within by eerie golden light. Carved over the door was a Portuguese inscription. Nico didn’t speak the language, but he remembered his childhood Italian well enough to glean the general meaning: We, the bones that are here, await yours.

“Cheery,” he muttered.

He entered the chapel. At the far end stood an altar, where the fiery wraith knelt in prayer, but Nico was more interested in the room itself. The walls were constructed of bones and skulls—thousands upon thousands, cemented together. Columns of bones held up a vaulted ceiling decorated with images of death. On one wall, like coats on a coatrack, hung the desiccated, skeletal remains of two people—an adult and a small child.

[...]

Hades shook his head. “Even if I were certain, I could not say. I tell you this because you are my son. You know that some deaths cannot be prevented. Some deaths should not be prevented. When the time comes, you may need to act.”

Nico didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t want to know.

“My son.” Hades’s tone was almost gentle. “Whatever happens, you have earned my respect. You brought honor to our house when we stood together against Kronos in Manhattan. You risked my wrath to help the Jackson boy—guiding him to the River Styx, freeing him from my prison, pleading with me to raise the armies of Erebos to assist him. Never before have I been so harassed by one of my sons. Percy this and Percy that. I nearly blasted you to cinders.”

Nico took a shallow breath. The walls of the room began to tremble, dust trickling from the cracks between the bones. “I didn’t do all that just for him. I did it because the whole world was in danger.”

Hades allowed himself the faintest smile, but there was nothing cruel in his eyes. “I can entertain the possibility that you acted for multiple reasons. My point is this: you and I rose to the aid of Olympus because you convinced me to let go of my anger. I would encourage you to do likewise. My children are so rarely happy. I...I would like to see you be an exception.”

Nico stared at his father. He didn’t know what to do with that statement. He could accept many unreal things—hordes of ghosts, magical labyrinths, travel through shadows, chapels made of bones. But tender words from the Lord of the Underworld? No. That made no sense.

Over at the altar, the fiery ghost rose. He approached, burning and screaming silently, his eyes conveying some urgent message.


- The Blood of Olympus, Chapter 14