Betrayed
Silena POV
He gave his life for the safety of us. He gave his life so that the rest of us could fight. And I betrayed him. I was the traitor. I loved him so much, no matter what it seemed like, no matter what people said. I know—a daughter of Aphrodite not caring what people said about her? My mother would never forgive me. But, of course, I would never get to find out.
Clarisse wouldn’t fight. This was my last chance to apologize for what I had done, what deaths I had caused, and the key element wasn’t getting off her butt to save the people I’d endangered.
My fault… All my fault…
Elysium was beautiful. But, even more beautiful, the man that had so selflessly given his life for Percy and the war. I couldn’t breathe in the moment I saw him. Sure, I didn’t have breath in my body—or the thin shadow of white that was now my body—but the effect was the same.
Charlie frowned when he saw me.
“You’re…dead,” he whispered.
I nodded. “The drakon.”
“Silena—”
“I love you, Charlie.” I pulled him into a hug that felt like I was being wrapped in warmth. “I’m so sorry.”
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Beckendorf POV
I’ll never see her again until she’s dead, I thought to myself as the flames exploded from the boat. Everything around me erupted in heat and I felt my body crashing into the flames, down to the floor of the boat. I was dead before I hit the water.
Before I died, all I could think about Silena. A daughter of Aphrodite and son of Hephaestus should not have mixed well, but apparently we did. She called me Charlie, something I had only allowed from her. I was madly in love with this girl, but, just my luck, I had to be captured. Right as the flames surrounded me I whispered her name.
I’d never thought about Elysium, or Hades in general for that matter. The Underworld was terrifying, yes, but…Elysium was different. It was like I was in my own little perfect world. I had a forge all my own that I worked in for the time I was there. Time didn’t exist there; it could have been years and it would have felt like minutes.
Then she appeared in my forge, like she was meant to exist there after life. How long had it been? It could not have been years and years. That meant… That meant she had died in the war. The thought was excrutiating.
“The drakon,” she explained.
My Silena, gorgeous, frail, blonde and slender Silena had fought a drakon. And died.
“Silena—” I needed to tell her everything. I loved her. I was so incredibly sorry she had to die like that. It was…horribly unfair. She should have lived until she was old, lived a full life, not gone down in battle that wasn’t for her to fight.
She silenced me by hugging me. Sighing, I returned the hug, wrapping my arms around her tightly.
“I love you, Charlie,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Sorry? What could she possibly be sorry for?
I pulled back and kissed her softly, something that had been a rare and precious gift with us while we were alive.
“I’ll always love you, Silena.”
We had our Elysium together, now and forever, and that was all that mattered.