Chapter Text
The world did not die quietly.
Contrary to his plan, it did not die at all.
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Most believed everything began with Percy Jackson—
the half-blood of the eldest gods, the one who reached sixteen against all odds.
He was destined for glory, they said.
The slayer of the Minotaur. The killer of Medusa. Later still, one of only three mortals to survive the pit of Tartarus.
The Hero of Olympus—twice over.
It had to be him. Didn’t it?
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Prophecy was never an easy art. Some might argue it was no art at all.
It bent beneath interpretation, warped by expectation, and more often than not, it fulfilled itself.
There was nothing easy about it. Nothing kind.
So let’s stop. Rewind. Let’s, just for a moment, think.
First the Great Prophecy asked for a halfblood of the eldest gods. But when everyone heard eldest gods, they looked to the brothers—Zeus, Poseidon, Hades—as if Olympus had no sisters.
Hestia could have no children; Hera would not. Demeter remained—and somehow no one thought to look at hers. Her children were spared by a collective failure of imagination.
Which, of course, left them with Percy Jackson by default.
The trickier part was the rest of the prophecy.
Much of it was too easily twisted, or too impossible to pin down. But nearly everyone agreed on one thing: the end of an age was coming. The only question was how.
The simplest assumption was that the Half-Blood of the eldest gods and the hero were one and the same. But prophecies were never that simple.
Which brings us here.
To Luke Castellan.
Son of Hermes. Vessel of Kronos.
Brother. Friend. Protector.
The one whose soul shall be reaped.
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But what is a soul?
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In one world, Luke Castellan took the cursed blade and ended his life.
He died a hero, and in death, Elysium awaited him.
In this world, Luke Castellan still took the blade and struck true. But he did not wake in the Underworld.
The Fates had interpreted the Prophecy just a little differently.
For a soul could mean many things. It was a mortal invention, a mortal blight.
And so, though Luke killed himself, he did not die.
His soul—his mortality—was reaped.
And what remained was something else entirely: ichor in his veins, bones steeped in divinity, and the domains of a Titan, claimed as his own.
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The blade gleamed gold as he drew it free, slick with ichor. His grip shook, yet the weapon felt disturbingly natural, as though it had always been meant for his hand, an extension of his very flesh.
Luke lifted his head, his gaze finding Annabeth. She was ashen, eyes blown wide, every trace of color bled from her face.
For a heartbeat, he couldn’t understand. Wouldn’t.
He was supposed to be dead.
“Luke?” she whispered, the sound breaking on his name.
He looked down at his hands, golden ichor still clinging to his skin, then back to her. His chest tightened, but he forced the word out anyway. “Annie.”
Relief flickered in her eyes—relief chased almost instantly by horror.
Something was wrong. And he knew exactly what.
“I’m dead,” Luke said.
Silence pressed in. Percy shifted at Annabeth’s side, just as lost, his mouth opening but no words coming.
Then Annabeth’s voice cut through the stillness. “You’re bleeding ichor.”
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He didn’t have long to dwell on the revelation before Ares found them. Luke supposed he should have been grateful—it could have been Hermes instead.
Ares wasted no time summoning Hephaestus, who fastened heavy chains around Luke’s wrists.
Then he was hauled through a sea of demigods and cast before the assembled Olympians, chains biting into his wrists as he was forced to his knees, the weight of their gazes pressing down like judgment.
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They had been at it for what must have been half an hour, voices colliding like thunder, each accusation louder than the last. The air in the throne room seemed to shake with every word. Luke remained on his knees, chains biting into his wrists, staring past them all with a dispassionate calm that felt like someone else’s skin.
He was numb.
The chains were real. The ichor coursing through his veins was real. But inside his head—for the first time in months, maybe years—there was silence. Kronos was gone. The Titan’s whisper no longer gnawed at the edges of his thoughts. The absence was so complete, so absolute, it left him almost dizzy.
The rebellion had failed. He had failed.
And yet here he was. Still breathing. Still kneeling before the gods as they bickered, as though nothing in the world had changed.
“I know my son!” Hermes hissed, his form rippling with agitation, a shimmer of wings at his back.
Once, these words might have set Luke’s chest aching with longing, with the pathetic hope that maybe—just maybe—his father cared about him. But that boy was gone. Now Luke only looked, and the corner of his mouth curled into a sneer. The numbness cracked, and through the fissure anger leaked in, hot and sharp.
Luke hated them all. Every one of them. Zeus most of all—the memory of Miriam Levine’s shattered eyes, her body broken by the so-called King of the Gods, was burned into him like a scar. She had been fourteen that night. And he would never forget the sight of her—clothes in tatters, skin mottled with bruises, every mark a silent testament to what had been done to her.
But Hermes… Hermes was personal. Hermes had been absent when it mattered most. Hermes had left him to rot, to twist in bitterness until Kronos found fertile soil in his heart.
The words ripped free before he could stop them, his voice shaking not with fear but fury: “You know nothing about me.”
Silence fell. The clash of voices, the simmering arguments, all cut short.
Dozens of divine gazes pinned him to the marble floor. Disgust radiated from them, indignation for the mortal who dared to raise his voice in their presence. For a moment, that was all he saw—revulsion, contempt, the old familiar reminder that he was less.
But beneath it—he found something else.
Fear.
They feared him.
They feared the boy who had turned on them, who had carried a Titan in his body and survived. The one who had defied them all, who had broken all their rules and spit on their order and yet still knelt breathing before them now.
Most of all, they feared what he had become.
Apotheosis. Deification. Ascension.
Three words whispered across ages, reserved for heroes whose names had carved themselves into eternity. Words that were not meant for him.
And yet—
Luke felt the ichor pulse in his veins, heavy and undeniable. He felt it thrum beneath his skin like a second heartbeat.
He was no longer mortal.
“You dare speak in these halls?” Zeus’s voice crashed through the throne room like a storm, every syllable a jagged strike of thunder. The air itself vibrated with his rage, and Luke knew—if he were still mortal—his eardrums would have burst, his bones ground to dust beneath the sound alone.
But he wasn’t mortal anymore. And so he lifted his head, slow and deliberate, until his gaze locked with the King of the Gods.
“A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze.” His voice was calm now, almost mocking. His mouth curved into a cold, cold smile. “It is only by my mercy that you still sit on those thrones. I am the Hero of Olympus.”
The words lingered, venom in the silence.
“I made that choice,” he went on, his chin rising, defiance accompanying every word. “I am the reason you’re all still here. So yes—” his voice sharpened—“I fucking dare.”
A murmur rippled through the throne room. Some faces hardened, others faltered.
Zeus’s own twisted into rage. His arm rose, and the Master Bolt flared into existence, the chamber suddenly thick with ozone.
Out of the corner of his eye, Luke saw Hermes shift—as if to intervene—but his father, as always, was too slow, too late. Zeus loosed his fury, lightning screaming through the air.
Instinct made him flinch. For a breath, he thought it was over. For a breath, he forgot what he had become. What did ichor matter in the face of Zeus’s wrath? Even the gods trembled before it.
The bolt tore toward him, but something was wrong.
It didn’t strike.
It crawled through the air like honey, dragging light behind it—slower, slower—until it froze inches from his chest. Suspended. Seething. A spear of white fire, arrested in time.
Inside him yawned a chasm where Kronos had once been. But emptiness had not replaced the Titan—it had left behind something ancient, something vast and terrible.
Kronos. The Father of the Gods.
The Titan of the Harvest, of Inescapable Destruction—of Time itself.
And Time now bent before Luke.
This was his inheritance, his theft, his curse. Perhaps the greatest larceny ever committed: the son of Hermes had stolen not gold, not weapons, not secrets, but the very domains of a Titan. He could feel the truth of it in his marrow, as certain as the lies he once tasted on his tongue.
It should have terrified him. He had despised the gods all his life. To be one of them—to have their ichor in his veins—was a thought that curdled in his gut.
But this had never been about him.
And now Luke Castellan stood in a place no demigod had ever stood before.
He lowered his gaze to his shackled wrists. The chains bit into his skin, heavy, unyielding. He exhaled, slow, and let the darkness within him seep outward, tasting the air. The room shifted, and the seconds seemed to bow. The iron began to wither, to flake. Rust spread like rot until, one breath later, the chains were nothing but dust on the marble floor.
Luke rose.
He looked at the gods first—their thrones gleaming, their forms blazing with immortal light. But they weren’t the ones who mattered. Not truly.
No—the ones who mattered were standing at the threshold. His siblings. His cousins. His friends. Demigods hollowed by battle, faces pale, eyes exhausted. He had led them into this war. He had burdened them with his choices. And they were still here, watching him.
His throat tightened, but he forced his voice out, ragged, cutting through the silence: “Do you see now?”
Every word echoed, heavy, undeniable.
“These are your so-called parents. The gods you pray to. Look at them. Look.” He swept a hand at the thrones, his sneer sharpened by fury. “Tell me—can you honestly say I was wrong? They use us. They neglect us. They abuse us. They rape us. And then they wonder why we rise against them.”
He turned, eyes locking on Zeus, who still gripped the Master Bolt like it might save him.
“You are no better than Kronos.”
His gaze flicked, one by one, across the divine faces. Some stiffened, others wavered. None spoke.
“None of you are.”
Luke’s mouth curled into a smile, but there was no warmth in it—only something cold and merciless.
“But that ends now.” His voice cracked like a whip. “You will be better. You will change. Because if you don’t—” His hand clenched, and the lightning bolt quivered where it hung, still frozen, straining against time itself. “—you will not survive my next rebellion.”
He raised his chin, and the oath seared from his lips, thunder booming in answer:
“And that I swear on the River Styx.”
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