The Blood of Olympus

A “spectral mirage” of the palace in its prime overlays the ruins. The demigods find assembled double the expected number of not only spirits but also decayed and wounded ghouls and regular mortals. A ghoul with an arrow through his throat—Penelope’s chief suitor, Antinous—tosses a bust of Zeus, food for Gaea, into a fountain that spews sand rather than water. As the bust passes through the sand, it disintegrates, glittering gold, the color of “godly blood.” The ghoul announces that the next sacrifice will be a god. The demigods have 12 days before Gaea plans to wake.

Jason, Piper, and Annabeth separate to carry out their plan, the girls assimilating into the crowd of serving women and Jason hobbling toward the suitors. Antinous thinks Jason is Iros, a panhandler who passed along messages for the suitors until the disguised Odysseus defeated him, and invites him to sit. Up close, Jason realizes that dirt—the “power of Gaea” (19)—is holding Antinous together. During their conversation, Jason learns that the ritual to awaken Gaea will take place at the Acropolis in Athens, not in Olympus, as he’d assumed. Another former suitor, Eurymachus, unwittingly reveals what traps have been set for the demigods on the route from Ithaca to Athens, and Antinous disintegrates him in a rage.

Jason maintains his disguise by drawing on his own experiences fighting the monsters that Antinous and the others are allied with, and Antinous exclaims, “Victory runs rampant in Olympia” (26). With the information he needs and feeling a sense of foreboding, Jason ponders how to escape before Gaea’s recruits realize who they are. Michael Varus steps forward, calling Jason by name and gesturing to a woman who has come for him: his mother.

Jason’s mother, television star Beryl Grace, appears before him, and he feels his disguise burning away. She was Jupiter’s lover but was rejected by him in both his Roman and Greek forms. Piper uses her charmspeak to warn Jason that his mother is only a spirit. As Beryl urges him to lead the recruits, Jason reflects on his past failed attempts to reject the leadership role thrust on him as Jupiter’s son. He reminds his mother that she, not Jupiter or Juno, abandoned him, and Beryl replies that she returned as she promised. Antinous offers to make Jason king since he has no home among either Greeks or Romans, neither of whom will accept him. His mother urges him to give up his quest, since Gaea has sent “the hunter who never rests” (31) to kill Nico and Reyna. Although he doesn’t know who she means, Jason realizes that he must survive to warn them.

Annabeth and Piper watch for his signal. Reflecting on what Michael Varus told him—that the spirits here are “sustained by their strongest desires” (32)—Jason asks his mother what she wants. She replies that she wants youth and beauty, which Jupiter could have given her had he not abandoned her. She wants Jason to “set things right” (32). Remembering what his sister, Thalia, told him—that despair led their mother’s perception to break from reality—and realizing that she’s a “mania,” a “spirit of insanity”—Jason uses an ancient sign for “warding off evil” (32), and Beryl disappears. Gaea’s recruits move in to attack him.

Jason fights alongside Annabeth and Piper. Michael Varus stabs Jason with his imperial gold sword—deadly to demigods—before Piper slashes Varus into oblivion. Annabeth feeds Jason ambrosia and nectar while Piper dresses his wound. With Jason unable to fly, Annabeth departs to signal the Argo II for help. Jason resolves to live to pass on the information he learned from Antinous. He reflects on Penelope and the suitors, his family, and his dreams—and realizes that he’s missing something. Meanwhile, Annabeth returns and weaves a hammock for Frank to transport Jason back to the ship.

Recalling Odysseus and Penelope’s sacred marriage bed, Jason uses its power to summon Juno. Piper demands that Juno heal Jason, but Juno replies that the nature of the wound requires that he fight it himself and survive. Juno advises the demigods to choose the less direct route around the Peloponnese and confront Nike at Olympia so that the rift between Greek and Roman people can heal. She reveals that Jupiter blames her for the war with Gaea, forcing her to hide, and also directs his wrath at Apollo and Artemis, who may help him if he can make it to Delos. As the goddess vanishes, Jason—before losing consciousness—sees Frank in eagle form flying above them.