The house of shadows
The first thing that struck me about Camp Half-Blood wasn't the smell of pine or the shimmer of the sea — it was how alive everything felt.The grass glowed too green, the air hummed with a strange energy that didn't belong to the mortal world. Even the sunlight had a weight to it, as if it were aware of me, testing whether I belonged here at all.
Chiron led me down the hill in silence. His hooves sank softly into the earth, steady, deliberate. I walked a few steps behind, my scythe slung across my back, wrapped in black cloth so it wouldn't draw attention — though I doubted there was anything subtle about a kid who looked like he'd crawled out of a grave.
Children laughed somewhere beyond the trees. Arrows whistled. Swords clashed. It was a strange kind of music — life echoing through a place meant for heroes.
Heroes.The word didn't sit right with me.
As we passed rows of cabins, campers stopped to stare. Some paused mid-swing in their training, others whispered behind their hands. I caught fragments of words — "Hades," "Underworld," "don't look at him."
They didn't have to say it. I'd seen that look before — the way people glance at a storm on the horizon and hope it passes without hitting them.
Chiron slowed. "Don't take their fear personally," he said gently. "Your father's reputation precedes you."
"Yeah," I muttered. "That's what I was afraid of."
He gave me a sympathetic look but said nothing more.
The cabins formed a circle, each one distinct — Zeus's all white marble and columns, Poseidon's built like a miniature temple with blue stone and seashells glimmering in the sun. I tried not to stare, but it was impossible not to feel small among them.
Then we reached the one at the edge of the clearing — a structure half-shrouded in shadow even though the sun sat high above.
Cabin Thirteen.
The wood was black as obsidian, its windows tinted so dark they looked like mirrors. The door bore a silver skull engraved into the grain — subtle, elegant, but impossible to mistake. Ivy curled up its sides like veins.
The air around it felt colder. Quieter.Like the camp itself was holding its breath.
"This is your cabin," Chiron said softly. "The House of Hades."
I stared at it for a long moment. "It doesn't exactly scream 'welcome home.'"
He smiled faintly. "No. But those who dwell within will understand you better than anyone else can."
He turned, beginning to walk away. "You'll meet your siblings inside. Bianca and Nico di Angelo. Children of your father as well. They've been here for some time."
My chest tightened.Siblings.I'd never even considered that possibility — that there were others who carried the same shadow.
I hesitated at the steps. The wood beneath my boots looked untouched by time, by rot, by light. I reached for the doorknob, half expecting it to vanish beneath my hand.
It didn't. The metal was cool — not cold, but alive.
I pushed the door open.
The air inside smelled faintly of myrrh and cedar, with an undercurrent of something older — the scent of earth after rain, or of tombs left undisturbed. Dim light flickered from lanterns shaped like glass orbs, each holding a faint green flame that didn't burn, only glowed.
The room was divided into three bunks, each draped in dark sheets embroidered with silver thread. A few books lay open on a small table near the back, their pages filled with words I couldn't read — Ancient Greek, maybe, or something older.
Two figures looked up as I stepped inside.
The girl was the first to move — tall, maybe fifteen, with olive skin and dark hair pulled back into a loose braid. Her eyes were sharp, wary, but not unkind. She studied me like someone who had learned to measure danger before offering trust.
The boy beside her looked younger — maybe ten or eleven. He had messy black hair that fell into his eyes, pale skin that matched mine, and the same faint hollowness in his gaze — like we'd both seen too much for our age.
"You're new," the girl said. Her voice was steady, curious, but edged. "Another one?"
Chiron's words echoed in my head — Bianca and Nico di Angelo.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "I guess so."
The boy tilted his head. "You're his kid too, right? Hades?"
There was no accusation in his tone, just certainty — like he already knew the answer.
I nodded. "Nikolai."
He gave a small smile. "I'm Nico. That's my sister, Bianca."
She didn't smile, but she nodded. "You can take the bunk near the window. It's been empty for a while."
Her voice wavered slightly at the end, like the emptiness meant something. I didn't ask.
I dropped my small bag by the bed, the sound dull against the thick carpet. The air here was still but not suffocating — peaceful, almost.
"You'll get used to the quiet," Nico said, swinging his legs from his bunk. "It freaks most people out at first. But it's kind of… nice. Like the world's gone still for a bit."
I glanced around. "It feels like the Underworld's heartbeat."
Bianca looked at me sharply. "You've been there?"
I hesitated. "Not really. But my father—"
She held up a hand. "Say no more. We all have our stories. Some are better left buried."
Her eyes flicked to Nico, then back to me. Something unspoken passed between them — the kind of understanding only those born of shadow could share.
For the first time since my mother's death, I didn't feel completely alone.
Outside, laughter and sunlight filtered faintly through the walls — a distant world we weren't meant for. But inside, the shadows felt warmer. They whispered in a language I almost recognized.
Nico grinned. "Come on. Bianca makes the best shadow cocoa."
"The what?" I asked.
He laughed. "You'll see."
As he jumped off the bunk and disappeared into the small side room, Bianca turned back to me. "You're not like the others, are you?"
I frowned. "The others?"
"The campers. The ones outside." She leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "They run toward the light. We live where it ends. That makes us different. Dangerous, sometimes."
I met her gaze. "Do you hate them for it?"
She shook her head slowly. "No. But I don't envy them either. They don't understand what it means to carry silence in your blood."
Her words sank deep, resonating in a place I didn't know existed.
Maybe, I thought, this was what family felt like — not warmth or ease, but recognition. The quiet certainty that someone else bore the same weight you did.
The door creaked open, and Nico returned, holding three mugs of something that looked like melted night. The smell was rich, bittersweet, and oddly comforting.
"Shadow cocoa," he said proudly, handing me one. "Bianca figured out the recipe. Don't ask what's in it."
I took a sip. It tasted like dark chocolate and burnt sugar, with an aftertaste of cold metal. Somehow, it was perfect.
We sat in silence for a while — three children of the Underworld, huddled in a cabin made of darkness, listening to the faint hum of the living world beyond the door.
And for the first time in a long, long while, I didn't feel cursed.
I felt home.
The cocoa was still warm in my hands, the steam curling like ghost smoke. For something brewed in a place like this, it felt… gentle. Strange word for anything connected to the Underworld, but it fit.
Nico slouched across from me, his mug nearly empty, swinging his legs idly as if the silence didn't bother him. Bianca leaned against one of the bunk posts, arms folded, her eyes half-lidded but alert — always listening, like she expected the shadows to speak first.
They did, sometimes. I could feel it — a soft hum beneath my skin, a pulse in the air around us. The room was alive in ways normal spaces weren't. Every flicker of the lanterns, every ripple of air felt like breath.
"So," Nico said finally, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, "how'd you get here?"
The question hit harder than I expected. Not because of what he asked — but because I didn't really know how to answer.
"Chiron found me," I said slowly. "After… after my mom."
Bianca's eyes softened, but she didn't interrupt.
"She didn't tell me who my father was," I continued. "I only started figuring it out when strange things began happening. Shadows moving on their own. Voices whispering my name at night. Then one day I saw them — monsters. They came for me, and—"
I stopped. The memory pressed at the back of my throat like bile.
Bianca set her mug down. "You fought them?"
"I tried. But Chiron and some satyrs showed up before I had to find out how that story ends."
Nico's expression brightened a little. "Classic. Happened to us, too. Well, kind of. We didn't even know who we were until it was almost too late."
He leaned forward, eyes wide with excitement that didn't quite fit the gloom of the room. "You'll get used to it, though. The shadows — they talk to us sometimes. Not in words, exactly. More like… feelings. You'll see."
I frowned. "That doesn't sound normal."
He grinned. "Yeah, that's because it's not."
Bianca sighed. "Ignore him. He likes making it sound spooky."
"It is spooky," he shot back.
She turned to me. "He's right about one thing, though. Being a child of Hades isn't easy. The shadows cling to us. The dead know our faces. It's a kind of power — but one that asks for a price."
Her tone shifted — older than her years, full of something almost weary.
"What kind of price?" I asked quietly.
"The kind that never stops collecting," she said. "Every time you use your power, every time you touch the boundary between life and death, it changes you. Little by little. You'll feel it eventually — like something ancient is watching through your eyes."
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. The flickering green light cast faint patterns across the walls, like ghostly hands reaching.
I took another sip of cocoa just to have something to do. "Sounds like a fun inheritance."
Nico laughed softly. "Hey, at least we don't have lightning bolts to worry about."
Bianca shot him a look, but the tension cracked — the air in the cabin felt a little less heavy.
After a while, Nico pushed his mug aside and jumped up. "Come on. You should see the camp before dinner. Otherwise, you'll get lost and end up somewhere like the lava wall or the Hermes cabin, and trust me, you don't want to go there without shoes that tie."
I raised an eyebrow. "Lava wall?"
Bianca stood and grabbed her jacket. "You'll see."
We stepped out into the sunlight, and it felt almost blinding after the cabin's quiet glow. The rest of the camp stretched before us — a sprawl of color, noise, and motion that didn't quite seem real. Campers running drills, nymphs laughing near the trees, the distant shimmer of the lake reflecting the sun.
I felt the stares again. A few kids paused mid-conversation as we walked past, their eyes darting between my scythe and the black thread of my shirt. Whispers followed like a faint echo.
Nico noticed and stuck close to my side. "They'll get over it," he said under his breath. "They're just… weird about our family."
"Because of who our dad is," I said.
"Yeah," he said simply. "But that's their problem."
Bianca walked a few steps ahead, her posture straight, like she'd stopped caring about the looks long ago.
"Chiron says most of them don't understand what it means to be born from death," she said over her shoulder. "They only see the stories. The old myths. Hades stealing Persephone. The dead trapped in his realm. They forget he's also the god who keeps everything in balance. Without him, nothing stays dead — and that's a worse nightmare than any monster."
Her words carried a strange kind of pride. It wasn't boasting — it was reverence. Like she was defending something sacred.
We passed the training field. A group of Ares kids sparred, their swords clanging so loud it hurt. One of them, a tall boy with a scar across his cheek, spotted us and muttered something to his friends. Laughter followed.
I didn't catch the words, but I caught the tone.
Bianca's hand twitched, like she was tempted to respond. But she didn't.
Instead, she turned slightly and said, "Rule number one: Don't rise to it. Let them fear what they don't understand."
I smirked. "What's rule number two?"
"Never show weakness," she said flatly.
That one sat deeper. I didn't argue.
The tour wound past the armory, the strawberry fields, and the forge — places that smelled of sweat and fire and iron. Everything felt alive in a way I couldn't describe. Like the camp itself breathed.
When we reached the edge of the woods, Nico stopped. "That's the forest. Don't go in there alone yet. The monsters that sneak past the barrier like to hide there."
I squinted into the shadows between the trees. Something moved — or maybe I just imagined it. But the air there felt familiar. Thick. Dark.
"I think I'll like it there," I said quietly.
Bianca turned to me, her expression unreadable. "That's what I thought too. Just remember — the shadows aren't always your friends."
I nodded, though part of me wasn't so sure she was right.
When we finally circled back toward Cabin Thirteen, the sun was beginning to set. The sky burned orange and crimson, and for a moment the cabin's black wood seemed to swallow the light entirely.
We stopped at the steps.
Nico grinned. "You did good for your first day. Nobody screamed."
I smirked. "Small victories."
Bianca's expression softened just a little. "You'll fit in here, Nikolai. It'll take time, but you will."
Something about the way she said it — quiet, certain — made me believe her.
The shadows stretched longer across the ground, reaching toward us like they were listening.
For the first time in a long while, I didn't feel like I was running from something.
I was standing where I belonged.