The wind screamed. Percy's fingers, calloused from years of sword work, slipped across marble that had been ancient when Rome was young. Annabeth's eyes—grey as storm clouds over the Aegean—locked with his sea-green gaze. They were falling, and they were together, and in the arithmetic of heroism, that was the only equation that mattered.
The abyss yawned below them. Tartarus. The pit where gods threw their enemies, where nightmares went to breed, where—
Nothing.
The falling stopped, but not in the way falling usually stops. They hung suspended in a space that was all colors and no colors, a place that geometry had forgotten to include in its theorems. Annabeth's architect's brain made a sound like gears grinding without oil.
"Percy," she said, her voice sharp enough to cut reality, "I think we broke physics."
"Pretty sure physics was already broken," Percy muttered, pulling her closer with one arm while his other hand went for his pocket. Riptide uncapped with its familiar *shink*, but the sword felt wrong—like trying to swim in a pool with no water. "This is new, though. Even for us."
"New is bad," Annabeth said. "New is—"
She stopped because the space was becoming occupied.
There wasn't a flash of light or a crack of thunder. The being didn't arrive so much as it had always been there, waiting for them to catch up to the present moment. It was tall—or perhaps distance worked differently here. Its face was young, then old, then something in between that made Percy's brain itch. Power rolled off it in waves that felt like standing too close to his father, or Zeus, or any of the gods when they were trying to impress mortals.
But this power tasted different. Older. Foreign.
"Percy Jackson." The voice was like rivers finding the sea, like the last page of a very long book. "Son of Poseidon. Annabeth Chase. Daughter of Athena. I am Balerion."
Percy kept Riptide pointed at the thing's center of mass, such as it was. "Cool name. Very Game of Thrones. Is this the part where you monologue about your evil plan?"
"Percy," Annabeth hissed. Then, to the being: "You're named after the Black Dread. Aegon the Conqueror's dragon."
"Actually," Balerion said, and now his smile was visible, crinkling around eyes that had seen worlds end, "the dragon was named after me. A small vanity on my part. I am the Valyrian God of Death, and before you ask—yes, I am from the world of books you read, daughter of wisdom. The Greek translations, I believe?"
Annabeth's expression did something complicated. Percy knew that look—it was her "I have seventeen questions and they're all competing for first place" face.
"Hold on," Percy said, because someone had to be the practical one and it might as well be the guy with ADHD. "Did you just say you're a god from a book series?"
"I said I'm from the world of a book series," Balerion corrected gently. "In your world, what I am and where I come from exists as stories. In my world, your gods and your monsters are myths and legends. Reality is... layered, like phyllo dough. Each world is a sheet of pastry, separate but touching."
"That's not how phyllo dough works," Annabeth said automatically, then caught herself. "Wait. You're saying multiple realities. The multiverse. Every story is real somewhere."
"Something like that," Balerion agreed. "Though the specifics would require several lifetimes to explain, and we have—" He gestured at the timeless space around them. "—all the time we need and none at all."
"Our friends," Percy said, because falling into interdimensional weirdness didn't change priorities. "Nico and the others. They're still—"
"Safe," Balerion interrupted, and the space rippled.
Images bloomed around them like flowers made of memory. The Argo II, scarred but flying, pulling away from collapsing stone. Nico's face was milk-white, his dark eyes haunted, but his jaw was set with determination. Hazel was crying. Frank's arms were around her. Jason and Piper stood at the rail, searching the depths where two people had fallen and not returned. Coach Hedge was bellowing something about "stupid kids and their stupid sacrifices."
Percy's chest hurt in a way that had nothing to do with physical damage.
"They'll complete the quest," Balerion said, and his voice carried the weight of certainty. "They'll find the Doors of Death. They'll stop the giants. Gaea will fall. Your world will be saved."
"Without us," Annabeth said flatly.
"Without you," Balerion confirmed.
Percy lowered Riptide slightly. "Then why did you catch us? If everything works out anyway, why—"
"Because my world doesn't work out." Balerion's voice went soft and terrible. The space around them darkened, and new visions replaced the old: A castle with seven towers. Dragons—real dragons, not the robot kind Leo built—circling a burning city. Armies in green and black, brother killing brother, father betraying son. Blood on snow. Blood on sand. So much blood the ground couldn't drink it all.
"The Dance of Dragons," Annabeth breathed. "The civil war. Rhaenyra and Aegon, fighting for the throne. The dragons die. Magic dies. Everything goes wrong."
"You've read the histories," Balerion observed.
"I've read everything," Annabeth said, a bit defensively. "The Greek translations were easier on my dyslexia. The world-building was incredible. The politics were actually realistic. The characters were—" She stopped. "They were doomed."
"Yes," Balerion said simply. "They are doomed. I have watched it play out across infinite variations. Different choices, different paths, always the same ending. Death and decline. The long defeat."
"And you're Death," Percy said slowly, "which means you know about endings."
"I am intimately acquainted with them," Balerion agreed. "Which is why I am proposing a beginning."
He turned his full attention on them, and Percy felt the weight of it—not oppressive, but present, the way you felt the ocean when you dove deep.
"You can fall into Tartarus," Balerion said. "You can suffer there. You can claw your way back to daylight and finish your quest. You can have your destiny."
"Or?" Annabeth prompted, because she always saw the options.
"Or you can die here," Balerion said. "And be reborn there."
The silence that followed was the kind you could carve sculptures from.
"Define 'die,'" Percy said finally.
"The permanent cessation of Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase as individuals in this reality," Balerion said. "Your souls would pass through me, as all souls do, but instead of going to your Underworld, they would be... redirected. Reborn. New bodies, new names, but all of your memories intact. All of your powers preserved."
"Our powers," Annabeth repeated. "Demigod powers. In a world without Greek gods."
"Your world doesn't have a monopoly on magic," Balerion said. "My world has dragons and blood magic and prophecies written in fire. It can accommodate the son of Poseidon and the daughter of Athena. In fact, I'm counting on it."
Percy looked at Annabeth. She was worrying her lower lip with her teeth, the way she did when she was stress-testing a plan for weaknesses.
"Who would we be?" she asked. "In your world."
Balerion smiled, and for a moment he looked almost human. "The daughter of Athena would be born as Annara Targaryen, twin sister to Rhaenyra. Born minutes apart, tied by blood to the greatest house in Westeros. You'd grow up in the Red Keep, learn to play the game of thrones, be positioned to guide your sister away from the mistakes that doom her."
"And Percy?"
"Would be Perseon Velaryon, second son of Corlys and Rhaenys. The blood of Old Valyria. A prince of the tides, we might say. Close to the throne but not of it. Free to act, to change things, to use powers that will make you seem like a miracle."
"Powers," Percy said. "Be specific."
"Your connection to water remains," Balerion said. "Your strength, your speed, your instincts in battle. Your ability to heal in water, to breathe underwater, to speak to sea creatures. Your hurricanes and earthquakes. All of it."
"And his ADHD?" Annabeth asked sharply.
"Remains, but adapts," Balerion said. "As does yours. Instead of making Ancient Greek clear, it will attune you to High Valyrian—the language of dragons, of power, of the old blood. You'll be marked as special, which in this world, you are."
Percy capped Riptide, and the pen felt solid in his hand again. "Let me get this straight. You want us to give up our lives, our world, our families—"
"Your mother will mourn," Balerion said quietly. "Paul will comfort her. Baby Estelle will grow up hearing stories about her brother the hero. Your father will honor your sacrifice. Sally Jackson is strong, Percy. She'll survive your loss."
Percy felt something crack in his chest.
"And you," Balerion turned to Annabeth, "your father will grieve. Your brothers will miss you. Daedalus's laptop will pass to Malcolm. Camp Half-Blood will name a building after you both. You'll be remembered. You'll be honored. You'll be—"
"Dead," Annabeth finished. "We'll be dead."
"There," Percy added. "But alive here. In your world."
"Yes."
"And you think we can stop a war," Annabeth said. "Prevent the Dance of Dragons. Save the dragons. Change the course of history."
"I think you're the only chance I have," Balerion said, and for the first time, Percy heard something in the god's voice that sounded like hope. "I've tried other things. Other champions. Nothing works. But you—you've saved a world already. You've fought gods and titans. You've survived things that would break armies. And most importantly—"
"We have each other," Percy finished.
"Yes," Balerion said. "That is the variable I cannot create, cannot force, cannot replicate. Love that would walk into Tartarus rather than let go. That is rarer than magic, Percy Jackson. That is the thing that might tip the balance."
Annabeth's hand found Percy's. Their fingers interlaced automatically, muscle memory from a hundred battles.
"Can we talk about it?" Percy asked. "Privately?"
"Take all the time you need," Balerion said. "I'm Death. I'm patient."
He faded back—not disappearing, but becoming part of the background, like a stage curtain waiting to rise.
Percy turned to face Annabeth fully. She looked fierce and frightened and brilliant, her hair wild from the fall that never finished, her grey eyes calculating odds that shouldn't exist.
"Wise Girl," he said. "Tell me what you're thinking."
"I'm thinking this is insane," she said. "I'm thinking gods manipulate and lie and use heroes like game pieces. I'm thinking we should tell him where to shove his multiverse and take our chances in Tartarus."
"But?"
She smiled, quick and sharp. "But I've read the histories. I know what's coming to his world. The Dance destroys everything. Tens of thousands dead. Dragons extinct. Magic fading. It's a tragedy, Percy. A preventable tragedy, if someone just made different choices."
"You want to save them," Percy said.
"I want to save everyone," Annabeth corrected. "It's kind of my thing. But yeah, if we could prevent that war, save those dragons, keep those people alive..." She shook her head. "It's a whole world, Percy. A whole world of people who die because of stupid politics and stubbornness."
"Our world needs us too," Percy said, but it came out weaker than he meant it.
"Does it?" Annabeth asked. "You heard him. They win without us. We fall into Tartarus, we suffer for nothing. We make it back, we finish the quest, but it's the quest that matters, not us specifically."
"Nico promised—"
"Nico will keep his promise," Annabeth said firmly. "The Doors get closed. The giants fall. Gaea sleeps. Our friends survive. That's what matters."
Percy thought about his mom's blue cookies. About teaching Tyson to read. About Grover's terrible reed pipe playing. About all the small, perfect moments that made a life.
"I'd miss them," he said quietly. "I'd miss all of them."
"Me too," Annabeth whispered. "But Percy, we were willing to fall into Tartarus together. We were ready to face literal hell. Is this really worse?"
"It's death," Percy said. "Real death."
"It's also life," Annabeth countered. "A new life. A chance to grow up without monsters chasing us, without prophecies hanging over our heads. We'd have childhoods, Percy. Real childhoods. And then we'd have a mission, but it's one we choose."
"You really want this," Percy said, watching her face.
"I really want to prevent a war that kills fifty thousand people," Annabeth said. "I really want to save dragons from extinction. I really want to use my brain for something other than survival for once." She squeezed his hand. "But only if you're there. The deal-breaker is together, Percy. That's not negotiable."
Percy looked at this girl—this woman—who'd been his partner since they were twelve. Who'd taken a poisoned blade for him. Who'd held the sky. Who'd literally fallen into the underworld rather than let him face it alone.
"As long as we're together," he said.
"As long as we're together," she echoed.
They turned back to where Balerion waited, patient as stone.
"We're in," Percy said. "We'll do it."
"But we have conditions," Annabeth added quickly, because of course she did.
Balerion's eyebrows rose. "Conditions?"
"We keep all our powers," Annabeth said. "Not negotiable. Percy needs access to his full strength, and I need my strategic gifts from my mother."
"Agreed."
"We stay together," Percy said. "I don't care about the logistics. We need to be able to reach each other, work together. No 'oh by the way you're on opposite sides of a civil war' nonsense."
"You'll be cousins by blood," Balerion said. "Close enough to visit freely. Old enough to make your own choices. The politics will be complicated, but manageable."
"And if we fail?" Annabeth asked. "If we can't stop the Dance?"
"Then you'll have tried," Balerion said simply. "And perhaps that will be enough. The gods of my world have been silent for generations. Perhaps they're waiting for someone to show them what heroes look like."
"No pressure," Percy muttered.
"You've handled worse," Balerion said.
Percy thought about that. About Kronos rising. About Gaea stirring. About every impossible thing he'd survived because Annabeth was beside him.
"Yeah," he said. "We have."
He looked at Annabeth one more time. Really looked at her—memorizing this version of her face before it changed into someone new.
"Ready, Wise Girl?"
"Ready, Seaweed Brain."
They faced Balerion together, hands clasped, shoulders touching.
"Do it," Percy said.
Balerion stepped forward, and his hand touched their foreheads. His touch was cold and warm simultaneously, like the last breath of winter and the first breath of spring.
"You'll forget this moment," he said softly. "Not the decision, but the transition. One breath you'll be Percy and Annabeth, the next you'll be newborns taking your first breaths in a new world. The memories will surface gradually—too much knowledge in an infant's mind would drive you mad."
"How gradually?" Annabeth asked, ever practical even at the edge of reincarnation.
"By your fifth nameday, you'll remember everything," Balerion promised. "Enough time to learn the language, understand the world, build your covers. Old enough to start changing things."
"Five years as actual children," Percy said. "That's weird."
"That's life," Balerion corrected. "You'll have parents who love you. Families who want you. Friends who stand with you. I'm giving you the childhood heroes rarely get."
"Thanks," Percy said, and meant it.
Balerion's hands began to glow. "Any last words?"
Percy looked at Annabeth. Annabeth looked at Percy.
"Together," they said simultaneously.
The light grew brighter, washing out the strange space, erasing the boundaries between worlds.
"Together," Balerion agreed. "Always together. That's the magic that will save my world."
The light swallowed them.
Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase closed their eyes.
—
**Ogygia - Outside Time, Outside Space**
Calypso stood on the shore and watched Leo Valdez's boat disappear into the impossible distance.
Again.
*Always again.*
The boat was a smudge against a sky that was the wrong color—too gold, too perfect, too much like a painting instead of reality. She'd stood on this beach and watched Odysseus sail away. Watched countless other heroes follow. Watched Percy Jackson promise to send help that never came.
(That wasn't fair. Percy had tried. Percy had demanded her freedom from the gods themselves. The fact that they'd agreed in principle but never in practice wasn't his fault. The gods were good at lip service. Excellent at it, really. Millennia of practice.)
But Leo—
Leo was supposed to be different. The prophecy, the promise, the *pull* she'd felt when he arrived. Mechanic and fire-user, brilliant and broken, making her laugh for the first time in centuries. Building a ship with his bare hands and her island's magic. Swearing he'd come back for her.
They all swore they'd come back.
The ship was gone now. Completely gone. Not over the horizon—there was no horizon on Ogygia, not really—but *gone*, pulled back into the world by forces older than time.
Calypso turned away from the water.
The island was beautiful. It was always beautiful. Perfect beaches, perfect gardens, perfect temperature, perfect light. Paradise, if paradise was a cage made of sunlight and salt air.
She'd been here for three thousand years.
Give or take. Time was funny on Ogygia. Sometimes a year felt like a day. Sometimes a day felt like a century. The only markers were the heroes who arrived broken and left whole, taking pieces of her heart with them like souvenirs.
"I'm done," she said to the empty beach.
The island didn't answer. It never did. Not with words.
But something changed in the air.
Calypso felt it like a shift in pressure before a storm. The hair on her arms stood up. The perfect light dimmed slightly, and for the first time in three millennia, a shadow fell across Ogygia that wasn't hers.
She turned.
The being that stood on her beach was not a Greek god. She knew Greek gods. Had been punished by them, imprisoned by them, forgotten by them. This was something else. Older, perhaps, or simply *other*.
"Calypso," the being said, and his voice was like the last page of a very long book. "Daughter of Atlas. Titaness of refuge. I am Balerion."
"I don't know that name," Calypso said carefully. On an island where gods had absolute power, caution was survival.
"You wouldn't," Balerion agreed. "I'm not from your pantheon. Not from your world at all, if we're being technical. I am the Valyrian God of Death, from a world that exists in your reality as stories."
Calypso blinked. "Stories."
"Books. Television shows. Entertainment for mortals. In my world, your gods are myths. In your world, my realm is fiction. Reality is..." He gestured vaguely. "Complicated."
"Is this a trick?" Calypso asked. "Because I've had enough of tricks. Zeus's tricks. Hera's tricks. Athena's tricks. If this is another punishment disguised as hope, I'd rather you just get it over with."
"Not a trick," Balerion said. "An offer."
He moved closer, and Calypso saw his face properly now. Young, then old, then something in between that made her brain itch. Power rolled off him in waves, but it was different from Olympian power. Colder. More final.
"I've been watching you," Balerion said. "Watching this island. This prison. The gods put you here for the crime of being your father's daughter, for fighting on the wrong side of a war you were too young to understand. Three thousand years of isolation, three thousand years of loving heroes who leave, three thousand years of perfect misery."
"Very poetic," Calypso said, but her voice cracked. "What do you want?"
"To offer you an escape."
The world stopped.
Calypso had imagined escape a million times. Imagined heroes keeping their promises. Imagined the gods' mercy. Imagined finding some loophole, some crack in her prison. She'd imagined it so many times that the word itself had lost meaning, become just another form of torture.
"There is no escape from Ogygia," she said flatly. "The gods made sure of that."
"The Greek gods made sure of that," Balerion corrected. "They have no power in my world."
Calypso's breath caught. "Your world."
"Where I need heroes," Balerion said. "Where a war is coming that will kill tens of thousands. Where dragons are about to go extinct and magic is about to die. Where everything that matters is about to burn, and I cannot stop it."
"Why not?" Calypso asked. "You're a god. Gods stop things all the time. Usually things that don't need stopping, but still."
"I'm Death," Balerion said simply. "I can end things. I can guide souls. I can witness. But I can't change the hearts of the living. I can't make people choose differently. I can't prevent them from dancing themselves into destruction."
"The Dance of Dragons," Calypso said, surprising herself.
Balerion's eyebrows rose. "You know it?"
"I've had three thousand years and a magic island that provides anything I want except *freedom*," Calypso said. "I've read every book that's ever existed, including the ones that won't be written for another thousand years. Time is weird here. The island gets bored."
She remembered those books. *Fire and Blood*. *A Song of Ice and Fire*. The histories of a world that shouldn't exist but somehow did, somewhere. She'd read them the way she read everything—desperately, hungrily, looking for any escape from her own story.
The Dance had broken her heart. All those dragons dying. All that potential wasted. Rhaenyra, who should have been queen, destroyed by politics and betrayal and men who couldn't stand the thought of a woman on the throne.
"I remember Rhaenyra," Calypso said quietly. "The Realm's Delight. The Half-Year Queen. She tried so hard, and it wasn't enough."
"It's never enough," Balerion said. "Not without help. Not without someone who understands what it means to be powerful and female and punished for both."
Calypso laughed, sharp and bitter. "You want me to save Rhaenyra Targaryen."
"I want you to *be* Rhaenyra Targaryen."
The words hung in the perfect air.
"Explain," Calypso said.
"I can't get you out of Ogygia," Balerion said. "The Greek gods' prison is their own, and I don't have keys to their cages. But I can end you here, and begin you there. Death and rebirth. Your soul would pass through me, and instead of going to your Underworld—where you'd probably end up in some ironic punishment, knowing Zeus—you'd be reborn in my world."
"As Rhaenyra Targaryen." Calypso felt dizzy. "As a baby."
"As a baby," Balerion confirmed. "Born minutes before your twin sister, Annara. Daughter of Viserys and Aemma. Heir to the Iron Throne. Rider of dragons. Princess of the greatest house in Westeros."
"And doomed to a civil war that tears her family apart and gets her killed," Calypso added. "I read the books, remember? Rhaenyra dies. Horribly. Fed to a dragon in front of her son."
"In the original timeline, yes," Balerion said. "But you wouldn't be living the original timeline. You'd be changing it."
"How?" Calypso demanded. "If I'm born as Rhaenyra, I'm still just one person. One woman in a world that hates powerful women. How is that different from being here?"
"Because you'd have power," Balerion said. "Real power. Dragons. Armies. Magic in your blood. And more importantly—you'd have allies."
He gestured, and the air rippled.
Images formed around them. A girl with blonde hair and grey eyes, too clever by half, planning battle strategies before she could read. A boy with sea-green eyes and a sword made of celestial bronze, fighting monsters with a grin.
"Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase," Balerion said. "They've also chosen to leave their world for mine. They'll be reborn on the same day as you—Annara Targaryen, your twin sister, and Perseon Velaryon, your cousin."
Calypso stared at the images. "Percy. Percy Jackson chose to leave his world?"
"He and Annabeth were falling into Tartarus," Balerion said. "I offered them another option. They took it. Together, as they do everything."
"And you think three reincarnated heroes can stop a civil war."
"I think three reincarnated heroes who remember everything, who have powers the world isn't prepared for, who know what's coming and care enough to change it—yes. I think that might be enough."
Calypso turned back to the sea. Her sea. Her prison. Her paradise-shaped hell.
Leo's ship was still gone. Would always be gone. He'd sworn to come back, but so had Odysseus. So had all of them. And even if Leo kept his promise—even if he somehow found a way to break the gods' curse and return—how long would that take? Years? Decades? Another century?
She'd loved him. She'd loved all of them, in different ways. And they'd all left.
"What would I keep?" she asked. "Of myself. If I'm reborn as Rhaenyra."
"Your memories," Balerion said. "All of them. Every year on Ogygia, every hero who visited, every book you read, every sunset you watched alone. They'll return gradually—by age five, you'll remember everything."
"My powers?"
"Your immortality would be gone," Balerion said. "You'd be fully mortal, bound to a human lifespan. But your magic remains. Your ability to weave, to enchant, to create beauty from nothing. It would adapt to the new world—instead of Greek magic, you'd work with Valyrian blood magic, with dragon dreams, with the old powers of your new house."
"I'd die," Calypso said. "Eventually. Actually die."
"Yes," Balerion said. "No more eternity. No more watching ages pass. No more perfect isolation. Just a human life—short, messy, full of pain and joy and chaos and choice."
"Choice," Calypso repeated.
"The one thing you've never had," Balerion said softly. "Here, you're trapped. There, you'd be free. Powerful, yes. Burdened with responsibility, yes. But *free*. Free to make mistakes. Free to fall in love without knowing they'll leave. Free to change a world instead of just surviving in one."
Calypso closed her eyes.
Part of her wanted to wait. Wanted to believe Leo would come back. Wanted to have faith that just once, just this once, a hero would keep his promise.
But she'd had faith before. She'd had hope. And hope on Ogygia was just another form of suffering, stretched across millennia.
"If I say yes," she said, "what happens to this place? To Ogygia?"
"It remains," Balerion said. "A beautiful prison, waiting for the next titaness or goddess who displeases Zeus. The island doesn't need you. It just uses you."
"That's almost poetic."
"I'm Death. We're good with metaphors."
Calypso opened her eyes and looked at the island one last time. The perfect beaches. The perfect gardens. The perfect prison that had held her for three thousand years.
She thought about Rhaenyra Targaryen. About a woman who'd been promised a throne and had it stolen by men who couldn't stand her power. About a mother who'd lost children. About a queen who'd fought and struggled and ultimately lost.
But with knowledge. With warning. With power and allies and the memories of someone who'd survived three thousand years of isolation—
Maybe it could be different.
Maybe she could make it different.
"I have conditions," Calypso said.
Balerion smiled. "Of course you do."
"I keep all my memories. Everything. I don't want gaps. I don't want to forget who I was."
"Agreed."
"My magic adapts fully. I'm not just a princess. I'm a weaver, an enchantress, a creator. That doesn't go away."
"It won't."
"And Percy and Annabeth—" Calypso turned to face him fully. "They know about me? That I'm also there?"
"They will," Balerion said. "When the memories return, they'll know you as both Rhaenyra and Calypso. You'll be allies. Friends, perhaps."
"Percy tried to free me," Calypso said quietly. "He didn't succeed, but he tried. That matters."
"It does," Balerion agreed.
Calypso took a breath. The air tasted like salt and magic and endings.
"Then yes," she said. "Get me out of here. I don't care how. I don't care what it costs. I've paid enough. Three thousand years is enough."
"It's more than enough," Balerion said gently. "You've served a sentence for crimes you didn't commit. You've loved heroes who couldn't stay. You've survived isolation that would have broken gods. You don't owe the world anything, Calypso. But I'm asking anyway."
"Stop a civil war, save the dragons, prevent tens of thousands of deaths," Calypso recited. "No pressure."
"You won't be alone," Balerion reminded her. "Percy and Annabeth will be there. And you'll have a twin—Annara, who'll be Annabeth reborn. You'll grow up together. Support each other. Be each other's strength."
"A sister," Calypso said, and something in her chest ached. "I've never had a sister."
"You will," Balerion promised. "Are you ready?"
"I've been ready for three thousand years," Calypso said. "Let's go."
Balerion stepped forward, and his hand touched her forehead. His touch was cold and warm simultaneously, like the last breath of winter and the first breath of spring.
"You'll forget this moment," he said softly. "Not the decision, but the transition. When you wake, you'll be taking your first breath as Rhaenyra Targaryen. The memories will surface gradually—by five, you'll remember Ogygia. By six, you'll remember who Percy and Annabeth are. Old enough to understand, young enough to adapt."
"Will it hurt?" Calypso asked. "Dying?"
"No more than being born," Balerion said. "Which is to say, uncomfortable but brief. And then—"
"And then I get to live," Calypso finished. "Actually live."
"Actually live," Balerion confirmed. "Are you ready?"
Calypso looked at Ogygia one last time. At the island that had been her prison, her home, her curse, her refuge. At the perfect sunlight and the perfect beach and the perfect isolation that had nearly broken her a thousand times over.
She thought about Leo, who'd promised to return. About Percy, who'd demanded her freedom. About Odysseus and all the others who'd left and never looked back.
She thought about Rhaenyra, who would be born in minutes. About a life full of dragons and politics and danger and *choice*. About a sister named Annara who would remember being Annabeth. About a cousin named Perseon who would remember being Percy.
About allies. About family. About a chance to matter in a way that wasn't just surviving.
"I'm ready," she said.
"Then close your eyes," Balerion said. "And let go."
Calypso closed her eyes.
The light grew brighter, washing out the beach, erasing the island. She felt herself dissolving, unmaking, ending. Three thousand years of existence compressed into a single point of light, a single moment of transition.
It didn't hurt.
It felt like falling, but not in a bad way. Like diving into the ocean after standing on the shore for too long. Like finally, *finally*, being allowed to move.
*Thank you*, she thought, not sure if she was thanking Balerion or the universe or herself for having the courage to say yes.
The light consumed her.
Calypso, daughter of Atlas, Titaness of refuge, prisoner of Ogygia—
—ended.
**The Red Keep, King's Landing - 97 AC**
Princess Aemma Arryn was having what the poets would later call "a difficult labor" and what she was currently calling "absolute fucking horseshit."
"Language, Princess," murmured the ancient midwife who had been delivering royal babies since before Aemma was born and had seen far worse than creative profanity.
"My language is the least of anyone's concerns right now," Aemma gasped. "Where is Viserys? I want him here so I can kill him."
"All in good time, Princess. Now push."
"What do you think I've been doing? Knitting?"
The baby had opinions about being born, and those opinions were expressed in a thin, furious wail that could probably be heard in Flea Bottom.
"A girl!" The midwife held up a tiny, indignant creature who looked deeply offended by the existence of air. "Healthy, whole, and very loud."
"Let me—" Aemma reached out, but her body had other ideas.
"Princess," the second midwife said carefully. "There's another."
"Another what?"
"Another baby."
Aemma's laugh was slightly hysterical. "You're joking."
"Maesters don't joke, Princess," said Maester Mellos, which was possibly the truest thing ever said in that room.
"Well, they should learn," Aemma said, and then her body was moving again, pushing again, and really, if there was a third baby after this she was going to have words with someone. Probably Viserys. Definitely Viserys.
The second baby arrived four minutes later with a cry that sounded almost curious, as if she were asking: *Is this it? This is what we left the warm darkness for?*
"Another girl," a younger midwife breathed, eyes wide. "Twins. Seven bless us, twins."
They cleaned both babies with the efficient panic of people who served a family where infant mortality was more tradition than tragedy. But these two—fingers, toes, eyes that were already the purple of dragon-lords, skin that was the pale cream of pure Valyrian blood—were perfect.
Outside the door, Prince Viserys Targaryen was pacing so aggressively that his father, Prince Baelon the Brave, was starting to worry about the structural integrity of the flagstones.
"Sit down," Baelon said. "You're making me nervous."
"I'm making you nervous? My wife is in there—"
"Doing what women have done since the gods made the world," Baelon finished. "Your mother survived it. Aemma will survive it. Probably."
"Probably?"
"That was a joke. I'm joking. You know, the thing people do to lighten tense moments?" Baelon sighed. "You've forgotten how to recognize humor. That's what marriage does."
"Father—"
The door opened.
Viserys stopped breathing.
A midwife emerged, and her face was doing something complicated that could have been good news or terrible news or news from a foreign country that hadn't decided which it was yet.
"My wife—"
"Is threatening to castrate you," the midwife said. "But alive. Very alive. Congratulations, my prince. You have daughters. Plural."
"Plural," Viserys repeated blankly.
"As in two," the midwife clarified. "Twins. Both healthy. Both very opinionated about having been born. You may want to bring wine. For your wife, not the babies."
Baelon started laughing. "Twins! Viserys, you magnificent fool, you had twins!"
"I didn't—I mean, I helped, but—"
"Get in there before Aemma decides you're not helpful enough to keep."
Viserys didn't remember crossing the threshold, but suddenly he was in the birthing chamber and the air smelled of blood and sweat and something else, something that might have been hope.
Aemma was propped against approximately seventy pillows, her golden hair plastered to her skull, her face shining with exhaustion. She looked like she'd fought a war and won, but only barely.
"Two," she said. "Viserys. Two."
"I heard. I mean, they told me. I mean—are you all right?"
"I'm alive, which is better than the last three times," Aemma said, and there was an edge in her voice that spoke of losses neither of them liked to remember. "Come meet your daughters."
A midwife approached with a bundle. The baby inside was tiny and perfect, with a fuzz of silver hair and eyes that were already focusing with impossible precision.
"The first," the midwife said. "Born at the hour of the bat."
Viserys took his daughter—his living daughter—with the care of someone handling dragon eggs. She looked at him with those purple eyes and he could have sworn she was judging him. Finding him acceptable, perhaps, but only just.
"Rhaenyra," Aemma said. "She has the look."
"What look?"
"The look of someone planning your funeral arrangements before you're even sick," said Prince Baelon from the doorway, where he'd appeared with King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne. The Old King moved slowly, leaning on his cane, but his eyes were sharp as a dragon's.
"May we?" Alysanne asked, already moving toward the second baby.
The other twin was slightly smaller, her hair a shade darker silver, but when her eyes opened they were just as purple, just as alert. Where Rhaenyra seemed to be passing judgment, this one appeared to be calculating trajectories.
"Annara," Aemma said, and the name arrived in her mouth like something remembered rather than invented. "They need names that belong together."
"They need separate cradles," the practical midwife said. "We've prepared—"
Both babies immediately began to cry.
Not the ordinary fussing of infants, but a sound of genuine distress, a sound that said something was deeply, fundamentally wrong with the universe.
"Or perhaps the same cradle," the midwife amended quickly, placing them side by side.
Silence. Immediate, blessed silence.
"Well," Jaehaerys said. "That's interesting."
"That's going to be complicated," Baelon observed. "Everything in pairs. Two dragons eventually, two wardrobes, two dowries when some unfortunate lordlings come calling—"
"Father, please," Viserys said, but he was smiling. Actually smiling. He had two living daughters and they were perfect and they were here.
"I'm simply being practical," Baelon said. "Someone has to be. You're all standing around grinning like idiots."
"We're allowed to be idiots," Alysanne said firmly. "They're beautiful. Look at them, Jaehaerys."
The Old King looked. He'd seen too many Targaryen babies born in his long reign, too many of them buried before their first year. But these two...
"They have fire in them," he said quietly. "I can see it. Not just the blood—the will. These two will matter."
"All children matter," Alysanne corrected.
"You know what I mean."
In their shared cradle, Rhaenyra's hand found Annara's. Their tiny fingers intertwined with a precision that made the maesters exchange glances.
Somewhere deep, where souls lived and memories waited, something stirred.
*We made it.*
*Together.*
But the thought was gossamer-thin, too fragile for newborn minds to hold. It drifted away like smoke, waiting.
For now, they were just babies. Perfect, peaceful, purple-eyed babies who refused to be separated.
Mostly peaceful.
---
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