empty hearts on fire

Luke Castellan knows that he is going to die young. These are the gods and monsters of ancient Greece, after all, where you became a man at fifteen and were old if you reached thirty.

Luke is only ten, but he thinks he's a man already. There aren't many mortals, at least, who see in eighty years what he's seen in his ten. None of them have ever had to run away from home. None of them have ever stared death in the face.

He lives – if you can call it that – on the edges, in the corners of people's vision and in the alleys that they avoid if they can possibly help it. He knows that the muggers and petty thieves of this world are only human. He knows that they don't feel any safer in those tight spaces with an inches-thick layer of trash on the ground and the tiniest crack of sunshine coming from either end than the upstanding businessmen and women of the world do.

Nor does Luke, but he knows that the dark is safer than the light for him, at this point. Standing in the light just makes it easier for the monsters to see you.

Thalia is only a little younger than him, and she is also a demigod.

Luke has never met anyone who understands him like she does, and before long, he can't imagine life without her.

Her mother sounds just as messed up as his, and even though Luke wants to scream at the unfairness of it all, that's another sign that they're equals, that they're meant to be.

Her dad's one of the gods, so Luke knows that whichever one it is, he's as much of a disappointment as Luke's own father.

Luke's not even in his teens yet, so there are only the faintest flickerings of puberty occurring inside him. He doesn't really get sex yet and he really doesn't get relationships.

Even so, it takes him less than a week to fall head over heels in love with this girl he's just met.

Annabeth is seven. The mortal's her dad this time, and even if he wasn't exactly proactive in his abuse of her, the neglect sounds horrifying. Who would do that to a child?

When Luke looks around their campfire the night they find the daughter of Athena – he's ninety per cent sure of that, as she's too smart to be anything else – he gets his answer: Thalia's mom would do that to a child. Annabeth's dad would do that to a child. And Luke's mom would do that to a child. And their godly parents wouldn't bat an eyelid at it.

Fate has dealt them a hand from a deck stacked so against them that it's almost comical.

Even so, it gives them something in common, and that almost makes them family.

He realises then that there is nothing he wouldn't do for these two girls, and if that means anything at all, it's that they are family.

He meets his father.

It goes badly.

Thalia's gone.

He'd thought that the days of running for his life, with little sleep and less hope, had been the worst thing he'd ever experience, but now these empty hours and days of the aftermath are turning out to be even worse.

Camp Half-Blood is nice – idyllic even – but the most important person in the whole world is gone. They say that turning his daughter into a tree is Zeus' way of showing mercy, but as far as Luke's concerned, she might as well be dead. The cause of death is just a way of forcing him to see her corpse every day.

It would be easier if she was truly dead, both for him and Annabeth. The daughter of Athena is always asking questions, always looking for the loophole, but Luke knows that there isn't one. Thalia's gone for good. Annabeth keeps saying that there must be some way to turn their friend back, that if she's not dead then she must be alive, that there must be something, anything, that they can do.

Luke loves her like a sister, but right now, he wishes she'd shut up and let him mourn in peace.

The people there do their best to make him feel welcome, but without Thalia, he struggles to think of Camp Half-Blood as home, and even the chores don't keep him busy enough to stop him from thinking that there is something deeply, fundamentally wrong with the world as it is.

His father offers him a quest.

Maybe Hermes thinks it will take his son's mind off the dark thoughts brewing in his head, but if he really wanted to do that, he could have come up with something that stinks less of being an afterthought.

Luke wants to be a hero.

Really.

He knows and admires the stories of Perseus and Heracles and the other great heroes, but he also knows that they are renowned as such because they achieved what was thought to be impossible.

Luke is being asked to put his life in danger for an apple which he will never see again once the quest is over.

"Heracles did it," his father tells him, to justify the quest. Despite Luke's best efforts, he can't seem to make Hermes see that's exactly the problem.

He goes on it anyway, praying all the while that it will win him some kind of acknowledgement from his father, but the only thing he ends up coming away with is a scar that splits his face in two. If any of the children of Athena knew about the battle going on inside him, he's sure they'd appreciate the scar's metaphorical value.

When Annabeth sneaks into the attic of the Big House to speak to the oracle, to get a quest of her own, there's a part of him that suspects it's because she wants to emulate him.

When she's told that there's a hero coming who will take her beyond the camp's boundaries for the first time in years, Luke realises that he's not enough for her anymore, and that hurts even more than the dragon's claw that gave him his scar.

There's something in his dreams.

Not that his dreams have ever been particularly peaceful anyway, but now it's like there's some invisible parasite that's spread itself over them, breathing some kind of darkness through them and filtering what he sees.

He spends hours restlessly turning in his bed, wondering what it is that's latched onto him.

Weeks pass before the thing gives itself a name:

Kronos.

Kronos has things he needs to say to Luke, about how the gods are selfish monsters who care nothing for their children; about how half-bloods deserve better, deserve to be treated as the heroes they are; about how it is time for the age of the gods to end, and the age of the titans to begin anew.

They make a lot of sense.

He steals the bolt and the helm from Olympus, just as Kronos tells him to. Ares catches him – Ares, of all the gods – and he's never felt so humiliated and afraid in his life, but Kronos rescues him. He sees the god's greed and madness, and exploits it ruthlessly.

Kronos punishes him with nightmares afterwards, but with Ares as a pawn in their scheme, Luke can see that this could be the beginning of a new age.

Kronos also warns him of another demigod who is coming to camp soon, someone important. He also whispers details of the Great Prophecy to Luke in his dreams, so the son of Hermes knows that the hero who is coming will decide the fate of the world.

It should have been Thalia, he thinks.

Even so, he's tense for the remainder of the winter, and then for the whole spring, and then the summer too, as he waits for this one who, one way or another, is destined to become a legend.

He can't help but be conscious that Annabeth is waiting too.

The boy arrives, and Luke wants to laugh. He's a child, only twelve years old, and is about as scrawny as scrawny can be.

He's crushed from the loss of his mother, and Luke's sure he would sympathise if he'd ever known a proper mother of his own.

Still, the boy – Percy is his name – killed the Minotaur with his bare hands on the way into camp, so Luke can only assume there's more to him than meets the eye.

Percy disarms him during a spar. For a kid who's supposedly never held a sword before in his life against one of the best swordsmen in centuries, that's something.

So Kronos shows him how to summon a monster into camp, as a test for the boy.

Percy can't defeat this monster, but Chiron steps in to save him at the last moment. The centaur seems to be the only person other than Luke who isn't surprised to see Percy claimed as a son of Poseidon, but then, he's been watching the boy all year.

Percy's alright, really.

It's a shame he'll have to die for Kronos to rise.

Luke shoves a newspaper article about the Jacksons' disappearance under the Poseidon cabin door to try and make himself feel better about the whole thing.

With Percy out of the way, doomed to die on his quest, Luke tries to make inroads at camp. He wins Silena over, and she agrees with him that they all deserve better. After all, why wouldn't she?

The titan lord gives him a gift: his scythe, remodelled into a deadly new sword, for sending the son of Poseidon to his death and for starting a war between the gods. It's a gift that becomes a little more complicated when Percy not only prevents the war, but then has the temerity to return to camp very much alive.

He's glad to see Annabeth and Grover safe, and there's a bit of him that's impressed Percy made it too, but Kronos won't be happy with him.

So Luke takes Percy out into the woods with some cokes, and does his best to explain why he's doing what he is, describing, among other things, his failed quest.

"Hercules did it," says Percy, parroting Hermes.

That's when Luke realises Percy isn't going to join them. He leaves.

The son of Poseidon's not so bad, after all, and Luke doesn't want to watch him slowly dying from the venom of a pit scorpion.

It's a moment of squeamishness he rues later, when the boy survives that too.

He has Silena poison Thalia's tree, and hates himself for it. She wasn't there when Thalia died, she doesn't understand all the implications of the action, but Luke does.

He tells himself that it's for the greater good, that the daughter of Zeus would be on his side. They spent so much time cursing the gods together, after all.

That night, he catches himself praying to his father that Camp Half-Blood's quest for the fleece will succeed, and hates himself all the more.

He captures Annabeth on the Princess Andromeda along with a cyclops, and wonders how she can live with herself.

Percy makes him look stupid – in front of his entire army and the whole of Camp Half-Blood, no less – then forces him into a time-wasting duel.

Luke takes great satisfaction in the efficiency with which he dismantles the son of Poseidon's defence, before the party ponies interfere.

Again, Percy Jackson gets lucky.

Again, Luke swears to kill him.

Thalia's back. She hates him now.

Atlas and Kronos threaten him with a fate worse than death if they can't get the daughter of Zeus to kill the Ophiotaurus, and Luke finds himself feeling like he's a child again, wanting to scream at the unfairness of it all.

He doesn't dare curse the titans in his moments alone, though; he never knows when they might be listening in.

He tricks Annabeth into taking the sky.

Thalia won't turn, and if she won't turn then Atlas has told him that there is another path they will go down.

Thalia won't turn, but he won't kill her, can't kill her.

She'd kill him, though. He can see it in her eyes.

She tries, too.

Kronos will need a host, they tell him.

There's a cruel irony to Backbiter, which now seems a double-edged gift: it marks him as the one that the lord of time has chosen to contain his spirit until he is strong enough to attain a form of his own.

If it makes the world a better place, if it prevents more demigods, more children, from being treated the way he was, then he's willing to do anything.

But for a new dawn to rise, Luke Castellan must be willing to die.

He goes to San Francisco, to Annabeth, and he begs her to save him. He doesn't know how, but there's some crazy idea in his head about running away together, about it being just like the old days. They could be free, he tells her.

They're not the children they used to be, she says.

Luke returns to the house he swore he would never set foot in again, to ask for his mother's blessing.

Backbiter is taken from him to be reforged into the scythe of legend.

Luke is being treated by the army as though he is something fragile, to be wrapped in cotton wool and kept from seeing anything disturbing. The fact that he's invincible now doesn't seem to occur to any of them; but then again, his invulnerability is on a physical level only. He's given white clothes to wear, like a sacrifice, and Kronos' magicians speak ominous words over him.

Percy and Annabeth are still trying to stop him, and he can't understand what it is they're fighting to save. Maybe giving up just isn't in their character.

Luke isn't in control now.

Instead, he's tucked away inside some tiny little corner of his own mind, hiding from the larger presence of Kronos, who would squash him like a bug if he could.

Whether they win or lose, Luke will die.

The war has been a long time coming.

Finally, though, it is ready. Luke can't count how long he's waited for the chance to bring down Olympus, but now they are sailing for Manhattan, and they will tear down Olympus, brick by brick. Like he swore he would.

Percy and Beckendorf come to destroy the ship. Silena's warned Kronos that they're coming and the crew are on high alert, but the pair still aren't caught in time, and the crew are so stupid that even after that, the ship is still destroyed. Percy gets lucky. Beckendorf dies, but then, the tree of liberty was always watered with blood.

Wasn't it?

The journey to Manhattan is a long, slow one. The tension is almost unbearable. Luke can feel that even Kronos doesn't know what to do with himself until they arrive.

They fight on the Williamsburg bridge.

He sees Percy dispatch the Minotaur with ease, and wonders at how the son of Poseidon has grown since he first arrived at camp. In many ways, Luke is just the same bitter teenager he was back then, beaten into submission by Kronos and his minions.

Percy refuses to kill demigods, disarming or injuring them instead, and then Annabeth takes a knife for him, and Kronos just can't understand why? They're enemies – why does the son of Poseidon care so deeply about his foes? And why does the daughter of Athena value the boy so much that she would give her life for his? Luke can feel that Kronos is a whirlwind of confusion and rage that what should have been victory has been snatched from his grasp.

Luke understands it now, though, and he isn't telling.

Then Percy destroys the bridge, and the fighting is over for the moment.

Kronos sends a group under a white flag to encourage Percy to surrender. He knows it's doomed from the start, though. Really, it's just to give him time to try and crush the last vestiges of Luke's consciousness. He works hard at it, too, and it's all Luke can do to avoid him for a few seconds at a time.

Finally, he's saved by the diplomatic group's return. They say what Luke and Kronos already know: this is a fight to the death.

Then Kronos begins to suspect that Ethan knows Percy's Achilles spot, and death suddenly seems a whole lot closer.

Luke can tell that the Titan lord is about to threaten Ethan, to extract the information by any means necessary.

He attacks.

He throws himself at Kronos' mind, doing anything and everything he can think of to wreak havoc. He can only keep it up for a short amount of time before Kronos forces him back into hiding, but it's enough. The time freeze on the Laistrygonian in the corner is broken, and Ethan is safe, while the Titan tries to regain control of Luke's body. Of Luke's mind. It's a weakness he refuses to admit to Ethan, though, and the son of Nemesis is sent away.

The fighting goes on, and it becomes clear that the forces of Olympus are only staving off the inevitable, even with the arrival of the Party Ponies.

Even being sat on by a Hyperborean giant isn't enough to stop Kronos for long.

While they wait, Luke wonders what the Fields of Punishment will be like. He suspects it won't be much worse than hiding inside a corner of his own head, alone but for Kronos' stray thoughts. There are so many random bursts of anger, minor grievances and petty hates. It's exhausting. Currently, Kronos is raging about the United Nations, complaining that such a thing is impossible.

Prometheus finds it funny, but it makes Luke angry.

It's not a statement of fact, he wants to tell them, it's not about what is. It's an ideal, it's about what could be. It's about making a better world. It's why I joined you in the first place. It's why I'm regretting it now.

Kronos calls the drakon in, and the war is as good as over. He only hopes that Annabeth and Thalia will find a way to escape.

The drakon dies.

They've killed it.

Somehow.

The Ares cabin must have come back.

Silena isn't responding.

Kronos is furious.

The whole camp is in confusion.

Luke knows that the Titans have as good as won, knows that Olympus will fall, knows that all those he used to call his friends will die in pain, but…

But he can't stop himself from feeling a flutter of hope somewhere deeps inside himself.

Kronos feels it too, and their body spasms in response to the unexpected emotion.

Luke remembers vaguely that they sent Percy Elpis, in the jar. He supposes that it must be some kind of irony, although he can't quite work out how. Annabeth was always better at that stuff than he was.

Kronos has mown down a host of nature spirits, campers, hunters and centaurs by the time Percy, Annabeth and Grover emerge from the Empire State Building. Chiron is the last line of defence by that point, standing between the Titan and his final goal.

Then Chiron calls Luke a hero.

If he'd still been in control of his own tear ducts, Luke is sure his eyes would have welled up with tears at that point. Kronos rages, screaming something at the old centaur, but Luke is busy with his own realisation:

You still care about me, he tries to say.

"You said me," notices Chiron.

For just one moment, Kronos' brain shuts down. Luke can feel it, all activity freezing for less than a second in the shock of the moment. What has happened?

Before either of them can properly figure it out, Chiron is on the attack, his sword swinging towards Kronos' face, but the Titan is faster. Luke wants to, tries to scream as his old teacher is sent flying into the side of a building. The wall collapses on top of him, and he disappears.

Distracted by Chiron's attack, Kronos lets the freezing spell go, and suddenly Annabeth is there, her knife a blur as she batters Kronos' defences. Luke remembers that he gave her that knife. He's touched that she still has it. Surely it's not right for him to fight against Annabeth, of all people?

It's hard to tell where Luke's mind ends and Kronos' begins, for some reason. Everything seems so confusing, so out of focus.

There's a dull sensation at his – their – collarbone as the knife bounces off it. Percy pulls Annabeth back before the scythe can cleave her in two.

"I HATE you!" she screams.

It hurts.

Kronos' laughter is cut short by a hellhound and that skinny Hades kid… Nico, maybe?

Kronos manages to look calm as the forces of the Underworld climb up through the street, but Luke can barely hold on to the slim foothold he has in the Titan's mind amidst the swirling maelstrom of anger. There's confusion there, too. Just like the United Nations, Kronos had been convinced that the gods were incapable of working together.

So why was Hades here?

Kronos heads inside the Empire State Building. He hopes it will be seen as a brilliant tactical decision, but really, Luke can tell, he's disoriented by the way the battle is going.

Maybe even…

scared?

He wants this over and done with as soon as possible.

The ride up to Olympus is a slow one.

Luke can feel his fingers on the staff of the scythe.

Kronos taps his feet impatiently.

They blow up some temples and statues on their way up to the throne room.

It doesn't make things better.

Percy fights well.

Luke is, absurdly, proud of the son of Poseidon as he goes toe-to-toe with the lord of time and, for the most part, comes away unscathed. Even if the security mechanisms on Hephaestus' throne do sting a little.

Ethan betrays him.

It

Just

Doesn't

Make

Sense

to Kronos.

These demigods, these half-bloods, they've spent so long bridling against the gods, and with good reason, and now, at the last, they choose Olympus over him?

Why?

Because you're a monster, Luke tells him. Kronos screams, but neither of them are sure whether it's with his mouth or his mind.

Typhon, the one thing that Kronos was more sure about than any other, is defeated. Poseidon leads his armies out from the sea just as the father of all monsters is crossing into Manhattan, and…

How did things turn out like this?

Annabeth is fighting him again.

When did that happen?

"You have to trust me," she says.

"Luke Castellan is dead!" roars Kronos.

No, I'm not, he tries to say. I'm right here. His mouth isn't his own any more, though. He forgot that.

Kronos keeps saying 'I' and 'my' when referring to Luke. Or does Luke keep saying them when referring to Kronos? He can't tell, for some reason. It's all so confusing.

"Family, Luke," she says. "You promised."

Oh, gods.

"Promise," he says. His mouth works. He's…

Luke.

"Annabeth," he says. "You're bleeding…"

She seems more concerned with her knife, for some reason.

Percy steps between them, saying, "Don't touch her," and gods, Luke can understand why, but now really isn't the moment. It allows Kronos back in for a moment.

"Jackson…" says the Titan, but Luke can tell that it's not his voice now. The two of them are moving further apart, rather than closer together. The edges of his vision are glowing.

Things are moving so fast. Everything's blurring together. "He's changing," Luke tells them. "Help. He's – he's almost ready. He won't need my body anymore. Please-"

And then it's Kronos, bellowing, "NO!"

"The knife, Percy," murmurs Annabeth, barely audible. There's a pang in Luke's chest as she addresses the son of Poseidon rather than him, but then she says "Hero… cursed blade…"

Oh.

Kronos grabs Backbiter, but there's a burning sensation and he's forced to let go. At this point, Luke can barely focus enough to follow what's going on. The glowing's only getting stronger, and he's beginning to hurt.

The knife.

"Please, Percy…" he says. He does his best to explain, to make them understand. "Please," he says again, "No time."

Percy gives him the knife.

Luke Castellan has always known that he is going to die, and die young at that.

He has done his best to leave the world a better place than he has found it, though he knows that he has done more harm than good. There are so many dead.

But he unlatches the armour, and the knife grazes the skin beneath his arm, and he knows that this is right. He wants to tell his friends that he loves them. He wants to make everything better, but he can't, there isn't time.

"Good… blade," he croaks. Then he sees Annabeth, those unmissable grey eyes staring straight at him. "You knew," he says. "I almost killed you, but you knew…"

She shushes him, tells him that he'll go to Elysium.

If so, that would be a piece of luck he doesn't deserve.

"Did you love me?" he asks her.

"Like a brother," she says.

That's good. That's right. She and Percy are perfect for each other. He's happy for them.

He turns to the son of Poseidon. "Me. Ethan. All the unclaimed. Don't let it… Don't let it happen again," he says.

"I won't. I promise," says Percy, and Luke Castellan dies.

He only allows himself the tiniest bit of pride as it happens, because defeating the lord of the titans? Heracles never did that.

His soul drifts for a while. He assumes they must have given him a funeral, as he eventually finds himself in the lobby of the Underworld, drachmas in his pocket.

That was good of them.

The ferryman scowls, but accepts Luke's payment, and carries him across the Styx, which churns violently beneath them. It seems to know who he is.

He goes to Judgement. Even if they had allowed him straight into Asphodel, he wouldn't have taken the option. It's time for him to face the consequences of his actions.

The judges debate for a long, long time. Longer than Luke thought possible. They seem unable to decide, until -

Elysium.

Elysium.

They even offer him the chance of rebirth.

Lethe is strangely still.

He'd imagined it as another Styx, wild and uncontrollable, but instead, the river is almost like pondwater.

Luke did so much damage, while he was alive: there simply wasn't enough time to fix everything before his death. In another life, though, or two…

Luke Castellan knows that he is going to die. Perhaps he will die young, or perhaps he will reach old age and pass away in his sleep. But he knows, too, that it is what comes before death that is the important part. His last conscious thought is that he's going to make every second count.

Then he drops into the water.

We walk light

down the wires

higher than weather balloons

empty hearts on fire

hungry for love

ready to drown

so tie down the sails tonight

we're going downtown

- the Mountain Goats, "Linda Blair Was Born Innocent"

So, I have to admit I'm a little confused by the timeline of Luke getting the Achilles curse. I'd always assumed that he had it by the time of The Titan's Curse, and that was how he survived falling off the cliff, but according to the wiki, it's not until BotL that he bathes in the Styx.

So how does he survive?

Anyway, here were the life and times of Luke Castellan. I hope you liked it.