The Golden Fleece

A sequel to Daughter of Wisdom.

Full Summary: Annabeth Chase returns to Camp Half-Blood to find the safety of her home shattered: Thalia's tree has been poisoned, destroying the magic barriers protecting the camp, and Chiron is blamed. Only one thing can save the camp, and it's up to Annabeth and her best friend Percy to find it. The problem is, they set off with a monster in tow. Once again, the quest and the surprises it has in store is about to change everything she thinks she knows. An alternate PoV retelling of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters.

OoOoOoOoO

Chapter 1: My Best Friend Has A Dangerous Classmate

OoOoOoOoO

My knife was taunting me.

It glowed faintly on my nightstand, where I'd left it unsheathed. Its blade was made of celestial bronze, so it gave off its own dim light in the dark. Usually, this was a comfort. Although I wasn't afraid of the dark any more (well, mostly) as I had been when I lived here as a child, it was still nice to have a nightlight. Besides, it did a good job of keeping spiders away. Monsters are wary of celestial bronze.

I know technically, not all spiders are monsters (when I say 'monsters', I mean it in the mythological sense: ancient Greek creatures who hunt demigods like me) but when you're a daughter of Athena, they may as well be. My mother made the first spider from an arrogant girl who had the gall to challenge her at a weaving contest, and the little beast have been out for her blood—and to terrorise all her descendants—since then. When I was seven, the last time I'd lived properly at home, they'd come to my room in the dark of night and torment me. Back then, I didn't have any weapon against them. Driven to desperation by how indifferent my father and stepmother seemed to my plight, I'd run away.

That was when I'd met my friends Luke and Thalia, who had promised me they would be my new family. It had worked out, for a time. We'd move around to different safe houses they'd built around the east coast and I'd learned to fight off monsters like them. We'd travelled north, looking for a camp in New York that trained kids like us—half human, half god. Camp Half-Blood had sent us a satyr protector, Grover, to guide us there. But then, after a few wrong turns (including one nearly down the gullet of a Cyclops), the monsters had caught up to us on the doorstep of the camp. Long story short: Thalia faced down the monsters to give us a chance to run. The monsters almost killed her. Thalia's father Zeus turned her into a pine tree in tribute to her courage. She still stands on Half-Blood Hill now, her tree spirit creating a magical barrier that monsters can no longer cross.

For the last five years, I'd lived at Camp Half-Blood. It was only last summer that I'd finally agreed to spend the school year with my father and my stepfamily. The last time I'd tried it, when I was ten, I'd been so miserable that I'd returned to camp before I even got to winter break, vowing never to return. Last year, though, my friend Percy had convinced me to give it another try. He'd been right (although I'd never admit it to him). This year hadn't been too bad. I'd gone to school like a normal kid, and my dad had taken some time out of his busy schedule as a professor at West Point to spend with me. He'd taken all of us to Washington over spring break and we'd gone to see the Lincoln Memorial, just the two of us, while my stepmother and stepbrothers relaxed at the hotel.

While monsters still attacked from time to time, I wasn't helpless against them any more. I'd learned loads at camp about fighting them, plus I had some practical experience from a quest I'd undertaken with Percy and Grover last summer. I'd gotten pretty good at using my knife.

All this should have made its soft glow all the more reassuring, but the knife still gave me mixed feelings. It was a dagger with a long, slightly curved blade of celestial bronze—deadly to monsters. I'd carried it with me for five years and it was definitely my most trusty weapon: the first one I'd ever had, given to me by Luke the night we met. And that was the problem.

It was a gift from a traitor.

It hadn't started out that way, of course. I used to think Luke was perfect. He was a lot older than me, but he'd taken me under his wing from the start, promising we'd be family. He was an amazing sword-fighter, but he'd shown me how, given my smaller size, I could wield a knife more effectively. He'd been incredible to watch in battle; I still remembered how he'd taken out a dragon that had burned down one of our safe houses. After we'd lost Thalia at Camp Half-Blood, he'd been all I had left. We'd been placed in different cabins at camp, according to our godly parentage—he as a son of Hermes had been in cabin eleven, while I was in cabin six with the other children of Athena—but we'd still hung out together.

Then three years later, Luke had gotten a quest, which he'd failed to complete, and he'd become increasingly bitter with the gods until last summer, he'd masterminded a plot to overthrow Olympus and raise the evil Titan Lord Kronos from the depths of the prison Tartarus. Percy, Grover, and I had nearly been killed (or captured; I'm not sure which would have been the result if we'd been delivered to Tartarus as Luke's plan had intended) in the process. We'd escaped, barely, but Luke had left camp after making another failed attempt on Percy's life. He was out in the world now, too, only he probably wasn't trying to have a normal school year like us. He was serving Kronos, working to help him reform and rise out of Tartarus.

I knew all this, but it was still hard for me to square in my head. Luke had been my hero. The part of me that still clung to my memories of our time together couldn't stop thinking of him as the person I trusted most in the world. I hated feeling like I'd been mistaken.

My bronze dagger was now, sadly, a reminder of how Luke had betrayed us. Its soft light was a comfort but at the same time, a reproach. I couldn't really get rid of it—not only was it my only celestial bronze weapon, I'd also had it so long, I could wield it like an extension of my arm, which is really important in a fight. On sleepless nights like this, though, it was more of a consternation.

I looked away from its chiding glow. My room was still an quiet. It hadn't changed much in the five years I'd been away. My old stuffed animals still decorated the shelves and the pastel pink wallpaper featured winged ponies and rainbows. At least the cobwebs were gone. Someone—most likely my stepmother, although I found it hard to believe—had swept and cleaned meticulously before I came home this time. I'd also acquired a desk with a couple of shelves for my books. The children's books that I'd used to own I'd passed along to my stepbrothers. I didn't care much for fiction. Reading was hard enough for me as a dyslexic with ADHD, so I only liked to do it for specific purposes. My books were mainly on Greek mythology (important for my survival) and architecture (my favourite subject), though I didn't mind reading other things too as long as they had good practical knowledge. Getting the chance to go to school had been good this year. I wasn't too keen on the summer reading homework my English teacher had announced, though—all of it was fiction and he refused to allow me to pick something historical or factual instead.

Next to the new desk, my school uniform—a checkered vest pinafore that ended in a navy skirt, and a white blouse to be worn underneath—hung off the handle of my closet, ready for my last week of school. At the foot of the closet was a half-filled duffel bag that I'd started to pack. When school let out next week, I would be returning to camp for the summer session.

I couldn't wait. Much as I'd enjoyed school and getting to know my father over the year, Camp Half-Blood still felt more like home to me. I missed the cabin with the neat rows of bunk beds and orderly desks with endless drawers and shelves for us to keep whatever we needed for our various projects: charts, maps, blueprints, the works. I missed the golden pavilion where we had our meals served by nymphs, and the bronze brazier where we made our offerings to our godly parents before every meal. I'd managed to scrape portions of my food into the kitchen stove when I ate at home (unfortunately there wasn't really a good way at school) and while this got me odd looks from my stepmother, she refrained from commenting, though she sounded a little put out when she scolded my stepbrothers for trying to copy me.

I missed our daily training sessions—sword-fighting, Pegasi-riding, crafts and metalwork; even the lava-spewing climbing wall, which was one of my least favourite activities. I missed the regular capture the flag games where I could pit my battle strategies against the opposing team and put my fighting training to use. (My team usually won—Athena is the goddess of strategic warfare, after all.)

I missed Chiron, our activities director, who oversaw the day-to-day running of the camp and the training of all heroes. He'd mentored me for years, ever since I'd first arrived at Camp Half-Blood. Sometimes I felt (a little guiltily) like he was more of my father than my actual dad.

Most of all, I missed my friend Percy. It was hard to believe I'd only met him last summer. We'd grown close over the course of the quest we'd been on, to retrieve Zeus's lightning bolt (long story). It was that same quest that Luke had sabotaged.

I guess I'd probably call Percy my best friend now, seeing as of my other best friends, Luke had betrayed us and Thalia was a tree.

Percy was home for the school year, too, though he lived in Manhattan with his mom. (His dad is Poseidon, making his parentage really rare since the three oldest brothers of the gods—Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades—technically made a pact not to have any more demigod children because of a prophecy that one of said children would have the power to destroy Olympus. Obviously, two of the brothers hadn't kept their word.) In a week's time, when the school term let out, Percy would be returning to camp as well.

Next to my knife on my nightstand, illuminated by its light, was a slightly lopsided silver model of the Parthenon. Percy had made it for me for my birthday last year. Below it was a letter he'd written me a month ago. We'd tried to keep in touch over the year, but it wasn't easy. Writing letters didn't come easily to a pair of dyslexic demigods. This particular letter was full of crossed-out misspellings (and plenty more that weren't crossed-out) and I knew he must have taken a while to cover the page in his wide scrawl. At the top right-hand corner was the only bit that wasn't riddled with errors: his address.

I could sympathise. I was better at writing than Percy, but it took me a fair bit of time, too. So I definitely appreciated every letter I got, infrequent as they were, because I knew the effort it took.

You're probably wondering, given how writing letters are so difficult, why we didn't just call each other or send emails. Well, that wasn't really an option because half-bloods and electronics don't mix. Using phones is like putting up a GPS tracking signal to all monsters in the vicinity. It draws them straight to us. I'd learned the hard way that it was the same with the Internet. After spring break, I'd borrowed my dad's computer to send Percy a picture I'd taken at the Lincoln Memorial; his email reply had attracted a scarab beetle the size of a Jack Russell that had proceeded to trash not just the computer but also my dad's office. Needless to say, that had strained our relationship a bit. I'd decided not to mention the incident to Percy—no sense making him feel guilty for something that wasn't his fault—but I hadn't been able to email him back.

In Percy's last letter, he'd talked about his new school and how he generally like it, except for the bullies. I wasn't surprised by that. Percy was the type of kid who just had to stand up for people. He kind of reminded me of Thalia, with his restless, crackling energy and forthright demeanour: direct to the point of irreverence. He didn't take much crap from anyone, human or monster, much less a bully looking to beat up on him or anyone around him. Percy's letter didn't mention fighting any monsters, though I assumed he must have come across some over the course of the year. The more powerful the demigod, the stronger our scent is to monsters, and with his father being one of the Big Three, Percy definitely had way more power than me (if not brains).

Anyway, before we'd left camp last year, I'd made Percy promise he'd contact me if an adventure found him. I guessed that, contrary to expectation, we'd both managed to have a relatively peaceful year after all. And I'd see him again in a week.

The thought made me smile. I reached over and sheathed my knife, plunging the room into uncomfortable darkness, and tried to get some sleep.

After tossing around for a bit, I must have finally drifted off because I found myself dreaming about Percy. I guess it wasn't surprising, since I'd been thinking about his letter and our plans for the summer as I dropped off. I saw Percy sitting on a beanbag in a room full of whiteboards and motivational posters, the sort that had pictures of people doing stuff like scaling mountains, with encouraging words printed in large block letters beneath them. I assumed he was in a classroom, although there were no desks.

Percy was in a circular group of about twenty students, each with their own beanbag chairs and worksheets on the floor in front of them. Their teacher stood at the whiteboard, a market in hand, but he seemed strangely lost as he stared blankly at it. Someone in the circle threw a spitball at him, which hit the back of his head.

Percy turned to the offending student. 'Stop that!'

I was feeling confused as to why he needed to stand up for his teacher when the actual teacher got up and sent the guy at the whiteboard back to the beanbag circle. I'd mistaken the kid for a teacher because he was insanely tall for a thirteen-year-old—a little over six feet, he towered over the teacher. He had a young-looking face, though, with round cheeks that hadn't lost their baby fat and a buck-toothed mouth with uneven teeth. His lip trembled like he was about to cry. His eyes were an innocent calf-brown—wait. His eye.

He had only one eye.

I gasped and stumbled back as the Cyclops student looked straight through me. His big brown eye blinked, then seemed to shimmer. For a second, I saw two superimposed images: the real face of the Cyclops and the disguised, two-eyed version created by the magical mist that helps to obscure mythological creatures from mortals. And then that warped, too, until the face in front of me was no longer the Cyclops student, but a homeless man I had once seen years ago. At least, he'd first appeared as a homeless man. He had a scruffy beard peppered with white, which covered most of his face, and his scraggly bangs fell into his eyes.

I realised the entire dream had shifted. I was standing in the rain with a young Thalia, Luke, and Grover, outside an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Flatbush in Brooklyn. Thalia gave the homeless man a fierce glare and he shuffled past us, jiggling a coffee cup full of coins.

'Let's get off the street,' she muttered. 'I don't feel safe hanging around out in the open.'

Luke stuck a golf club in the crack of the warehouse door and wrenched it open. The inside smelt oddly clean for an abandoned warehouse, like the lemon-scented furniture polish my stepmother used.

'It's as good a place as any,' Luke said. 'We can camp out here for the night and find the camp tomorrow.'

'I'm sorry!' Grover said. 'We'd be there already if I hadn't taken all those wrong turns.'

'It's okay,' Thalia said. 'At least we lost the monsters. Come on.' She squeezed in through the gap in the door. Grover, Luke, and I followed.

A moment later, the door slammed shut behind us, shutting out the sliver of light from the outside. I heard a loud, satisfied intake of breath and then Grover let out a terrified bleat.

'Blaaaa—' he was cut off abruptly.

'Grover?' Thalia said.

'It's fine! This way.' His voice sounded like it was coming from down the hall … only that couldn't be right. The warehouse had looked like a single, open room from the outside.

I froze, recognising the dream memory. Part of me was seven years old again, feeling my way blindly with my friends about the 'warehouse', which had turned out to be a haunted-house-worthy mansion, disguised by the Mist. The echo of our voices bounded off the walls, accompanied by the clink of coins in a coffee cup, the only clue that there was someone—or something—else in here with us.

I held Thalia's hand tightly at first, but then we heard Luke yell out for her help and she let go of me to run after him. And then it was my own voice I heard, screaming for Luke to help me. After that, terrifying silence.

I remembered running around, close to tears, in the dark maze of the mansion for hours—up stairs, down hallways, into dead-end rooms littered terrifyingly with bones. My fear smelt of the linoleum on the floors and the lemony polish on the banisters. For years I'd associate the scent of lemons with terror. But my dream threw me forward to the point where I eventually found a flickering light coming from a room. Like many of the others, bones were scattered around it, and a hulking figure was stoking a fire in the centre. I could make out the trussed-up forms of my friends hanging upside down from the ceiling. Although they were struggling violently against their bonds, none of them could make a sound through their gags.

'Now,' said their captor contemplatively, 'shall I start with you, satyr, or finish with dessert?'

Luke twisted so hard I thought he was definitely going to break free, but he only ended up swinging wildly. The giant man laughed. 'There's no use wriggling, demigod. You're going to be my dinner once I decide how I'll cook you.'

He turned then and I saw his bearded face, the scraggly bangs parted to reveal a single, malicious eye. It was the same homeless man we'd seen outside the warehouse-mansion—a Cyclops, who'd tricked us into his lair. A smile widened across his face.

'Now, Annabeth,' he said, only it was my dad's voice. 'Don't you worry. I love you. You can stay here with me. You can stay forever.'

I'd forgotten until now exactly what he'd said to me—the honeyed words that had been everything I'd wanted from my dad at that age. I'd nearly stepped forward, drawn to the promise he offered me. But then my fingers had brushed the cobwebs in the corner of the doorway, bringing me to my senses. I charged instead, tripping as I sidestepped the Cyclops's outstretched hand and landing on my knees by his feet.

I stabbed my knife into his foot.

The Cyclops howled in pain. Unfortunately, the stab wasn't enough to make him disintegrate. Blood gushed from the wound as I yanked my knife out.

'Foolish demigod!' the Cyclops screamed. 'You cannot defeat a Cyclops with a mere jab. We are the strongest of monsters. Even the lowliest of us, the mistakes of nature, grow up wild on the streets and learn to be tough. And I am no mistake. I am the son of the great Polyphemus himself!'

I didn't waste a second. I ran for the nearest hanging figure and sliced my knife through the bonds on Thalia's hands. She reacted instantly. With one hand, she used my knife to free the rest of her bonds in a single swipe; with the other, she swung herself, kicking at the Cyclops's hand when he tried to grab us. She tossed my knife back to me and activated her shield, Aegis. The Cyclops staggered back from the full-size image of Medusa on its front.

'Well, I'm the daughter of Zeus,' she snarled. 'Polyphemus can kiss my ass.'

A bright flash illuminated the entire room, though that didn't make sense, since we were in the Cyclops's mansion and I knew Thalia couldn't have called on lightning indoors. I felt wind whipping around me as the dream shifted again. I was on top of a hill now and growing upwards, so tall that I thought I would tower into the clouds. My feet dug into the ground and my outstretched arms were literally branching out.

I was Thalia, and I was turning into a pine, just as she had.

A dark shadow crept up to me and knelt amongst the tree roots—my roots. I guessed it was a person, though he or she was wearing a cloak and hood so I couldn't see who it was. The figure pulled a vial of something acid-green and fed it into the soil. The sight of that radioactive substance made me feel like vomiting. The hooded person came closer, right up to my trunk, and placed a hand on the bark.

'Trust me,' he said in a low voice. And then he stabbed my trunk violently with a large syringe.

All around me, the soil glowed. Then the poisonous colour faded as it was absorbed into the earth. The hooded figure pulled his syringe out and slunk off down the hill.

There was a soft hiss and the pine needles on my bottom branches turned a sickly pale yellow, then started to curl.

'Annabeth …' I heard. It was Thalia's voice calling to me as though from far away. 'Dying …' she said, in a voice filled with pain.

I woke with a start. Sunlight was streaming into my room through the gaps in my bedroom curtains. I felt dark inside, though. My dreams had left me with a deep sense of dread. The memory of the Cyclops … Percy and a Cyclops … and the ominous part about Thalia's tree.

I felt absolutely certain that I had to get to camp as quickly as possible.

And it was just as well Percy lived on my way there, because if he was really dealing with a Cyclops, he was probably going to need some help.

OoOoOoOoO

A/N: Yes, I'm back, as promised, with a sequel to Daughter of Wisdom! This fic will follow Annabeth's journey through Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters, starting a little before and ending a little after the timeline of SoM, so there's a bit more expansion of the original canon events than in Daughter of Wisdom. This is a project I took on for NaNoWriMo 2016, and it was my first ever NaNo win (and yes, it nearly doubled the 50K target!)

To my lovely readers and reviewers from DoW, I'm especially excited to be sharing this sequel with you after all the encouragement you've given me on my first-ever PJO multi-chaptered project. Some of you mentioned that you liked the scenes I added on to canon; this fic offers a lot more exploration of those moments, so I really hope you will like this story and how I've chosen to interpret Sea of Monsters!

The plan at the moment is for 27 chapters, but this might change as I edit and post. I'm aiming for weekly updates so fingers crossed that all goes according to plan!

Anyway, thanks for checking out my fic. Do let me know what you thought—I love hearing from my readers!