#The mark of athena full book online full#
The praetor stood ten feet away, in full battle armor, holding a golden javelin. She pulled out a small disk of bronze the size of a tea saucer, etched with delicate letters and illustrations. Her fingers touched something cold, smooth, and metal. Annabeth pulled it off and stuck her hand inside the cannon. As soon as the Celestial bronze touched the plug, the plug shrank and loosened. On the plug that blocked the opening, the Mark of Athena began to glow-the red outline of an owl. She reached the mortar and put her hand on the muzzle. Though the day was clear all around them, thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed above the Romans. Roman demigods had formed ranks and were advancing toward the Argo II, but a miniature storm had gathered over their heads. Nothing could possibly scare her as much as those spiders. An eagle swooped at her, but she ducked and kept running. It might have been Annabeth’s imagination, but the old artillery piece seemed to be glowing red. She gazed across the courtyard-past the panicked tourists and fighting demigods-to the edge of the battlements, where a large mortar pointed out to sea. Annabeth remembered that her friends were in danger. Annabeth stood stunned in the middle of the room, unsure whether she’d seen something real, or just a vision.Īn explosion shook the building. Then, just as in her nightmares, the Mark of Athena burned across the walls, incinerating the spiders until the room was empty except for the smell of sickly sweet ashes. On the far wall, in the center of the spider swarm, a red symbol blazed to life: the figure of an owl like the one on the silver drachma, staring straight at Annabeth. But we must let the weaver take her revenge… I hope you survive, child, the woman’s voice said. Only the hope that it might be an illusion kept Annabeth from passing out from fear.
The spiders became excited, swarming over the walls, swirling around Annabeth’s feet like a glistening black whirlpool. She feared the answer, but she asked: “Who-who is the weaver?” Her nightmares had come true.Ī sleepy voice murmured in her head: Soon, my dear. Now, standing in the barracks at Fort Sumter, she was surrounded. And the past few weeks, Annabeth had dreamed of spiders almost every night-crawling over her, suffocating her, wrapping her in webs.
Years later, she’d had a panic attack at a water park in Denver, when Percy and she were assaulted by mechanical spiders. Once, she’d almost killed Connor Stoll at camp for putting a tarantula in her bunk. But that didn’t make her fear easier to deal with.
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