Eventually, it was Thalia's turn to drive.
She continued the drive south through the morning mist; the early morning cold air helped keep her mind fresh and ready, and Luke dozed off in the back seat, having complained about the stiffness in his neck when he accidentally fell asleep in the passenger seat.
The road wasn't as empty as their previous ones, so though they cut through the rocky wilderness, they did occasionally pass the odd mortal traveling in their own car. It was with the mortals in mind that when the sky darkened, and recognizing the birds behind this effect, she decided to floor it.
Hoping that by fleeing, the birds will lose interest and return to their nest. Stygian birds were known for eating flesh, but only the flesh of demigods. This means that as long as there was no battle, any mortal nearby wouldn't be harmed by accident.
The sudden acceleration caused Luke to wake, his head shaking to fight off drowsiness before he leaned over the back seat and squinted through the rear windshield.
Stygian birds.
Their wings shimmered with oily darkness, their beaks glinting like metal in the morning sunlight. Individually, they were easy to kill off. But a swarm like this was dangerous. Especially since the mist may alter the images to make them seem like pigeons to mortals, causing unnecessary harm to come to them should they try and interfere.
One of them scraped against the side mirror, breaking it off the car and sending it tumbling behind them; another collided with the windshield, beak piercing the glass, but the body couldn't fit in the gap, causing the bird to be stuck in the windshield.
The car tore down the highway, dodging potholes as the flock descended. One bird latched onto the rear window, its claws shrieking against the glass before being flung off by momentum. A few tried diving from above, but Thalia jerked the wheel left and right, throwing off their attempts to dive onto the car.
It took nearly twenty minutes before they outdrove the last of them. The only remaining one is still stuck in the windshield; Luke decided to flip the windshield wipers, having them activate and start smacking the bird. Seeing Luke's childish antic, Thalia could not help but smirk but quickly reigned it in, telling him to just kill the bird.
...
They pulled into a remote village near the edge of the Pindus range. The place looked old, not worn, but it certainly had a history. While refueling, Thalia stayed near the car, and Luke entered their garage station, waiting to pay for the gas and buy some snacks.
Luke wandered the small shop with chips in hand, munching on them as he waited for Thalia to stop with the fueling. He noticed a bulletin board near the door, filled with clippings both faded and new. While some were just advertisements, some contained notices and warnings.
The newest-looking one was one such notice.
Three children went missing last week. Luke searched through the notices and found more reports stating that a few adults had gone missing. While it did not seem like his business, Luke's instincts told him these notices were connected to his coming here, so he memorized the details before returning to Thalia with a frown.
Thalia, noticing his frown, asked. "What's wrong?"
"People have been disappearing from around here."
Thalia checked the gas meter, wondering what caused Luke to bring this up before understanding.
"You think it's the Drakon?"
"I think it wouldn't be much trouble to search for the cause; if it's the dragon, then that's fine; if it is a mortal, at least we have done something right."
Thalia smiled, appreciating Luke's concern and slight heroic tendencies.
...
The Pindus mountains grew steeper, their paths winding. The higher they went, the quieter the air became. Even birds didn't call here, casting an uneasy cloak of silence across the mountain range. Snow dusted the tops of the ridges, making the track more annoying.
Eventually, they found signs of their target, A half-buried ruin among the cliffs. Stone columns cracked in half. Carvings devoured by time. Exactly as reported by the locals, they asked before leaving the village. This was the place they suspected the Drakon to be.
They stepped inside.
The air was cold and dry. The further they walked, the colder the temperature became. They passed murals of men kneeling to serpents, of rituals of old made in worship of a great monster.
"You have always known you were meant for more, Luke. Not to serve. Not to scrape and beg for scraps from thrones that never saw you as a person."
Luke stopped in his tracks.
The voice continued. "You've felt it. The burn in your chest."
Then, another voice followed.
His mother.
"You could've come home, Luke. You left us."
Then Annabeth.
"You promised we'd be safe. But you lied."
Then, a chorus of the Hermes cabin. Whispers. Accusations. Laughter.
Luke froze, a battle going on in his mind.
Thalia raised her shield, electricity curling at her fingertips. "Luke!"
From the darkness, the Echo-Drakon struck when Luke was distracted.
A claw struck from the darkness, swiping towards him.
Thalia grabbed him from behind, attempting to pull him away from the attack, but it was too late. The claw slammed into him, sending him into a marble pillar with a sickening crunch; blood bloomed from the wounds on his chest, and the sword fell by his side.
Luckily, Thalia had pulled him away; if she hadn't, Luke may really have been killed.
Thalia didn't hesitate.
She dove, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him across the floor, shielding them both with Aegis as a tail struck from the darkness, attempting to finish off Luke.
They burst into daylight, the ruins behind them.
Thalia lifted Luke onto her back and quickly ran away, hoping to put distance between them and the ruin. Soon, when she felt safe, she put him down and collapsed beside him.
His eyes fluttered open, face pale.
"I'm sorry."
She started bandaging his wounds, jaw clenched before reaching into their supplies and bringing the ambrosia to his mouth.
"Shut up and eat, you idiot."
They needed to recover.
After munching on the ambrosia and allowing Thalia to patch him up, Luke explained what happened back there.
How he received a dream from an unknown source urging him to turn his back on Luke and exact his vengeance on Olympus with the mysterious individual.
Thalia didn't interrupt. Letting him finish. Looking at him as if he were an idiot.
There was no need for words; Luke understood he was being tricked and knew what Thalia was saying. They sat in silence.
Eventually, Thalia slept, falling asleep against Luke as he watched the stars for a long time.
...
At dawn the next day, they returned. Luke was healed up and was ready for payback.
The Echo-Drakon slithered from the dark: its full form now revealed. Long as a bus, covered in pale scales that shimmered with an oily sheen. And what really stuck out was that the drakon had no eyes.
Thalia surged forward, Aegis blazing with electricity. Luke flanked, striking at the front left limb.
The dragon writhed, releasing a sound that attempted to disorientate them.
But they didn't falter.
The whispers came again. Not just for Luke but also for Thalia. Attempting to give rise to their inner weakness, their pain. But the dragon had miscalculated. Luke had recovered, triumphing over his recent weakness, and Thalia was furious at the attempts to dig up her past pain, causing her lightning to strike more often, her spear swifter in her fury.
Luke screamed back, the blade slicing clean through the scale on the drakon's belly.
Thalia drove her spear through its neck, sending surges of electricity into the monster's body, cooking it from the inside, and as the creature shrieked in pain, Luke vaulted upward, driving his sword deep into the roof of the drakon's mouth.
It writhed.
Then stilled.
The ruin fell silent.
Thalia knelt, cutting the tongue free with careful hands. They wrapped it in cloth and placed it into a prepared wooden box to protect and preserve it.
Luke turned to her.
"Do you think Harold is going to be angry with us for killing his kind?"
Thalia snorted, "He would be angry if we didn't bring back some of its meat."
With the monster dead and the tongue acquired, they sat against the wall and watched as the corpse turned to gold dust, leaving behind some teeth large enough to be turned into a couple of daggers.