Malcolm's body was still - his face slack, with fear immortalised in his lifeless eyes. The flesh around his wound had turned black, and the blood was still the sickly shade of purple, but now it was congealed, and through his flesh, you could see the many branching veins that had been turned purple through the cursed blood.
Lucas didn't know what to do or say. He had never met Malcolm, and the only other camper he knew from the Athena Cabin, apart from Annabeth, was Isaac, the Cabin head. But even with this lack of connection, facing the corpse of a young teen who came from the same camp but was now dead affected him more than he expected.
Annabeth was crying, her face turning pale as she shook. Lucas embraced her, turning her away from the body. Selena was frozen in shock, her face etched with dried tears as she stared at the rock wall, her mind not in the right state as she processed the death.
As demigods, they had always understood they could die any minute, which is why they trained so hard. As they survived, they grew accustomed to killing monsters, but witnessing the death of one of their own, especially someone they had just been talking with, proved too much for their young minds.
Ethan came over, picking up Selena's discarded bloody jacket that had tried to slow the bleeding and used it as a makeshift veil, giving Malcolm some privacy in death. Lucas and Ethan exchanged looks, understanding the worst was yet to come.
Clarisse stirred, pulling herself from the rubble with shaking limbs and a guttural groan of pain and exhaustion, dust caked across her bloody face and what remained intact of her armor. She seemed dazed, for she slowly looked around before stumbling towards her spear that was now broken into two pieces. She picked up the two halves, attempting to put them together, but they didn't connect. With a huff, she threw them aside, her hand going to her temple as she fought against a migraine.
Looking up Clarisse saw it was only the demigods and understood they hadn't been able to stop the three ambushers from leaving, this discontent of the result gave way to anger, re-energizing her mind enough to notice something was wrong with the atmospher, she looked over everyone before spotting a still body who's features were hidden beneath a jacket.
"Clarisse-" Lucas quietly tried to prepare her, but she ignored him, her eyes locked on the body.
She took a step forward, then another. She shuffled through the exhaustion, a feeling of dread filling her. She kept walking until she stood over the still form and crouched down to remove the jacket, allowing her to see his face.
Malcolm was dead.
Clarisse stopped. Her throat worked as if to force out words that refused to come.
She sank to her knees beside Malcolm, her shield falling with a clang beside her, for even when unconscious, she never let go of her shield. She didn't shed tears, forcefully restraining them. Instead, her fists clenched so hard her gauntlets creaked. She slammed one of them into the wall behind her with a scream of rage. The stone wall cracked under the force, and the sound of bone breaking followed, the force breaking her knuckles, but Clarisse didn't care; she was focused on Malcolm.
Selena flinched, breaking free of her turmoil, and looked at Clarisse.
"Gods damn it," Clarisse finally whispered.
Selena stumbled across, draping herself across Clarisse's back and embracing her. As a close friend of Clarisse, she understood what she was thinking. She may seem cold on the outside, but inside, especially for those close to her, she was vulnerable, using the coldness as armor. When campers were chosen to go on this quest from the Ares Cabin, she volunteered, not just out of desire but so that if anything went wrong, none of her siblings would have to carry the burden of failure. As one of the more powerful campers, she believed she could better protect her teammates, but seeing the corpse before her crushed those ideals.
So even though Selena was undergoing her own turmoil, she ignored her own pain and tried to comfort Clarisse.
Annabeth broke free from Lucas's embrace, looking at her shaking hands that were covered in blood. "I tried to fight the poison, giving him Asclepius's universal antidote. When that failed, I tried to stop the bleeding. I even fed him all the embrosia I carried. Nothing I could do slowed it down.. I'm-"
"Don't!" Clarrise growled out, her eyes not leaving Malcolm's. "Don't apologise. You did what you could. If anyone is to blame, it's me. It was my job to protect him."
Lucas turned his Veil Sight on and looked at the corpse, seeing the lingering traces of curse magic around the wound, confirming his suspicions.
"It wasn't poison; the wound is cursed. There's nothing you could have done. I doubt I could save him before the curse took him."
Clarisse stood, her body shaking in rage, though she tried to calm herself so as not to lash out at those around her.
"We're not leaving him here."
"We'll burn the body," Lucas agreed. "Give him a pyre like the warriors of old."
"I'll stand vigil," Clarisse said. "You all… do what you need to do. But I'm not moving until we send him off."
Selena didn't object. She moved to help, brushing hair gently from Malcolm's brow.
Ethan and Lucas made their way to the collapsed entrance, moving the rocks there and attempting to open a way to the surface to search for some wood to make the pyre. Annabeth instead searched the ruins for another exit.
...
The pyre was simple - a square of stones to form the base. Wood pulled from broken scaffolding and smashed crates stacked together to create a bed where Malcolm's body rested.
They didn't have a ceremonial veil to cover his body, so Lucas used his magic to cast a sigil of Athena on top of Selenas's jacket, using that as a veil. Annabeth opened Malcolm's mouth, placing a golden drachma beneath his tongue as payment to Charon, allowing Malcolm to be ferried across the River Styx. Selena stood beside Clarisse, hand in hand.
As the half-sibling of Malcolm, it was Annabeth who threw a torch onto the pyre, allowing it to blaze and begin the ceremony. They all watched as the fire grew, soon covering Malcolm from view.
"I'll kill them," Clarisse said at last, voice low and steady. "Those three bastards are gonna pay."
Ethan voiced his concerns.
"How do we find them? This time, we only met because they ambushed us. Must we always be ambushed to meet them?"
"I believe I have a way to find them," Annabeth spoke out, drawing the attention of the others.
"When I tried looking for another exit in the ruin, I found a SPQR mural carved into the stone, but when I drew near it, it morphed into the Mark of Athena. I believe the Parthenos was moved to Rome."
Clarisse snapped, "I don't care about that damned statue, I want to find those three."
Annabeth ignored the interruption, understanding her emotions.
"I believe they most likely attacked us due to our attempt to find the statue. If we can locate its resting place in Rome, we may be able to draw them out. This time, we can prepare for them instead of us suffering another surprise attack; it will be them getting ambushed."
The group nodded, all silently agreeing that this was no longer about the quest; it was about revenge.