Traduction personnelle:

- Inutile, murmura Percy.

Ses dents claquaient à cause du froid. Il arrêta de nager et commença à couler.

- Percy! cria Annabeth. La rivière affecte ton esprit. C'est le Cocyte! La Rivière des lamentations! Elle est faite de pure misère!

- Misère, acquiesça-t-il.

- Bats-toi!

Elle donna des coups de pieds et lutta, essayant de se maintenir, elle et Percy, à la surface. Une autre blague cosmique dont Gaia aurait bien ri: Annabeth meurt en essayant de sauver son petit-ami, fils de Poséidon, de la noyade.

Ça n'arrivera pas, espèce de vieille harpie, pensa Annabeth.

Elle serra Percy plus fort et l'embrassa.

- Parle-moi de la Nouvelle-Rome, demanda-t-elle. Quels étaient tes plans pour nous?

- Nouvelle-Rome... Pour nous...

- C'est ça, Cervelle d'algues. Tu as dit que nous pouvions avoir un futur là-bas! Raconte-moi!

Annabeth n'avait jamais voulu quitter la Colonie des Sang-Mêlés. C'était le seul véritable foyer qu'elle avait jamais connu. Mais il y a quelques jours de cela, à bord du Argo II, Percy lui avait dit qu'il avait imaginé un futur pour eux avec les demi-dieux romains. Dans leur citée de la Nouvelle-Rome, les vétérans de la légion pouvaient s'installer en toute sécurité, aller à l'école, se marier, et même avoir des enfants.

- Architecture, murmura Percy, ses yeux commençant à devenir plus clairs. J'ai pensé que tu aimerais les maisons, les parcs. Il y a aussi cette rue avec toutes ces belles fontaines...

Annabeth approcha les lèvres de l'oreille de Percy et lui souffla:

- Je t'aime.

Elle n'était pas sûre qu'il puisse l'entendre, mais s'ils devaient mourir, elle voulait que ce soit les dernières paroles qu'elle prononce.

"Look, Nico," he said, "I'm here if you want to talk about, you know, what happened in Croatia. I get how difficult—"

"You don't get anything."

"Nobody's going to judge you."

Nico's mouth twisted in a sneer. "Really? That would be a first. I'm the son of Hades, Jason. I might as well be covered in blood or sewage, the way people treat me. I don't belong anywhere. I'm not even from this century. But even that's not enough to set me apart. I've got to be—to be—"

"Dude! It's not like you've got a choice. It's just who you are."

"Just who I am..." The balcony trembled. Patterns shifted in the stone floor, like bones coming to the surface. "Easy for you to say. You're everybody's golden boy, the son of Jupiter. The only person who ever accepted me was Bianca, and she died! I didn't choose any of this. My father, my feelings..."

Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler)"I had a crush on Percy," Nico spat. "That's the truth. That's the big secret."

He glared at Cupid. "Happy now?"

For the first time, Cupid's gaze seemed sympathetic. "Oh, I wouldn't say Love always makes you happy." His voice sounded smaller, much more human. "Sometimes it makes you incredibly sad. But at least you faced it now. That's the only way to conquer me."

Cupid dissolved into the wind.

Annabeth started making progress against the current. Her limbs felt like bags of wet sand, but Percy was helping her now. She could see the dark line of the shore about a stone's throw away.

"College," she gasped. "Could we go there together?"

"Y-yeah," he agree, a little more confidently.

"What would you study, Percy?"

"Dunno," he admitted.

"Marine science," she suggested. "Oceanography?"

"Surfing" he asked.

She laughed, and the sound sent a shock wave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise. Annabeth wondered if anyone had ever laughed in Tartarus before—just a pure, simple laugh of pleasure. She doubted it.

Chapitre XXIII :

Annabeth

Annabeth literally stumbled over the second titan.

After entering the storm front, they plodded on for what seemed like hours, relying on the light of Percy's Celestial brotuse blade, and on Bob, who glowed faindly in the dark like scene sort of crazy jamitor angel. Annabeth could only see about five feet on front of her.In a strange way, the Dark Lands reminded her of San Francisco, where her dad lived-on those summer afternooes when the fog bark rolled in like cold, wet packing material and swallowed Pacific Heights. Except here in Tartarus, the fog was made of ink.

Rocks loomed out of nowhere. Pits appeared at their feet, and Annabeth barely avoided falling in. Monstroes raors echoed in the gloose, but Annabeth couldn't tell where they came from. All she could be certain of was that the terrain was still sleping down.

Down seemed to be the only direction allowed in Tartarus. If Annabeth backtracked even a slep, she felt tired and heavy, as if gravity were increaving to discourage her. Assuming that the entire pit was the body of Tartarus, Annabeth had a nasty feeling they were marching straight down his throat.

She was so preoccupied with that throught, she didn't notice the ledge until it was too late.

Percy yelled, "Whea!" He grabbed for her arm, but she was already falling.Fortunately, it was only a shallow depresssion. Most of it was filled with a monster blister. She had a soft landing on a warm bouncy surface and was feeling Lucky-until she opened her eyes and found herself staring throught a glowing gold membrane at another, much larger face.

She screamed and flailed, toppling sideways off she mound. Her heart did a hundred jumping jacks.

Percy helped her to her feet. "You okay?"

She didn't trust herself to answer. If she opened her mouth, she might scream again, and that would be undignified. She was a daughter of Athena, not some shrill girlie victim in a horror movie.

Bad gods of Olympus... Curled in the membrane bubble in front of her was a fally formed Titan in golden...

Leo pulled a calculator out of his tool belt and punched in some numbers. "That's...something like three hundred miles out of our way to get to Venice. Then we'd have to backtrack down the Adriatic. And you said something about baloney dwarfs?"

"Dwarfs in Bologna," Hazel said.