The air reeked of sulfur and scorched earth as the dust began to settle. The crater stretched before them, a monument to calculated violence. Where once stood trees and undergrowth now lay only desolation—a perfectly circular scar carved into the world by Medea's will.

  Jake staggered to his feet first. His face was streaked with soot, tool belt hanging askew from his waist. "You... you just..." Words abandoned him as he surveyed the destruction.

  "Solved our problem," Medea finished, her laughter fading to a satisfied purr. Her eyes swept across the blasted landscape with the same pride an artist might regard a finished masterpiece. "Quite efficiently, I'd say."

  Clarisse pushed herself up, muscles trembling from the shock rather than fear. Her gaze hardened as she took in the devastation. "That was overkill. Even for a dragon."

  "There's no such thing as overkill." Medea's tail swished behind her with lazy satisfaction. "Only 'dead' and 'not dead enough.'"

  The warrior woman scowled but couldn't argue with the results. Nothing could have survived that impact. Nothing should have.

  The ground beneath their feet shifted subtly. A warning bell rang in Medea's mind as Nidhoggr pulsed against her hip. Something stirred beneath the rubble at the crater's center—not large enough to be Fafnir, but alive nonetheless.

  "Stay here," she commanded, stalking forward with predatory grace.

  Heat still radiated from the impact zone, warping the air into shimmering waves. Medea navigated the scorched terrain with quick, deliberate steps, her nostrils flaring as she cataloged new scents—melted stone, vaporized gold, and something else... ancient and otherworldly.

  At the crater's heart lay a small mound of cooling slag. The ground around it pulsed with a faint, sickly light. Medea crouched, claws extended as she carefully scraped away debris.

  A rune-marked stone emerged from the rubble, its crystalline magenta surface untouched by the devastation that had consumed everything else. It glowed with inner light, symbols etched into its surface shifting and reforming as if alive.

  "What did you find?" Jake called, ignoring her earlier command as he picked his way carefully toward her.

  Medea lifted the stone, turning it in her palm. The runes crawled across its surface like liquid mercury, reforming into patterns she almost recognized.

  "Something that doesn't belong," she murmured, narrowing her eyes. "Something older than Fafnir."

  Clarisse joined them, her sword still drawn. "Is that what he was after?"

  "No." Medea's ears twitched in contemplation. "This was inside him. Whatever he was, he was merely a vessel."

  The scent is destruction, Nidhoggr rumbled. I have known it before… but time has worn the edges of memory. So much is gone.

  "Is that what this is? Destruction?"

  The rune shimmered with restrained violence, its energy pressing against the limits of its form. She could feel it crawling beneath her skin, taste it in her breath—power unshaped, waiting.

  "We should take it back to camp," Jake suggested, reaching toward it with mechanical curiosity.

  Medea's hand closed around the stone before he could touch it. "It belongs to me, and only me."

  Tucking the rune into her pocket, she rose to her full height. The forest around the crater had begun to stir again—wildlife cautiously returning, assessing the new landscape with primitive wariness. Overhead, a pegasus shrieked, circling the destruction before winging its way back toward camp.

  "They've noticed," Clarisse observed, sheathing her blade. "Might as well get back before they send a search party."

  Medea's lips curved into something adjacent to a smile. "You mean before they try to punish me for unauthorized destruction of forest property?"

  "As if they could," Jake muttered, too quietly for anyone but Medea's sensitive ears to catch.

  The journey back was different. Where they had ventured out as suspicious strangers, they returned as... something else. Not friends—Medea didn't have friends. But companions who had witnessed her strength and survived. That alone elevated them above most mortals in her estimation.

  They walked in silence for the first mile, the only sounds were their footfalls and the shrieks of the pegasus. The rune in Medea's pocket felt heavier with each step, pulsing with subtle heat against her thigh.

  "That sword of yours," Clarisse said finally, breaking the quiet. "It's not celestial bronze or imperial gold."

  "No," Medea agreed, offering nothing more.

  "And your skin—when Fafnir tried to claw you." The warrior's eyes narrowed in professional assessment. "Not a scratch."

  Medea flicked an ear in acknowledgment. "Perceptive."

  "Are you really a daughter of Aphrodite?" Jake asked, his voice betraying both skepticism and fascination.

  "My mother is love incarnate," Medea replied, stepping over a fallen log without breaking stride. "But love takes many forms. For some, it's gentle caresses and whispered promises. For others..." Her eyes gleamed with remembered violence, "...it's the exquisite beauty of perfectly executed destruction."

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Clarisse snorted. "You'd get along with my father."

  "Ares?" Medea's lips quirked. "Too impulsive. Too wasteful. He destroys without appreciation for the artistry."

  The camp's borders shimmered in the distance, the magical boundary rippling like heat off asphalt. Already, figures gathered at the edge of the treeline. Word traveled fast, especially when half the forest erupted in a column of otherworldly destruction visible for miles. Medea could make out Chiron's silhouette at the center of the gathering crowd, his ancient eyes trained on their approach.

  "Ready to explain how you turned half the forest into a smoking crater?" Jake asked, gesturing toward the waiting audience.

  Medea's hand closed around the rune in her pocket. Its power thrummed against her palm, secrets waiting to be unraveled. Her tail swished once, decisively.

  "No," she said, striding forward with unwavering purpose. "I'm ready to get some answers of my own."

  Behind her, Jake and Clarisse exchanged glances. The son of Hephaestus limped slightly, a souvenir from being thrown nearly twenty feet by the blast wave. His fingers twitched toward his tool belt every few seconds, the mechanical part of his brain already dissecting what he'd witnessed, cataloging impossibilities.

  "She's going to cause a scene," Clarisse murmured, her voice just low enough that only Jake could hear. Blood had dried in a thin line from her temple to her jaw, cracking whenever she spoke.

  "Would you rather she didn't? After what we just saw?" Jake asked, fiddling nervously with his tool belt.

  The warrior woman's hand settled on her sword hilt but didn't draw. "I'd rather understand what we're walking into before the gods start throwing lightning bolts."

  Medea's fingers dipped into her pocket, brushing against its surface. The rune burned hotter against her leg. Images flashed behind her eyes—stars twisted around an impossible void, walls inscribed with unknown symbols, a darkness that breathed and hungered. A silhouette of absence—a figure of unlight tinged with magenta—rested on a throne forged from the husks of dying stars. She withdrew her hand sharply, snarling at the scent of her own singed fingertips.

  Pain—strange, almost forgotten—stole her balance.

  What was this thing she’d uncovered?

  A hushed silence fell over the assembled campers as they emerged from the treeline. Dozens of eyes tracked their progress—wary, confused, and in some cases, openly hostile. The explosion had shattered the afternoon calm, sending ripples of panic through Camp Half-Blood's sheltered boundaries. Tension hummed in the air, almost tangible against Medea's skin.

  Percy Jackson stood near Chiron, his hand resting on Riptide's disguised form. His sea-green eyes narrowed as he took in their battered appearance. Nearby, Annabeth's analytical gaze darted between the three of them, reconstructing events from the evidence of their torn clothing and ash-streaked faces.

  "What happened out there?" A young camper's voice rose from the crowd, breaking the strained silence.

  Medea ignored the question, her focus locked on Chiron. The ancient centaur's expression shifted minutely as she approached—recognition flickering across his features for the briefest moment before being replaced by careful neutrality. A twitch cracked through his otherwise calm expression—just enough to betray the tension beneath.

  "Medea." He inclined his head, the gesture balanced precisely between respect and caution. "You've caused quite a stir."

  She stopped before him, close enough that the difference in their heights forced him to look down to meet her gaze. Medea's hand slipped into her pocket, withdrawing the rune stone. Its magenta surface caught the sunlight, sending fractured patterns dancing across the ground like echoes of forgotten power.

  "Tell me what this is." Her voice carried a dangerous undercurrent despite its softness. It wasn't a request.

  The crowd pressed closer, curious murmurs rising at the sight of the stone. Clarisse and Jake flanked Medea, their presence a silent testament to what they'd witnessed.

  Chiron's gaze dropped to the rune, and something ancient and weary passed behind his eyes. His front hoof pawed at the earth once, twice, before he stilled himself.

  "Where did you find this?" His voice had dropped an octave, centuries of carefully maintained composure slipping for just a moment.

  Medea's lips curved upward, the expression more predatory than amused. "Inside a dragon that shouldn't exist, after it mentioned a master that shouldn't be possible." She rolled the stone between her fingers, letting it catch the light. "Your turn, teacher."

  Chiron's hooves shifted against the dusty earth as his face performed an impressive series of microexpressions—fear flashing across his features before being hastily masked with practiced neutrality. The centaur's fingers twitched against his tweed jacket, straightening it unnecessarily.

  "I'm afraid I don't recognize this particular marking." His voice was steady, but the lie hung in the air between them like rotting fruit.

  Medea's pupils contracted to vertical slits. She inhaled slowly. The bitter perfume of lies clung to the air like smoke.

  Battle-heat still radiated from her skin, the air around her shimmering faintly as she catalogued every tell in Chiron’s performance—the subtle tension at his jawline, the fractional dilation of his pupils, the nearly imperceptible quickening of his pulse at his throat.

  "Is that so?" She rolled the rune between her fingers, feeling the boundless power contained within. "Funny. Your body disagrees."

  Around them, campers whispered and pointed. Ash still dusted her shoulders, black ichor stained her claws. The earth-shaking display of power she'd unleashed miles away had painted the sky with apocalyptic light visible even from here. These children had never seen true destruction—only the sanitized, PG-13 versions their little quests provided.

  Percy stepped forward, tension radiating from his stance. "Maybe we should discuss this inside—"

  "No." Medea's voice cut like obsidian. She shifted her weight slightly, centering herself. This wasn't a battlefield requiring brute force—it was a hunt requiring patience. "I think candor serves us better here, Chiron. Whatever this rune connects to was significant enough to draw Fafnir—who mentioned a master."

  She advanced with measured steps, tail swaying like a serpent coiled in silk. "I dislike being used as a chess piece in games I don't understand."

  Chiron's eyes darted briefly to the watching campers, calculating the political cost of this public confrontation. When he spoke again, his voice dropped to meet hers.

  "We should speak privately, Medea. Some knowledge is dangerous when spread carelessly."

  Her expression twisted into the ghost of a smile—all predator, no warmth. "I thought you didn't recognize the rune."

  The centaur met her gaze steadily. "The World Runes are too dangerous to fall into mortal hands."

  Medea tucked the rune away, her movements fluid and unhurried. The satisfaction of cornering prey hummed beneath her skin. Nidhoggr pulsed silent agreement at her hip.

  "Very well. Let's talk history, teacher." Her eyes flicked briefly to Jake and Clarisse, who stood coated in soot and silence. "After all, I've had such an educational afternoon already."