“Do you know the legend of my creation?” Asterion asked.
Will took another bite of brownie. “I mean…sort of? At camp, they tell the story of how Poseidon wanted revenge on King Minos, so he cursed Queen Pasiphaë into falling in love with a white bull. And the baby was…” He gestured at the bull-man.
Asterion’s wet nostrils flared. “That much is true, unfortunately. My very birth was predicated on a trick. A terrible deception. Then, once I began to grow, my mother believed it was best that I be housed within a labyrinth.”
Hazel patted his hand, which was three times the size of hers. She glanced at Nico. “They said it was because he was too fierce and violent, tearing up the palace, eating people. But that wasn’t true. Minos and Pasiphaë just didn’t want to be embarrassed by his presence.”
Nico felt a twinge of sympathy. He knew about being stowed away, kept out of sight by a parent.
“I guess I never thought of it from your point of view,” he told Asterion. “You didn’t get a choice, did you?”
“Correct, son of Hades.” Asterion’s mouth twitched again—definitely a sad smile. Nico was starting to figure out bovine facial expressions. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. “No one asked me whether I wanted to have seven youths and seven maidens sacrificed to me every seven years! I don’t evenlikehuman flesh. You taste like…what do you call it? Beef jerky?”
Will shuddered. “That’s a fun mental image.”
Hazel nodded in agreement. “I haven’t eaten any since he said the same thing to me.”
“But that is not the point,” said Asterion. “I was never asked whatIwanted to do. Not in my mortal life. Nor afterward, when I was killed for the first time and sent to the Underworld.”
“By Theseus,” Nico said.
He knew immediately he’d said something wrong. Asterion’s brown eyes turned red.
“Do not say that fool’s name in my presence.” His booming voice echoed through the barracks.
“Sorry!” Nico raised his hands in concession. “I should have figured he was a sensitive subject.”
“Did you know that nightmare of a human did not even kill me on purpose?”
Hazel leaned back. “What? I haven’t heard this part.”
“I had nearly defeated him!” Asterion huffed loudly. “Then he slipped in a pool of his own blood and accidentally stabbed me! He got lucky!”
“Am I hallucinating?” Will asked.
“No, son of Apollo,” said the bull-man. “Your mind is sound.”
“Is it?” Will whispered to himself.
The whole situation was so absurd, Nico wanted to laugh, but Asterion’s eyes still glowed like laser beams. He decided not to risk it. “So, after the Labyrinth, you regenerated in Tartarus….”
“And my existence settled into a routine,” Asterion said. “It was the same for millennia. People in power summoned me—gods, Titans, greater primordials—and sent me after their enemies. I…I killed many over the years. I was always toldYou are terrifying. You are dangerous. Kill this hero. Eat that hero. Bellow and rampage! That is your job!But after Percy Jackson, when I regenerated once again in Tartarus, there was only silence. Time stretched endlessly before me. Without any real purpose, I began to wonder: What didIwant to do?”
The barracks filled with a tense silence.
Finally, Will asked, “Did you figure it out?”
Asterion grunted, his eyes mellowing to a warm brown. “While I may sometimes curse my birth, I am pleased that I was born with human hands.” He wriggled his banana-size fingers. “During my years in the Labyrinth, I learned that I have a natural skill for one thing….”
“Arm wrestling?” guessed Nico.
“Singing?” asked Will.
Nico and Hazel looked at him quizzically.
“Well, he has a nice bass voice,” Will explained.
“Wrong on both counts,” said Asterion. “What I excel at is…” From the back of his kilt, he whipped out two thin metal spikes. For a moment, Nico was afraid the bull-man was going to announce that his natural skill was shanking demigods. Then Nico realized he’d seen spikes like those before. His nonna in Venice had never been without a pair, along with a ball of yarn.
