6 ❦ Chapter Five: Orientation

❦ Kaiana Hamilton ❦

When Reyna said orientation, I prayed that Apollo did not make it. I was still scarred from the orientation video he'd made back in the '50s. I felt bad for Nico, having to watch it when he first arrived.

Based on Kayla's expression, she was praying for the same thing.

The group of us walked to orientation together, and our caretakers all hurried off after seating us at table twelve, the same number as our house.

A bunch of demigods from Camp Half-Blood stood up front. I also recognized a few from Camp Jupiter. But there were a few who were completely foreign to me, who I assumed were from the Norse and Egyptian equivalents of our camps.

Once all of the house units had arrived—sixty-four in total, half of those for girls and the other half for boys—Chiron stamped his foot on the marble floor of the auditorium, which was made in the traditional Greek style amphitheater. However, it had a few modern twists here and there and Norse runes and Egyptian hieroglyphs joined the Greek writing and Roman numerals labeled the seats.

"Heroes!" he called. He stamped his foot again. The clamor from the Greek demigods stopped instantly, but no other group shut their mouths, except our table, who looked at me and Brookelynn expectantly. When we shook our heads, telling them to be quiet, they were quiet.

Reyna stepped forward. "Legion! Respect Chiron!"

The Romans stopped talking.

A man I didn't know stepped forward. He was dark-skinned and handsome. "Magicians, please. Give the centaur your full attention." So he was here for the Egyptian magicians.

And another man stepped forward. He had a long, scraggly beard and wore a green shirt with a gold, entwined H and V symbol. "EINHERJI! QUIET!" Though his shot was less formal, it did the trick. The Norse calmed down, even though some murmured, "But we're not all einherji!"

Chiron waited a moment before starting. "Well. Welcome to Triad Kings College. As the previous few moments suggested, none of you will listen to just one of us. So I have found someone who has experience in all of our myths and more. She was the original founder of the school, having had the idea after seeing so little interaction between the groups despite blood ties that can not be ignored. I introduce to you, Tempest Mistral!"

A young woman stepped forward and there were gasps of recognition and awe from many. She had red hair dyed cream at the ends and shockingly bright blue eyes. She had a smattering of freckles, similarly to me and my siblings, but an intense gaze that seemed to see into your soul.

But the most shocking piece about Tempest Mistral was the fact she was our age.

"Heroes, I ask for your attention for the briefest of moments," Tempest said, not raising her voice but her voice still carrying throughout the amphitheater without difficulty.

A hush fell across the crowd.

"Thank you." She paused, her eyes traveling over each of us. "Many of you have seen me, even if only for moments. Some of you recognize me by name. Some of you recognize me by appearance. Some of you do not know me at all. But I assure you, I walk the paths between each of your worlds and many more." She paused and looked at the Norse. "Some of you know me by the name Raynelle Fjord." The Norse gasped. She looked to the Egyptians. "Some of you know me by the name Ahura." The Egyptians gasped. She looked to the Romans. "Some of you know me by the name Delta Evian." The Romans gasped. She looked to the Greeks, which included me. "Some of you know me by the name Azure Zephyrine." I couldn't keep back my gasp as we, too, gasped collectively.

Two years ago, Azure Zephyrine saved me from dying by falling off a cliff. She was known well in Camp Half-Blood as a shapeshifter, her appearance never once remaining the same.

Her eyes went to the back of the room. "You can stop hiding now."

We all turned as beings shimmered into existence behind us. I glanced around, my eyes darting around to find everyone as quickly as possible. I was glad Theo had given me an appearance run-down of the Norse deities, and the same for the Egyptians from Caitlyn.

I cast my eyes about, first with the Olympians and their Roman forms, with which I was familiar: Hermes, Athena, Ares, Hephaestus, Artemis, Apollo, Hera, Aphrodite, Hades, Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Dionysus, Persephone. Of course, they had somehow managed to duplicate themselves to show both Greek and Roman forms, to keep both camps happy. Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, Mars, Vulcan, Diana, Apollo, Juno, Minerva, Proserpina, Venus, Pluto, Bacchus, Ceres. Then I scanned the Norse, taking a moment to identify a few: Odin, Thor, Frey, Freya, Frigg, Tyr, Loki. The moment I saw Loki, my eyes flicked to Eva. She was sitting stock-still, looking very ill. My eyes flipped back to the Egyptian deities: Isis, Horus, Ra, Anubis, Osiris, Bast, Bes, Thoth, Set. There were more, but I couldn't identify them all. There were just too many of them.

Murmurs filled the room. I met Poseidon's eyes and he smiled. I waved hesitantly, elbowing Brookelynn.

Maybe I should explain the children-of-Poseidon thing. If the Big Three promised no more children(which Zeus and Poseidon both failed at already), how were we hear? Another mistake?

Nope.

That promise got revoked. They could have children again, but no more than six or seven children of the Big Three as a whole could be running around at one time. Any more than that, and that's when things got messy.

As of now, there was Thalia, Percy, Nico, Hazel, me, Brookelynn, and Axel. We all fit the limit. Of course, Thalia was outnumbered by the rest of us, but she spent most of her time with her Hunters, so she didn't really mind.

"So, demigods," Tempest Mistral said again, catching our attention. "You are all wondering who I am, yes?"

"Yes" filled the room, at different times and together in some cases.

"Am I demigod...magician...einherjar...anything at all?" Tempest Mistral's eyes glittered with amusement. "Demigods, magicians, and einherjar! I am a demigod, a magician, a shapeshifter, a runecaster, a sorceress, a nymph, a dryad. I am alive, though. I am everything you could imagine."

"Really?" one girl called. "Could you be...a snake?"

Tempest Mistral didn't move or give us any signal, but suddenly there was a rattlesnake rearing up in the place she had stood. Then she was once again a woman.

"Yes," she said evenly.

"A...horse?"

"Anything," Tempest Mistral said. "I would love to demonstrate more, but I have much to say." She scanned the crowd. "I am descended from many kings and many queens. My blood is royal and tainted with ichor. Pain is familiar to me, as it is to you. I have experienced things that even those wrapped in chains could never understand." Her gaze briefly settled on Loki before her eyes betrayed some sort of emotion and she looked back to us. "Demigods, most of you are runaways. But did you run at six years old from creatures that should have never existed? Were you forced from your home because of family or creatures unimaginable? Were you told you had a past you could not remember and a curse that would not fade? Did your life seem like a broken soundtrack?" She stopped, letting her questions linger. "For most of you, the answer is yes, but you do not share the same extent of pain as the person next to you or the one speaking to you right now." She smiled bitterly. It didn't reach her eyes. "My story...I can bet you would like to know it. Many of you would go to the extreme to find out my secrets"—once again her eyes lifted to the deities in the back of the amphitheater—"as some of you have already done. But I warn you, you will have little success in finding much about me.

"However, we are not here to talk about me. We are here to talk about you. Each of you have been hand-picked by your leaders—Chiron, Amos Kane, Praetor Reyna, Manager Helgi—to learn at Triad Kings College. You have been chosen for your intelligence, your bravery, your courage, your quests, your valor, your honor, your integrity, and your ability to handle pressure. If anything, this school will teach you how to survive anything, no matter it's mythological origin.

"And that is the problem," she continued, beginning to walk between us all now. "You are only trained with the knowledge of your own mythology. You stay within your groups and within your walls. Now, there are reasons for that. Amos Kane brought this point up when I first proposed the making of this college. It is simply too dangerous, sometimes, to get all of you together in one place. It causes chaos. But with some help from Sadie and Carter Kane, we have established barriers like the one around Camp Half-Blood to keep monsters and mortals out. But this will not protect everyone on its own. You will also have to be able to defend yourselves on your own."

"How!?" one boy cried. "We know nothing of these mythologies except our own!"

Tempest Mistral's smile was almost terrifying. "That is where I come in." She raised her eyes up as she crouched, fingertips pressed to the ground and palms raised up. She stood abruptly, conjuring a staff from the ground at the same time. It was silver with delicate gold work that looked like metal lace. The same lace-like stuff held a three-dimensional glass oval that glowed blue from the inside. She held it around for us all to see and spun it around spectacularly. The staff turned to sheer ivory.

"You have seen this staff before, magicians, have you not?"

Murmurs of assent rippled through the crowd. Caitlyn was staring at the staff with awe. She leaned to me.

"That staff is usually on display in the First Nome! It can only be summoned by what we call a Gateway Caster. In other words, someone extremely practiced in magic. She has to really know what she's doing to be able to call the staff and be able to use it," Caitlyn said in hushed tones.

She tossed the staff to Amos Kane, who caught it like it was a loaded gun he was afraid of using.

She called a single word in a different language and a sword was tossed to her. The blade was shaped a lot like Percy's sword Riptide, with a leaf-like blade. It had black edges but the center was gold. The hilt guard was also gold, as was most of the hilt, which was wrapped in black leather for a handgrip. The pommel, also gold, was shaped like an oval and had a Greek word inscribed in the bottom, which she held up for us to see.

"Written on the pommel of this sword is Kidemónas," she said and my brain automatically saw that written in Greek: Κηδεμόνας. "It means guardian. I am known to many as the Guardian for my task of guarding Olympus in the Ancient Days." She smiled as whispers flew. "Yes, I said Ancient Days. I shall tell you this now: there are those in the back of the room who know me as more than I am willing to say."

"The Oracle!" one kid blurted out. He looked terrified. "Y-you were called the Oracle in the Ancient Days in each mythology present. You had your name erased from documents, though, but the tale was passed down through some families...like mine."

"Very good," Tempest Mistral said. "I was indeed called the Oracle. I earned the title in addition to that of the Guardian upon my first vision—the Vision of Unity. It was this vision that brought me fame and gave me a reputation throughout the nine worlds and all groups who knew my name. However, it was this vision that gave me my curse: I was to carry out the Vision of Unity. Until I did, I would not have peace and all I loved would be lost." She made a slashing motion in the air with her hand. "So, with that curse, came a second: my soul would rebound upon my death, returned to youth and made to continue living. Because of this, I have seen civilizations rise and fall, kings become corrupt, emperors lose their minds, countries rise from nothing." Her eyes landed distinctly on me and Brookelynn, then Axel further away, and I felt my chest swell with pride. Suddenly her voice took on a darker edge. "But, if you thought my perilous curses ended there, you are mistaken.

"A third curse was born of the first two: I would love and be betrayed by that love in each life, never to remember this third curse until I was broken into despair again. But in this life, this curse has failed. I have become a formidable foe and a fearless fighter. Nothing will stop me from defending you and teaching you all you need to know to become true heroes."

I don't know why. Maybe it was the determination in her voice. Maybe it was the news she was breaking free of a curse that had haunted her since the Ancient Days. Maybe it was the fire in her eyes.

But every single one of us stood up in unison and clapped, cheering and shouting and yelling and making as much noise as possible. She sheathed her sword and Amos tossed her the staff. Her hands glowed with a golden light and she raised the staff high. I finally understood where the school's symbol—a staff and a sword crossed together—came from. They were her weapons.

A bigger realization hit me.

We were her freedom.

The group of students I saw around me—all of us were Tempest Mistral's freedom. We were the way she would break free of her curses or at least one of them. We were the Vision of Unity coming to life.

That just made the sound of our stomping, clapping, and hollering even sweeter.