Chapter Text
Triton only had one brother.
One brother and two sisters. Poseidon might stick his trident in more places than even Zeus’s thunderbolt dared to venture, but that didn’t change what Triton knew to be true. No matter how talented the Cyclopes might be, how powerful the demigods, or how destructive the monsters, Triton recognised only the three siblings he loved and trusted. Rhode, Kymopoleia, and Perseus. Two sisters. One brother.
One, he thought frequently, with an exhaustion to rival Atlas’s, was more than enough.
Perseus exploded into his life and never stopped confusing him. One moment, Triton was peacefully delivering some messages to some merfolk in the Aegean Sea—not that it was called the Aegean Sea at the time, seeing as Aegeus wouldn’t be born for centuries—when a ripple of power nearly knocked him out of the water. It was a familiar sort of power, and yet fundamentally alien. For a moment, it had frightened him. It was like looking into a warped mirror.
But he was a soldier. A general. He was Poseidon’s heir. Triton went to investigate the threat, and he found a screaming child.
Perseus was born in the image of a mortal young man, with tanned skin and the same blue-black hair and green eyes that Triton, and many of the siblings he refused to recognise, shared with their father. Scars littered his body—no, not scars, Triton corrected himself. Birthmarks. They glowed like cracks in his skin, white light leaking out from them. His divinity. On one hand, on one finger, he wore a bronze ring studded with pearls.
Triton came across him in an underwater cave. He was clinging to the jagged rocks that lined the walls, gripping and punching them so hard that his hands flashed gold with ichor. It soaked into the water around him, shimmering in the light of his birth, until it was like he was viewing the child through an Iris message. His screaming didn’t help matters. The cave shook with the force of it, and the water trembled around him uneasily.
With a sigh, Triton recognised the cave. It hadn’t been used in some time, but his father had his retreats, just like Hephaestus had his workshops. Except where Hephaestus made automatons, Poseidon made… spawn. Sometimes he made them the old-fashioned way, enticing a moony-eyed nymph or mortal or sometimes even gods to join with him underwater, in his domain, totally surrounded and at his mercy. And sometimes he liked to put a little more design into it, like he had when creating horses. This cave was one of those places he liked to call a cradle.
He had to wonder who had been this child’s other parent. Amphitrite had never stooped so low as to lie with her husband in a place like this, but it must have been someone divine. Contrary to the monsters Poseidon loved so much, this was clearly a young god.
Triton sent a part of his consciousness scurrying off to fetch Poseidon himself. If he hadn’t already moved onto another lover, that was. In the meantime, someone needed to calm the newborn before he collapsed the cave on himself.
Unfortunately, that person had to be Triton.
“There, there,” he tried to soothe. He kicked his tails so he could drift closer. The power burning off of the child would have been enough to vaporise a lesser deity. But Triton was the heir to Poseidon. Prince of the Seas. No matter what those fools on Olympus thought of him, he was no lesser deity. “Be calm, young one. I know the world of the seas is confusing, but that is where its beauty lies.”
It was the sort of thing Amphitrite used to say to him as a young, overwhelmed god trying to find his place. Apparently it didn’t work on this one quite so well. At least he stopped screaming.
Stopped screaming and spun around in the water to gape. “Triton?”
He looked no less confused.
“So, you were born with knowledge of the world already,” Triton observed. It wasn’t unheard of. They were gods. Rhode had been born chattering about the sun, for some reason. “That is good. That will serve you well.”
“What?” He said the word slowly, with a heavy accent, but it was understandable.
Triton eyed him critically. “You weren’t born with a tail, though. Strange. You look more like one of Father’s demigod spawn than a god.”
“I am a demigod.” Again, his words were thickly accented and slow, like a sea slug crawling across the seafloor.
Triton glanced from the ichor in the water back to the child. “Not born with much knowledge, then,” he noted. “Or perhaps you simply have so much that you are confused.”
The god was staring at him still, mouth open, muscles in his jaw twitching. He looked like a fish before it dove for the safety of an anemone. “What?” he repeated.
“You are a child of my father, that much is clear. Do you know your other parent? Is that one of the names in your head?”
“Sally.”
Sally. It wasn’t a name Triton had ever heard before—and he was a messenger, so he had heard a lot of names. But being a messenger also meant he knew how not to react to baffling information. How to be… diplomatic.
“A beautiful name,” he said. “And do you know yours?”
“Perseus.” Something had changed in the god, now. He’d shut his mouth. Clenched his fists and his jaw. He was suddenly preternaturally still.
Was he about to lose control? If so, Triton should probably flee. He was a powerful god, but even he didn’t enjoy being burned by godly tantrums. Where was his father? The manifestation he’d sent to look for him was still swimming in circles. At least if Perseus exploded, Poseidon would no doubt sense it and come running himself…
But detonating oneself like that was immeasurably painful. It would leave Perseus putting himself back together for decades. How had Amphitrite managed Kymopoleia’s temper tantrums?
“Look at me,” Triton said. “What are you thinking?” Yes. That was how she’d begun. Kymopoleia had always responding with language foul enough to pollute all of Atlantis, but it had released some of the tension inside her.
Perseus looked at him. It didn’t seem to help. His green eyes—so much like Triton’s sisters’—were wide and terrified. “I don’t… I can’t…”
“Focus on me,” Triton said. “What are you thinking? You must use language, not power. If you use power, you might bring the cave system down upon yourself.” Not on Triton. Triton would disappear and get out of here in time, of course. But he suspected that wasn’t one of the skills Perseus would have instantly figured out as a newborn god.
“I’m not that powerful,” Perseus said.
“It would not require much power for a god.”
Perseus clenched his fists even tighter. “I’m not a god!” The tension built. Triton could feel it, like a tsunami rolling in.
“What are you thinking?” Triton urged. This was not going as planned. Where was Poseidon?
Perseus’s chest rose and fell. It took Triton a long time to realise he was trying to breathe. Merfolk didn’t have lungs—they breathed through their gills—so it was only land dwellers and sea mammals that behaved like this. Strange, for a child of the sea. Even one born in the guise of a mortal.
Triton let it pass without comment, though. If Perseus, as a god, had seen fit to give himself lungs to breathe water with, that didn’t matter right now. So long as he used them to calm himself down.
“I think,” Perseus said—and by the tides, his voice cracked. Triton was not prepared for this. “I want—”
He sucked in a hurried breath. It was always difficult to tell underwater, but Triton thought he might have been on the verge of tears.
“I want to go home,” Perseus said quietly.
Triton tried not to groan out loud. Perseus had been born here, in this cave. This should be his home! Which meant the only other place he could be referring to was…
His mother would not be happy.
Where was Poseidon!?
“Come,” Triton said. “I will take you to Atlantis.”
It took an age. Perseus didn’t want him to touch him. Triton had to coax and convince him to change his form. Eventually, Perseus seemed to give up on insisting he was a demigod when he consented to try and make himself a pair of tails, and they popped into existence right where his legs had been.
He stared at them in horror.
“Much better,” Triton soothed, though he was looking at them critically. Yes… they’d do. But they were a lurid shade of blue, brighter and bolder than anything you’d find under the ocean. He didn’t know where Perseus had got a penchant for that colour from. “Let’s go home. This way.”
He could just vanish them there, but he didn’t trust Perseus not to disappear in transit. Triton could already tell he was a troublemaker.
Triton’s other manifestation had finally tracked down Poseidon and chivvied him to the Atlantean throne room. His lady mother was also there, looking quizzically at the both of them. She did not look amused when Triton shared his news.
“A god?” she demanded. “My lord, you know I do not mind your proclivities. But that does not mean you can create godlings on a whim. What impact could a divine child of yours have on undersea politics? They will be here forever. What—”
That was Triton’s mother. Always thinking about the politics. Because someone had to, and they all knew Poseidon wouldn’t.
But for once, Poseidon wasn’t listening to his beloved wife. He was still staring at Triton. “A child?” he asked.
“Yes, Father.”
“A godly child? Fully divine?”
“Unless mortal blood has turned gold.”
“I have not procreated with a god in years. Not since”—he glanced at Amphitrite, who pursed her lips, already knowing what he was going to say—“the horse incident.”
Yes. Arion. Triton couldn’t blame the foal for being so foul-mouthed. The circumstances of his birth had made Atlantis a laughingstock.
“I do not need to hear about your sexual history, Father,” Triton said politely.
“This child cannot be mine—not with another god.”
“I found him in a cave. A favourite cave of yours.”
At that, Amphitrite just sighed. Triton shared his mother’s opinion on Poseidon’s lack of class.
“My love,” Poseidon said, “I swear that I have not lain with another god in recent years. I did not intend this.”
“He is… confused,” Triton added, cutting into their domestic-political dispute before they could get going. “Upset. He did not appreciate my help, but he has deigned to swim toward Atlantis with me. We are almost here. You can see for yourself, Father. I can sense your divinity in him.”
He didn’t speak a moment too soon. That was just when Triton and Perseus approached the palace and swam into the throne room.
His parents turned to look. Triton dissolved one of his forms into bubbles, so he spared himself the headache of keeping both of them up. Unfortunately, he chose to dissolve the one that was right next to Perseus, who jumped at the movement, spun around, and started to panic all over again. Distantly, they heard trembling, like the water around Atlantis had suddenly started to strain against the palace walls.
With a wave of his hand, Poseidon calmed it. Calmed Perseus, too. He seemed to notice Poseidon then, and every line of his body relaxed. “Dad?”
Triton jolted at the familiar address. He hadn’t called Poseidon something that casual since he was very young indeed. But Perseus was young, and it was obvious in his voice. He was clearly trying to be strong, to keep his emotions and his overwhelm under control, but his voice shook with the same frequency as the water around him.
Amphitrite’s glare softened.
Poseidon was staring at Perseus, taking in everything Triton had told him about already. It was obvious that Perseus was his son. He looked just like him, even with that garish tail. And he shone with the power of the sea.
He also shone with something else, but Triton wouldn’t figure that out for a long time.
His father swam forward. “Perseus,” he said, tasting the name on his tongue. “My son.”
When he embraced him, Perseus clung to him like a barnacle. Triton felt a smile start to stretch across his lips and stopped it, holding onto his famed passive expression. His mother was not so professional. She did not hide the sympathy—and the curiosity—in her eyes.
Triton followed her gaze. She’d noticed what he had, earlier. On the fourth digit of his left hand, Perseus was wearing a bronze ring. It was studded with oblong-shaped pearls, set into a curling, engraved design like the branches of a tree or plant. A slim, elegant piece of jewellery for a god who was only newly born.
He wondered what it might mean.
Perseus was a handful from the start. He barely spoke Greek, and while he seemed to have the natural understanding of Atlantean that all children of Poseidon did, it took him some time to actually be able to speak it. It meant that when he threw a tantrum, it took all of Triton’s willpower to get him to calm down.
Perhaps ‘tantrum’ was too harsh a word. Perseus was clearly overwhelmed. Triton had never met a god who was so ill-prepared to be a god before. He was clearly trying very hard to control himself and his powers, but in light of his circumstances, his control wasn’t enough. He caused more than a few storms, squalls, and riptides as he tagged along on Triton’s messenger runs.
Triton wasn’t the only one looking after him. Their parents—because Amphitrite had decided that the two of them must have conceived him, somehow, though how Poseidon had managed to give birth to him in that cave they did not know—coddled him the way they always did their young children. And if they insisted that the best way to explore the ocean that was his birthright was to follow his older brother around… well, Triton shouldn’t be surprised. They’d done this with Kymopoleia and Rhode.
With how headache-inducing Perseus was, he was almost starting to miss Kymopoleia’s storms—she’d been sulking over her marriage for years—only for her to show up and disabuse him of that. The glee with which she grinned at her impressionable little brother did not fill Triton with confidence. But the way Perseus flinched back from her was worse.
“Calm down,” Triton ordered her. “You are scaring him.”
She looked offended. “I’m not scaring him. You’re babying him.”
“He is a baby—”
“I can hear you both,” Perseus muttered, rubbing his head.
Kymopoleia threw back her head and laughed, sharp white teeth flashing. “A baby with an attitude!”
Triton sighed.
Things did not get better, and Rhode did not help. She’d long since mastered the art of staying out of conversations like this. Triton was used to being the older brother, but he hadn’t been that much older than his sisters, all things considered. He’d never been in a position where he had to care for an immortal being who was so new. So ignorant.
He wanted to go on land! What could possibly have possessed him to want something like that?
On that, at least, Perseus seemed to take his advice into consideration. Then he swam off and visited land himself, somehow remembering how to give himself legs instead of tails, and returned days later faintly stunned. Whatever he’d found there, it was not what he had expected.
“The mortals,” he said. “They’re so… docile.”
Triton frowned. “They always have been.”
Perseus turned away, muttering something about Prometheus. Triton hoped Perseus never met that particular Titan. He was too strong-willed. He thought too differently. They’d be terrible influences on each other. When eventually Prometheus had the bright idea to give mortals fire, that only solidified his resolve. Perseus, unfortunately, was fascinated.
His little brother was fascinated by a lot of things.
But he settled in. He was a nice presence to have in Atlantis. Triton liked feeling needed, and Perseus always managed to look at the world in ways he would never have anticipated. Their sisters came to visit more often as well, and once Perseus had got over his initial—and completely understandable—terror of Kymopoleia, the two decided to double Triton’s migraines. Kymopoleia was obsessed with finding out what Perseus’s domains were. No matter how much Triton and Rhode both pointed out that it could take centuries for such responsibilities to be awarded to a young god, she was insistent. He was obviously a sea god. But of what? Whenever she dragged him off to make storms, it was Triton who had to clean up the mess.
They all knew his father wouldn’t do it. Poseidon took far too much delight in all of this.
Perseus was a good brother. A good prince. He took his duties seriously—seriously enough that even Triton started to understand Kymopoleia’s concerns. Why hadn’t he received his domains yet? He was responsible enough for them.
Whenever he said as much, Perseus looked shifty, so Triton could only conclude that he was up to some mischief that hadn’t yet reached Triton’s ears. He would swim away and mentally prepare himself for the storm squalls, but none ever came. That only made him more antsy.
There was one horrible incident where Poseidon and all his immediate family were called to attend Zeus’s wedding to Themis. It was an insult, considering that his first wife, Metis, had been of the seas and he had swallowed her whole, but duty was duty. The worst part was that the celebration on Olympus went on for so long that Themis bore her first children to Zeus. She presented them there: three sisters, to represent the seasons. It was a polite affair, everyone cooing over the new godlings, until the Fates had shown up.
Mortals would one day be confused as to whether the Fates were the children of Nyx, the primordial goddess of Night, or the second set of triplets born to Themis and Zeus. Triton could only assume that was because the three of them showed up in the middle of the Horai’s birthday celebrations, and they provided a convenient excuse for why Zeus decided to divorce Themis shortly thereafter. From Poseidon’s gossip, there were a thousand other reasons: Zeus had realised Themis was too intelligent for him to bluff to, she’d realised what a bad idea this was, Hera had finally matured out of being a complete harpy and was suddenly the most eligible bride instead… But there was no denying that the Fates’ appearance had spooked Zeus greatly. It spooked Triton even more, because they were staring right at his brother.
Perseus just sighed, which was not how one should react to the personal attention of the Fates, and went to talk to them.
He never told Triton what they said.
If he’d thought being the oldest brother was bad, it was nothing to being a parent.
Triton watched his extended family grow rapidly—after marrying Hera, it seemed that Zeus still could not settle on one lover—and was thrilled that he had nothing to do with raising the new brats to tend to their own domains and duties. Perhaps if he had, Apollo would not have been so vapid, Hermes would not have been so insufferable, and Ares would not have… well, no. Ares was the child of Zeus and Hera. He’d been a lost cause from the beginning.
None of the gossip made him yearn for fatherhood, but it found him anyway. There was a lake he liked to visit in Libya. It got him away from his duties. It also ended up bearing his name, Tritones, and several of his nymph children.
He was not unaware of how dangerous it was for nymphs in a world where Zeus—and Poseidon, for that matter—existed, so he dedicated himself to teaching his daughters how to fight. Perseus, by this point a settled god, helped. He never did take to the trident, but he was skilled enough with a sword.
By this point, his domains were starting to make themselves known. Loyalty was a powerful force, and Poseidon spent a long time trying to keep his son a secret from Zeus before Zeus decided that he was a threat. It shouldn’t have been too hard. Perseus was a sea god, even if, as far as they could tell, the Fates hadn’t seen fit to gift him responsibility over any small part of their father’s kingdom. Endurance was the other one that had reared its head, and that had definitely set Olympus buzzing. It was technically Atlas’s domain. Perseus had somehow proven more worthy of representing endurance than even the Titan who held up the sky. Triton had never managed to deduce what, exactly, Perseus was enduring that made him such an attractive candidate.
Olympus desperately wanted to see more of him. That was the polite way of putting it, at least. Whenever Hermes passed on messages for Triton to deliver, he tried to wheedle his way underwater to see more of the elusive new god. Triton always bristled and left without a word.
New god? Perseus had been born long before Hermes!
Perseus wanted to walk the lands above. He liked inspiring loyalty and the will to endure in mortals, especially now they were sentient enough to appreciate it, as well as the denizens of the sea. Poseidon always got anxious about it—and Poseidon’s anxiety could shake the very earth Perseus wanted to walk. Lake Tritones was a nice compromise. It was firmly allied to Triton and the sea. No sky gods would bother them there.
If Triton knew that Perseus still slipped away in a thousand different forms, visiting mortals as birds, as breezes, as sparkling light on the water, then Poseidon didn’t need to find out. He worried too much. Triton did too, but he knew that Perseus could look after himself.
His opinion changed after his daughter died.
They had miscalculated. The nymphs of Lake Tritones were such capable warriors that by the time Athena was born—a child of Metis, somehow survived inside her own father all these years?—Zeus could think of no better place to send her. Triton honestly couldn’t protest too much. Metis had been, after all, of the sea. Perhaps so was Athena.
It seemed so at first. She settled in well. Pallas, one of Triton’s favourites, liked her especially. And then there was the accident.
Perseus had been the first by Triton’s side when she fell. Together the four of them knelt in the sands of Libya as Pallas passed, and Athena cried hard enough to come undone.
She never came back to the lake.
Triton had never had a child die before. It was an alien concept for gods. He had stayed with his daughters, keeping himself together so as to let them grieve, but when Perseus offered him comfort in private he found he couldn’t pretend. Those were the hardest decades of his immortal life.
He would be the first to admit that he changed after that. He trained his daughters more fiercely. His trident was never far from his side. And he snitched to Poseidon just how often Perseus had been visiting the surface, despite his fears.
Perseus took several years to forgive him for that. It was too late for Poseidon to do anything, though. By then, the mirrored domains of hope and spite had taken root in his brother. They were enormous responsibilities, which dovetailed nicely with loyalty and endurance, but still left Triton baffled. Perseus was one of the most pampered gods in the pantheon, with how much Poseidon and Amphitrite adored him. From where did he get his spite?
It meant he was an eager champion of demigods, of both the sea and land. He rescued the first of the landed greats from drowning, and for that the boy’s mother renamed him Perseus, for all that her son’s father was Zeus. When Triton had asked him, in front of all their family, why he had felt compelled to rescue a child of Zeus who had dared trespass in Poseidon’s territory, Perseus had looked at him askance.
“He’s a baby, Triton.”
“He is a demigod.”
“It’s important to me that he gets a happy ending.”
Perseus froze, as if he hadn’t meant to say that. Poseidon was watching him closely.
He didn’t object to the rescue operation, so Triton folded away his worries too and simply observed his brother’s meddling. Perseus was careful not to be caught in said meddling. The story that spread about Danaë and the boy was that Poseidon had saved them after a desperate prayer, and that they’d washed up near to a kind fisherman as mere coincidence. When later songs were sung about Perseus, the first king of Mycenae, and his trials, they mentioned the gods who helped him: Hermes, Athena… But they never mentioned who’d gone to those gods in the first place and turned their gazes toward the boy. They never mentioned the one who’d told him a princess was about to be eaten by a sea monster, and how to slay a famously terrifying beast.
Perseus—the god—had been at loggerheads with Poseidon for years after that one. He never offered a satisfactory answer for why he’d done it. Just that the boy needed to have a happy ending. It was important.
It didn’t change things, in the end. By now, Olympus had finally sunk its claws into him. The king and queen insisted he spend more time on the mountain. For surveillance purposes, no doubt, but Perseus didn’t seem to mind too much, befriending enough gods that he was able to mobilise some to help his chosen heroes where necessary. Olympians casually and warmly started to say that Perseus was hardly a sea god at all. That always sent Perseus back to the ocean in rage.
Triton would never admit to sometimes thinking the same thing. Why had Perseus never received an oceanic domain? As tempting as it was to blame Perseus for spending too much time on land and not showing the proper devotion to the seas, that was false. Perseus spent so much of his existence under the waves, using his domains in their own kingdom. But still, he was never given a piece of it to watch over.
The Trojan War marked so many turning points for the gods that Perseus’s went easily forgotten. Triton, though, showed up in the Hellespont one day to demand answers.
“You developed a new ability,” he opened without preamble, standing in the waves while Perseus sat cross-legged at the edge of the surf. The Greek camp wasn’t far from here. Nor was Troy. Perseus had been neutral, as usual. He said everyone here felt too much loyalty, too much hope, for him to disrespect them.
Perseus smiled. It was a sly smile, like he knew something Triton didn’t. “No one gossips like a naiad, huh?”
Triton would not dignify that with a response. He was a messenger, not a gossipmonger. “Explain to me what happened with Scamander.”
“He had some problems with pollution. I helped.”
Triton mouthed the word: pollution. It wasn’t one he recognised. It wasn’t the one he’d use to describe blood and bodies blocking and poisoning a river, either.
“Achilles should have known better,” Perseus added. “He’s a child of the sea as well.”
“Thetis is already mourning him. Foolish.” Triton shook his head. “The boy made his choice a long time ago.”
Perseus gave him a sharp look. “You’ve gotten really jaded since Pallas died, Triton. That was cruel.”
Triton pulled his lips back from his teeth to display the shark-like incisors he liked to sport. He never knew why Perseus favoured that mortal form of his. His own teeth were like pebbles. “I speak only the truth. He was told his options. He did not come here ignorant of his fate. I suspect that when he dies, he will not regret it. He’s a hero. This glory is what they long for.”
“Theseus has jaded you too, huh?” Perseus observed. Triton tried not to snarl again. A vaunted son of Poseidon, a great hero, and king of Athens, just to irk Athena for her petty rivalry with their father… what had happened to him? Once, Amphitrite had invited him to Atlantis with full honours. Now, he had drowned, after a long list of crimes against mortals and gods alike.
Perhaps, if he had succeeded in kidnapping Helen of Sparta, this war would never have happened.
“Heroes are all the same,” Triton insisted. He sounded petulant even to his own ears. It had been years since he’d sired more daughters, years since Perseus had needed someone to look up to. In the meantime, he had lost something.
“I don’t think they are,” Perseus mused. “And I think Achilles will regret it, one day. After he’s dead, he’ll try to warn other heroes away from his path.”
His hand was pressed against the small of his back. Triton made to ask what that meant, before realising just how thoroughly Perseus had distracted him.
“Your new power,” he said again. “Assisting Scamander in cleaning his waters. He told his gossiping daughters that he was sure it was an innate talent on your part, not the afterthought most gods could achieve.”
At least Perseus didn’t deny it. “God of clean waters,” he agreed.
“A minor thing,” Triton observed, “and somewhat unnecessary outside of extraordinary circumstances like this. But at least you finally have a domain of the sea.”
There was Perseus’s sly smile again, but it didn’t last long. This time, it just turned sad, under the weight of something Triton couldn’t fathom.
“Just wait,” he said. “I think it’ll become pretty relevant soon enough.”
Perseus was right. Eventually, Pan faded. The humans began their plunder of the world. And Perseus had a lot more work to do.
Perseus never married. He never so much as showed interest in anyone else. He had children, yes—children in the way that gods can always choose to have children, born from their essence and love alone. Perseus had created so many fish. Types of sea snake. Sand dollars. When they were based in London for some years, he detoured up the Scottish rivers one day to plant a serpent-dragon-thing in one of their lochs. She became famous, but no one ever made the Greek connection. And she loved her dad.
He loved his children. He had so many. There were inherent dangers in that form of creation, as Hera’s birth of Hephaestus had shown, but even when things went wrong, Perseus didn’t seem to notice. He loved them baldly enough to make Hera’s ears burn. More than one hideous creature of the depths belonged to him.
But he never had a partner.
Triton didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t as if he were particularly attached to the partner who’d given him his nymph daughters, especially since Pallas’s death. He was too busy for romance, all things considered. But Perseus seemed aghast at the thought of romantic entanglements. After that incident with the birth of Aphrodite and the arrow… Well, after all of that, his protestations became even stronger. Even stranger.
He claimed he was engaged.
That was what the ring on his hand was for. Triton was used to the sight of it by now: a bronze band with black pearls set into a design of branches. It was an engagement ring.
No one in their family could get Perseus to divulge who, exactly, he’d promised to marry. He’d had that ring since he was born. Who had reached him before Triton had? When had this promise occurred?
Amphitrite was put out by the revelation—the allure of Perseus’s hand in marriage was a powerful negotiating tool when it came to undersea politics—but even she, once she put her political machinations aside, was hurt by his silence. Any spouse of his would be family. Why was he keeping this a secret?
And more importantly: why, after all these years, was he still engaged? Why had he not yet married them?
What was he waiting for?
Unfortunately, Triton couldn’t ask those questions often enough to make any progress. He saw less and less of Perseus as the centuries passed, thanks to his ever-increasing workload. Triton’s own lessened significantly after Rome decided the sea needn’t be respected, and almost vanished entirely after they converted to Christianity. Devoted prayers had been a large proportion of his messages. But Perseus always had more to do.
A single mother with a newborn child needed hope. A soldier fighting for a falling king needed a reminder of his loyalty. The bitter daughter trying to pluck up the courage to strike out on her own needed spite. So many people, suffering all over their lands, needed to endure. And the sea needed to be clean.
He even found himself in the Underworld. Hermes, curse the psychopomp, had apparently insisted there was some aura on Perseus that stank of the Styx. He’d cajoled him into coming to the Underworld to visit her, and as soon as Lady Styx had laid eyes on him, she’d nodded smartly and pointed at her waters. Humans had left them just as polluted as the waters above. Perseus had, apparently, got to work.
Triton wished he’d never let his brother break the surface of the sea.
Perseus was never in the old stories—the myths that Chiron and his ilk reverently carried on to the new generations of demigods. He’d wiped himself from them altogether, though Triton could never understand why. Didn’t he realise that to be forgotten was to fade?
“No,” he’d responded once, tired and irritated. “To forget yourself is to fade.”
What did that mean!?
The nineteenth century of this new Christian calendar rolled around, and the flame of the west moved even farther west. The mortals were having another revolution. Triton was starting to lose count of all their so-called revolutions, but with the gunk being sprayed into his home, this one was difficult to ignore. Perseus was running himself ragged.
Triton worried. He wasn’t the only one.
Poseidon and Amphitrite made sure that all of Perseus’s underwater temples remained as well-kept and well-attended as ever. There was no need for them to. In a time like this, anyone who lived in the sea was devoutly grateful to the god who kept them from drowning in oil. The issue was the worshippers on the surface.
Perseus’s temples had been well-visited, once. But after the world had turned away from their pantheon, Perseus had removed their endurance, letting them crumble into the dust of history. It seemed Chiron had done the same to his memory. Demigods had forgotten who he was. Perseus was hardly the only god affected in such a way—Chiron rarely seemed to teach demigods about anyone but the Olympians, now—but it made Triton and his parents worry for the future. At least Perseus still seemed to thrive, even if he was tired. A part of him seemed to be growing stronger with every year.
“Almost,” he told himself, when he thought no one was listening. “Almost there. What’s another century?”
His manic energy made no sense, but Triton was just glad he was still there. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t on the verge of fading.
Then he disappeared.
It happened some decades after the Great Prophecy was spoken. After their father and uncles took that vow upon the Styx not to have children. The war that had preceded such drastic action had nearly torn their pantheon apart, and it had renewed Triton’s terror of losing his close family all over again. As the decades passed, he relaxed—and that was when he lost him.
The worst part was that it seemed intentional. Perseus had gone to have a long conversation with Lady Styx before he left. He’d created several million more sand dollars and given them to their father for safekeeping. Upon visiting Atlantis, he’d made a lot of cryptic comments about how much he loved everyone, and then when he’d swum away, he’d never come back.
For years, Triton didn’t notice. They were busy gods, after all, and it wasn’t unusual for them to go years without speaking to each other. But the ocean was a vast place that carried sounds for thousands of miles. Its gods called to each other all the time in the deeps, like whales’ songs coordinating even over time and distance. They might not see each other often, but they heard from each other. And Triton did not hear Perseus.
He started to worry, but Poseidon redirected him. “Focus on Atlantis,” he said, as he piled Triton with yet more messages to carry, more work to do. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought that his father was trying to distract him. It didn’t work.
His searches yielded no fruit, however. After a decade, he decided that it was probably because Perseus was hiding himself. Maybe he’d just wanted a break. He had been increasingly tired recently. And he had prepared so thoroughly for his own departure…
Triton tried to put it out of his mind. It worked for a short time. But his peace was shattered when he learnt of the abomination called Percy Jackson.
He was one of the first to hear of his father’s latest folly. He had to be. Moments could be a long time for gods, but the work of any messenger, or herald, or—as the humans now called them—PR teams always relied on knowing what to say before it had to be said. Knowing an issue was coming in advance was invaluable. So Poseidon generously gave Triton a full week’s notice before he claimed his forbidden child.
“What do you mean you broke your oath?” he hissed. “And you named the product of that folly Perseus?”
Poseidon grimaced. “I did not name him Perseus. His mother did.”
“Why?”
“Something about Zeus’s demigod son having been the only hero to get a happy ending.”
Triton scowled. “I suppose the myths she consulted didn’t mention the work our Perseus put into assuring the boy’s happy ending? Or that the baby was named after him? Does she realise you already have a son by that name?”
“No,” Poseidon admitted. “I did not tell her. Perseus seemed deeply intentional when he erased his stories from the minds of men. I thought he would not appreciate my indiscretion.”
Triton swam away from him for a moment, pounding his tails harder than necessary to shoot him to the other side of the throne room, then back again. He needed to stay calm. As a herald, he had to deliver this information at the right time with the right amount of detachment and gravitas. He could not be tantruming worse than Perseus himself had when he was first born.
“Do you remember what Perseus told us when we enquired as to why he protected that demigod so much?” Poseidon said at last. “He said it was important to him that the boy had a happy ending. It was important to him.”
“So?” Triton was not in the mood for games.
“Do you remember what Perseus claimed his mother’s name was, when he was first born?” Poseidon pressed. “You told me and neither of us could understand it.”
Triton graciously cast his thoughts back to those deeply confusing years. It had been two syllables, hadn’t it? He wracked his mind.
“Sally,” he said at last. Not unlike Salacia, as Amphitrite would come to be called. That had occurred to him when the Romans first settled on the name, but he had given it little thought since.
“I broke my oath for a woman named Sally Jackson,” Poseidon admitted.
As a general rule, Triton tried not to rage at his father. They were the royal family. They were supposed to show unity. But he couldn’t keep the frigid cold of the depths out of his voice as he said, “And what of it? Do you intend to replace Perseus with this half-mud monstrosity of yours?”
“No!” Poseidon looked appropriately horrified, at least. “Triton, do you not understand—”
“I understand that Perseus is missing, and you have blocked my every attempt to find him! That this demigod born from a broken oath is an insult to the god of loyalty! By siring him, you have put Olympus at risk. Was it Perseus’s absence that allowed your betrayal?” A thought struck him. “The timeline fits, does it not? Perseus would have vanished shortly before the boy was born. How long was it before you met Sally Jackson and decided that since you no longer had loyalty to bind you, you could—”
“Enough!” Poseidon roared. Triton wisely shut his mouth. “Triton, you do not understand what is happening. That is evident. You do not need to understand. Simply deliver my messages once he is claimed. Find a way to spread the joy of a new demigod of the sea, not the fear of a broken oath.”
Triton seethed, but he knew better than to rant further. Before he swam away, though, something occurred to him:
“Was Perseus the price?”
Poseidon blinked. “What?”
“I do not know when you met this woman. Perhaps it was before he vanished.”
“It was.”
“Then did Lady Styx take your oathbreaking out on Perseus instead of you?” he asked, his voice quieting. “Gods are difficult for her to touch, but Olympians especially. Perhaps she viewed him as the softer target. Perhaps that is where he has gone.” And, his voice breaking: “Perhaps he is lost.”
Triton was not ordinarily a pessimist. But he knew better than most how frail immortals could truly be. If the full force of the River Styx was levelled at him, what could Perseus do? His work for her might not mean anything. And he had been seen having that long conversation with her before he disappeared…
Poseidon had gone pale. “That is not the case, Triton.” But he didn’t have any arguments to back it up.
Triton straightened. “As you say, Father,” he said coolly, “I have messages to attend to.”
He vanished into a stream of bubbles.
The insults only mounted.
At every turn, Poseidon coddled his brother’s replacement, without lifting a finger to search for Perseus. He helped him whenever he asked. He sent a Cyclops to his school. And he called Percy Jackson his favourite child.
Now, Triton was mature enough not to resent that he was not the favourite. (Mostly. Even if he did the most work for him…) But it just added insult to injury, because previously, Triton was relatively sure Perseus had held the favourite child spot. It was the sort of thing that varied by century—Kymopoleia, in all her destructive glory, had enjoyed his favour whenever he was in a wrathful mood—but Perseus was always easy to love, so he was a regular contender. And maybe Triton was projecting too hard, seeing slights to his little brother in the existence of this bastard who bore his name, but he didn’t think his rage was misplaced. Especially when Percy Jackson never raised a finger to help Atlantis when it was attacked.
He came once. For healing. They had to allocate their resources to save this insult of a child, upon whom Olympus’s fate unfortunately rested, and then he’d shown up at the war council. All Triton could do was sneer at him for not helping. For being a failure.
He swam away before he could look too closely. In truth, seeing the boy was startling.
Perseus had also had a white streak in his hair. And his face looked so much like him… Were it not for the fact that his general aura was so different from his brother’s—a demigod could not hope to possess the same senses as a god—it would have been uncanny. The realisation aroused pity in Triton for Poseidon. Maybe his father did miss Perseus more than he had given him credit for, if he had made a mortal boy so precisely in his image.
The war raged on. Atlantis was nearly destroyed, because of that boy. Triton had tried calling for Perseus over and over throughout the years, as soon as they realised Oceanus’s plans. His brother would have been exactly who they needed to help defend Atlantis. But he never appeared, and that worried Triton even more. It confirmed that wherever Perseus was, he wasn’t there by choice. He would never have stayed away at a time like this. No matter how many search parties Triton sent out, he was never found, and Poseidon abandoned the trenches for the mountain.
They rebuilt, in the end. They always did. And maybe Triton had to acknowledge—as a general, not as a seething brother—that Percy Jackson had been right to prioritise Olympus. If the mountain fell, they all fell, loathe as he was to admit their reliance on those self-important fools. But the damage remained an insult. As did the fact that Percy Jackson was invited to Atlantis regularly after the wars.
Triton couldn’t argue with it. He was a hero with some merit. The Second Giant War had proven that, at least. And if Kymopoleia had come racing back into Atlantean waters for the first time in decades gossiping about Percy Jackson and how much he looked like Perseus, well, Triton would accept mention of him so long as his sister was back.
Tyson, the Cyclops, was a commendable blacksmith and warrior. Triton had to respect him. Whenever Percy Jackson visited, Tyson embraced him with an eager naivete few young Cyclopes could muster and showed him around the forges—even the areas that were really too hot for a demigod to be able to handle, even one with fire resistance. The boy never complained, even when he was shipped to the infirmary to treat his burns.
He visited often over the years. Triton did his best to ignore him. Coldness was the best option with this. Even now, years after the war, he had not been able to find Perseus, and he thought about that every time he laid eyes on the boy.
He still thought about the possibility that in breaking a Stygian oath, Poseidon might have traded one son for another.
Poseidon wouldn’t let him avoid the boy forever, though. Percy Jackson had been spending an unusual amount of time in Atlantis recently, in the oyster beds and the forges alike, and Poseidon finally called Triton into a living room to talk to him.
The boy was there too, sitting next to their father on one of the low sofas. He met Triton’s eye briefly, nodded, then averted his gaze. At least he’d accepted that Triton wanted nothing to do with him.
Poseidon had not. “I thought you would appreciate Percy’s craftsmanship more than anyone else,” he said in lieu of greeting. “He’s forged an engagement ring for his beloved—with his own hands! And the symbolism, I think, will speak to you.”
His eyes were twinkling with mirth. Triton wondered what he had done to get himself into this situation.
Percy Jackson glanced between them awkwardly, but at a nod from their father, he held out a small box holding the engagement rings. Triton took it cautiously. He knew the boy was enamoured with a daughter of Athena—knew that Athena disapproved of the match, as she disapproved of all of Poseidon’s children since their relations soured in ancient times. He didn’t keep up with her as much as he should for one who was once his daughter, but he’d known for years that she shared his distaste for the boy. Only recently had her opinion changed, he’d heard. What could have changed it?
When he opened the box, he had his answer.
Two rings glinted in the light of the living room’s sconces. If a Cyclops had made them, they would be considered sloppy or indelicate, but for an untalented demigod, he had to admit: they were impressive. The care and thought that had been put into the design was obvious. Two celestial bronze rings, each etched with the pattern of olive branches along their rims. The olives on the branches had been represented by dozens of oblong black pearls, tiny and delicate.
An olive branch and a pearl. A union of Athena and Poseidon. Poseidon was right that the symbolism would speak to Triton, of all people, and that even he had to admire the skill and love put into the rings.
It was only the smallest sliver of his considerable godly intellect that processed this, however. The rest of him was struck dumb.
One of these rings had adorned Perseus’s finger for millennia.
He knew that. He’d seen so much of his brother that he could probably have traced the shapes of his ring in his sleep. His was the left-hand one, with the larger, clumsier pearls and the less smooth edges. The other must be for the girl.
Perseus had spent millennia insisting he was engaged. Not married, but engaged. They had never known whom he could be talking about.
His resentment of Percy Jackson was easy to reach for, and that was what came first. He glared at his father. Had he shared this detail of Perseus’s life with him as well? Had he intended the replacement to be quite so thorough?
But his father’s gaze met his evenly, waiting for something, and even Triton knew that his bitterness was getting absurd. Poseidon had had nothing to do with the design of these rings—he hated Athena far too much for that. This was something Percy Jackson had thought of himself.
What did that mean? What could that possibly mean?
Perseus had insisted that that demigod who bore his name should have a happy ending. He’d said it was important to him. Percy Jackson’s mother had named him Perseus because she wanted him to have a happy ending.
Perseus had said his mother was called Sally. So was Percy Jackson’s mother.
Perseus had had a fiancée for millennia that none of them had ever met. And his engagement ring had been one of these rings.
Almost, Perseus had said during the long nineteenth century. Almost there. What’s another century?
Triton swam away.
He heard Percy Jackson’s surprised noise behind him, heard Poseidon murmur something to reassure him, but he could also feel his father’s smug gaze on his back. What was this? What had happened? Did Poseidon even know?
Somehow, Triton doubted it.
Triton watched Percy Jackson closely after that. He didn’t have long to wait for answers. Within three months, the boy disappeared.
The story Triton was told was a straightforward one:
He was on a trip to Greece. The Ancient Lands. It was the first time he’d returned there since his adventure against the Giants. He and his fiancée were looking for honeymoon locations, and Hermes had apparently been roped into helping them. (Something about there being precedent for that… something about an anniversary dinner in Paris.) He’d dropped them off on Lemnos, apparently the favoured location based on the girl’s research. While they were exploring the coastline, a hippocampus had called to Percy Jackson from the shallows, requesting assistance. He’d dived in after it, promising his fiancée that he’d be back as soon as he could, and never resurfaced. After two hours, the girl had panicked and summoned Hermes, who had raised the alarm.
That was several weeks ago. He had not yet been found. Poseidon himself had swept the waters around Lemnos and found nothing, but he gave Triton a meaningful look as he did so. Triton, against his better judgement, knew what he was alluding to.
The underwater cave where he had found Perseus, so long ago, was near Lemnos.
Triton took up his search again, but not for Percy Jackson. Instead, he cast his senses out and strained for any hint of his brother’s presence. It had been nearly three decades since he’d felt it, but that was the blink of an eye for a god, and—
He found him in Scotland, of all places. Perhaps Triton should have looked here earlier: he was bunking with his daughter. That aquatic serpent-dragon Perseus had made when Olympus was based in London was still here, still avoiding detection by the mortals with all the skill of a trickster child of the waters. She was enormous and curled up at the bottom of her loch; Perseus, in the form of a human young man, was nestled at her heart, fast asleep.
It was definitely Perseus. He pulsed with godly power in a way that Percy Jackson, a demigod, did not. But he looked eerily similar, and Triton only had more questions. Especially because he was wearing jeans.
“Well met,” Triton tried to reason with his niece. The beast just hissed at him.
She’d always loved her privacy, Triton knew. In fact, she loved it so much, it was one of the only things he knew about her. Perseus’s other monstrous children had created more headaches for Triton, so he was familiar with their names; this one’s name came to him more slowly.
“Nessie?” he tried. Her scaled head tilted in acknowledgment, so at least he’d gotten it right. Styx, Perseus was terrible at naming his children. After the loch where she was born? Really?
Though, the lake where Pallas had grown up was called Lake Tritones, so maybe Triton shouldn’t throw stones.
“I would like to take Perseus back to Atlantis,” he said. “We have been worried about him. I see he is… indisposed…”
She hissed at him again. She was perfectly capable of talking to him in his mind—he was a water deity! She was his niece!—but she didn’t seem to want to. And clearly, she was not planning on surrendering her unconscious father, even to his brother.
It took an embarrassing week of negotiations with Nessie before she let Triton take him to Atlantis. Triton tried several times to wake his brother up—incorrigible as he was, he was better than his daughter—but to no avail. He was deeply asleep. His power fluctuated concerningly; Triton was no healer, but he diagnosed to himself that this must have been caused by some great exertion on Perseus’s part. Something that exhausted him so thoroughly that a coma was the only solution for recovery.
At least he’d had the forethought to sequester himself away with his grumpiest, most insular child before losing consciousness. Even if the freshwater of the loch couldn’t be good for him…
That freshwater limitation of hers meant Nessie couldn’t follow them to Atlantis, but she could spit derisively after Triton as he retreated. When he finally returned to dump Perseus in his old quarters, his parents rushed over immediately in a panic. Healers were sent for. Hands carded through Perseus’s limp hair. But he did not wake up, and no questions were answered.
At least he was here.
They checked in on him as the months passed. No one ever found Percy Jackson. Triton heard Poseidon commenting to Amphitrite that his fiancée was losing her mind; that his friends were panicked; that his mother was beside herself. Poseidon seemed worried too, but less so now that they’d recovered Perseus. He seemed to have a theory that Perseus would explain everything once he woke up.
Perseus was tended to diligently by a rotating staff of healers, until finally he began to stir. His strength returned to him. He got that gold flush back into his cheeks. His clothes remained the same, and when he woke, his hands immediately flew to his back pockets.
The first thing Triton heard his brother say after thirty years was, “It’s been so long since I got to wear jeans.”
Triton, who would not admit that he’d been hovering by Perseus’s bedside for months, scowled. “Excuse me?”
Perseus fished something out of his back pocket. A pen. No—a sword. Anaklusmos, the sword Poseidon had given Percy Jackson. Perseus closed his eyes and kissed the blade.
Add that to Triton’s list of questions.
“Care to explain?” was all he said.
Perseus’s gaze snapped to his. “I need to talk to Annabeth.”
“You need to talk to me.”
“And my mom. And Grover—oh, gods, Grover, those dreams must have confused him so much—”
“Perseus!”
There was the headache. Triton had missed having headaches like this.
Perseus smiled at him. Smirked, more like. The insolent brat. “I’m okay, Tri. I assume you’re the one who dragged me away from Nessie?”
He folded his arms. “I spent long enough looking for you. I was not going to leave you in a freshwater environment.”
“Yeah, I didn’t realise how exhausting that little stunt would be. I had seconds to think of a safe place to flash to, and Loch Ness was closer to Lemnos than the current position of Atlantis was.”
“What little stunt?” Triton ground out. And—“Lemnos. So you know what happened to Percy Jackson, I presume?”
Perseus’s smirk fell. For the first time, he looked nervous.
“Tri,” he said. “I am Percy Jackson.”
Poseidon had the nerve not to look surprised.
He smiled broadly at Perseus and held him in such a tight hug, even Nessie would have struggled to escape from it. Amphitrite, at least, seemed just as shocked as Triton. She hadn’t exactly been kind to Percy Jackson either, though she’d been less frigid than Triton had. Perseus’s confusion and reluctance to trust them all those millennia ago was starting to make sense.
It was the only thing about this story that made sense.
“Time travel?” Triton demanded. “That is a myth.”
“We’re myths.”
Triton ignored him, shooting his parents a look. They were all seated around Perseus’s sickbed, because they’d refused to let him get up just yet, and none of them looked too impressed with his story. “Time only goes in one direction. And the only being who has ever had dominion over Time was—”
“Kronos,” Perseus supplied. “You know, the Titan whose essence was scattered to Tartarus right in front of me. Apparently bits of it went into me.” He paused. “Wow. Saying it out loud like that is a horrifying thought. I don’t want Kronos inside me.”
“If you have the power over time,” Triton stressed, “then why did you choose to do this?”
Poseidon and Amphitrite’s heads swivelled between their two sons like they were watching a ball game.
“I didn’t choose it!” Perseus protested. “Or. Well. I did. But I didn’t choose it initially. I had to keep choosing it—agh! It’s hard to explain. The Fates trapped me.”
Triton’s eye twitched. “The Fates.”
“Yeah. You remember the lovely trio of old ladies who showed up at Themis’s baby shower just to talk to me? They wanted to gloat about how effective their evil plan was.”
“Evil… plan…”
“They wanted me to ascend,” he said grumpily. “I kept saying no. I left Ogygia. I turned down godhood. I escaped Tartarus without going supernova. And there was that thing with the chalice… and the apples… Anyway, they wanted me to ascend, and they figured they could do it by weaving me into the tapestry at both ends. A time loop.”
Even Poseidon was looking confused now. Triton shouldn’t have felt so vindicated by that.
“I got sent back to Ancient Greece. Well, I sent myself back. That’s where you found me.” Perseus wiggled his hands. “Surprise! I would’ve told you earlier, but you’ll remember I didn’t speak Ancient Greek very well at the start, and by the time I’d confidently figured out what everyone was saying, I’d met the Fates. And they threatened to garrotte me with my own lifestring if I messed it all up.”
Despite his frustration, Triton had to cringe at the vivid imagery. Yes, that sort of threat would have cowed him. He could imagine it cowing even someone as rebellious as Perseus.
“You are Percy Jackson,” he repeated. “The demigod.”
“Once-demigod, yeah.”
He looked down at his bronze ring—untouched and gleaming still, despite the millennia he had worn it. “And you are engaged to a demigod.”
Perseus flushed gold. “Yeah. I need… I need to talk to Annabeth.” He sat up straighter. “I need to talk to my mom.” His gaze flashed guiltily to Amphitrite. “My mortal mom. Mom. Not mother. You’re still my mother. I love you…” His rambling trailed off at the end, but Amphitrite favoured him with a wavering smile and an inclined head.
He stood up.
“Sit down,” Triton ordered. “You are weak. You just exited a six-month coma after pulling off a feat of power of such magnitude that it drained you completely. Preserve your strength.”
“Yeah, throwing a guy back in time is strenuous,” Perseus agreed. Of course, he did not sit down again. Instead, he stretched out his arms and popped his back like he was a mortal with muscles to stretch or bones to pop in the first place. “But I’m serious. I need to talk to my mom. This is the second time I’ve been missing for months on end. She’ll be worried about me. And Annabeth…” His eyes darkened.
“We can deliver a message for you. I am the herald. That is my job.”
“I haven’t seen her in four thousand years, Tri.” Perseus’s tone grew sharp. “I need to go. And you’re right: I’m still weak, so I won’t split my consciousness until I’ve regained some strength.” He glanced at their parents. “But I’ll try to be back to Atlantis as soon as I can. I know I’ve been missing for a while.”
Poseidon regarded him sadly for a moment. “Where have you been?”
There was a lot more to that question than what floated on the surface.
“Kidnapped by the Fates,” Percy admitted. “I had a plan. I knew what was coming, obviously. I had an idea on how to save Atlantis…” He trailed off. “But apparently that messed with their tapestry too much. I was gonna keep my distance for a few years anyway, try and retreat, but clearly they didn’t trust me to keep my nose out of it completely.”
“I remember,” Poseidon replied. “You knew when I’d first met Sally—before I’d told anyone about her. You told me her child would have a difficult life, but that he’d make it through. That I should have faith in him.”
Perseus flushed again. “Uh… yeah. I didn’t want you to— I thought—”
“He is still my favourite child.”
The flush deepened. “That’s rude to Triton,” he mumbled.
Triton waved a hand. “I accept it.” He rose to beside Perseus, his long tails compared to Perseus’s mortal legs meaning he towered head and shoulders above him. “Come. We shall confront your mortal mother.”
Perseus backed away. “What? I didn’t say you could come.”
“You are too weak to be trusted transporting yourself.”
“I’ll show you too weak—”
“And as I recall it, you were born fully formed.” Triton made his parents’ gazes over Perseus’s shoulder and let them see his smirk. “As a demigod, however, you must have had a childhood. Humans invented photography some years ago. I presume Sally Jackson has baby pictures?”
Perseus stared at him in unmitigated horror.
“Four thousand years,” he whispered. “Four thousand years… and this outcome never occurred to me.”
“She does,” Poseidon weighed in. “Adorable ones.”
Triton held out a hand. Reluctantly, Perseus took it. He squeezed it gently, glad to feel his brother under his touch again. Glad to see he was alive.
“Then let us go,” he said, “and discover the secrets you have spent so long hiding.”
Perseus finally married his fiancée a mere month later on the beach at Camp Half-Blood. Triton sat at the front with his parents, with Perseus’s mortal parents, and the others he was near and dear to.
In four thousand years, Triton had never seen him smile so broadly.