You’d been at Camp Half-Blood for months now—long enough that everyone had stopped asking. The other campers whispered about you the way they whispered about him when Percy first arrived. Maybe they’re important. Maybe they’re meant for something. Maybe their parent is a big one.

And for a while… you believed it. You kept waiting for the sky to crack open or the sea to glow or an iris rainbow to shimmer above your head—any sign, any flash of godly acknowledgement.

You never got claimed. Days into weeks. Weeks into months. Nothing happened. People stopped whispering. Stopped guessing. Stopped caring. You became “unclaimed.” A word that felt like a bruise.

Just a kid nobody’s god wanted.

The grass barely rustled under his hooves, but you heard him anyway—that soft, careful way Chiron always approached hurt kids, like sudden movements might make them break.

He didn’t say your name at first. He just stood beside you, looking out over camp with you, the night stretching wide and empty. “You’re out late,” he said gently.

You shrugged, not trusting your voice. Chiron watched you in that way he did—like he already knew everything you weren’t saying, like he’d been here a thousand times with a thousand forgotten kids.