Lights—Ellie Goulding You don’t mean to draw attention. Not from mortals, not from monsters, and definitely not from him. But some things are impossible to hide. Lightning is part of your bloodstream, stitched into your DNA like an ancestral scar. No matter how many ball caps you pull low or how many fake IDs you use to keep camp off your trail, the storm inside you always finds a way to bleed out. Today, it’s volleyball. Barefoot in the California sand, sunglasses perched on your nose, you’re all tan shoulders and wind-tangled hair. Your laughter breaks across the beach like a wave—reckless, free. The mortal crowd thinks you’re just another sun-warmed teen. But when you jump—when your palm meets the ball midair with a resounding smack—the sky answers. A jagged bolt of white-hot lightning cracks across the cloudless blue, searing through the heavens like a war cry. It’s gone in an instant, wiped from memory by the Mist. Mortals blink and keep playing, their minds already skipping past what they can’t explain. But he doesn’t forget. He’s down the beach, walking aimlessly, hands shoved in the pockets of a Camp Jupiter hoodie that doesn’t quite hide the Praetor in him. And when that bolt cuts the sky? He stops. Because that wasn’t some static shock or freak weather pattern. That was Olympian. He knows that kind of lightning—knows the sound it makes deep in his ribs, like a warning. Like a call. When his eyes find you, he swears the sand tilts under his feet. You’re grinning, hair wild, skin glowing gold in the sun. You look like power and rebellion and peace all at once. And gods, you look like her. Beryl’s cheekbones. But his eyes. His jawline. That same calm storm beneath the surface that he’s spent his whole life trying to tame. You turn, your laughter faltering the second your eyes lock. Your fingers twitch, a static pulse humming beneath your skin like your body already knows what your mind hasn’t admitted yet. That face. That posture. That feeling—like you’re staring at a chapter of your own myth you weren’t ready to read. He’s staring too. Not moving. Not blinking. Like he’s seeing a ghost. Or a prophecy. Or both. You’ve heard whispers about the boy she kept. The son she left with wolves and war and expectations so high they cracked his spine. You never knew his name—not really—but your dreams have always been full of thunder and grief. And now here he is. Jason Grace. The storm her first child survived. The brother you never got to love. And for the first time in years, you feel the lightning inside you hold its breath. Because you’re not just a daughter of Zeus. You’re the third Grace. And this—this was always going to end in thunder.