XIX

After Piper recounts her dream, Percy insists on accompanying her and Annabeth below Sparta. His agitation bursts the Argo II’s plumbing, but Annabeth argues two girls are safer from the giants’ boy-and-girl sacrifice plan. Despite Percy’s concern, Piper and Annabeth head to Sparta to search for the chained god.

They scout modern Sparta and its museums without success, then move to the ruins. On the hill, Annabeth’s unresolved trauma from Tartarus surfaces; Piper steadies her, acknowledging their fear and anger. A sudden fiery geyser from a stone-lined pit interrupts them, drawing them to investigate.

They find three narrow pits that randomly spout different flames. Annabeth looks for a mechanism, but Piper senses the pattern is emotional, not logical. Testing the theory, Piper triggers a flame, then impulsively jumps into the right shaft despite the danger.

Piper lands in a circular chamber, decapitates three bronze dragon flamethrowers aligned with the pits, and calls Annabeth down by rope. In the dim chamber, they find rough stone walls etched with Greek graffiti, two doorways crowned by snarling faces resembling Phobos and Deimos, and a human-sized bronze statue of Ares bound in chains, its interior echoing with a metallic heartbeat.

The shrine’s aura intensifies their fear, which Piper identifies as the temple’s power—like Aphrodite’s presence but radiating panic. Recognizing a Temple of Fear to Ares and his sons, they prepare to extract the statue when deep laughter fills the room. A charcoal-skinned giant, braided with copper wires and circuit boards and wielding a sledgehammer, emerges to confront them, declaring his intent to make them believers.