XXIX

Nico and Coach Hedge endure the shabby Buford Zippy Mart to buy first-aid supplies, snacks, and camping gear before returning to their hidden camp, where the camouflaged Athena Parthenos towers over a rural crossroads marked by the Waxhaws massacre memorial. Nico, increasingly unstable from shadow-travel, tries to stay anchored in the sunlight.

At camp, Reyna broods before the monument. She explains the site’s history and suspects they were drawn there because the British commander, Banastre Tarleton, was a son of Bellona—connecting to her own lineage. Nico urges Reyna to speak, warning that silence erodes identity like the voiceless shades of Asphodel, prompting Coach Hedge to wander off, launching paper-airplane messages.

Eating stale snacks, Reyna describes her family’s long service under Bellona: conquistadors, pirates like Cofresí, and war heroes. When talk turns to her father, Julian, she falters. Nico reciprocates vulnerability with a bizarre confession about his French zombie chauffeur, easing the tension and encouraging her to continue.

Reyna recounts how her father, a decorated veteran blessed by Bellona, returned from war paranoid and in pain. Fixated on a prophecy about their bloodline protecting Rome’s legacy, he deteriorated into a violent, ghostlike mania. One night, after he injured Hylla with poltergeist fury, Reyna seized Cofresí’s Imperial gold saber and dispelled his spirit, believing she had committed patricide.

Nico insists she protected her sister and destroyed a mania, not her living father, but Reyna fears Roman law’s judgment. As she breaks down, an armored Roman legionnaire steps from the trees, claims her confession, and declares that such a crime warrants execution—turning Reyna’s private guilt into an immediate external threat.