Part I: The Empty Cabin
Winter at Camp Half-Blood was strange.
The magical borders kept the snow out, but the temperature still dropped. The strawberry fields turned frost-white. The camp, usually buzzing with hundreds of kids, felt like a ghost town.
Only about twenty of us stayed year-round. Clarisse was there (Ares kids love misery). Beckendorf was there (he lived in the forge). And me.
I sat alone in the Zeus cabin. It was massive, cold, and echoed every time I sighed.
I had a pen in my hand and a piece of paper on the statue's pedestal.
Dear Mom,
I can't come home for Christmas. I know I promised, but it's not safe. The "smell" I told you about? It's getting stronger. If I come to Queens, I'll bring the war with me.
I'm safe here. I'm eating well. I'm getting stronger.
Please don't worry. I'm not the same kid who left in the Honda. I can handle this.
I love you. Val
I folded the letter. I put a golden Drachma in the envelope—a massive tip for the Hermes delivery service—and walked it to the mess hall to burn it in the offering fire.
"Rough day?"
I looked up. Charles Beckendorf stood there. He was huge—almost as big as me—with hands like baseball mitts and a permanent smudge of grease on his face.
"Just family stuff," I said, tossing the letter into the flames.
"Come on," Beckendorf said, jerking his head toward the smoke-belching chimneys of the forge. "You need a distraction. And you need a new weapon. I'm tired of watching you tape that garbage hammer back together."
Part II: The Forge
The Hephaestus cabin was a chaotic mess of gears, blueprints, and half-finished automatons. It smelled like oil and hot metal—a smell I was starting to love.
"So," Beckendorf said, throwing a slab of celestial bronze onto an anvil. "Your old hammer was trash. Unbalanced. Too light."
"It got the job done," I defended.
"It broke on my dad's ankle," Beckendorf pointed out. "If you want to fight gods, Val, you need a weapon that hits like a god."
He handed me a sketching pad. "Design it."
I stared at the paper. I thought about my fighting style. I wasn't a fencer like Luke or a slasher like Percy. I was impact. I was gravity.
I drew.
"A war hammer," I explained. "But with a longer haft. And on the back of the head... a piston."
"A piston?" Beckendorf raised an eyebrow.
"I can charge it with lightning," I said, tapping my temple. "When I swing, I discharge the static into the piston. It drives a spike forward on impact. Like a pile driver."
Beckendorf smiled. It was the smile of an engineer who just heard a really dangerous, really fun idea.
"Seismic impact," Beckendorf mused. "We'll need a core of Stygian Iron to handle the heat. And we'll need to hollow out the shaft for the wiring..."
Part III: The Grind
We spent the next two months in that forge.
I learned to swing a smithing hammer. It was different from fighting. It was rhythmic. Clang. Clang. Clang. It built muscles I didn't know I had. My shoulders broadened. My calluses got thicker.
Beckendorf was a perfectionist. We scrapped the head three times.
"Again," he'd say. "The balance is off."
Finally, in late February, it was done.
It was beautiful. Four feet of black iron and celestial bronze. The head was a rectangular block of metal with glowing blue runes etched into the side. On the back was a pneumatic spike.
I picked it up. It hummed. It felt like it weighed fifty pounds, but to me, it felt like an extension of my arm.
"Give it a name," Beckendorf said, wiping sweat off his forehead.
I looked at the weapon. It was built to break defenses. It was built to shake the earth.
"Earthshaker?" I suggested.
"Poseidon might sue you," Beckendorf warned.
"Thunderclap," I decided.
I walked outside to the testing dummy—a bronze automation shaped like a giant spider (Beckendorf knew I hated them).
I channeled my static. The runes on the hammer glowed bright blue. I swung.
BOOM.
The piston fired on impact. The automation didn't just dent; it crumpled. The force of the blow sent a shockwave through the dirt that knocked Beckendorf over.
I stood there, holding the smoking hammer.
"Okay," Beckendorf coughed, dusting himself off. "That works."