The Tyrant's Tomb

But my pulse quickened. The possibility of being able to speak to even
one fellow Olympian after all this time—to summon actual grade AA–
quality, jumbo, cage-free, locally sourced divine help…I found the idea both
exhilarating and terrifying. Would I get to choose which god I called, or was
it predetermined by the prayer? “Nevertheless, even one god can make all
the difference.”
Meg shrugged. “Depends on the god.”
“That hurt,” I said.
“What about the last line?” Reyna asked. “The prayer must be uttered
through the rainbow.”
“An Iris-message,” I said, happy I could answer one question at least.
“It’s a Greek thing, a way of beseeching Iris, goddess of the rainbow, to
carry a message—in this case, a prayer to Mount Olympus. The formula is
quite simple.”
“But…” Frank frowned. “Percy told me about Iris-messages. They don’t
work anymore, do they? Not since all our communications went silent.”
Communications, I thought. Silent. The soundless god.
I felt as if I’d fallen into the deep end of a very cold pool. “Oh. I am so
stupid.”
Meg giggled, but she resisted the many sarcastic comments that no doubt
were filling her mind.
I, in turn, resisted the urge to push her off her stool. “This soundless god,
whoever he is…What if he’s the reason our communications don’t work?
What if the Triumvirate has somehow been harnessing his power to prevent
us all from talking to one another, and to keep us from beseeching the gods
for help?”
Reyna crossed her arms, blocking out the word FUERTE on her T-shirt.
“You’re saying what, this soundless god is in cahoots with the Triumvirate?
We have to kill him to open our means of communication? Then we could
send an Iris-message, do the ritual, and get divine help? I’m still stuck on the
whole killing a god thing.”
I considered the Erythraean Sibyl, whom we’d rescued from her prison
in the Burning Maze. “Perhaps this god isn’t a willing participant. He might
have been trapped, or…I don’t know, coerced somehow.”
“So we free him by killing him?” Frank asked. “Gotta agree with Reyna.
That sounds harsh.”