Hope fought hard to stay alive. Even when you thought it was beaten to nothing, burned to ashes, drowned deep, still it flickered away, waiting to be found again.

That's what it is to be a hero," Riordan says. "It's fighting on even when you're hopelessly outnumbered. It's seeing your friends dying all around you, witnessing the most shocking cruelty you could imagine, and still finding the courage to go on. It's doing the very best you can.

With courage and hope, we can conquer our fears and do what we once believed impossible.

But some things did not change...Courage, for instance. Dedication to a cause. Comradeship. When they were strong and pure, when they came from deep in the bone, those qualities could hold fast against all odds.