“Any questions, initiates?”
Someone whimpered, but no one spoke.What idiot would ever ask him something? You’d be eaten alive.
Drex, the other abandoned mutt, who I was pretty sure was secretly Chthonic, slowly raised his hand.
General Cleandro arched his brow. “What?”
Drex cleared his throat. “What about Titans on the circuit? I didn’t see any fencing outside marking this a protected zone.”
Great question.
General Cleandro burst into laughter.
After five long minutes of howling, he wiped tears out of his eyes and scoffed. “Of course, these lands aren’t in a pathetic human protected zone. We’reSpartans. The Titans fear us, not the other way around.”
The other initiates chuckled.
“However”—the general smiled cruelly—“some Titans have been known to... attack the weaker initiates up in the mountains. So keep your eye out.”
No one was laughing now.
Cassius raised his hand, laurel crown gleaming. “But, General, isn’t it the job of the Chthonics to fight the Titans? Not Olympians, like ourselves? That was the entire point of the Assembly of Death.”
General Cleandro’s smile fell.
He scoffed, “This is about separating the weak from the gods—if the Titans picking you off helps do so, then so be it. Understood?”
“Yes, General.”
Actually, I don’t understand, and I have a lot of questions.
A muse walked up to General Cleandro, and he turned away from us to talk to her, but his hawk swiveled its head fully around and kept staring at us.
Yep, that is one-hundred-percent a robot.
“At least Augustus is known to be honorable and fair,” whispered an initiate to my right. “He’s the sanest heir the House of Ares has ever born.”
A boy with curly brown hair replied, “Yeah, but we have to deal withKharon—I thought it was a rumor meant to scare us this year. Kronos save us, he’s almost as unstable as Medusa—and she sided with the fucking Titans.”
They nodded in agreement with grave expressions. “Kharon’sliterallythe Hunterand Hades’ favorite soldier. Why would he agree to work the crucible?”
“Probably because he’sinsaneand likes torturing Olympians.” All the initiates shivered dramatically. “That’s what happens when Artemis procreates with Erebus—they say Kharon is more monster than man. Rumor is Artemis birthed him to punish Olympians for killing her daughters in the war—he’s her vengeance.”
I blanched.That doesn’t sound good.
Tim-Tom loved to theorize that Kharon’s creature heritage gave him a massive dick. In contrast, Father John preached he was a descendant of the devil.
I pursed my lips; technically, both could be true.
Mental note—start praying for my soul.
Aggressively.
General Cleandro whirled around with an intense glare that immediately shut everyone up, then he led us into the chilly, austere classroom.
He grunted as he sat down at the only desk in the room—positioned in the front so he could loom over us—and kicked his feet up.
We awkwardly sat on the floor next to the ten piles of textbooks.
