“Do you think we should do this?” I ask outright. If Selena says no, I’ll listen.
She hesitates, seeming to choose her words carefully. “You could try.”
I go very still. Griffin looks over sharply. How does Selena know about his family’s de facto motto? I can’t tell anything from her tone. It wasn’t ominous. It wasn’t teasing. What is she telling me to do?
I reach for Griffin’s hand. “I can steal whatever magic our opponents have. There’s nothing they can throw at us that I can’t counter.”
“What about that moment it takes you to adjust?” Flynn asks.
I flash him a smile that’s all teeth. “That’s when you’ll be watching my back.”
“It’s not only about magic,” Selena interjects. “There are many ways to win the Agon Games.”
“These men are good fighters,” I say. “The best.”
“I don’t doubt their skill,” she responds. “But sometimes it’s purely a question of size.”
That draws me up short. Last time, a team with two Centaurs on it won. They simply had more muscle, pounds, and raw physical power than anyone else. The time before that, a Giant crushed everyone in the arena without the rest of its team lifting more than a halfhearted blade. The accounts of mangling turned my stomach.
Kato catches my eye, his cobalt gaze carrying more weight than usual. “We’ll figure it out. We always do, and Cat’s never led us astray.”
He nods to me then, a solemn message of confidence in the slow dip of his chin. My heart knocks hard against my ribs.Did I suddenly become the leader of this group?I spin toward Griffin. He’s in charge. He’s always in charge.
With an almost imperceptible nod, Griffin cedes the decision to me. My stomach cramps.Sintan gold. Tarvan rubies. Fisan pearls.Yesterday, with six words and a crown, he put the world in my hands, and I didn’t run away screaming when I had the chance. In fact, the only screaming I did yesterday was underneath him in our bedroom. And on top.
My pulse hammers, pumping adrenaline and anxiety through my veins. The choice weighs too much. It hurts my chest.Can we do this?Shouldwe?
I curl my hands into fists at my sides to stop their visible shaking. “We’ll need one more person. The Agon Games only takes teams of six.”
“Piers,” Carver says. “You haven’t seen it, but he can fight.”
My instincts rebel. I don’t want my life in Piers’s hands. He may be a decent warrior, despite his scholarly tendencies, but he may also be tempted to throw me under a Cyclops or straight into a Harpy’s nest. I don’t think he’d do it, but any hesitation in the arena could cost us too much.
I shake my head. “He’s not due back for two weeks. The Games start in one. We should have already left to register and scope out the competition. We don’t have any time to lose.”
“There’s an advantage to arriving at the last minute,” Griffin says, astounding me that he’s truly considering this. “The other teams can’t get a feel for us, either. I’ll send my fastest rider for Piers. He’ll meet us there.”
Disquiet churns in my gut. Justified or not, I don’t want Piers on the sand with us.
“I’ll go.”
I turn to Aetos and find him watching me closely. Huge. Skilled. Fire. Flight. He survived the Ice Plains. He vanquished a Mare of Thrace. For most teams, he’d be an enormous asset.
Desma stares at him in shock, her face going so ashen even her lips turn white. There’s something beyond fear in her eyes, beyond panic. It’s utter desperation.
But even without her pale face and petrified eyes making a knot tighten below my breasts, I’d turn Aetos down. Our best survival strategy isn’t to gain a hulking Magoi; it’s to be wholly underestimated.
“You know how the Games work,” I say mainly to Aetos. “The spectators get rowdy when it’s over too fast. The weaker we seem, the better chance we have of facing a weaker team in the first round. The Gameskeepers need to make sure the fights are interesting, and that they last, even if it means pitting favorites against each other in the early rounds. Without you, we’re Hoi Polloi and one Magoi woman with no combat magic. With you, we’d be in a different category altogether.”
“After the first round, they’d take your measure anyway,” Aetos argues. “We all know they shuffle the grid. That’s why it’s never announced.”
“Maybe. But that’s one less round that’s a real danger to us. If we go into this anonymous and underestimated, I can practically guarantee we’ll walk through the first round. That means less injury and fatigue going into the second fight, and even the third.” There’s rarely a fourth. There aren’t that many people willing to risk everything for glory and gold.
Aetos stands, his anvil-like fists clenching at his sides. “Do you really expect me not to fight with you? Not to protect you?”
“I expect you to listen to me,” I answer.
“And I expect you to make wise decisions not based on sentiment,” Aetos growls back.
