“I’ll never alter minds, not even someone like Galen’s. A person’s free will isn’t a toy to play around with.”
She scoffs. “You have no ambition. You don’t deserve any crown, let alone mine.”
If ambition means terrorizing people for fun, then she’s right.
“Cruelty isn’t ambition,” Griffin says with utter conviction. “Setting limits on great power takes more strength than you’ll ever have.”
My heart skips a beat. Maybe two.My Gods. Griffin just put into words what it seems I’ve been subconsciously doing my entire life. But unlike Ares, he doesn’t think I’ve thrown away my tools. He thinks I’m strong.
Mother’s eyes flick to Griffin. “Don’t speak in my presence, Hoi Polloi.” She holds up my sword, making a show of inspecting it. “Is this Thanatos? The sword you named in my honor?”
“Not in your honor,” I answer. “In warning.”
“Of my impending death?” Her laughter is like a metal rake scraping deep furrows into my confidence. “I could hand you this blade right now. You’ll never do it. You don’t have it in you, and that’s why you’re a fool and a disappointment. All that power in a useless, cowardly package. You’re the one I should have handed over to Otis instead of Eleni.”
Rage explodes in me, coloring my vision black. “Don’t talk about Eleni. Don’t even say her name. You don’t have the right.”
“You’re a failure.”
“Why? Because I don’t look forward to adding matricide to my list of family kills?” Sarcasm masks the knot around my heart, but the pressure inside me makes it hard to speak.
“Cat’s never disappointed me a day in her life,” Griffin says flatly, and the fact that no lie burns through me tells me that his capacity to forgive and forget is huge.
Mother freezes. For a moment, she looks taken aback. “Give it time. You haven’t known her long.”
“He knows me better than you do,” I snap.
“He doesn’t know the darkness in your heart.” Her expression hardens again. “He doesn’t know how you’re made.”
Well, I do. I know exactly how I’m made. More or less. On the inside, I belong to the Gods.
As if to reward my acceptance of my birthright, and maybe even my destiny, a surge of power wells up from deep inside me, and lightning webs down my arms. The Elemental Magic explodes from my fingertips, charring the ground at my feet.
I lift my magic-bright hands and aim them at Mother. “You’re the one who doesn’t know how I’m made.”
Mother spins to the side, and my bolt hits the whirling material of her gown, punching a smoldering hole through it. She turns on me, livid, and I feel her try to push a fierce mental command straight into my brain.
It strikes me like an ice pick, cold and sharp. I gasp. Pressure and pain cut me off from my magic, and it takes all my strength to fight off her silent attack. My lightning sputters and dies like a guttering torch, but I shove her so fast from my mind that she reels back.
She shakes her head, feeling the backlash of her failed compulsion. Then, sneering, she says, “You’re not entirely useless. You did take care of the Tarvan royals for me, although I can’t imagine how.”
Her tone and expression are everything they need to be in order to make me doubt. In Castle Tarva, it was Ianthe and Bellanca, Griffin and Flynn. Cerberus. I hardly did anything besides rattle my tail and run my mouth.Not entirely uselesspretty much sums it up.
Mother points the gleaming tip of my own sword at me. “And now, with a little help from Thanatos, Thalyria will be mine.”
“Never.” Griffin steps in front of me again.
Mother lunges with a quick jab. Griffin shoves me back hard while evading the blade himself. Mother swings again, keeping him dodging as her left hand toys with my knife. I watch her fingers adjust, tighten. She’s going to throw.
Before I can warn Griffin, Little Bean does something that twists my insides. Her energy explodes with something that feels a lot like fright. Definitely distress. It stops my heart dead, and I know, justknow, that Mother is trying to get to her again. She’s battering her mind, and Little Bean is fighting back.
My lower abdomen goes rock-hard, and my hands fly to cover it. A pained breath hisses between my teeth.
Griffin turns back to me, alarm written all over his face.
“No!” I shout, dread hurtling through me.
He whips back around in time to see Mother release the dagger. He twists in front of me and doesn’t make a sound when the knife sinks deep into his middle, but I gasp in fright.
