“How long are you going to hold this grudge?”
“Until you’ve apologized adequately,” I said, laying my hand on the pile.
Seth rolled his eyes, but I saw him flinch. He was well aware forgiveness would not come easily.
Phaedrus strode forward, joining his hand to the pile. A spark lashed between the four of us, and we lowered our hands.
Squeezing his eyes in intense concentration, Percy thought at us. “Can you hear me, Seth?”
“Yes,” Seth thought back. “Stay out of my thoughts.”
“Why? Are you hiding something in there?”
“No. I just don’t need you finding ammunition for your next song.”
“Don’t worry,” Phaedrus assured him. “He can only speak to you. This doesn’t make him a psyche.”
Seth’s eyes narrowed, and he glared at me. But his walls remained rigid as ever, his true thoughts safe from me.
Walls could be broken. I’d found the crack in his defenses that brought him to his knees.
Guilt. Especially when it involved Aethra.
Metal ground behind us as the gate slowly opened, revealing the next trial.
It was an arena.
Sheer stone walls rose from the edges of the dirt field, supporting rows of seating for spectators. My eyes first traced over the crowd gathered to watch, before rising to the blue sky above our heads.
Freedom.
“How kind of them,” Phaedrus thought. “To give us such an easy opportunity to escape.”
Snapping my head down, I looked at Seth. “I thought you saidthese trials weren’t for show.”
Flicking his wrist, Seth summoned a scarlet sword. “They aren’t supposed to be. I guess a lot has changed since I left home.”
Heavy gates across the tourney field cranked open. Three gold-painted chariots rode out, edges decorated with lethal spikes, drawn by muscular war horses covered in plated armor. Soldiers in blood red cloaks rode atop them, javelins held aloft.
A third gate rose on the western edge of the field, and my heart soared. Two women waited behind it: mere smudges from this distance—but smudges I recognized.
Flaming red hair and brunette curls.
We were all here.
Now all we needed to do was survive.
10
Seth
Ahorn blared across the arena, heralding the beginning of the death games.
Godsdammit. If I died here, the last thing I’d hear would be Eleos gloating inside my own head.
Dashing outside our chamber, I hugged the left wall, eyes locked on the western gate. Flames rushed across the arena as Seraphim summoned her blazing scythe.
Whips cracked at the north end as the chariot riders ordered their horses to ride. The spikes attached to the carriages’ wheels spun in a lethal whirl. If any of us got caught in them, we’d be torn apart.
