“Don’t be ridiculous.” Even as she spoke gently, there was a challenging bite in her tone. “This is exactly where you come. Now take a sip and tell me what happened.”
I wrapped my stiff fingers around the warm mug. It seemed to take forever to bring it to my mouth, but when I did, I finally looked up at my friend. She was awash in warm pink from the predawn light filling her kitchen. The usually hard-edged woman looked softer sitting across from me at the small breakfast table, legs crossed in her robe, braids wrapped up in a silk scarf with a coffee of her own.
Unlike the sleek, streamlined decor of Sinopolis, her house was cozy, lived-in, and well off the Strip. Driving away from the hotel, it got a little easier to breathe with each mile I put between me and it. My responsibilities, my failures.
I forced myself to drink the hot, dark liquid. Miranda made a strong cup, which I appreciated.
“I tried to take him.” The words came out softly.
“Aaron?”
I nodded numbly. “I told him to bite me, but it didn’t work.” Despite the sickly churn of the coffee in my stomach, I took another long pull from the mug.
She hesitated. “It didn’t work?”
I shook my head. “It has been recorded that in very rare cases, a Sekhor cannot transfer from one god to another.”
Transfer. I had to resist the need to snort at my own description of the situation. What an elegant, inadequate word for what I tried to do. I tried to rip Aaron from Seth and claim him as my own.
Her brow knitted. “Why not?”
I licked my lips, not relishing saying it out loud again. When I did, it came through clenched teeth. “Because Seth is stronger than me. I am incapable of taking what’s his.”
It galled. It galled so terribly that I wanted to smash this mug against the wall and scream like an angry, wounded animal. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t make such a scene in my friend’s home.
Instead, I brought the coffee to my lips once again, hoping to drown my feelings.
Miranda leaned back in her chair as if needing a moment to absorb the news. She crossed her legs in the opposite direction as she looked out the glass door that led to the backyard where Assirak and her dog were running and leaping about, playing with each other.
Not that she could see Assirak still, but he had insisted on coming. He’d waited outside the shower, sensing my distress, and the moment Miranda texted back that I could come over—even this early—he was already at my side.
The lump that had formed in my throat watching Aaron reject my blood hadn’t gone away, but it ever so slightly shrunk. For a moment, I could pretend I wasn’t a god, that Miranda wasn’t an immortal-slaying warrior. We were just two regular friends drinking coffee and talking about our problems.
“Do you think he’s really more powerful than you?”
“If this happened, it must be true.”
She shook her head. “Timothy, you are your own worst enemy. Now I’ve only been walking among the immortals forfive years, but from what I’ve seen, you’ve been trying tothinkyour way to power. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s how you can rule over other powerful ancient gods.”
“I’m the god of wisdom, of writing, recordkeeping, and science.Of course, I think my way through problems.” I couldn’t help the testiness creeping into my tone. I was getting sick of being told my way was not the way to do things.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t depend on your strengths,” Miranda countered, unfazed by my attitude. “I’m saying, you’ve been relying on the rules instead of yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and I both know that Seth is undermining you. That he’s up to something we haven’t pinned down yet,” she said quietly. The danger of the situation more apparent, it felt imminent, though neither of us could figure out what he was doing. “Why haven’t you done something to stop him? To put him in his place?”
“Aside from the fact he’s more powerful than me?” I snorted into my coffee with disdain.
“Aside from that,” she affirmed.
“Because there isn’t sufficient evidence yet and I have to abide by the proper process before I can?—”
“You give your power away to the rules,” she leaned in as she interrupted, “to a system that is made up. You have the power to remake them, whether you’re God of the Dead or not.
“You sound like the other gods. That’s what I’m trying to prevent. From any of these upstarts taking this world and reshaping it to what they want.”
“Why would you doing that be a bad thing? No, seriously, don’t look at me like that. You have been technically ruling this world alongside Grim for a long time. You’re not some jackass trying to throw everything over for their convenience.”
