But he couldn’t. Acheron was too important to the world.
Most of all, he was too important to Savitar personally.
Savitar waited until Styxx had poured water into a bowl for the dog before he appeared beside him.
Faster than he could blink, Styxx had a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. Both angled at Savitar’s head.
“Impressive.” Savitar hadn’t even known Styxx was armed.
Gone was any hint of the boy who’d been playing with his dog just moments before. This was the rigid general who had led armies and fought gods and gladiators in an arena with such strength and cunning that his enemies had been forced to resort to tricks and traps to defeat him.
As the old saying went, never say “why me.” Rather say, “try me.” That was Styxx in a nutshell.
Styxx glared his hatred. “What do you want?”
“You to point those somewhere else.”
He lowered them to Savitar’s groin.
“Cute.”
Smirking, Styxx tucked the gun into the holster at his back and returned the knife to the sheath on his forearm. “Whatever it is you want, it has nothing to do with me.”
“Some of the Atlantean gods have returned.”
“As I said, it has nothing to do with me.”
“They want vengeance.”
Styxx bent down to pull his water out from under his aba. “So?”
“On Acheron.”
Styxx took a swig of his bottled water before he capped it. “Nothing to do with me.”
“So that’s it, then? You’re just going to let your brother die? And he will.… There’s no way for him to survive this.”
Styxx swallowed the pain inside him. “Are you deaf? The gods know, Acheron has said it enough. I don’t have a brother.”
“The world as you know it will end.”
He laughed at that. “The world as I knew it ended the moment my wife and son were killed. And anything remotely related to the life I once lived ended while I was held prisoner for over eleven thousand years. I know nothing of this place and I have no dog in this fight. It has nothing to do with me,” he repeated. He headed toward his horse and camel.
“Tory’s pregnant again.”
Styxx froze as those words cut him to the quick. “Good for her … and Acheron.”
“Are you really going to condemn an innocent woman and her two children to live without their husband and father?”
“That’s not fair!” he growled, glowering at the Chthonian he wanted to shoot.
“Life, like war, isn’t fair. It just is. Isn’t that what Galen taught you?”
Styxx winced at the reminder of all he’d lost … because of his brother and the gods he’d hated since the moment of his birth. “You’re not helping your case by reminding me of Apollo’s treachery, Chthonian.”
“Fine, then. Stay here in your desert. At least you’ll have the comfort of knowing Acheron’s widow and orphaned children will be able to commiserate with your pain.”
Whirling about in fury, Styxx threw the water bottle at him.
