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“What did you find?” There was no softness in Asterion’s voice now. It was a demand.
“I’m still evaluating—” Ria crossed her arms.
“What. Did. You. Find?”
The words came clipped, and with each one, his Scottish brogue thickened, roughening his voice, the sound rumbling through the hallway.
Ria blinked. “Why do you sound like you’re from Scotland?”
“What?” His expression flickered with confusion.
“Your accent.” She tilted her head. “It gets stronger when you’re upset. You sound like people from Scotland in the Upperworld.”
Asterion stared at her for a long moment.
“Our clan left Greece centuries ago,” he said at last. “We settled in Scotland before we emigrated to Vale Crossing.”
“Oh.” She opened her mouth to ask when they’d left, why they’d left, and how a clan of minotaurs had managed to disappear into the Highlands unnoticed.
He cut her off. “What are ye hidin’, witch?” There it was again—that rolling burr.
“Ye may not want to tell her”—his eyes hardened—“but you’ll tell me.”
Ria ground her teeth. She’d spent years apprenticing under Hecate. Years negotiating with gods who could level cities. Years standing her ground against creatures older than civilization itself. She was twenty-nine years old. She could handle one overprotective minotaur.
She shot him a glare that would have sent lesser men scrambling. “Come here.”
Without waiting for an answer, she marched farther down the hallway until they were well out of earshot of Korinnae’s room.
She turned and met his eyes. “Korinnae isn’t healing as fast as Liora.”
“So?” Asterion’s jaw tightened.
The single word landed, a challenge thrown at her feet.
“So,” Ria repeated, forcing patience into her voice, “that means something is interfering with the healing.”
He let out a dismissive huff. “Humans compare everything.”
Ria’s eye twitched. “No.”
He frowned.
“Let me talk.”
For a heartbeat, he looked as though he might argue. Instead, one corner of his mouth curled upward into that infuriating smirk. “Go on, then.”
She resisted the overwhelming urge to smack the expression off his face.
“The hunters weren’t attacking randomly,” she said. “They were looking for the children of Zeus.”
“I know.” Asterion gave a single nod.
“They would have prepared for divine offspring. Whatever magic they used was probably designed to suppress the healing abilities of Zeus’s bloodline.” She paused, organizing her thoughts. “My guess is whatever they did is lingering in her wounds, slowing her natural recovery.”
He didn’t interrupt.
“With Liora, once I increased the amount of magic I used during treatment, I was able to break through the resistance.”
