Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Trying to teach the traitor a lesson would result in my escape. I wondered if my unpleasant escort would find that amusing.
I chanced a peek. He blinked lazily at me like I was no more interesting than the beetle that crawled out of my hay pile. No. I get the feeling he finds very little amusing.
“What do you think?”
It took me a minute to realize he was asking about the food. “It’s very good,” I admitted. “The cakes are almost as good as my mother used to make.”
“Excellent. The daughter of Hecate I paid to put a truth serum in those cakes, swore it was too sweet for you to notice the taste.”
“What!” I gagged, forcing it back up. Horrified, I flung the food—feeling no satisfaction when the bread bounced off his unlined forehead. “What have you done?!”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll ask the questions. The serum only lasts for a short time,” he drawled. “I’m going to find out exactly what it is you’re hiding. Including why you ran away from the academy, but march so happily to your death.”
Fear gripped me, strangling my tongue. Dull pain throbbed my nail beds as the talons began to grow.
“No!” I screamed at him and me. “You can’t ask me anything! Please! You have no idea what’s at stake.”
“What are you talking about? What’s at stake?”
I pierced my cheeks clamping my hands over my mouth. How could I have been so stupid? There was no such thing as soldiers being kind to traitors.
Shrewd eyes raked me up and down, then in a blink, Alexander’s face smoothed out. “Calm down, hay rat. A properly brewed truth potion is forty gold coins. You can trust I’d never waste that amount of money on the likes of you.
“There was nothing in that but dough, honey, and walnuts.” He smirked as my horror morphed into a different type. “Jason wants to divert our course and take you to Kuna City. The very fact that you seem to want to go to the capital is why we shouldn’t take you there.
“Kuna is a two weeks’ ride, so I said Hades no. Then I lost the game.” Alexander blew out a sigh. “He said if I proved you weren’t hiding something, then we’d go to Trono as planned.” Straightening off the bars, he tossed his apple core at the pile of food I wouldn’t get to eat. “Better get some sleep. Thanks to you, we’re spending two weeks sleeping on the ground and a horse’s back.”
I had nothing to say as he walked out. Alexander tricked me so easily, my head was still spinning. Of course it didn’t matter where they executed me. Jason was wrong to believe I had some special reason for wanting to go to Trono, but how far he would go to prove it was the true problem.
What if the next batch of honey cakes did have truth potion in them? I couldn’t refuse to eat for two weeks. Better yet, what if they skipped the cakes and playing nice, and tortured me to get the truth. If they did it in the name of protecting Olympians, they wouldn’t face consequences, and they knew it.
I was at the mercy of men who could do whatever they wanted to me... and now they knew I had a secret.
CLINKING METAL JANGLED in my ears, gently pulling me from sleep.
The underground prison cell was darkness absolute. At night, the guard extinguished the lone torch on his way upstairs to his cushioned chair and desk. When you put a person in hell, why not make it worse for them?
“Give that to me,” an unfamiliar voice hissed. “Do not go down there—whatever you hear. This prisoner must be questioned in connection to the death of the councilman Marcus Sideris. I won’t have any softhearted traitors stand in the way of justice being carried out.”
“I’m no traitor, sir.” The sycophantic quivering voice wasn’t familiar to me either. “You’ll have no interruptions. This door stays locked until you leave.”
Questioned about the death of the councilman? I was the only prisoner in the jail, so obviously they were talking about me, but what could make them think a random typhon’s guess had any weight? Whoever did it took down the most powerful son of Apollo in all of Olympia and apparently lived to tell about it.
Was it when I fainted in the mud, or when I threw bread at Alexander’s head that convinced them this impossible assassin was me?
Light broke the gloom, leading his way downstairs. I rose to my feet when Nico stopped in front of my cell. Holding my gaze, he placed the torch in its holder. I stiffened as he stuck the key in the lock and turned.
“You don’t need to come in here to question me.”
“I disagree.” His voice was surprisingly light and musical for such a portly, grizzled man. Nico appeared to be about Jason’s age—putting him at least twenty years older than me. He wasn’t as round as the elderly men who used to sit outside the tavern in my old village, balancing mugs on their guts. But there was a soft, doughy laxness about him that said wherever he was stationed, he didn’t see much action, or training.