Page 229 of Blood of Hercules
They’re acting weird.
To change the subject, I asked something that had been bothering me for weeks. “What does Hades’ power do? The fog during the massacre was... strange.”
Patro arched his brow and looked down at me. “It torments you with the worst thing you’ve ever done.”
The boy with horns screaming for mercy as he beat himself with his own fists.
There had been so many voices.
None of them made sense.
“Is the fog—confusing?” I asked, unsure how to verbalize the jumble of noises I’d experienced.
Patro shook his head. “No, it’s painfully clear.”
My sternum went cold, and it had nothing to do with the icy conditions.
We ran the rest of the way in silence.
When we finally got to the bottom of the mountain, the river was iced over so thickly that they couldn’t clear a path.
Tears streamed down my face with relief. They froze and made my face hurt.
Drex grinned at me.
The other initiates slumped over with gratitude.
Patro announced we would be running the mountain pass for asecond time because we couldn’t swim. Any congenial feelings I had for him extinguished.
I cried again, this time from misery.
When the suffering was over, we staggered back down the stairs into the mountain. All of us were near comatose.
Fluffy Jr. led the way, his fur covered in snow and ice.
Augustus’s face fell when he saw him outside the classroom, and he glared down at my protector with a murderous expression.
Fluffy Jr. growled back.
General Cleandro stepped out of the room and announced we had a break in the library.
The six of us turned and stumbled in that direction. Titus moaned, dragging his wounded leg behind him.
No one went to the tables.
We all collapsed in front of the different fireplaces spread around the room.
I stuck both of my feet, which were a sickly pale-blue color, near the flames.
If I was fully human, they’d need to be amputated. Since I was part Spartan, I’d recover.
Lucky me.
Voices whispered nearby, and the hairs on my neck stood up like I was being watched.
I gritted my chattering teeth and ignored it.
Fluffy Jr. licked my face (it smelled like something haddiedin his mouth) as I lay on the floor in front of the fireplace. Then numbness turned into an awful prickling sensation, and I convulsed on the rug.
