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Yeah, I’d gotten that!

And then someone else grabbed me, only it wasn’t an enemy, this time.Or maybe I’d been wrong about that.Because the knife Bodil was suddenly holding against my throat didn’t feel friendly.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Bodil!”Pritkin yelled, enraged, but Bodil’s knife at my throat didn’t waver.Except to press inward slightly, enough that I felt a trickle of blood, human-warm and red, start down my neck.

It was enough to throw me out of the godly hunger that had started to claw at my psyche again, and to remind me: no matter what it felt like when power was surging through my veins, I wasn’t a god.No more than those poor bastards I’d just killed had been, whose blood still stained my hands and was spreading rapidly across the water-drenched floor.We were all playing with fire, when one stroke of a blade in the right place would mean lights out—permanently.

I froze.

“Great Poseidon!”Bodil’s voice echoed around the space, sounding triumphant and subservient and almost giddy, all at once.“Great Poseidon!Your granddaughter beseeches thee!”

And, okay, that got his attention.He paused the fight, which had been trending that way anyway, as Mircea and Pritkin had been distracted, staring at me.The great lips pursed thoughtfully.

“Granddaughter?What is this?”

“Great-granddaughter in fact,” she said, her voice quavering with what might have been pride or possibly fear, as those blue-gray eyes were hard to meet.“Daughter of Aliacmon, son of Palaestinus, son of mighty Poseidon!”

“Are you?”The huge golden hand did something that made a transparent version of Bodil jump out in front of us, edged in faint golden light.It vanished after a moment, and one of the huge, bushy brows raised.“Yes, I see that you are.And yet you come here with my enemies?”

“It was the only way to reach you, great king, after my world… died.”

“Yes, shame about that,” he said, with no inflection in his voice.And already, I understood why Zeus had won the struggle over who would lead the gods.He had been so solicitous, so persuasive, sorealin his supposed care for the half-human daughter of his greatest foe, that he had almost convinced me.

This guy couldn’t convince a deaf man of his sincerity, but maybe I was wrong.Because when Bodil spoke again, there was reverence in her voice.And eagerness.

“Yes, my world—my mother’s world—is dead, and I would find a new one in my father’s realm.I would join you, and serve you, most ably—”

Are you mad?Mircea’s voice echoed through our minds.He will betray you!Whatever you think—

But I guessed Bodil wasn’t interested in hearing Mircea’s take on things, because his voice abruptly cut out.

“I offer this one’s life as proof of my sincerity,” she said, her voice echoing around the room.And it was all there, what I should have seen before but hadn’t: ambition, pride, and enough ruthlessness to have allowed her to use us to reach the only family she had left.“I will kill her for you,” she added.“Now!”

“No!Bodil!”Enid screamed.

“What are you doing?”That was Æsubrand, looking bewildered.

“I’ll gut you for it,” Pritkin said, sounding more vicious than I had ever heard him.“If it’s the last thing I do—”

“You will die here today,” she told him contemptuously.“You all will!The gods have no need of you, or of this one!”

And I felt the knife bite deeper into my flesh.

“Hold!”the towering god said, his voice so loud that I thought I would die with busted eardrums.“Bring her to me.”

“Grandfather?”Bodil sounded suddenly unsure.

“I will end this one myself.”

“But… she is more dangerous than she appears.You see how many of your children she has killed, how ruthlessly, how effortlessly—”

“Effortlessly when stolen power was thrumming through her veins, perhaps,” he said.“Not now.That is the problem with demigods, is it not?”he added, coming over himself, since Bodil hadn’t moved, and shaking the room with each footstep.“Some of them fight well, but in the end, they are not gods.Just trumped-up flesh that dies as easily as any human.”

He went down on one knee, shrinking slightly to get in my face, while his remaining children formed a wall at his back.Not that it was needed.Mircea and Pritkin had reduced in size, too, not as badly as I had, but they must have been feeding me some of the power they’d gotten from somewhere.

They were half the size they’d been, and Poseidon had more reinforcements arriving every moment, ranging in size from human-standard to towering.They ran in, wild-eyed and dirty in burnt tunics and robes, probably summoned from all over the city by their father’s call.And started attacking viciously as soon as they arrived, forcing Mircea and Pritkin to defend themselves.