he simply shot me with a sleep spell and knocked Excalibur aside.
Vane sat up as I pitched forward. He put a hand under my knees and rose to his feet while still holding me. My head flopped against his chest.
Leonidas pushed Robin forward. “What do you want to do with him?”
“Set him free,” Vane replied. Shifting me, he took the seeing stone out of his pocket and tossed it to Robin. “Return it to your superiors. Tell them they’ve lost. Merlin can no longer help them. It is time to admit the world is lost.”
The cryptic statement was all I heard before my eyes shut.
***
I am Vane, I said to myself and asked for strength.
My nightmare walked closer. The hill seemed to tremble with every step he took. I tensed. Deadened eyes swept over the camp until they found Sergius.
Septimus sighed. “I am proved right again. If you want something done, you must do it yourself.”
I pushed myself off my knees. “I’m not going with you.”
“I’m not here for you.” Septimus smiled, a very different smile from the lascivious one he usually gave me. This smile was calm, neither friendly nor unfriendly, yet at its edge I sensed a dangerous cliff. The earth trembled under his every step. Nervous sweat broke out down my back… something that never happened with Septimus. Whatever stood in front of me, I realized, was not Septimus. I very much doubted him to be a man at all.
“Who are you?” I dared to say.
Septimus’s lips curved into a chilly smile. His eyes glowed a furious green. “You are correct. The true spirit of this body has already crossed realms. I am merely borrowing it. However, I am disappointed. Have you forgotten me already, Vane? Have I not always treated you like a favored son?”
The sweat on my back chilled my skin down to the bone. I couldn’t say the name out loud. I didn’t dare. Poseidon.
He strode to the little princess and picked her up.
It was the only thing that could have made me move. “What do you want with her?”
Poseidon glanced at me with mild amusement. “You ask a lot of questions. I shall forgive your impetuousness since you have served me well. You found the little one, but her destiny lies not in this place.”
I stared at the princess. “Is she yours?”
Poseidon laughed. “No, she is not mine. I leave such things to my brother.”
I swallowed. “She is one of you?”
He shook his head. “A mere mortal with just a touch of the divine and thus, entirely vulnerable. I meant for the gargoyle to protect her, but it seems I chose poorly. I admit we have allowed their numbers to dwindle, but perhaps with the dark times coming they will have room to flourish again.” Bright green eyes fixed on me. His voice warbled with suppressed power as he demanded, “Now, where are the apples?”
Unable to resist the compelling voice—a gift I always enjoyed using on others and didn’t enjoy having used on me—I glanced at our bedrolls. A whip of power rose in the air. The apple tore through the bag of hidden gold we buried and floated before us. Poseidon plucked it from the air. He opened his mouth and a strange song filled our ears.
I jumped as the ground ripped open. Clumps of dirt mixed with stone rose up. The dirt fell back to earth, leaving only stone. Poseidon re-shaped it into a three-sided bluestone structure. I recognized it. The Domnoni knew the stone circle of the giants. Caer Sidi. Saturn’s circle. The Roman god, Saturn, known to the Greeks as Kronos. The stone monolith was one from Kronos’s Circle of time.
Poseidon took the sleeping girl and tucked the apple in the crook of her arm. “Time for you to make your journey, little one.”
“No,” I cried out in protest.
Green eyes softened. “She is not meant for you, Vivane.”
His eyes made a movement. If I hadn’t been watching with petrified awareness, if I hadn’t been trained to look for every weakness, I would not have noticed the slight movement of his eyes that sought out my brother. Merlin.
What could my brother have to do with her? They just met.
“She has another purpose. You must let her go. My mother has chosen.” Poseidon answered the question I hadn’t formed.
His words nagged at my spotty memory, but I couldn’t decipher them. Yet, the way he said it, I knew I’d already lost her.
“Do not worry.” Poseidon inclined his head at the sleeping