anyone else having a meltdown.
Maybe an interruption wouldn’t be a bad thing.
I tried to head down the hall, but found a damned demigod in the way. And then the door the little man had come through closed and the sound cut out, so completely that it probably indicated a ward over the entrance. Not a problem, I thought, and started to shift—
But Caedmon grasped my arm again, preventing it. And he did prevent it. My magic swirled around us and then paused, as if waiting for him to release it or for me to push it. My eyes narrowed, and he nodded abruptly.
“There you are,” he said. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The goddess. I saw her on the battlefield; I haven’t seen her since.”
“You haven’t seen me at all since!”
“Oh, but I hear things,” he said, bending closer. And suddenly the whimsical joker was gone, and the king was looking at me. “I hear you have a number of talents: seer, necromancer, opener of ways—”
“What’s that to you?”
“A great deal. I have talents, too. We need to spend some time together, Cassie Palmer, and find out how our gifts can complement each other. Make sure that we know them all—and that we’re not afraid to use them.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said, and meant it. I should have been; Caedmon had just proven that his power could at least impede if not stop mine. But not overcome it. I could feel it, waiting, surging at my fingertips. I could push back if I wanted, it whispered, and right then, I damned well wanted!
“Yes, there she is,” he smiled, but it was a different one this time. I couldn’t name it, exactly, like I couldn’t name the expression in his eyes. But it made my power surge. I wanted to push it, to find out what he could do, to force him to show himself.
To see which one of us was best.
“It’s your mother’s blood you feel,” he told me. “Our people’s blood. It sings in my veins as well. Did you think it was only the Pythian power that made you strong?”
I just stared at him, trying to will myself calm when my every instinct said go.
“As I said, I have talents,” he added. “But I have had thousands of years to learn them, their gifts and their limitations. If we are to win, you must learn yours. And accept the role you were born to play.”
I wanted to ask him what the hell that meant, but I didn’t get the chance. He finally let go, and not just physically. My power surged, my interrupted shift grabbed me, and the next thing I knew—
I was back on that damned battlefield.
Chapter Thirteen
For a moment, I was sliding in gore and stumbling across bodies. I smelled the sharp, metallic stench, felt viscera slipping beneath my shoes, tasted blood in my mouth. And then I snapped back in time to see it all again, spread out on the floor all around me.
And being dragged through a set of double doors in front of me.
It took me a confused few seconds to realize that I was where I’d expected to be—in some kind of office next to the hallway—and not back in time. Only nobody had noticed my arrival, because I’d shown up at the same moment as something else. Something that was still being carried in from the waiting area through doors I hadn’t seen when we came in, because I’d been following Rafe through a side entrance.
But I could see a few hints of gold from the kinetic statue in the lobby, so I knew where I was. Along with part of the bored crowd, who weren’t looking so bored right now. Some of them were crowding the doors, getting an eyeful, and getting shoved back by the soldiers bringing in more bodies.
Most of which were in pieces.
I stumbled back, sliding on blood, and staring at maybe a couple dozen men—or what was left of them. In some cases, the only thing holding them together appeared to be their armor. And that didn’t work too well where the heads were concerned.
One had been hanging by a bit of skin, which I guessed had been stretched to the limit. Because it gave way, allowing the severed thing to bounce, bounce, bounce, on the tiles of the floor before coming to rest at my feet.
I fought a serious urge to retch.
Glassy blue eyes stared up at me out