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Brooks fiddled with the blanket’s loose threads. “You could have walked away,” she said, glancing up at me. “You could have ignored the call. You didn’t have to release him.”
Anger ripped through me so hard I started to shake. “What?! I’m lost here. You once said… You said I didn’t have a choice!”
“I didn’t know you were part god! No one did. And that gave you the power to choose.”
My mind reeled. So if I’d known I was a godborn, I could have ignored the magic? A hot sensation started to climb up my bum leg. Would I have ignored the magic if I’d known? The salt air burned my eyes. “You’re wrong. I didn’t have a choice.”
“I just told you—”
“You would’ve died!”
Brooks blinked back fresh tears. “I was going to be dead either way.”
One choice leads to victory, the other to defeat. Well, thanks, Pacific. That piece of wisdom was just great—and absolutely worthless! I thought about my so-called choices. They’d all led to one disastrous outcome: death. Rosie, Brooks… And now, if I didn’t beat Ah-Puch, he’d destroy everyone else I cared about and I’d become his servant, fighting on the wrong side of a bloody war. But even if I did defeat him, the gods would execute me for breaking some oath I’d never even agreed to!
(Are you gods catching on to how ridiculous this was?)
I sat back down. My head throbbed, filling with dark thoughts and confusion. Everything seemed impossible. I heard Hondo’s voice in my head. Find the soft spot and go after it with all you’ve got.
The only problem was, Ah-Puch didn’t seem to have any soft spots. I guess Hondo had never had to fight a god.
“I wouldn’t blame you for hating me,” Brooks said.
I had enough hate in me for Ah-Puch, for the twins, for…
“I don’t hate you,” I said. I gave a small shrug. “I guess I don’t even blame you.”
The air was tight and cold. And I really did want someone to blame, but everyone I mentally put up for the blame crown vanished, leaving me the only one left to wear it.
“So what’re we going to do?” Brooks asked.
“I’m going to try to find a way to finish this without everyone dying.”
“That’s impossible,” she whispered.
Maybe it was. But doing nothing wasn’t an option.
Brooks pulled the blanket tighter. “The gods might give you a trial instead of a death sentence?” she said quietly, but it sounded more like a question than a fact.
“Really?”
“No.”
“Then why’d you say that?”
“Because you look really awful, and I was trying to make you feel better.”
“Well, don’t. No more lies.”
“No more lies.”
I was sitting so close to Brooks our knees were touching. “I need to get Ah-Puch to come to the Old World. I don’t know why, but Hurakan said to challenge him there.”
Brooks tugged my sleeve up to reveal the mark on my wrist. “This is a tracking device, right?”
“So?”
“So, don’t be dense. That means he’ll follow you.”
