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For a second there, he seemed just like any other hot guy a normal girl would love to go out with. For a second, I completely forgot where I was and that he was the Demigod of War.
Damn you, girl!I scolded myself.Death is waving at you, and you still ogle the demigod who brought you this grief?
I straightened my back, determined to go out with dignity.
It didn’t matter, though. I shouldn’t even bother with my posture. There was no dignity in death.
“Go on then,” I said to the priest. “Cut me if you must. Carve whatever runes you like on my skin. But I’d rather die standing than—”
CHAPTER 7
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Before I finished mysentence, Theodore’s dagger shot a stream of flame toward me, hotter than imaginary dragon fire.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I cried.
That wasn’t what happened with any of the other initiates. Theodore must be so pissed he intended to burn me instead of carving the runes on my skin with care and skill.
Instinctively, I threw up my hands to fend off the fire, even though it was a pathetic, futile gesture.
The flame socked into my chest so hard I flew backward and rammed into the operating table. The table flew up and smashed into a splendid chandelier high up on the ceiling. A sharp crash of steel hitting glass sounded throughout the temple.
Crystals and diamonds rained down, and the initiates beneath them ducked.
The table flew across the room at an odd angle. It must have hit a few soldiers, judging from the curses and groans of pain.
“What the fuck?” Axel roared in rage, zooming toward me.
“I didn’t do that!” Theodore shouted. “I haven’t touched the girl. The dagger acted on its own. This has never happened in millennia. Something doesn’t add up. It must be the girl. No one has ever dared to ask questions during the ritual. She talked too much.”
Fury burst through me that they were trying to make the whole thing my fault when I was the one who’d gotten hit.
Nervous whispers churned through the hall as everyone seemed to have something to say.
“The Ritual of the Blood Runes is to weed out the weak, the unworthy, and the unfit. It leaves only the strong to defend humanity,” Demetra said, probably to her clique or anyone who was willing to listen. “That’s the unbreakable tradition of the first ceremony in the Half-Blood Academy. I knew that rogue would be incinerated.”
“Shut up,” Yelena hissed. “If you still have a thread of humanity left.”
“How dare you rebuke me, you stupid cow?” Demetra asked.
“Don’t you call her a cow, you viper!” Nat said. “And you aren’t a quarter as you falsely claimed. You’re but one-eighth. That’s a huge difference.”
