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“She’s in shock, Nero,” I heard Cadence say. Her voice was distant, muted, like she was speaking underwater.
Nero’s arms wrapped around me, drawing me in closer. I dropped my head to his chest and closed my eyes.
“Leda.”
Faris’s voice cut through the fog of my mind. He sounded irritated, angry, tired. There were a bunch of other emotions tangled up in there, but I was too exhausted to decipher them.
“Where have you been?” Faris demanded.
That emotion I recognized right away: impatience.
“We need to work quickly to get on top of this situation,” he told me. “The girl’s most powerful blasts incinerated the gods on impact.”
Oh, gods. This was even worse than Damiel and Cadence had told me.
“Indirect hits delivered death slowly, but far more painfully,” he continued.
The memory of the screaming god flashed into my head. The agony in his eyes. The uncontrolled twitch of his muscles. The black poison oozing under his skin, eating him alive.
I tried to push those images out of my mind, but they just wouldn’t leave. They were joined by an older memory—that of Colonel Fireswift’s daughter on her deathbed, thrashing and screaming. The Venom had killed her very slowly.
“Are you listening to me?” Faris demanded.
I blinked back stinging tears. “Yes.”
Faris’s eyes locked with mine, and he frowned, clearly displeased with what he saw. “Pull yourself together,” he snapped.
“Leave her alone,” Nero growled at my father. “Can’t you see how this is affecting her?”
“How this is affecting her?” Faris scoffed at the word. “Seven gods are dead. Gods. For thousands of years, we were virtually indestructible. And, in a few short minutes, that girl murdered seven of us. The other gods will be shaken. They will lash out. And if we don’t get a handle on this situation right now, everything will spiral out of control,” he hissed under his breath.
“And just how do you plan to get a handle on it?” I asked cautiously.
“Together.” He clasped my forearm, leaning in to whisper in my ear, “I know you and Windstriker whisked your sister away to another world. I need you to bring her to me.”
“No.” I tried to pull away from him, but he held on with all his godly strength.
“You will comply,” he commanded me.
I could feel him working his siren magic over me. I batted it away.
“If I bring her to you, you will kill her.” My throat was so tight, I could hardly get the words out. “You will make an example of her.”
“Yes.”
“No,” I shot back. “I am not going to let you kill my sister.”
“You don’t have a vote in the matter,” he said.
His tone was icy, but his eyes were burning like a firestorm. Even though he often fought with his brother, he’d obviously loved him in his own way.
“She killed seven of our own,” Faris said. “She will face justice.”
“This isn’t justice,” I spat, finally breaking free of him. “It’s revenge.”
“I don’t have time to argue semantics with you.” His voice snapped with impatience. “The girl is a threat that must be eliminated. She was created to be a weapon.”
“So was I,” I reminded him.
