Sons of Zeus (The Warrior Trilogy #1)

They moved to go around the man and his desk, heading for a set of marble stairs behind him, when the old guy suddenly sprang to his feet, fury animating his face. It seemed like an entirely different person had magically replaced the wrinkled zombie who’d been sitting there seconds earlier.

“Stop!” the man yelled, his surprisingly deep voice echoing off the high stone ceiling — in ancient Greek. “None shall enter here who has not sworn the oath! Those not of the League shall suffer the consequences for even attempting such a breach against the hegemon!”

Sera suddenly realized their mistake. The last person they’d spoken to had been speaking English. That meant their translators were only now calibrating to ancient Greek. And that meant Dak had effectively been speaking gibberish to the man who stood between them and Arisotle.

A thunder of footsteps sounded from down a hallway to their left. Seconds later, at least a dozen soldiers appeared, spears pointing at the three young newcomers.

“Kill these foreigners,” the old man standing at the desk barked. “Kill them swiftly and without mercy.”

The soldiers seemed all too eager to obey, charging forward with a chorus of yells.





DAK FELT like he’d been thrown into the middle of a practical joke. This couldn’t be happening. The League of Corinth was about peace, about philosophy, about negotiation, about bettering the fate of man. And now Dak had some old dude calling him names at the top of his lungs and a group of manly soldiers charging at him with big, heavy spears, their points looking sharp enough to gut a half-ton pig.

It all seemed so out of place that he almost forgot to run.

Sera grabbed him by the arm, yanking him back to cold, ugly reality.

They sprinted on the heels of Riq toward the stairs that led deeper into the building. As they rounded the wooden desk, Dak glared at the traitorous old geezer, red-faced and puffing his chest, standing at attention, shouting orders that were drowned out by the screaming soldiers. Dak thought those guys must’ve not seen any action in a while and wanted to make up for it by slicing three kids to tiny pieces. How had everything gone so terribly wrong?

They hit the stairs and started leaping up them two at a time. Sera had yet to let go of Dak’s arm, like a mother shepherding her son. He wanted to rip it free — he was perfectly fine to run from bad guys on his own, thank you. But his smarter side said that he might lose his balance doing such a stupid thing.

Up, up they went, the stairs seeming to multiply the more they ascended. They were only three from the top when something sharp poked Dak in the shoulder just as a hand gripped him by the ankle. He yelped and his arm came loose from Sera’s grip after all as he stumbled forward, smacking his head on the blunted edge of the very top step. He had a split moment to be thankful that thousands of feet had smoothed the thing out over the years, then a soldier was on top of him. There was a clatter as the spear the man had held tumbled down the marble stairs. But it was quickly replaced by the nastiest-looking dagger Dak had ever seen — all iron and sharp edges.

A few grumbled words of gibberish came out of the dude’s mouth before the translator in Dak’s ear kicked back into gear. It had taken a nasty hit.

“— out sliver by sliver.”

Dak didn’t want to know the first part. He struggled, squirming to get his body out from under the soldier, who had a knee placed directly in the middle of Dak’s chest, pressing him into the hard steps below.

“Can’t . . . breathe . . .” he sputtered out, hearing the odd echo of the device in his mouth translating the words for the jerk who held him down.

“Don’t . . . care . . .” the jerk replied. The dagger pressed against Dak’s chin, its pointy tip flicking to draw a droplet of blood — Dak felt it trickle down his neck.

Desperation gave him one last burst of adrenaline. He threw his knee up, slamming into the man and making him groan — a sound Dak knew he’d remember with glee the rest of his life if he somehow survived the mess. Off-balance on the precarious stairs, the soldier fell back when Dak threw all his strength forward in a final shove.

Suddenly free, Dak’s elation didn’t last more than a half second. Even before he could get a look around him, he remembered just how many of the armed men there had been, and just how big they were. And sure enough, to his dismay, Sera and Riq had been captured by two or three soldiers each, struggling despite having no chance at all. But Dak refused to give up. Kicking his feet until he finally found purchase on the steps, he vaulted himself forward and ran toward two men who had Sera pinned to the ground by her arms and legs.