Sons of Zeus (The Warrior Trilogy #1)

The man raised the whip again, and Dak and Riq both jumped in front of her, staring up at the fierce soldier. Sera didn’t know if she’d ever seen them do something quite that brave.

The man lowered his arm, but spat, his saliva splashing on all of them. Then he turned to the others who’d come with him. “Tie them up. Gag them. Throw them in the pit. Tomorrow, they hang.”

Then he rode off, leaving his minions to do the dirty work.





EVERYTHING THE jerk of a soldier had said became true, one detail at a time. Dak just hoped that the final order — being hanged — somehow got lost in a loophole. But so far he hadn’t seen any nice genius lawyers in fancy suits walking around.

They had an awful, awful couple of hours after the original soldier disappeared back into the army’s camp. His men dragged Dak and his friends around and stuffed big wads of cloth in their mouths, making it hard to breathe, much less talk. They tied ropes to their bound wrists, then pulled them along behind their horses. Dak stumbled, fell, got dragged, scrambled to his feet, then stumbled and started the whole process all over again. His friends didn’t fare much better. And Aristotle . . .

Seeing what the kind, dignified man went through just about shattered Dak’s heart. They gave him no better treatment, no mercy, no respect. He’d yelled his name successfully a couple of times before the soldiers finally gagged him, and all four of them had moaned and groaned and screamed muffled screams since then. But “Aristotle” and “We’re friends of Alexander” and “We need to save the king” and “I have to use the bathroom” all came out sounding like “Mrrrrph rmmm gurgggggrle rrrrmph.”

It was hopeless.

Tears stung Dak’s eyes as they dragged him over dry grass, dust and dirt, rocks and pebbles, roots and scattered old bones — which he hoped weren’t human. His whole body ached — and his insides felt even worse, watching his friends — by the time they came to a halt at the lip of a giant hole dug into the ground, a roughly rectangular pit in which dozens of people huddled in small groups. Dak saw their terrified eyes, constantly looking up, darting back and forth at the soldiers, probably wondering who’d be the one to finally end their lives.

Dak tried to scream, but it came out as another wimpy muffled moan. He tried to squirm away from the man holding his rope to no avail. He looked at each of his friends — at Sera, at Riq, at Aristotle — hoping that something magical might happen to free them. Desperation and fear boiled in their eyes, as he knew they did in his, too.

The soldiers dragged them to the very edge, then threw them into the pit one by one.



Riq hadn’t cried very often in his life. Not because he was some kind of macho hero dude or anything. He just wasn’t the type.

But something swelled behind his eyeballs, and it sure felt wet. Eventually, to his own surprise, tears trickled down his cheeks. He would’ve wiped them away if his hands had been free, but they were bound tightly with rope. So instead he buried his head into his lap as best he could, and cried a little harder.

He didn’t completely understand why the sorrow racked him so heavily now, of all times. They’d been through plenty of tough days as they’d traveled throughout history, fixing Break after Break. But these soldiers had seemed so harsh. So brutal. So mean. They didn’t discriminate their rough treatment — old man, kids, girl, it didn’t matter to them. Riq was positive that they treated their animals better, especially the horses.

He was so close, yet so far away from winning his war against the SQ. Stuck in a prison pit, ordered to die in the morning, with no way to tell anyone who they were or why they’d come. And even if they did get out of it, what did it matter? Riq had nowhere to go. Dak and Sera would have to leave him behind. Wasn’t he better off dead?

And that was the kicker. That was the truth at the heart of the despair threatening to swallow him up. Sera had been right. He’d preferred the idea of a hero’s death to trying to imagine life without family, friends, and the Hystorians’ mission.

But he wanted to live. He knew that now. He didn’t want to die in this place.

And so, he curled up into a ball as much as possible, and he let himself cry it all out, not caring who saw or heard.



Sera had enough bumps and bruises to last the rest of her life if she had any say in it. But she probably didn’t have much say, and she had a feeling that more would be coming.