Sons of Zeus (The Warrior Trilogy #1)

Aching and wincing, she’d scooted away from where she’d landed after being tossed into the pit, and finally nestled her back against the wall, finding the most comfortable position possible — considering her wrists were tied behind her back. The cloth stuffed inside her mouth was awful, choking her and making it hard to breathe. Several times she’d had to fight the urge to throw up from a gag reflex. She could only imagine how pleasant that would turn out.

Settling her body, she forced herself to relax. Something would work out, she knew it. They still had the Infinity Ring, a miracle in itself. Maybe the soldiers weren’t planning on searching them for valuables until they came out of the pit. Or maybe they didn’t care, or doubted they had any. Regardless, Sera and her friends had the Ring. And if she could just get her hands free . . .

She struggled a bit but stopped to catch her breath. She took a long look at each of her friends. Riq had curled up into a ball, and she thought his shoulders shook a little. Was he crying? For some reason that hurt worse than the bruises and scrapes. Dak lay on his side, staring at the dirt, breathing slowly and calmly. Aristotle was next to him, sitting up, staring at the edge of the pit as if he expected King Philip or Alexander to appear at any second to rescue them.

She loved these people, her friends, the philosopher . . . She wanted to do whatever it took to get them out, to get them back home. She wanted to win, fix the Prime Break, eliminate the SQ, stop the Cataclysm. She wanted it all so desperately.

And underneath it all, her parents. She could still picture them, as she’d seen them in her Remnants. She knew that whatever power Tilda had over them, they loved her. She just knew it. So if it had been the SQ who had taken her parents from her, then that was all the more reason to keep fighting until the SQ was wiped out of existence.

Dak. Riq. Aristotle. Her parents. Dak’s parents. Her uncle. Brint. Mari. The countless others who would be saved if the mission succeeded.

Riq could cry — he deserved to let it all out. Dak could sit and think — he deserved a rest, a break, some time to himself. Aristotle could stare at the sky and hope as much as he wanted.

The rest was up to Sera.

She could do this.

Would do this.

No matter what.

Step by step, piece by piece.

She got to work.





THE GAG was the first thing to go.

She had to trust her eyes more than ever before in her life. Watching, waiting, watching, looking everywhere — she focused on the soldiers guarding the pit, and forced herself to rely on patience, taking the tiny opportunities when they came. Dak started to sit up when he noticed what she was doing, but she glared at him — they could say more with their eyes and body language than most people could with words — and he went back to lying on the dirty ground.

It took a while — and some serious bending of body parts that she hadn’t bent so much since, well, 1850 or so — but she was finally able to reach her hand high enough to grab the wad of cloth in her mouth and pull it out. Choking and coughing, she spun around to face the wall of the pit so that no one could see her. Thirst raked her throat, and it seemed as if the coughs might never stop coming. But they subsided, and she composed herself once again.

She slowly turned around, puffing her cheeks out a bit so that it would look like she still had the gag. A quick survey of the scene up above showed that no guards suspected anything — in fact, they wandered around the pit as if they couldn’t care less what anyone below did. But Sera couldn’t take any chances.

Riq caught her eye. He’d uncurled from his position and sat staring at her, his face full of questions. That’s when Sera made a huge decision. Escaping the pit would be hard enough for one person — impossible for four. Her friends needed to trust that she could find people who knew Aristotle and come back to get them. She hoped they understood. With careful nods of her head and pointing with her eyes, she tried to tell Riq and Dak that she wanted them to create a diversion.

In one corner of the pit, there were enough hand-and footholds in the dug-out dirt that she was certain she could climb up the wall and out. She’d climbed her share of trees throughout the years. Riq and Dak seemed to understand, and started moving to the opposite side of the pit, hands still tied up.

Which reminded Sera of her next task. The ropes binding her wrists didn’t seem all that strong. And there were plenty of rocks strewn about the roughly dug prison into which they’d been thrown. She looked around until she found a good one with a sharp edge, then sat over it, head down, like a girl who’d given up on the world and only wanted to cry in pity. Then she started sawing. Back and forth, back and forth, glancing around every few seconds to make sure no soldier had noticed.

A strained, muffled series of sounds came from behind her, and she twisted around to see Aristotle looking directly at her, trying to say something. She shrugged to let him know she couldn’t understand, and he stopped making the moaning noise. But then his face took on a calm, commanding presence — almost magical — that seemed to fill the air with some kind of unearthly communication. She felt it, and it encouraged her. He was telling her that he was proud, that he knew she could do this.