Urian snorted in defiance of his glib tone. “I beg to differ, and so does my private business, as you say.”
Davyn laughed. “Aye, well, be that as it may, I don’t remember it, so it didn’t happen. Besides, I can’t believe we’re now having to guard you as carefully as we used to have to guard my man-lamb and his hind and front quarters from others. Who’d have thought?”
“Indeed,” Urian agreed. “The world’s gone madder than normal.”
“It’s not that.” Ophion grabbed Urian away from Davyn and hauled him toward an exit in a different direction.
Once they were on the street, Ophion reached back into the building and pulled Davyn through the door, then slammed it shut and locked it. “Word’s out on you, adelphos. Everyone knows what you did for Telly. Now they all think you have the powers of a god and can heal them. So if they partake of your semen, they believe they’ll become instantly immortal.”
Urian’s jaw fell again. “I’m not the god Set! Are they insane?”
Ophie raised his arms in surrender. “Don’t spear Hermes. Merely passing on the town gossip. They’re the ones hailing you as the savior of our people. Sickening, truly, as I know you for the idiot you are. Half of them are proclaiming you as the mystical Day-Walker, prophesied to save us from our curse. They think you’re capable of anything, now.”
Urian went bug-eyed. “Shite to that! Last thing I need is a bunch of fools tossing me to the daylight like I’m Andromeda to Poseidon’s sea monster or something.”
“Well, I’d like to feed you to a sea monster, most days, but for other reasons.”
Urian shoved at his brother. “You’re such a pain.”
“Learned it from you.”
Growling, Urian rolled his eyes. “Oh, to have had a solren who could have kept his prick to himself for one night. Damn him for all the brothers I trip over constantly. Should have let Hades take the bastard and beat him, rather than save his life and start this.”
Ophie kissed his cheek. “Ah now, you’d miss us if we weren’t here to aggravate you.”
Urian scoffed. “Doubt that.”
Davyn stopped suddenly and without warning, causing Urian to walk right into him.
“What are you doing?” He rubbed at his forehead, which he’d banged into the back of Davyn’s skull.
Davyn didn’t speak. He merely gestured at the crowd lined up outside the door of Urian’s home.
Ah, bloody hell …
He’d never seen the like. It was as if they were giving out alms on a feast day.
Davyn leaned his head back to grin at him over his shoulder. “One well-placed god-bolt could take out about half of them.” He flashed his fangs in an evil grin. “What say you?”
Urian grimaced in absolute agony of the thought of what waited there for him. “Don’t tempt me.” And it was tempting. These were the same people who’d had no use for him just a few days ago.
Until he had a power they thought they could make use of.
Funny how that worked.
And it left Urian extremely disenchanted with the lot of them. For he’d seen their true colors at a much earlier age than most saw it. Because he’d been born with the abnormality of blue eyes and not their brown Apollite ones, they hadn’t hidden their disdain for him. That made it all the harder for him to hide his resentment of them now.
Especially when they turned to rush him, begging for favors, these Apollites who’d refused to share the most basic sustenance with him when he’d been in need. They’d have seen him dead and in the street without losing a bit of sleep over it.
They were deplorable in their hypocrisy.
“Urian! Remember how close we were when we were boys? We were always together. Inseparable!”
He stared at Theo’s friend Iolus, who’d never spoken to him before. This was the same friend who used to tell Theo to make sure he left Urian at home, because he couldn’t stand Urian. “Your brother creeps me out with those freakish eyes of his.”
Aye, Urian remembered him well.
“Enough!” his father roared as he joined them. “Let the boy alone! If you want a miracle, write them down and hand them to Trates. Urian can review them later to see if he wishes to indulge you.”
They protested, but luckily his father wouldn’t be swayed.
Urian jerked his head as he felt something strange in the air.
His father scowled at him. “You all right?”
“Nay. Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“Something…” Urian scanned the dark street around them. But the sensation crawling along his skin only grew worse, not better. “There’s a god here.”
His father gave him a droll, bored stare. “That would be Apollymi. You can’t miss her. Tall, blond, angry goddess. Lives in the big, dark hall on your right.”
He snorted at his father’s sarcasm. “Nay. This is different. Can’t you sense it?”
His father shook his head. “I can only feel Apollymi and her Charonte.”
Yet Urian sensed it. Fiercely. There was no denying the powerful sensation of another god in their midst. The sensation crept along his skin. Undeniable.
Unmistakable.
Worse, it was malevolent.
“This is something else, Solren.”
His father glanced around the crowd that didn’t want to disperse before he lowered his voice to speak to them. “There’s something I need to speak to all of you about. I was going to wait until later, but…”
“What?”
“War’s coming. Unlike anything you’ve seen. The devastation in Xanthia’s village wasn’t just an isolated attack. We’ve been blessed that the goddess took us in when she did. Because life on the surface…” His father visibly winced. “After Apollymi’s attack on Atlantis that devastated most of the world, and the loss of the Atlantean pantheon, it’s thrown the power balance of the gods into turmoil. And with it, the Chthonians.”
Paris scowled. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. With the destruction of one pantheon, the Chthonians are at each other’s throats on how to restore the balance of the universe and realign the gods and their territories. And while they fight, the gods are vying for power. Our scattered people haven’t found their footing and are being systematically slaughtered the instant they are identified.”
Urian glanced to his brothers as he digested that news and what it meant for all of them. “Is that why so many Apollites have bartered with all manner of fey and demons? To spawn races in an effort to try to circumvent Apollo’s curse?”
His father nodded. “I don’t know how that’ll play out in the coming years. But knowing the gods as I do, they usually put such races down like rabid beasts. Until we see how this goes, my suggestion is to lie low and give them time to kill each other off.”
Ophion bristled at those words. “You speak of cowardice at a time when we should be helping them?”
Their father backhanded Ophion for the insult. “I speak of sanity, idiot! The nail that stands out is hammered down. And I won’t see our people fall needlessly to feed anyone’s ego.”
“What of our mother?” Urian braced himself for an equally violent reaction from his father.
To his surprise, he handed him a small yellow sfora similar to the red one Stryker used to spy on the human realm. “I’ll entrust this to you. I gave her a means to summon us should she be attacked, as well as the option of returning here to live. She chose to stay among her own kind. Hellen made it clear that she doesn’t want to return to Kalosis.”
Those words stung his heart, but Urian wouldn’t fault her for them. It was wrong to make her live in darkness when she didn’t have to. His mother deserved to live in the light. “I will watch over her.”
Paris took Davyn’s hand. “Do we have a Chthonian who protects us, Solren?”
“Nay. They don’t care about us. Apollites are on their own as far as the gods are concerned. Apollymi is all we have. She alone cares.”
Ophion’s eyes darkened. “That’s not right.”