Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
If I were smart, I would send him back to his room and lock him in for safety. I would set someone I trust as guard at his door to ensure no one gets any ideas similar to Polyphemus’s. But the thought of letting him out of my sight makes my chest hurt. “We’re going to the shipyard. I have to meet with my people. We might not be officially at war, but we’re still the first line of defense.”
Icarus straightens his shirt, his expression concerned. “Before, you agreed to go along with Hera’s plan to deal with Circe.”
“Yes.”
“But now you’re going to…what? Double-cross her? Poseidon, that’s suicide.” He follows me out of the kitchen, so close that he’s nearly stepping on my heels. “What the fuck do you think you’re going to do? Circe has an actual navy out there. It’s a small one, but still more than you have.”
That’s just another question I don’t have an answer to. The people under my command are sailors—at least some of them. But there’s a wide gap between knowing how to navigate a ship and knowing how to use one in a fight. We’re not a navy, and I’m sure as fuck not a naval general. I can do my best to prepare them, do my damnedest to ensure we’re ready as the front lines to protect the city, but in my heart of hearts, I’m certain I’m going to get every single one of them killed. For nothing.
Circe will still invade before the Thirteen can get their shit together and vote on war and unification. Even more people will still die. We just won’t be around to witness it because we’ll be the first people she cuts down. Even if Hera manages to work out some kind of deal, it won’t extend to me and mine. That’s just how she operates, and I have a feeling that’s how Circe does, too. Hera’s priority is her family. I don’t hold it against her, but it’s so fucking shortsighted I want to scream my frustration. Now Hermes is in the mix, no longer to play court jester, revealing just how dangerous she’s been all along.
We’re too fragmented, everyone looking out for their own interests. We don’t stand a chance. Maybe we never did.
I open the front door and step aside so Icarus can follow me out. I don’t realize that I haven’t answered him verbally until he wraps his hand around my bicep. He tries to tug me to a stop. I’m distantly aware that I could just keep dragging him down the street, but I allow him to halt me.
“I mean it, Poseidon. Maybe it would be better if you made your own deal with Circe. If your people stood down, she’d spare them.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
He looks like he wants to do just that, but huffs out a breath instead. “Okay, she’d probably spare them.”
I rotate to look at him. For once, there’s no apparent lie on his face, just a worry that makes my chest twinge in response. Or maybe he’s a better liar than I realized… “Are you that worried about me? You hate me.”
“Oh, that.” He waves it away as if our being enemies is something to discard so easily. “You’re not altogether terrible, but if it’ll make you feel better, call it selfish interest. Circe holds no love for me, not after my father and family failed her so spectacularly, and I intend to use my blackmail material to remove some of her. Maybe if she’s rushing past us, she won’t stop to cut me down in the process.”
The words are correct, at least for the playboy spoiled brat that Icarus has portrayed since arriving in Olympus. And yet…I don’t believe him. He wasn’t speaking out of self-interest. He was worried about me. I don’t know how to feel about it, so I push the sensation kindling in my chest aside. “Even if I were willing to do something so dishonorable, if Circe is as smart as you say—and she’s shown every evidence of being exactly that smart—she would agree to my deal and then double-cross me the moment she made landfall. To do anything else would be to leave a potential dagger at her back.”
Even if she would take the deal, I…can’t. Throwing all of the city to the wolves in order to save myself and the small group of people I’m personally responsible for feels wrong. Damn it. Not for the first time, I acknowledge that ignoring my inner moral compass would’ve allowed me to go much further in Olympus. But it’s not who I am. It will never be who I am.
“Well…yes. Her immediately murdering you and everyone under you is definitely a possibility, even if you make a deal.” Icarus sighs and drops his hand. I try very hard not to miss the contact of his fingers digging into my muscle. He sighs again. “We’re fucked.”