The Tyrant's Tomb

Ever heard the phrase
“The silence is deafening”?
Yeah, that’s a real thing
IMMEDIATELY, I CRUMPLED TO my hands and knees under the
weight of the other god’s power.
Silence enfolded me like liquid titanium. The cloying smell of roses was
overwhelming.
I’d forgotten how Harpocrates communicated—with blasts of mental
images, oppressive and devoid of sound. Back when I was a god, I’d found
this annoying. Now, as a human, I realized it could pulp my brain. At the
moment, he was sending me one continuous message: YOU? HATE!
Behind me, Reyna was on her knees, cupping her ears and screaming
mutely. Meg was curled on her side, kicking her legs as if trying to throw off
the heaviest of blankets.
A moment before, I’d been tearing through metal like it was paper. Now,
I could barely lift my head to meet Harpocrates’s gaze.
The god floated cross-legged at the far end of the room.
He was still the size of a ten-year-old child, still wearing his ridiculous
toga and pharaonic bowling-pin crown combo, like so many confused
Ptolemaic gods who couldn’t decide if they were Egyptian or Greco-Roman.
His braided ponytail snaked down one side of his shaved head. And, of
course, he still held one finger to his mouth like the most frustrated, burnedout
librarian in the world: SSSHHH!