The Tyrant's Tomb

“Stop right there,” she warned, “or I’ll have Felipe put you down for a
nap, too.”
“But Michael Kahale—”
“Yeah, we know. He failed. The emperors’ troops were bragging about it
as they marched past. It’s one more thing they have to pay for.”
Brave words, but her eyes betrayed a flicker of worry, telling me she was
more terrified than she let on. She was having trouble keeping up her own
courage and preventing her makeshift troops from losing their nerve. She did
not need me reminding her how insane her plan was.
“We’ve all got a lot to do,” she said. “Good luck.” She ruffled Meg’s
hair, which did not need any more ruffling. “Dryads and fauns, let’s move!”
Harold and Felipe picked up Reyna’s makeshift stretcher and jogged off
down the gully, Aurum and Argentum bounding around them like, Oh, boy,
another hike! Lavinia and the others followed. Soon they were lost in the
underbrush, vanishing into the terrain as only nature spirits and girls with
bright pink hair can do.
Meg studied my face. “You whole?”
I almost wanted to laugh. Where had she picked up that expression? I
had zombie poison coursing through my body and up into my face. The
dryads thought I would turn into a shambling undead minion of Tarquin as
soon as it got fully dark. I was shaking from exhaustion and fear. We
apparently had an enemy army between us and camp, and Lavinia was
leading a suicide attack on the imperial fleet with inexperienced nature
spirits, when an actual elite commando force had already failed.
When had I last felt “whole”? I wanted to believe it was back when I was
a god, but that wasn’t true. I hadn’t been completely myself for centuries.
Maybe millennia.
At the moment, I felt more like a hole—a void in the cosmos through
which Harpocrates, the Sibyl, and a lot of people I cared about had vanished.
“I’ll manage,” I said.
“Good, because look.” Meg pointed toward the Oakland Hills. I thought
I was seeing fog, but fog didn’t rise vertically from hillsides. Close to the
perimeter of Camp Jupiter, fires were burning.
“We need wheels,” said Meg.