The Tyrant's Tomb

But, of course, I knew the answer. Wolves are not frontline fighters.
They are hunters who attack only when they have overwhelming numbers.
Lupa expected her Romans to solve their own problems. To be self-sufficient
or die. She would advise. She would teach and guide and warn. But she
would not fight their battles. Our battles.
Which made me wonder why she was telling me to summon help. And
what help?
My expression and body language must have conveyed the question.
She flicked her ears. North. Scout the tomb. Find answers. That is the
first step.
Outside, at the base of the temple, the funeral pyre crackled and roared.
Smoke drifted through the open rotunda, buffeting the statue of Jupiter. I
hoped, somewhere up on Mount Olympus, Dad’s divine sinuses were
suffering.
“Tarquinius Superbus,” I said. “He’s the one who sent the undead. He’ll
attack again at the blood moon.”
Lupa’s nostrils twitched in confirmation. His stench is on you. Be careful
in his tomb. The emperors were foolish to call him forth.
Emperor was a difficult concept to express in Wolf. The term for it could
mean alpha wolf, pack leader, or submit to me now before I rip out your
jugular. I was fairly sure I interpreted Lupa’s meaning correctly. Her
pheromones read danger, disgust, apprehension, outrage, more danger.
I put a hand over my bandaged abdomen. I was getting better…wasn’t I?
I’d been slathered with enough Lemurian spice and unicorn-horn shavings to
kill a zombie mastodon. But I didn’t like Lupa’s worried look, or the idea of
anyone’s stench being on me, especially not an undead king’s.
“Once I explore this tomb,” I said, “and get out alive…what then?”
The way will be clearer. To defeat the great silence. Then summon help.
Without this, the pack will die.
I was less sure I comprehended those lines. “Defeat the silence. You
mean the soundless god? The doorway that Reyna is supposed to open?”
Her response was frustratingly ambivalent. It could have meant Yes and
no, or Sort of, or Why are you so dense?
I stared up at Large Golden Dad.
Zeus had thrown me into the middle of all this trouble. He’d stripped me
of my power, then kicked me to the earth to free the Oracles, defeat the
emperors, and—Oh, wait! I got a bonus undead king and a silent god, too! I