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“You lie and say you don’t know what your power is. You’re here to free me from my prison, not play around with swords. Stop this time wasting and find me!”
I tuned her out. She’d be no help.
“Alexis Andino.”
The commander stepped off and a tall, ungainly guy took his place. He swept the audience with a look like he wished he was somewhere else, throwing up.
“This isn’t right,” I whispered. “Why does he have to do this in front of everyone? We could easily wait outside while they call us into the stadium one by one.”
Theron shook his head. “One thing they’ll never do at Deucalion is make things easier for us.”
My lips pressed together. There was nothing to say in response.
“Speak up, boy,” the commander barked. He sat at a table at the end of the arena with a list and two silent companions on either side of him—a woman in a white coat and an elderly man in old-timey Greek robes.
“Er-Erebus, sir,” Alexis got out. “Son of Erebus. The god of darkness and shadows. I can m-make it dark.”
“Demonstrate.”
No sooner was the order out of his mouth than the sun winked out of existence. Total and complete darkness dipped my vision in black. Screams and cries went up all around me, telling Alexis to stop. I couldn’t see who was freaking out. I couldn’t even see Theron and Ionna sitting next to me.
In a blink, the light returned—shining on a guy whose only fear was public speaking, not performance anxiety.
“Excellent,” Vasili said. “Titan class.”
“What’s the Titan class?” I broke my promise not to ask questions almost immediately.
“The top class,” Theron said. “It’s for trainees whose powers will make a difference in the war effort.”
I nodded. Stealing the light from monsters would come in handy. The monsters who stole my mom wouldn’t have gotten away so easily if they were stumbling around in the dark.
“Kosma Ariti.”
The next demigod stepped up, appearing no more comfortable than the first. “Daughter of Poseidon. I can speak to horses,” she said. “If one is brought from the stables, I can—”
“No need,” Vasili broke in. “Sisyphean class.”
My mouth dropped open. “Did he just say—?”
“Yes,” Nitsa replied.
“Doesn’t that mean—?”
“Yes, it does.”
I dropped my head in disbelief. Sisyphean. That was the word for a task that was hard and thankless but, in the end, futile. It was a battle that couldn’t be won. It was a labor that would never be completed.
It was another word for useless.
One after the other, novices stepped up and revealed their powers. One after the other, those powers were deemed vital or pointless.
“Sebastian Barba.”
A hush fell over the stadium—so sudden, I looked this way and that for the source. Did something happen?
“Oh my gods,” Nitsa whispered. “TheSebastian Barba? Is he really here?”
“Look.” Theron pointed to the right of us. “That must be him. He’s here.”
