“Use their energy!” Anya’s voice reached me. “Absorb their energy and use it for yourself!”
From the deepest recesses of my soul came an echoing response, a newly awakened voice, tortured, tormented, filled with anguish. What about me? it cried. What about Orion? Me, myself. Must I be a weapon of deliberate genocide? Must I forever be a toy, a puppet manipulated by my creator or by his ultimate enemy? When will Orion be free, be totally and completely human?
“NEVER!” I roared.
I could feel Set’s surprise and the Golden One’s shock. I could sense Anya breathlessly watching to see what I would do.
All that energy pouring into me. All that power: the overwhelming brilliance of the Golden One, the hell-hot fury of Set. All focused on me. While Anya watched, bright-eyed.
“Never!” I shouted again. “I will never obey either one of you again! I free myself of you both! Now!”
I spread my arms and felt as if binding chains had snapped and been thrown off.
“I’m free of you both!” I snarled at them: the Golden One standing stunned before me, Set raging within my own skull. “You can both go to hell!”
The Golden One’s mouth hung open. Anya’s expectant expression began to turn into a smile and she started to step toward me.
But Set’s furious voice within me seethed, “No, traitorous ape. Only you shall go to hell.”