of strength in anger.
This youth, foolish Stealth, was not going to die on his account and leave the
Riddler with that weight to bear eternally. Jihan and the god-child bom of a
ceremonial rape-both of them were more than mortal. Niko was just a human fool
and human foolishness-honor, valor, sacrifice, and love.-were things Tempus
could not ever claim.
He didn’t notice when Beysib and human help pitched in beside him-his god-given
speed made them seem too slow and the task too great to make them matter.
But Jihan, once he’d cut through the widest coil at her throat, was help worth
having.
And once she was free, and it was clear that she’d saved the child from certain
death, the Beysibs and the Rankan priest and Kadakithis all crowded round the
Froth Daughter and the child.
Which suited Tempus, who finished cutting the yet-quivering coils from the
Stepson who’d fought beside him and helped Niko to his feet.
Only when the boy, through his one good eye, put a hand on Tempus’s shoulder and
said, “Life to you. Commander- and thanks,” and collapsed into Tempus’s arms did
Niko’s leftside leader have time for snake-bitten children or Jihan.
For he’d found out, there among the butchered chunks of snake and royal ranks of
confusion, that the bond Niko and he once shared was stronger than it had ever
been.
Jihan limped over to him, where he lay Stealth down, and frowned at the bums on
Niko’s face and his acid-eaten eye. “The placenta of a black cat, powdered at
midnight, Riddler- that will heal his eye. The rest, I can do.”