the_blood_of_olympus_-_rick_riordan

To his right, reports and maps were strewn across a low table. To his left, a marble altar was
heaped with fruit and gold offerings, no doubt for the gods. But to Reyna it looked like an altar to
Octavian himself.
At his side, the legion’s eagle bearer, Jacob, stood at attention, sweating in his lion-skin cloak as
he held the staff with the golden eagle standard of the Twelfth.
Octavian was in the midst of an audience. At the base of the stairs knelt a boy in jeans and a
rumpled hoodie. Octavian’s fellow centurion of the First Cohort, Mike Kahale, stood to one side with
his arms crossed, glowering with obvious displeasure.
‘Well, now.’ Octavian scanned a piece of parchment. ‘I see here you are a legacy, a descendant of
Orcus.’
The boy in the hoodie looked up, and Reyna caught her breath. Bryce Lawrence. She recognized
his mop of brown hair, his broken nose, his cruel green eyes and smug, twisted smile.
‘Yes, my lord,’ Bryce said.
‘Oh, I’m not a lord.’ Octavian’s eyes crinkled. ‘Just a centurion, an augur and a humble priest
doing his best to serve the gods. I understand you were dismissed from the legion for … ah,
disciplinary problems.’
Reyna tried to shout, but she couldn’t make a sound. Octavian knew perfectly well why Bryce had
been kicked out. Much like his godly forefather, Orcus, the underworld god of punishment, Bryce was
completely remorseless. The little psychopath had survived his trials with Lupa just fine, but as soon
as he arrived at Camp Jupiter he had proved to be untrainable. He had tried to set a cat on fire for fun.
He had stabbed a horse and sent it stampeding through the Forum. He was even suspected of
sabotaging a siege engine and getting his own centurion killed during the war games.
If Reyna had been able to prove it, Bryce’s punishment would’ve been death. But because the
evidence was circumstantial, and because Bryce’s family was rich and powerful with lots of
influence in New Rome, he’d got away with the lighter sentence of banishment.
‘Yes, Pontifex,’ Bryce said slowly. ‘But, if I may, those charges were unproven. I am a loyal
Roman.’
Mike Kahale looked like he was doing his best not to throw up.
Octavian smiled. ‘I believe in second chances. You’ve responded to my call for recruits. You have
the proper credentials and letters of recommendation. Do you pledge to follow my orders and serve
the legion?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Bryce.
‘Then you are reinstated in probatio,’ Octavian said, ‘until you have proven yourself in combat.’
He gestured at Mike, who reached in his pouch and fished out a lead probatio tablet on a leather
cord. He hung the cord around Bryce’s neck.
‘Report to the Fifth Cohort,’ Octavian said. ‘They could use some new blood, some fresh
perspective. If your centurion Dakota has any problem with that, tell him to talk to me.’
Bryce smiled like he’d just been handed a sharp knife. ‘My pleasure.’
‘And, Bryce.’ Octavian’s face looked almost ghoulish under his white mantle – his eyes too
piercing, his cheeks too gaunt, his lips too thin and colourless. ‘However much money, power and