Excerpt: Hades' Pupil

"The gods favor you," he said. "This gift comes to you when you sacrifice your sight. Now you sing for us all." Her life was bound for greatness, while his was mostly a waste. He brought her damaged hand to his lips. What little he could offer was hers.

But she said, "I'd rather have my sight back. And singing for one today just about destroyed me--forget 'all.'" He could feel the tension in her, the pushing against the truth of what had happened to her. She said, "If the gods wanted someone to sing for the world, they shouldn't have chosen such a bitch."