Chapter Twenty-Four
“Pardon me,” the man said as he moved around me. My heart finally started to beat again when he was several feet away.
I was back in the high priestess’s office at the temple with that man sitting on top of me, trying to stab me in the throat, and I was doing everything in my power to keep him from killing me by moving his blade to my left shoulder. I found myself rubbing my shoulder, my limbs trembling.
How was this possible? I practically ran to Xander, desperate to talk to him. I slid my hand into his and squeezed, not wanting to make a scene in front of Stolos.
My husband had an easy smile when he turned to look at me, and it fell off his face.
“Excuse us, Stolos. I need to speak with my wife immediately.”
He led me out onto the patio, where we could be alone. “What happened? You look as if you’ve seen a shade.”
“I might have,” I said, my heart still pounding far too quickly. “Do you see the man over there, the very tall one with the dark brown tunic?”
“Yes.”
“That was the man who stabbed me in the temple.”
“Are you certain?”
“About the man who did this?” I pointed at my shoulder. “It’s not a face I will ever forget.”
“But he’s dead. Io killed him. That man is living and breathing, so he can’t be the one who hurt you.”
“Identical twins?” I offered. It was the only explanation.
He nodded. We both watched as he walked over to Erisa and then took up a position behind her. Like he was a bodyguard.
“Antiope said that the assassins in the temple bore no insignias or had any indication who they served. They were meant to be anonymous,” I said.
“Because they work for my stepmother and had been sent there specifically to find you. She didn’t want to risk me finding out.” He pulled out his broadsword.
I put my hands on top of his. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to go kill him,” he said through clenched teeth. “If I can’t kill the man who hurt you, then the least I can do is take it out on his brother, who looks just like him.”
When had I become the voice of reason and the advocate for not murdering? “You have to stop trying to kill people that could testify against Erisa and help make you king.”
“He’ll lie.”
“Then use Io’s truth serum with the compulsion. He’ll have to tell the truth and won’t be able to keep anything from you. Just make sure he doesn’t have any access to weapons. And tie him up so that he can’t do damage to himself.”
A lesson I had learned the hard way.
“I still want to slit his throat,” he said.
“If he works for your stepmother and you kill him, then she’ll retaliate and go after your men. More people will die.”
“That’s usually how civil wars work.”
Something Demaratus had once taught me came into my head. “Any throne taken by the shedding of blood will require blood spilled again to keep it.”
“I am fine with that. I’ll kill her, too.”
“Xander,” I said gently. “Stop. We will find another way.”
For a moment he gripped his sword even tighter, but then he relented and finally put it back into its sheath. I let out a little sigh of relief that the party wasn’t about to become a bloodbath.
“If he works for Erisa, we still don’t know how she knew who I was,” I said. We had theorized that the witness had been involved, but we weren’t certain. I heard a bird call and looked up to see a raven fly overhead. It landed behind a column and then Rokh came out from behind it.
He was uncharacteristically grim as he walked to us. As if he knew what we’d been discussing, he said, “I did as requested and followed the witness from the tribute selection. His home was filled with books and I watched to make certain—I saw him both reading and writing.”
“Bring him here. We’ll give him the truth serum, too,” Xander responded.
Would that even work with someone who couldn’t speak?
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I just found him dead and came straight here to tell you.”
“Dead? By his own hand?” Xander asked.
Rokh shook his head. “Not unless he was flexible enough to stab himself in the back of his own skull.”
Whoever had done that must have been exceptionally strong.
“How did she know that you and Dolion were watching him?” Xander asked.
“I don’t know,” Rokh said. “We were so careful.”
“It’s not as if she still has an extensive spy network,” Xander said in frustration, his hand again going to his sword. “We eliminated her funds when we emptied out her safe house.”
“Perhaps Pelias is funding it,” Rokh countered.
The two men fell silent, considering.
I was trying to work out exactly how this had all happened. “So Erisa knew that your betrothed was chosen as one of the Locrian maidens from the beginning. And that one of the maidens survived, but she wouldn’t have known which one.”
“It’s not as if your high priestess would have shared the name of which maiden lived within the city,” Xander said.
Yes, she’d been too busy plotting how to kill me. “The witness was at the Golden Lamb and saw me, so he knew that I was the one who had finished the race. He told Erisa that Princess Thalia lived, and then she sent the assassins to kill me at the temple to stop you and me from getting married.”
I had known Erisa was evil, but this . . . I wanted to stab her myself.
While I was picturing doing that, Xander filled Rokh in on everything that had occurred that evening, pointing out the tall man working for the former queen.
Then a terrifying thought came into my mind.
“By the goddess,” I said, my heart racing in alarm. “What about Quynh? The witness would have known that she’s my sister. What if he came to the palace and saw her and told Erisa who she really was?”
“Quynh is safe. She’s no longer in the palace. No harm will come to her.” Now my husband was the one soothing me.
A short horn blast sounded and Xander swore.
“What is that?” I asked.
“You and I have to go out on the balcony overlooking the outer courtyard and wave to all the citizens who are out celebrating my birthday.”
No one had mentioned that to me. Another thing that seemed totally inconsequential, given what was happening.
“It’s important that you go,” Rokh said. “Not only to give the people what they want, but so that when Thrax and I kidnap Erisa’s man, you’ll have an alibi.”
Rokh went into the dining hall, presumably to find Thrax.
“This way,” Xander said. He led me back to the front hall and took me up a staircase that I hadn’t used before at the southern end of the hall. It led out to a large balcony, and when we stepped out, the sound of cheering was deafening.
I couldn’t even begin to guess how many people waited below to celebrate their prince. He smiled and raised both of his arms in greeting and somehow the sound became louder. They were thrilled to see him.
Someone called out, “Princess Thalia!” and I waved and got my own set of cheers.
The crowd began singing a song I wasn’t familiar with.
“We just stand here and wave while they sing?” I leaned in to ask him.
“Yes. Not every part of this job is assassination attempts and defying death. Some of it is a bit boring.”
“I could stand a little boring,” I admitted and kept waving.
One song ended and a new one started. “They really love you,” I said.
“I’ve got men down there distributing gold. That helps,” he said with a wink that made my knees hollow out.
“You should be their king,” I said. And he would be if his father had bothered to tell anyone that he had never had sex with Erisa. “Why didn’t your father tell the council that Kyros wasn’t his son?”
“I’ve thought about that,” he said. “Perhaps he was embarrassed about being cuckolded. He was a very proud man, and he only told me about Kyros because he was drunk. I don’t think he would have wanted to admit it to anyone else.”
His father’s pride might possibly cost his son the kingship. I didn’t understand that.
Because your pride never stopped you from doing anything, that sarcastic voice of mine whispered. I ignored it.
“There was a story that my father used to tell me,” he said, “about a hero named Demophon. He was the son of a king and had to be smuggled out of the city because the king’s enemies wanted to kill him.
The king told the queen that he had buried his sword under a massive boulder until Demophon was ready to return and claim his rightful place as heir.
If Demophon was strong enough and determined enough, if he was truly worthy, he would figure out how to move the boulder and become king.
I think my father wanted me to have to fight for my place as he had to. To prove that I was worthy of it.”
“There’s no one more worthy,” I told him.
He went silent as he studied me. “Thank you.”
I smiled shyly back at him and then turned to keep waving.
“Two worthy people with a vow between them, keeping them apart,” he said.
I had to ignore the way my heart leapt at his implication. “It isn’t just the vow I have to worry about. I’m prophesied to die.”
He dropped his hands. “What?”
It seemed that Io had truly kept her promise to me that she wouldn’t share anything with her brother unless I told her it was all right. I had thought for sure she would have shared the entire prophecy with him.
“We found a more complete version of the prophecy in one of your mother’s books, and Lysimache confirmed that it was correct.
It said the savior of Ilion is fated to die.
I’m supposed to wield the greatest weapon, endure a trial of the elements, and then die as a sacrifice to the goddess, which will save Ilion. ”
His mouth dropped slightly and I saw so many emotions flitter across his face. Fear. Anguish. Concern. He looked as if this information devastated him.
I watched as he squared his shoulders, his expression resolute. “That proves you’re not the savior, then.”
“How so?”
“Because I would never let you die,” he said seriously.
That warm, loving feeling burned inside my chest again. That wasn’t hyperbole. Xander wouldn’t let me die if he could help it. I tried to make light of it. “Well, yes, because then you’d die, too.”
“That’s not why, Lia.”
I couldn’t let this happen. Couldn’t let these feelings come out. I had to pretend as if I didn’t understand what he was saying. “If I were gone, then you could marry Chryseis and get her father’s vote on the council.”
That had not come out quite as lighthearted as I had meant it to. Probably because I was still peeved about him kissing her, even if he had explained why he’d done it.
He gave me a knowing look, as if he understood exactly what I was doing, but played along. He said in a teasing tone, “Perhaps I’ve been soured on marriage.”
I was going to elbow him until I remembered the thousands of people beneath us who probably wouldn’t take kindly to it.
Xander’s face turned serious. “I already have a wife, and I do not want a different one.”
I had to put my hand over my heart, as if that could stop the way he made me feel.
The song ended and someone started chanting, “Prince Alexandros!” The crowd quickly took up the cheer, and they called his name over and over.
Then it transformed into “King Alexandros!”
“All this adoration is going to swell your head,” I said.
He was pensive for a moment. “I belong to everyone and no one. Having this kind of adoration but still . . . by myself.”
“What about your phratry?”
“I love my brothers. But I will be their king. There will always be a disconnect there. A way in which I have to be separate and apart. The only person I could ever really be close to is . . .” His voice trailed off.
A wife.
He could only be close to a wife, to a woman who was his true partner. Someone he could confide in, somewhere that he could lay his weary head at the end of his day. The way my parents did for each other. How Doria and Haemon had been for one another.
I longed for it, too. Even now there were parts of myself that I kept private and secret from my adelphia.
From Quynh, too. I wanted a companion who would know and love all of me.
Who would appreciate the good things about me and wouldn’t turn away from the bad.
Someone I could tell everything to, who would accept me completely.
The prophecy had increased my sense of loneliness. Just like Xander had to be separate and apart from those he loved, so did I. My fate was not their fate.
He looked down at the people, who were still calling for him to be their king. He put his hands on the railing and rested his weight there. “Surrounded by people who love me and yet . . .”
“And yet?” I prompted.
“I think this is the most alone I’ve ever felt.”
It was like he’d gutted me. Goddess help me. I put my hand on top of his. “You’re not alone.”
He turned his gaze toward me. “Neither are you.”
Not able to help myself, I leaned over and kissed him softly, oblivious to the wild cheers of the crowd.
A loud explosion rent the air and we jerked apart.
Two seconds later there was another explosion.
The people in the courtyard started screaming and running.
“That came from the docks.” Xander turned and darted inside and I followed.