Chapter Thirty
“Luna has wings?” I delicately lifted one and opened it a bit at the end. Definitely wings.
“She has gotten so big so quickly,” Io said, sounding awed.
Another thing that apparently wasn’t typical and I didn’t know.
I picked Luna up and her body stayed limp. She looked as if she were dead, but I knew she wasn’t. “She does this when she’s sleeping heavily,” I told them as I put her back down. “What kind of lizard has wings?”
“No kind,” Zalira said, her eyes wide.
“There are only four types of creatures that I know of that can fly,” Ahyana told me. “Insects, birds, bats, and dragons.”
“You think Luna’s a dragon?” I asked. “She doesn’t really look like one.”
“Maybe dragons are like frogs or butterflies, where they start out as a tadpole or caterpillar and become something else,” Ahyana said.
“Is she an air dragon?” Io asked as she ran her fingertip along Luna’s back. “They’re the only ones with wings.”
“She’s the wrong color,” Zalira said. “Although I’ve only seen drawings.”
Part of me hoped Luna wouldn’t change colors. I loved her silver skin. “We were all thinking the same thing earlier. That Luna has aether. Which must make her an aether dragon.” Because dragons connected to a specific element. The other dragons wouldn’t have aether.
“They were thought to not even exist,” Io whispered, shocked. “I’ve never seen a drawing of one. And there’s so little information about dragons that I can’t even think of anyone who might know.”
More lost knowledge.
There was a way to test whether Luna had aether.
Picking Luna up again, I took her into Io’s room to the scroll. I brushed against her sides and sparkles fell from her body onto the papyrus. They dissolved into the scroll.
And it made the rest of the lines form.
The scroll was complete. It was a map.
A heavy silence fell on us as we all stood there, staring at it.
Uncertain of what to do next.
Io read out loud the writing at the bottom of the page.
“When Asteria was stolen, not to be found
In agony Dea hid her face
In a cave where no man or beast may enter
Let the flame-kissed savior who is worthy
Pass the tests of the goddesses
To claim the greatest weapon”
“It has to be her golden sword,” Io mused. “The one she used to create the world.”
“Asteria?” Ahyana asked.
“That has to be the goddess’s daughter,” Zalira said.
Suri pointed at the map. The cave was located in Mount Idaia in the Syrilline Mountains, east of Troas.
“How far from here is that?” I asked.
No one knew. It looked close on the map.
Ahyana traced the path that the scroll had created for us. “We have to go and get that sword. Then you’ll have a god-weapon to use against Artemisia.”
“Me?” I asked.
“None of the rest of us are the flame-kissed savior,” she said with a smile.
“This is the worst possible time. We’re about to be invaded,” I said.
Zalira folded her arms. “Or it’s the best possible time. I think we’re going to need that sword.”
Io looked crestfallen.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Although I knew we would find it, part of me didn’t want to locate the greatest weapon. Because the prophecy can’t come true without it.”
My heart lurched sideways. She was right. If we stayed put and didn’t look for the sword, then I couldn’t wield it.
Which meant the rest of the prophecy might not happen.
But Artemisia was coming. I needed to be able to stop her. And the greatest weapon might be the only way that I could do so.
My sisters all looked so sad, but this was not the time to wallow. “What should we do next?” I asked.
Io pulled out a piece of papyrus so that we could start making lists of what we would need for this trip.
And I worried about how I was going to convince my husband to let us go.
I lay on the ground in an unfamiliar place. I was trying to catch my breath, but the wind had been knocked out of me. My entire body ached.
Artemisia strode toward me, carrying a war hammer that was bigger than her head.
My fury aspect was quickly fading and I struggled to keep my eyes open. I was going to pass out. I tried to turn it off but it didn’t work. Something was interfering with my magic.
My heart beat faster the closer Artemisia got to me. I felt my sword in my hand but I was too weak to lift it. What was happening?
“Now you die, Locrian.”
She raised her hammer over her head and brought it down at me.
I gasped loudly as I sat straight up in my bed. I felt disoriented—how had I gotten here? The last thing I remembered was being in Io’s room making plans.
Xander’s side of the bed was still warm. My heart caught at the idea of him finding me asleep in his sister’s room and bringing me back here. Holding me while I slept.
Had I given myself a nightmare? It hadn’t felt like one. Instead it had felt like a vision of the future.
A dark harbinger of things to come.
This had been different. It had felt so real. Like this was fated. It was going to happen.
I would die.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I tried to swallow down the silvery taste of fear in my mouth. If Artemisia killed me, Xander would also die. I couldn’t let that happen.
Io thought she was close with her formulation to separate our connection but it hadn’t been successful yet.
There was only one other way to break the link.
If my fate was to die, I wouldn’t be able to save Locris. I would need one of my sisters to do it.
I wouldn’t let Xander share my fate. I refused. Ilion desperately needed him. He didn’t have an heir. If he died, the council would have no other recourse but to select Kyros as king, which would make Erisa his regent.
The prophecy said that my death would save Ilion. Xander was the answer. He would defeat Caria. He would protect both Ilion and Locris. The goddess had blessed him with supernatural strength and fighting skill for a reason. He was necessary for this war.
I was not.
If my final battle was with Artemisia, I hoped that I would do enough damage to send her to the underworld before she ended my life.
I had to protect him. I had to keep him safe.
I didn’t want to ruminate about my potential death any longer.
I forced myself to think about last night and the things I had discussed with my adelphia after we’d unlocked the scroll.
What could an aether dragon do when she was actually awake, which seemed so infrequent these days?
I told them how Luna slept so deeply and seemed to grow even bigger after.
Ahyana had been concerned about us entering the cave, as it sounded forbidden, but Io had said, “We are neither men nor beasts. We should be fine.”
I hoped she was correct.
We had also talked about the tests of the goddesses. Did that mean Dea and Asteria? Or were there others that we would have to worry about? What would happen if we didn’t pass the tests and couldn’t get the weapon?
I kept my personal concerns to myself. One phrase from the scroll kept repeating in my mind.
The flame-kissed savior who is worthy.
It felt as if it were being spelled out for me yet again: I had to be worthy to enter the cave, pass the tests, and claim the weapon.
And if I survived, I still needed to save Locris with the eye. Which also required me to remain worthy.
I knew that I needed the constant reminders. Because when I was in the moment with Xander, he was all I cared about.
Would last night keep me out of the cave? Perhaps the “pleasures of the flesh” only applied to receiving, not giving. I hadn’t reached completion—did that make a difference?
Or was I still permitted to wield magic because it had been accidental? Would it be different now that I knew where it could lead? Would I be held accountable if I made that choice again?
This was not something I could discuss with my adelphia. Zalira and Ahyana would be understanding and might even be helpful, but Io would be devastated and Suri would take her side, as she always did.
It wouldn’t help anything if I told them. It would only make things worse.
I got up and quickly got ready for the day. I had wanted to leave for the mountains this morning, but Io had said that she needed time to create extra potions for the trip.
Which also gave me another day to try and figure out how to persuade Xander into agreeing to let me go.
I heard my sisters talking next door and went over to see what they were doing. Io worked on her potions and serums while Suri sharpened her daggers and Zalira studied the map.
“What happened to the terawolf?” I asked. I was glad it was gone.
“Xander removed it,” Io said.
Ahyana entered the room then, looking a bit down.
“Where are you coming back from?” I asked her.
“To say goodbye to Rokh. Your husband sent him out on yet another secret mission,” she said. “I don’t understand why it’s always him that has to go.”
“Because Xander trusts him,” I said. And because Rokh could shape-shift into a raven and fly to places faster than a horse could.
“I found out how far away the mountain range is from here,” Ahyana said as she sat down on her bed. “It’s thirty miles. On horseback, that’s a day there and back. And just to make you aware, Xander seemed suspicious when I asked about it.”
That wasn’t a surprise. He always seemed to know when I was up to something.
“I also wanted to mention that something interesting happened,” she said. “I used my aspect briefly and saw the white light on Rokh but not on Xander or anyone else around him.”
That made Io stop what she was working on. “Just Rokh?”
Ahyana nodded. “Do you think that means we see the light on people we love? I can’t think of another explanation as to why we see it on each other and then on people like Rokh . . .”
Io turned toward me. “And Xander.”
My heart clawed its way up into my throat so that I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t love Xander. I liked him. I cared about him. I wanted to be with him all the time and sometimes missed him even when he was next to me. I didn’t want him to die.
But that didn’t mean love.
Did it?
I was extremely grateful that I hadn’t been hearing Demaratus in my head lately because I was afraid of what he would have said about this situation.
Even if some part of me felt that way, I couldn’t let it be true.
“That seems like a beautiful metaphor,” Ahyana said wistfully. “The people we love power us.”
It would explain why Quynh’s baby had lit up for me. I already loved that little one and was sure I would love it a hundred times more when it was born.
“You love Rokh?” Zalira said. “Have you said the words?”
Before, Zalira’s concern for her sister had been more along the lines of the temple guards finding out and fatally punishing Ahyana, but with that possibility removed, it felt like Zalira was more concerned about her sister not getting hurt as she had.
“Not yet. I have wanted to say them, but it feels . . . wrong. Like I need to wait. I’m not sure why.
It’s like part of him is holding back.” I was fairly certain Rokh hadn’t said them because he still hadn’t told her the truth yet.
She would be able to sense where he was when he did.
She might notice how quickly he was moving as he flew.
I didn’t know how far the connection stretched, but at some point he probably flew beyond it.
Ahyana would have questions that he didn’t seem ready to answer.
Io’s gaze had remained fixed on me. “You can see Xander’s light. Lia, you promised me.”
Her accusation wounded me. “I’m not trying to hurt him. I’m as surprised as anyone else that I see a light around him.”
“You are the only one who is surprised,” Ahyana playfully corrected me, apparently not bothered by Io’s distress.
Unlike Suri, who looked like she was ready to cut my throat.
I decided now was not the time to mention that Xander’s light had grown even brighter than before.
“You will hurt him,” Io said. “There is no way around this. He will be destroyed.”
And I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to harm Xander.
But a part of me was afraid that Io was right and he and I were destined to destroy one another’s hearts.