CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
That desperate, panicky feeling that time was passing too fast only got worse as the days went on. For two weeks straight my routine remained unchanged.
On the morning of the fourteenth day, I woke from a dream in which I d been lying face down on a bed, unclothed, while Jason kissed and stroked my bare back, murmuring unintelligible words against my skin that made me shiver and ache.
I cleaned the outer patio and steps and then entered the temple, expecting to exchange a nod with the guard.
Only she wasn t there. For the very first time, I was alone in the temple.
My heart pounded, my blood rushing in my ears, as I evaluated my situation. What had happened? Where was the guard? Should I wait to see if she showed up? Or take advantage of her absence? If I went downstairs, what would I do if someone caught me?
What if this was a test? And by going downstairs, I would fail?
I had to risk it. I didn t know when I d have this opportunity again. I threw my broom down to the base of the stairs. It would be my excuse if I was apprehended.
With my heart in my throat, I crept down the stairs, listening for any sound that would indicate someone was coming. The lower floor felt cooler than the top. Only two torches were lit, casting most of the room in darkness.
I hesitated at the bottom step, waiting. Making certain that no one lurked in those shadows. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that the room was empty of everything but the statue. I pulled in a deep, fortifying breath and began walking toward it.
Was I going to be struck down by lightning? Would the floor beneath me open up and swallow me whole for my blasphemy? I considered all the ways the goddess might punish me before I ever reached her.
Hesitating, I wondered if she would see this as another act of Locrian aggression. Would she be angry with me for wanting to heal a land she had cursed? Upset that I was violating her rules?
I glanced over at the stairs. I didn t have time to spare. Regardless of the outcome, I had to do this now.
Resolved, I approached her statue, eyes darting left and right, still listening. Total silence. I climbed up on the ledge at the base of the statue and reached for the veil.
This was it. I might finally have what I d come here for.
My hand was shaking, my heartbeat so loud I was sure the entire temple complex would be able to hear it. I forced myself to push through and lifted the veil away from her face.
Nothing.
The socket was empty.
The eye wasn t there.
Disappointment flooded my limbs and I let go of the veil, taking a step down.
I had been so hopeful.
They had posted a guard not because there was anything valuable in this room, but for the sole purpose of keeping acolytes like me away. I d heard other girls whispering about wanting to visit the statue. Their reasons were different from my own, but it was enough of a problem to explain the security they d instituted.
Not because she had the eye.
I took a couple of steps back and looked at the statue. That humming feeling I d felt in the flower garden returned. Maybe there was a value here that I couldn t see. I got on my knees.
Oh great goddess. I whispered the words, afraid that I might be overheard. I tried to remember the correct way to do this. I sighed, worried I would mess it up.
I m not sure what to say, I continued on. You probably see me as a thief. Or a usurper. But I m here because I do believe in you. I need the eye to take it back to Locris, to save my people. I know you were angry, and you had every right to be. But it was a thousand years ago. And there are people paying the price who have never trespassed against you. I m asking for your forgiveness. And your help.
Was that too presumptuous? Were we supposed to speak to the goddess this way? Should I be humbler, or use more flowery language? I only knew how to speak from my heart and I had to hope that it would be enough.
I have to find the eye. I think it s at the temple somewhere, but I don t know where. I swallowed the lump in my throat, fighting off tears. I was so frustrated and worried and everything seemed hard.
Then I remembered that I was supposed to tell her what I had sacrificed for her when asking for a boon. I gave you my sister. There s nothing more precious to me that I could have offered to you as a sacrifice. You know what it s like to be parted from someone you love. Don t let her death be meaningless. Please let me save my land and restore your worship there. If I ve ever pleased you, I beg of you to grant me this.
I waited several beats in the quiet. I wasn t sure what I was expecting, but I was a bit dismayed that there wasn t some kind of response. While gazing at the statue, I saw a glimmer on her arm. Curious, I stood and walked over. Maybe I d imagined it. No, it was definitely bright. I scratched at the spot and flakes of ivory paint fell away, revealing gold.
I tried to find a spot that wouldn t be immediately noticeable. I lifted the cloth tunic that they d draped over her. The statue also had a carved tunic underneath the cloth one, and on one of the green painted folds, I scratched. More gold.
With a gasp I let the cloth tunic drop. She was plated in a layer of gold under the paint. There was a literal fortune on this statue. More than a king s ransom.
This was why they had the guard.
I briefly considered returning here and retrieving enough gold to help my nation after I found the eye, but I immediately felt sick to my stomach. That would be wrong. Selfish and greedy. I rejected the notion.
Feeling as if I should say something, I managed, I m sorry for scraping off the paint. I m sure someone will fix it. And . . . thank you for listening.
I began walking toward the stairs when a wave of emotion hit me, hard in my chest.
A love so pure and shining that I put my hand over my heart and turned back to the statue.
Euthalia.
The voice echoed loudly inside my head, unmistakably coming from someone else. Then everything dissipated and it was just me in an empty room again. I grabbed the broom and hurried up the stairs, starting to sweep. What had that meant? Why was she saying my name? Was she answering my request? Approving of it? I wanted to take things that way, but I couldn t be certain.
And there was no one I could ask.
During my morning tutorial with Maia, I questioned her about why life mages weren t allowed in the temple considering that they performed the goddess s magic, and that seemed to completely befuddle her.
I wanted to ask her about the goddess. The words were burning my tongue because I was so desperate to say them. But I focused my attention on something else.
Because I didn t honestly care whether life mages could enter the temple. Why was the statue covered in gold? Why did I get these feelings, hear someone speaking my name? What did it mean?
Instead we talked about things that didn t seem to matter. Much of what Maia shared with me I already knew or had heard from Io. Io had been an excellent teacher and was careful to impart everything she thought might be important. I could see her taking over Maia s role someday.
It made me a little sad that I wouldn t be here to see it.
As I went about the rest of my day, it felt like someone had painted giant letters on my black tunic, announcing what I d done, and people would only have to look at me to know that I had broken a rule.
But no one said anything to me. No guards rushed into the dining hall to seize me and drag me off to Theano for punishment.
No one knew.
My small success made me even more determined to sneak out into the city to get my parents a message and then find a way to break into the temple treasury.
One of the major issues was that there was no predictable pattern to the guard patrols. The shift changes didn t take place at the same times, either. For the last two weeks, I d gotten up every night after my sisters went to bed, watching out our window. I made mental notes and was so frustrated that I didn t have any papyrus or lead to write down my observations.
The night after I d approached the statue, Ahyana surprised me by joining me at my watch. I was apprehensive, but she didn t ask me what I was doing. She stood next to me, her gaze pointed the same direction as mine.
Have you ever observed ants? she asked me in a soft voice.
It was such an odd question that I couldn t even formulate a response.
They always have a path. Humans might not be able to see it, but the ants know exactly which way to go. The guard patrols might seem random, but the path is there even if it feels like it isn t. The pattern resets, depending on the individual priestess. It will become clear if you know what to look for.
My mouth hung slightly open as Ahyana went back to her bed. Why had she helped me? She must have realized that I intended to break some rules, but she still wanted to assist me.
I didn t have to ask. I knew why.
Because I was her sister.
Ignoring the guilt I felt, I marveled at the fact that Antiope had created security that would have been impossible for an outsider to penetrate. Only a member of the temple would recognize the individual guards and be able to keep track of the routes they chose.
Not even Demaratus had instituted such a strong protection system. It seemed like a shame that I couldn t introduce him to Antiope. I was fairly certain it would be love at first sight for him.
Ahyana s counsel was correct. It took me a couple more weeks but I was finally able to come up with an accurate mental map of the routes each individual guard would take.
I kept trying to refine my plans. I was no closer to earning a spot as a Chosen. I certainly made a valiant effort, though. I got into the highest rankings, making sure that I always stayed near the bottom of the top five. I deliberately lost every fight with Artemisia so that she could retain her top slot. It was difficult, though. I wanted so badly to beat her into the ground but always restrained myself. I still wanted to keep people from questioning where I had learned to fight before coming to the temple, and I was also hopeful that Artemisia might pay less attention to me if she could dismiss me as a potential rival. Unfortunately, every fight we had made her angrier and angrier, as she seemed to intuit what I was doing.
It also made Antiope wildly frustrated. The battle master sensed what I was capable of and yelled at me constantly to do better. It reminded me so much of home that it was very hard not to smile while being lectured.
Despite doing well in all my classes, I was never picked as one of the Chosen. I decided to keep working toward that goal because, at some point, other people would start to notice that I was being deliberately excluded. I planned on making it so overwhelmingly obvious that I should be selected that the high priestess would have no choice but to make it so.
I was also still refining strategies on how to sneak out. It worried me that I didn t know which way to go, but I was capable of figuring it out now that I knew the trick to the labyrinth. At some point, while eating with my adelphia in the dining hall, I realized that my sisters had all grown up in Troas. They could help me.
At every meal I coaxed more information from them about the city. What directions the docks were from our location, whether there was a public library (there was), and where one could find the scribes and booksellers shops (not far from the library, which made sense). I felt guilty about secretly wheedling this information from them and I didn t like the way Suri would look at me as if she knew exactly what I was doing.
I worried that Ahyana might confront me about watching the guards, but she didn t. And as far as I could tell, she hadn t shared my nighttime observations with anyone else.
I thought of how when I d first arrived, I had planned to use these women to get what I wanted. To befriend them and take the information that I needed. But they had offered me everything that I wanted and more. These women were my sisters, my friends. The rest of the priestesses and acolytes might have hated me, but not my adelphia.
Time began to feel like a sword hanging over my head by a very thin rope and I constantly felt anxious about it. I ate, studied, cleaned, and trained. Day in and day out. I d asked Kallisto to give me half a year and now I d been at the temple for more than a month. It was like I was stuck in place, as if I were swimming through deep mud. Kicking hard with my feet, stroking with my arms, but holding still and never making progress.
The only thing that made the passage of time easier was my dreams. Jason was always there, waiting for me. Physically things would reach a certain point and then stop, which was entirely frustrating. Was it because I didn t know what would happen next, so I couldn t imagine it?
It didn t feel that way, though-it was more like someone putting up a wall to separate us the moment things got too intense. Deliberately keeping us apart.
There were other nights where he and I only talked. He would ask me about my day and would listen attentively while I shared my routine with him. He told me about his voyages at sea, the freedom of traveling wherever the wind and waves carried him, never knowing what adventure the next day would bring.
Our kissing and our conversations made me feel so connected to him. Like an unseen hand was stitching our souls together, making us one.
I found myself looking forward to falling asleep, to being able to temporarily escape my fears and worries.
Jason wasn t the only person I dreamed of. Demaratus was often there, yelling at me while I trained.
The Demaratus dreams were always the same. I was running as fast as I could through the labyrinth in Locris. He was up on the wall, looking down at me.
Stupid girl! You can t run forever! Stand still and do what needs to be done!
I never knew what to make of his advice. It was the opposite of everything he d ever told me.
I finally did as he said and stood still, my hands on my hips while I waited. The ground beneath my feet gave way and I was sucked down into an abyss.
Oof. My lungs quickly expelled air when I landed. I sat up and looked around. I was in the field of wildflowers again.
The goddess was waiting for me, looking just as she had in my first dream. Her rippling golden hair, beaming face, the smell of irises coming from her green robes. I was afraid to approach her.
Euthalia. I heard her voice inside my head, but her lips didn t move.
She came closer to me and then held out a fist. She turned her hand over and opened it. A massive green gem lay against her palm.
The eye.
She held it out to me. Was she offering it to me?
Was this some kind of sign or just my own wishful thinking? It was impossible to tell.
It is time.
Time for what? I asked and then clamped a hand over my mouth. If I wasn t even allowed to approach her statue, it seemed completely blasphemous to be questioning her. Would I offend her?
I waited, my limbs trembling.
Instead she gave me a slight smile.
Time for things to change.