A Curse of Ashes (The Eye of the Goddess #3)

Chapter One

Darkness is coming.

The warning from the goddess echoed in my head as I climbed the temple stairs to rejoin my adelphia. I found them standing near the mass grave we had dug to bury our fellow priestesses and acolytes. The image of those women all lying dead on the temple grounds . . .

It was not something I would ever forget.

“How do we go on?” Io asked sadly while sliding her hand into Suri’s. “What do we do now?”

After a few moments of heavy silence, Zalira lifted her chin and turned toward us. “We do what women have always done. We swallow down our pain, endure our heartache, ignore our suffering. We rise. We persevere. We carry on. We put one foot in front of the other because we have no other choice.”

“We are all that’s left,” Ahyana said.

There was one other person, but she couldn’t help. Our temple battle master, Antiope, had barely survived the slaughter. I didn’t know if she would ever wake up. It seemed like she had stayed alive solely to give us a message.

Hammer of Arion.

Was that what had knocked big chunks out of the temple walls? I still wasn’t sure whether the hammer was a person or an object.

“We have to avenge these women. Help protect Ilion,” Ahyana went on, sounding determined. “It has to be us.”

Ahyana was right. This was up to us.

We had to stop Artemisia.

A former fellow acolyte, she had been working for an unknown enemy and somehow managed to wipe out an entire temple of trained warrior women. I kicked at the red dirt beneath my feet. Why did they throw this when they attacked? Would I ever discover what it meant?

The traitorous high priestess had to know who Artemisia was conspiring with. She had refused to say more after our fight, but I intended to question her as soon as I could.

“What were you doing in the temple?” Io asked me.

“I went in to pray. They destroyed the statue of the goddess, broke it into pieces.” We prayed to that statue. Had taken our vows in front of it.

Io’s free hand went over her mouth as she gasped at the blasphemy. “How could Artemisia do that?”

I suspected that she had done it far too easily. “The statue was covered in a thick layer of gold and that’s gone. I’m assuming Artemisia took it.”

“Why would she?” Ahyana asked.

“She could pay for troops. Ships. Make sure her army has enough supplies,” Zalira said.

Artemisia couldn’t have massacred all the people in the weapons quarter and here at the temple alone. She’d had help.

Which could be an issue, as I had begun to suspect that the thousand-year-old high priestess, Lysimache, no longer had the other eye of the goddess.

And that she’d given it to Artemisia.

I didn’t want to have to fight my way through an army to get the eye back. But that relic was the only way to remove the curse that Lysimache had put on Locris.

“There’s another eye,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t shared this information with my sisters.

“How do you know that?” Zalira asked.

I explained to them about the voice I’d heard in my head, that of my Daemonian battle master, Demaratus, asking me how many eyes the goddess statue had and how I’d realized that the Ilionian and Locrian statues each had two eye sockets, meaning that there were four eyes of the goddess and not only two, as I had previously assumed.

“One of the Locrian eyes was split up and given to life mages. She used the other Locrian eye to curse the land. Theano used one from Ilion to stay alive and strengthen us. Then she destroyed what was left. Which means there’s one more Ilionian eye, and we have to get it back. ”

“Theano was the one that cursed Locris?” Io sounded shocked. Suri’s lips compressed into a thin line. She was the only other member of our sisterhood who knew everything that I did, because she’d been with me when I confronted the high priestess.

In the midst of all this chaos, I hadn’t yet told the others what I knew, and I felt a bit guilty, as I had recently resolved not to keep any secrets from my adelphia. “Her real name is Lysimache. She was Kysandra’s sister.”

“The one we read about in books?” Io asked at the same moment that Zalira said, “Kysandra from the Great War? That took place a thousand years ago?”

I nodded. “Lysimache was grinding up and ingesting one of the eyes to keep herself alive, and she put shards of it into the fountain water to make us strong.” The high priestess was unaware that I knew she had put those pieces in the fountain, that I’d made the connection after she admitted that she’d used the eye to strengthen the priestesses and acolytes.

She had been surprised when we fought because I was strong enough to beat her. She apparently didn’t know that Maia, our mentor, had been sending us the fountain water to protect us.

“Lysimache also wanted me to marry Xander and create a distraction for the city so that Artemisia could carry out her plan.” I didn’t know what that plan was other than murder and destruction, but I would find out.

“Why did Theano . . . er, Lysimache keep herself alive for so long?” Ahyana wondered.

“She was waiting for the savior. She wanted to stop me from saving Ilion.” I felt a bit foolish saying those words. I had told Lysimache that I was the savior, and in the moment I had believed it.

But now, in the light of day . . .

Io believed so fervently that I was the prophesied savior. When she was a little girl, she had made a promise to the goddess to protect the savior—a person who was flame-kissed and bore the mark of the goddess.

I had been in a building full of flames and not been burned while my husband had nearly died. The goddess had changed my hair color to red, like a flame. And her mark was on my shoulder, where Io had sealed a stab wound with Lysimache’s official seal.

Arguably, I was the worst possible person to be Ilion’s savior. Until recently I would have gladly seen the entire nation burn.

But there were so many innocents in Ilion.

And there were people I loved here. My adelphia.

My sister, Quynh, who had fallen in love with Thrax, a man I was still attempting to be nice to so that I wouldn’t risk my relationship with her.

This would be her home, and so I would do what I could to keep it safe.

They aren’t the only ones you love, a voice whispered.

Xander’s face filled my mind and I shook my head in response.

That wasn’t something I could even allow myself to consider.

I knew that we had to work together, rely on one another, so that we could survive what was coming.

We were still physically linked—whatever injury happened to one of us happened to the other.

Io had discovered that Xander and I could break the link by consummating our marriage, but I had made vows to the goddess to remain celibate.

I had to honor the goddess’s laws and abstain from what a life mage had called “pleasures of the flesh” so that I would be able to wield the eye and restore Locris.

My skin heated as I thought back to when Io had drugged her brother with honeyed wine and he had attempted to seduce me—and very nearly succeeded before I realized what she had done.

He was too tempting.

And he currently seemed determined to keep me at arm’s length. We hadn’t had a chance to truly speak about our relationship since the massacres in Lycia and the temple, and I didn’t know where we stood.

Because the last time I had attempted to broach the subject with him, he’d declared that he hadn’t meant any of the things he’d said to me while under the honeyed wine’s influence. I didn’t believe him.

But I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

“You will stop Artemisia,” Io said, bringing me out of my thoughts. “No matter what you think, you are the savior. You will make her pay with her life for what she’s done.”

Io’s recent thirst for vengeance concerned me. She had always been the strongest acolyte, the one who had worshipped the goddess her whole life. In the past she had always tried to protect life, so it felt very strange to hear her calling for someone’s death.

Even if I agreed with her.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said. “But I do know that we will all face it together.”

“And then what?” Io asked. “After we save Ilion and find the eye of the goddess, what will you do?”

“Go back to Locris,” I said quickly. “I have to restore it and undo Lysimache’s curse.

I also promised the goddess that I would reopen her temple and restore worship for her there.

Now there’s no one else who can help do it.

Like Ahyana said, we’re all that’s left.

I have to keep my word if I expect her help. ”

I was speaking about more than just that promise—I had so many to keep, whether I wanted to or not.

None of my adelphia responded and they all looked crestfallen. Remorse settled deeply into my stomach. I’d been very honest about the fact that I intended to return to my nation. My sisters had to have known that nothing had changed for me. That was still the plan and always would be.

“We should go home,” Zalira said.

That word, “home,” struck me. Not only because I was thinking about saving Locris but because I remembered how it had felt when my husband had said that word to me.

I will leave a guard to watch over you. Come home when you’re done.

This temple had been a home for me, but it never would be again. The palace was a home to me now, something I never would have thought possible. It made me wish for things I knew I couldn’t have.

When we reached the front gate, I asked, “Should we lock it up?”

“No,” Io said. “Close the gate but don’t lock it. I’m going to ask Xander to post a guard here to protect the grounds, and then I’ll arrange for someone to keep bringing us the fountain water.”

That was a good idea. I had the feeling we were going to need all the strength we could get for the days ahead.

We crossed through the archway and onto the street. Suri closed the gates behind us and I saw that Xander hadn’t left just a guard.

He had left what must have been half his army outside the temple walls, to keep us safe.

A warm thrill unfurled in my gut. I knew I shouldn’t want his actions to mean something more.

Zalira headed out and we followed, while the soldiers kept their distance behind us.

Io came over to me and tugged on my arm to get me to slow my pace a bit, to put some distance between us and the others. “You have to break the link you have with Xander.”

If I died, so would he. “Is this where you again encourage me to consummate my marriage?”

“No.”

Her response surprised me. She’d done nothing for the last few weeks but try and get Xander and me to have sex and had repeatedly endeavored to get me to admit that I loved him.

“Everything has changed, Lia,” she said. “I am going to find a way to break your physical bond with him. But I don’t want the two of you to get any closer.” Her voice wobbled while she spoke and I knew that it was hard for her to say this to me.

I didn’t understand. “Why?”

“Because of how it will destroy him if you die. Whatever it is that has happened between the two of you, it needs to end. When our mother died . . . he was never the same. I’ve spent my whole life witnessing what that loss did to him.

And if you survive what’s coming, you’re going back to Locris and Xander will become king here. There is no future for the two of you.”

I nodded, ignoring the hot, thick lump in my throat. I told myself for the thousandth time that I wasn’t going to die.

“Please don’t make this worse for him. No matter what he says or what you think, I know that he loves you.

And when Xander loves, he loves completely.

This might be unfair of me to ask, but for my sake, please promise me that you won’t hurt my brother.

Keep your distance from him. Please don’t tell him that you love him. ”

If either Xander or I said those words, it would bind our souls eternally to each other.

It had happened to Zalira and Stephanos, and I knew she was in agony over that connection.

Loving Stephanos but not being able to be with him because of the vows we’d made to the goddess . . . I understood her pain all too well.

Something Io had apparently intuited even though I’d never admitted it to anyone. Not even myself.

And now I never could.

Because I saw how important this was to her. “I promise that I will do my best not to hurt him.”

It felt as if I’d just lost something important.

Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Thank you. I do worry that it’s too late already. For both of you.”

I tried to swallow that lump down and break the tension by attempting to joke with her. “If I really am the savior, then there’s no future for me with anyone.”

But my jest fell flat.

She only nodded and then quoted the prophecy: “After a trial of the elements, the savior will die, offered up as a worthy sacrifice to the goddess, and in return Ilion will be kept safe.”

Her words struck me as hard now as they had back when I’d first heard them. It was the main reason I didn’t want to accept that I was the savior.

I didn’t want to die.

Not when I had so much to live for.

“Have you had time to consider what a trial of the elements means?” I asked, needing to distract myself.

Io’s face crumpled. “I think you’ve already gone through the first one.”

I nearly stumbled over my own feet as I came to an abrupt stop. “What?” I only vaguely noticed that the soldiers behind us also halted, giving Io and me the chance to speak without them overhearing.

“When you ran into that burning home in Lycia to save Xander . . . I think that was your trial of fire.”

Blood rushed in my ears as my heart thundered in my chest. Was she right? Had the trials already begun? What would the other ones look like?

And if Io was correct, then I had survived one trial and only had four more to go before I died.