Chapter Eight
“How long have I been asleep?” I asked when I finally came to.
“A couple of hours,” Xander said. He had put me in bed—a pillow under my head and my blanket tucked in around me. I felt very cared for.
“That was unlike anything I’ve ever seen!” He offered me a glass of water and I eagerly took it and drank. “Not quite punch-a-goose exciting, but that was something. All those times you threatened to kill me and now you could actually do it.”
I supposed he was right. That seemed like an odd thing to be grinning about, though. “What good does it do me? I can only keep it up for a short amount of time.”
“Like you said, you’ll need to practice. Build up your endurance.”
“Get used to the pain,” I said. At his quizzical expression I explained what it felt like and how there was excruciating pain that would cause me to pass out—that the pain seemed to increase with every moment that I stayed in the magic. He listened intently, hanging on my every word.
It reminded me of what he’d been like in our shared dreams.
“Why is fury one of the aspects of the goddess?” he asked.
I told him the story I’d learned at the temple—that when the goddess discovered her daughter missing, she had searched far and wide for her.
When she found out that her son had sold her daughter into marriage with the god of war, she drew out her golden sword and intended to fight the war god.
The other gods intervened, attempting to assuage her fury, and she went and hid herself in a cave.
She swore that she wouldn’t let anything grow until her daughter was returned to her.
The goddess’s mother finally convinced her to come out of the cave and save the world from the famine they’d been suffering under.
She agreed, and a bargain was struck so that her daughter was allowed to join the goddess for certain months during the year.
But when she is returned to her husband, the goddess still lets the earth go cold so that nothing will grow.
“It seems to me that her fury got her what she wanted. The return of her daughter,” he said after I had finished.
“I suppose it did.” I tried to stretch but my thighs were still throbbing.
He seemed to know this, which was most likely due to his own still hurting as well. He glanced down at my legs and said in a light tone, “I would offer to massage them for you, but . . .”
That would be bad. Very, very bad. Not good and amazing. Bad. “I’m fine.” I croaked the words out, and the look in his eyes made me think that he knew exactly what I was currently envisioning. The thought of his hands on my thighs made me feel lightheaded.
Or maybe that was the effect of the magic wearing off.
“Did you feel the pain of the magic?” I asked.
“No, I only feel your physical pain.”
Interesting. Did that mean the pain wasn’t real? If it was in my head, could I somehow fortify myself against it so that I could keep going?
“Now that I know you’re safe, I’m going to go take a bath.”
Xander stood and took off his tunic in a slow and deliberate way that felt like an invitation. My skin heated in response, my breath stuttered in my chest, and I gripped my blanket with both hands.
But he turned around, went into the washroom, and locked the door.
Shutting me out again.
Xander was gone the next morning when I woke up. I felt completely invigorated and excited as I got ready for the day. My physical aches had disappeared. The sleep had been healing, as seemed to be the case after we used magic.
My adelphia were all in their room talking to one another when I entered. They fell silent as I closed the door, perhaps seeing on my face that I had something to tell them.
“I have an aspect,” I said. It thrilled me to be able to tell them that. I was so glad that I wasn’t powerless.
Ahyana shrieked with glee while Zalira grinned and asked, “What is it?”
“Fury. Which is good for fighting, apparently, and not much else. It was the aspect Lysimache used to destroy Locris with the eye. I tried it out on Xander last night and I could keep up with him!”
Io’s smile faltered slightly at that. “Xander knows about the magic? I thought we weren’t going to tell anyone.”
My mouth dropped slightly. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Because sharing secrets with my husband was not keeping him at arm’s length. It was inviting him into my life.
“It’s good that she did,” Ahyana said. “We should be able to tell people that we trust.”
I knew she was trying to help, but this just seemed to upset Io even more. I noted the dark circles under her eyes and wondered if it was stress or if she hadn’t been sleeping well. “Did you get up early this morning?”
Suri folded her arms over her chest in apparent annoyance as Zalira told me, “Io didn’t sleep at all. We told her to, but she didn’t listen.”
“I’m so close!” she said. “I think I figured out a fortification potion so that we can do magic for longer. And since Ahyana told me about the pain, I’m in the process of adding something to dull that.”
“Maybe the pain is important,” Zalira said in a worried tone. “We might need to know when we reach the end of our limits and not push ourselves too hard. What if we burn out and then never wake up?”
“I’ll figure it out,” Io said.
Zalira had a point, but I also trusted Io to know what she was doing. “Are we going to see Lysimache this morning?” I asked her.
Io still hadn’t told me her plan to get the high priestess to talk, but she was ready to share now.
“No, I’m not done. I’m taking a page out of my father’s book and we’re going to give her the truth serum with the fountain water.
The metallic taste of the water will disguise it.
I’m trying to figure out a serum that will compel her to speak so that she has to answer your questions.
I’m hoping to have it done by tomorrow.”
“Shouldn’t you take a break?” Ahyana asked while Suri vigorously nodded behind her.
“I’m fine,” Io said with a wave of her hand. “I’ve been taking the fortification potion and it’s working well. I don’t feel even a little bit tired. And Xander stopped by this morning on his way out and I told him we’re not ready to see Lysimache yet. So he thought you might like to visit Quynh.”
I would get to see Quynh! There was a knock at their door and my heart lifted as I opened it.
That feeling went away when I saw that it wasn’t Xander. It was Rokh.
Which made Ahyana giddy, and she rushed over to hug him. “What are you doing here?”
“Xander asked me to take you and Lia to where Quynh is staying. You and I are seen together so often that no one will question your adelphia sister joining us for a walk,” he said, his dark eyes drinking Ahyana in.
Even if I was disappointed that Xander wouldn’t be accompanying me, I was so happy that I was going to visit my sister! It had been such a long time since we’d last spoken. I needed to make sure that things were right between us. I had made an effort to be nicer to Thrax. I hoped he had told her.
And that she wouldn’t be angry because of how I’d treated him. Though I wouldn’t blame her if she was.
Since Ahyana and I were both ready to leave, we headed out. I had to ignore the lovebirds as they kept paying each other compliments and laughing over private jokes.
Perhaps my annoyance was something residual from invoking the fury aspect. Was I going to start being short-tempered and wanting to punch things again? I hoped not. I didn’t like how the anger had taken over my life, blocking out everything else.
It seemed like the goddess had a very ironic sense of humor where I was concerned.
I looked down at my hands and thought about what it was like when power coursed through me. I had felt utterly invincible.
When we walked through the palace gates, Ahyana slipped her arm through Rokh’s and he was murmuring things in her ear while she giggled.
Given what she’d said a few minutes ago, I assumed that she had already told him about her magic.
I couldn’t imagine her keeping it from him.
I wondered if it would make her feel more betrayed when she found out that he had been keeping something from her while she was being open and honest with him.
That led me to thinking about my own relationship and the trust between Xander and me. We weren’t quite there yet. We were working on it, and I hoped trust was growing on both sides as we were more vulnerable with each other, but I knew that we still had a very long way to go.
Not like Ahyana and Rokh, who were finishing each other’s sentences and looking so deliriously happy that it was a bit painful to be around them.
I wondered if it was hard for Zalira as well.
We arrived at the house, and this one didn’t have a guard outside.
I remembered when Xander had taken me to Erisa’s safe house—he’d said there weren’t any guards so as to not draw attention to it.
My guess was that Thrax had insisted on it so that no one would guess there was a precious person inside.
“I’ll leave you here,” Rokh said. “I’m going to walk Ahyana back to the palace, and then I’ll return for you.”
I nodded and thanked them both for accompanying me, and they left. I knew we had to be careful—Erisa still wanted me dead and there was an army on its way, but after discovering my aspect? I wasn’t quite as worried as I had been before.
The door opened slightly and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Had it not been latched properly? I reached for it and then a hand clamped down on my wrist and yanked me inside.
Before I could react, a woman pushed me up against the wall and held a knife to my throat. She was almost as tall as Xander, had red hair and pale skin that was covered in blue tattoos.
“You must be Basileia,” I said, not moving so that she wouldn’t accidentally slit my throat. That could get both me and Xander killed.
She grinned and dropped her blade, taking a step back. “I am. You must be Lia. I’ve heard a high amount of nauseatingly good things about you.”
Thrax had been right. I did like her. “And I’ve heard almost nothing about you.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” she said with a wink. “Thrax and his precious male ego are very, very intimidated by me.”
I definitely liked her. “Thank you for protecting Quynh.”
She sheathed her blade. “She will soon be my sister, so it is both my honor and my duty. Even if it weren’t, I suspect I would still do it. How does someone so tiny have that much fire and spirit?”
I was proud of myself that I didn’t tense up when she talked about Quynh becoming her family. It made sense that Quynh and Thrax would get married if they loved each other. I told myself it was a good thing. The more people who could love my sister, the better. She deserved to have that.
Especially if I wasn’t going to be around long enough to make sure that she was safe. “She’s always been that way.”
Basileia nodded. “Stubborn, too. If it were up to me, I would take her back to Thrace. I worry about her safety here, especially without knowing who your enemies are. But she refuses to leave.”
“That sounds like my sister.” I paused for a moment and then asked a question I’d been dying to have answered for a long time. “What do the blue tattoos mean?”
If she found my question strange, she didn’t show it. “Each mark is for an enemy I’ve killed.”
She had more of them than Thrax did.
“More than my brother,” she said with a grin, as if she could read my mind.
“How did you come to be in Troas?”
“Our mother wanted me to come check on Thrax, as we hadn’t heard from him in a while, and I arrived right before the attacks. I wish I had been staying in the weapons quarter so that I could have helped. By the time I got there, it was over.”
I was certain she would have taken out quite a few people, had she been given the chance.
“Thrax was gone,” she continued on. “I believe you went with him to Lycia?”
“Yes.” Someone else saying the name of that village filled my mind with images of all those people who had been slaughtered.
“When he returned he found Quynh and made sure she was safe. I found him at the palace. He entrusted me with watching over her because he didn’t know who else he could trust. He wanted to make sure that your enemies couldn’t find her.”
I had so many of those, he could have been worried about a variety of different people who might want to hurt Quynh to hurt me. Keeping our familial connection a secret from the rest of the court was probably the only thing that had kept her safe when the attack on the palace happened.
It made me very grateful that Xander had put that in place.
Basileia was looking at me expectantly and it made me feel as if I had to make conversation with her. “Did you travel here alone?”
“Of course. Who would I be afraid of?” she asked with a scoff. I wished that I had even a quarter of her confidence. She sat down in a chair and took out a dagger, which she started to clean. “Quynh is upstairs.”
I thanked her and ran up quickly. There were two doors and I stood in the hallway for a few moments. What if she didn’t want to see me? Sent me away? I wasn’t sure I could deal with that right now. I was desperate to see her and talk to her.
Choosing the door on the right, I opened it and there sat my sister.
My heart swelled as if it would pop, and I promptly burst into tears.