Chapter Twelve
My sisters were all gathered in the temple gymnasium, and I saw Zalira drink something tinted green.
“What is that?” I asked.
“My fortification potion,” Io said. “We’re testing it out today. I want to see if we can do magic for longer if we use it.” She handed me a full vial, which I put into my pocket. “I’ve also been thinking about trying to create a potion that might boost our power.”
“Something happened today that makes me think there might be a way for us to do that naturally. I saw Quynh and she’s pregnant. When I touched her stomach, I could feel that bright white light inside her and I felt power flowing into my hands.”
“Were you doing magic?” Ahyana asked.
“No.”
“Then how did you feel it?”
“I don’t know.” Always more questions with very few answers.
“I’m ready,” Zalira said. “Dea Maimaktes.”
The rain outside was gentle this time. Constant. There weren’t any lightning bolts or thunderclaps.
“Her eyes are green,” Io breathed out. Like she hadn’t quite believed that it had happened, even though we’d told her it did. “Like the eye of the goddess is inside us.”
“How are you doing?” Ahyana asked.
“Good. The pain is here, but not as intense. I can take it,” Zalira said. “I’m trying to maintain control over the rain as well.”
“How do you do that?” Io asked.
“I think of it, picture it, and it happens. But I have to concentrate. And ignore the pain.”
We stood there quietly so as not to distract her, and I watched as her limbs started to shake. I could see from her expression that the pain was increasing.
“There has to be a way for her to stop besides passing out,” I said.
Io nodded. “Maybe you can think and make it end. Like you were just talking about.”
Zalira shook her head. “That didn’t work.”
“If we speak a command to start, couldn’t there be one to stop?” Ahyana asked. “What if it’s the same phrase?”
“Dea Maimaktes,” Zalira said, and the rain ceased while she sagged down to the ground.
I couldn’t tell if it had worked or if she reached the end of her endurance. But then Zalira lifted her head and grinned at us.
“That did it!” she exclaimed.
We could turn the magic off and not let it consume us. We could make it stop before it rendered us unconscious. I could see on my adelphia’s faces that they felt as relieved as I did.
“My turn,” Io said. She took a few steps back from us and drank the fortification potion. “Dea Khloe.”
A single green plant began to come up through the seams in the concrete floor, slowly growing and moving toward Io. She shifted her gaze toward us.
“You are all covered in that white light, but Suri’s is the strongest,” she said.
“They were all the same when I saw it,” Ahyana responded with a slight frown.
Io held her hand out to Suri, who quickly came over and took it. Io immediately gasped.
“The pain is gone. I feel invigorated, like I could go on forever. As if she’s charging my power.”
I saw the grimace on Suri’s face. This was taking something out of her, and I wanted to know what it felt like. So I went over and took Io’s other hand. She gasped again, and this time instead of feeling the white light entering me, I felt it going out.
Into Io.
Without being told to join in, Zalira and Ahyana came over and held on so that we were all touching.
I could see the white light surrounding Suri and my other sisters. Suri’s was exactly the same as the others.
But none of them were as bright as the light I’d seen around Xander.
“It’s like my power has increased tenfold,” Io said, breathing hard. “Like I could . . .”
The pain had started to set in for me. Suri was trembling but she didn’t let go.
Thick roots suddenly shot up through the seams and began wrapping themselves around our ankles.
“Should we be concerned?” Ahyana asked, peering down at her legs.
“No,” Io said. “I wanted to see if it would work.”
The roots slithered off our legs and began to move along the floor, like snakes.
Zalira dropped out of the circle, already exhausted from having done magic earlier. She sat down hard, pulling air into her lungs.
“I’m going to stop,” Io said, her voice shaking. “Dea Khloe.”
The roots immediately went still and we all collapsed near each other. I felt drained, like all my energy had been taken from me.
“So we can power one another,” Zalira said.
I sucked in a deep breath and held it for a moment before saying, “If we’re using magic to fight, if we’re powering each other, we wouldn’t be able to do magic of our own.”
“We would have to figure out a way to stagger it,” Io said as she leaned against Suri.
“Does everyone have a light?” Ahyana asked. “Could we touch anyone and it would power us?”
“We should test it.”
Ahyana got to her feet. “I’ll do it. There are guards outside the gate.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said. It seemed like we were currently the most recovered of the group.
We walked through the temple grounds quickly. It used to feel eerie to do so, as if we were disturbing a grave. But since we had started using the magic . . . it no longer felt that way.
Instead it was like this was a place that could have life in it again because we were using it the way it was meant to be utilized.
When we arrived at the gate, Ahyana quickly called up her aspect. “No lights on any of them,” she said, and then uttered the words to turn it off again.
Curious, I quickly did the same. She was right. There weren’t any white lights around the guards.
“So it’s only specific people who can power us?” she asked.
Our adelphia made sense. We were bound to one another by blood and ceremony and, now, magic. Of course we could help one another.
But why did it happen with Quynh’s unborn baby?
And Xander?
When we returned to the palace, I sent for Parthenia.
I asked her to take a message to Themis asking if we could resume our meetings at a later date because of how busy I had become.
Those get-togethers were for me to teach her and Zalira, Ahyana, and Suri how to read, but Themis didn’t want anyone to know what we were actually doing.
I didn’t think it would be a problem to delay, as I supposed that she was probably just as preoccupied with the council, trying to figure out their next moves.
“I’ll do it right now,” Parthenia said. “Do you need anything else?”
She made an oof sound and put a hand over her belly.
“Is the baby kicking again?” I asked. This was my chance to test whether I could sense her baby the same way I could Quynh’s.
“Yes. Always.”
“May I please feel?”
She nodded. I came over and she showed me where to put my hands. A second later I felt a sharp jab.
But there wasn’t any light. No connection. I whispered, “Dea Erinys.”
Still nothing. Not on Parthenia, either. Strange. I quickly turned my power off so as to not suddenly pass out in front of my maid.
“It will be your turn soon enough,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”
I weakly smiled at her. “That would be something.”
What it would be was impossible.
I told her that I wouldn’t need her again for the rest of the evening.
“I’m going to have a tray sent up for you and your husband,” she said. “You’ve both been so busy lately. I want to make sure you’re eating.”
I thanked her for her offer and decided that was probably a good idea.
She left and promised the food would arrive soon.
My eating schedule had become extremely erratic and I needed to keep my strength up.
As did Xander. To that end I reached into my pocket to get the fortification potion Io had given me and swallowed it down. I instantly felt less tired.
Deciding that I needed to get cleaned up, I took a quick bath and dressed. I checked on the sleeping Luna. I was away so often now that I didn’t get to see her during her awake hours and it made me sad. I missed her.
There was a knock on the door, and it was a kitchen maid with a tray. I let her in and she put it on the table. I thanked her, and when she left, I grabbed a handful of grapes and began eating. I picked up the book Suri had found for me down in Xander’s mother’s library and started to read.
I found myself flipping back to the story I’d read earlier about the sun god who had cursed the people of Jacharus and turned their lands into a desert. That same line stuck out to me again—
The gods and goddesses quarrel with one another over the hearts of mortals as they draw their strength from those who believe.
I’d been trying to figure out what the hammer of Arion was. I had thought that Arion might be a person or a place. A city? A king?
But what if Arion was a god? Someone at war with the earth goddess? Was that the sun god’s name? Were his followers waging war against us to diminish Dea’s power because she had rejected him?
Destroying her believers would destroy her strength.
Why wouldn’t she stop it from happening?
Maybe this went back to Io’s belief that the goddess gave us what we needed and it was up to us to figure out the rest.
The bedroom door opened dramatically and Xander slammed it shut. He came over to the bed and fell down face first and let out a sigh.
“Hard day?” I asked, closing my book.
“Yes.” The word was mumbled into the mattress.
“There’s food over on the table.”
That got him to lift his head to see where I was pointing. “Later,” he said. Then he turned onto his side to face me, propping his head up with his bent arm. “How did your training go today?”
I told him the new things we had discovered—being powered by other people with the white light, turning the magic off before it knocked us out, Io’s fortification potion.
“Were you able to fight for longer?” he asked.
“I can’t use my power on my sisters,” I said. “I might hurt one of them.”
“You can always practice with me.” He stood. “Show me how long you can last.”
“Aren’t you tired?” I asked. I didn’t want him wearing himself out.
“I have incredible stamina.” He said those words in a way that made my breath hitch and my toes curl against the bed. “Show me what you can do, wife.”
What would he say if I asked him to show me how extensive his stamina was? Nothing good would come of that. I should beg off.
“I just bathed.”
He nodded appreciatively. “I can see that.”
I glanced down to make sure that my tunic wasn’t clinging to me and then realized he probably meant my damp hair. “I’m clean, and you want me to get all sweaty from fighting?”
“Getting sweaty is fun.” He was in a flirtatious and playful mood. I wanted both to take advantage of it and to tell him to stop being hot one moment and cold the next because it was infuriating.
His voice dropped an octave lower than normal. “Come on, wife. Let me make you sweat.”