Chapter Sixty-Seven
They both blushed when they saw us. I grinned and decided not to tease them, even though I really wanted to.
My husband did not share in my sentiment. “The celibacy vow gets revoked, and what does my little sister do?”
“You’re one to talk,” she retorted. “How long after you found out did your wife become . . . uncelibate?”
He laughed and I had to press my lips together.
Io added, “There’s something I want to show you.”
“Oh, I think we’ve seen quite enough,” he teased her.
She glared at him and told us to follow her. We all went to her room, where she picked up two books. “Suri and I went down to my mother’s library and found these.”
“What are they?” I asked as she handed them to me.
“They’re manuals on how to operate the temple. The rules of what should be done. What the actual vows are. I think they came from Locris.”
That made sense—Lysimache would have made sure to destroy any Ilionian copies.
“I’m going to send one of them to the scribes here at the palace so that they can make multiple copies,” she said. She went over and put her hand in Suri’s. “Suri and I are going to reopen the temple here in Ilion together, and we will run it the way it was always intended to be.”
“Maia did say that so long as there was one priestess who still believed, the temple could keep going. And with a manual, anybody could reopen . . .”
A thought occurred to me, and I got excited.
I had the answer I had been looking for.
“Antiope is going to Locris,” I said. “And now that we have a manual on how to run a temple—”
“You could ask Antiope to open the temple in Locris!” Xander finished, looking every bit as happy as I felt.
“Let’s go ask her now!” I said, handing the books back to Io. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out into the hallway.
“Or we could ask her in about half an hour,” he said.
“One hour,” I countered.
He grinned. “Fine. Greedy little princess.”
“That’s entirely your fault.”
“I know, and I thank the goddess for it every day.”
Two weeks later we crossed the Acheron Sea to go to Locris. Xander and I were accompanied by my former regiment, Luna, Quynh, Thrax, Haemon, Demaratus, Antiope, Themis, and her youngest son, Adonis. I had thoroughly vetted him, and it seemed like he might be a good match for Kallisto.
I would leave it to my older sister to decide.
Antiope had quickly agreed to my proposal that she open the temple in Locris and reinstate worship of the goddess.
“The chance to begin again, to do things the way the goddess intended? And to be able to have a relationship while doing so? I was worried about what I would do in Locris, and this is the answer.”
Demaratus had already agreed to help her with the training since the manuals Io had discovered said that men were allowed onto the temple grounds to worship.
It wouldn’t be easy—Locrians had so thoroughly removed the goddess from their lives that I was certain there would be some resistance. I found myself feeling a little sorry for anyone who tried to cross Antiope.
We drew ever closer to Locris. Unfortunately the ship went over a high wave, and I gripped the railing so tightly that my knuckles turned white.
I was most certainly pregnant. The light inside me grew stronger with each passing day, and my monthly courses hadn’t ever come.
I had also started vomiting every morning.
My husband held my hair back and told me how much he loved and adored me while I threatened him with an ever-growing list of ways that I wanted to torture him for doing this to me.
The voyage to Locris nearly did me in. Seasickness combined with pregnancy sickness was one of the worst things I had ever endured.
“Worse than drowning?” Xander asked me teasingly.
“Have you not learned that you shouldn’t provoke your temperamental, pregnant wife?” I took the gingerroot he offered me, but it didn’t seem to help much.
I was on the deck when Mount Knemis came into view. A lump rose in my throat. I had promised myself that I would see it again, and now here I was.
When we pulled into the harbor, I saw my family waiting for us at the dock. Xander had sent them a letter saying that we were coming to visit, but I asked him not to mention our surprises. I wanted to see their faces.
Xander and I went in the first rowboat with Quynh, Thrax, and Luna, and I had Haemon go with the others in the second.
When we pulled up to the dock, my father was there with tears streaming down his face. “My girls! My flowers!”
I started climbing the ladder, but my father reached for my hand and pulled me up so that I could hug him. His embrace was so comforting, so familiar, that I started to cry.
My mother’s arms went around us, and I pulled her into the hug.
Then my father let go so that he could reach for Quynh. Doria and Kallisto joined us and we stood there on the dock, reunited at last. Xander and Thrax got out of the boat and waited for us to finish.
“I have a surprise for you,” I said, my voice muffled.
“What kind of surprise?” my father asked.
I pulled away and said, “Look.”
The second rowboat had arrived.
No one in my family moved or breathed. They all stared.
“Is that—” My father stopped speaking, unable to believe what he was seeing.
“Is that how you plan to greet your long-lost son?” Haemon asked with a wide smile as he climbed the ladder.
Doria pushed through us, going straight to Haemon. “I knew it,” she said, tears falling down her cheeks. “I knew you were alive.”
He pulled her into a long kiss and then said, “I love you. I missed you so much.”
“I love you,” she said.
My parents’ tears only got worse. They fell on Haemon’s neck with loud sobs, and a moment later Kallisto was there with them, crying every bit as hard.
My entire family was together again. I had returned Haemon to them, making us whole.
Xander came over to put his arm around me. “This must make you happy.”
“It does,” I said, wiping my own tears away.
When they finally released Haemon, I took the opportunity to introduce Xander and Thrax to my parents, explaining that Quynh and I were married to them.
They got pulled into the family hug. Thrax was delighted, while Xander looked uncomfortable but endured it for my sake.
We all went back to the palace and nobody even asked about Luna—they were so focused on Haemon’s return and our marriages.
I knew that we would have time during our visit to explain everything. I could be patient.
My father declared that we must have a feast, as I knew he would. I had made sure that the ship was packed with supplies so that we could celebrate. Everything was brought to the palace, and I took the opportunity to take my husband on a tour of my first home.
When we got to the courtyard with the ancient olive tree, he laughed and brought me over to it.
“Who could have guessed that we would come full circle like this? Back to where it all began,” he said, pressing soft kisses to my neck.
I leaned my head back to give him better access, tingling from his touch. “Not me.”
“You aren’t going to try and stab me again, are you?”
“For your own safety, I would advise you not to ask me that question when I’m vomiting in the morning.”
He chuckled and then moved to my side to hold me in his arms. One of his hands went to my womb and he kissed my temple. I felt so loved, so complete.
This was everything I had ever wanted.
Xander was everything I had ever wanted.
I would always be so grateful to the goddess for making him for me.
Then I realized that this was the vision I’d had on the day of our wedding.
And I silently thanked the goddess for him, and for letting me have this.
We had celebrated well into the night, trying to catch my Locrian family up on everything that had occurred since we had left.
While obviously leaving out many details that I knew would upset my parents.
Early the next morning, I lay in my husband’s arms, thoroughly satiated.
“You should pass a law,” I said, “that everyone should spend all their time making love.”
He laughed. “I don’t have to pass a law for that. It’s already happening. Besides, if I legislated it, it would bring the nation to a grinding halt.”
“But think of how happy everyone would be.”
“You make me happy,” he said, kissing me. “And I love you more than you could possibly imagine.”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “I have an excellent imagination.”
“I’m well aware,” he said with a smirk before he kissed me again. “So should we follow my new impending law again?”
“Actually, I want to take the eye and try to fix Locris. Will you come with me?”
“Of course,” he said. “Aren’t you going to tell your family what we’re doing?”
“No. I don’t want them to be disappointed if it doesn’t work.”
“It will work,” he said confidently. “I believe in you.”
Every time I thought I couldn’t love this man more, he said something to prove that false.
We got dressed and grabbed something to eat, which I promptly threw up, and then walked out of the palace, through the city, and toward the mountains.
Luna insisted on accompanying us and alternated between flying and walking along the ground.
“I don’t know that I can build an enclosure big enough for your lizard,” Xander said. It was true—Luna had grown again and was now the same size as a dog.
I am an aether dragon, Luna said indignantly in my mind. She could understand other people now, but I was the only one who could hear her.
“She doesn’t like it when you call her that.”
Luna emitted a stream of silver flame, as if to prove her point.
“Fine, dragon,” he conceded, and she looked satisfied. “But I don’t know how I feel about her growing an earth dragon tail.”
It was true, her tail had begun to change. The end had rounded and tiny flexible spikes surrounded it. I was certain they would harden as she grew. “Then it’s a good thing she’s on our side.”
When we were far enough away from Naryx, I knelt down. “Here will work.”