Page 109 of A Tribute of Fire

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 seemrandom, 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.

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