Page 144 of A Tribute of Fire

He grinned. “I would be happy to set up some sort of repayment plan with you.”

My entire body ached from the mental images that put into my head. I began walking toward the temple, worried that if I didn’t make myself leave right then I was going to change my mind and take him up on his offer.

Sail home, convince him to stay with me in Locris, and find a different way to save my nation.

It suddenly didn’t sound so bad. And if I were already married to Jason, there would be little the Ilionian prince could do about it.

But I knew it wasn’t realistic.

Not to mention that Jason had never once seriously brought up the subject of marriage and I felt like he was the sort of man who would run away screaming into the night if I said something about it.

We reached the corner where the next turn would lead to the front of the temple. The same place where he had destroyed an entire ambush for my sake. That rush of warm emotions filled me again. I didn’t want this night to end. I wanted to stay with him.

Although I knew I couldn’t.

“Thank you for sending the soil,” I said suddenly as I realized that I’d never thanked him for that.

“Thank you for the kiss,” he said.

It felt like I should be the one thanking him. As if I should be composing epic poems to express how incredible it had been, how good he was at it.

Not knowing what else to say, I nodded and started forward. Before I could take a step, his hand was on my arm.

“Lia, if you’re going to sneak out again, send for me.”

That wasn’t going to happen. I would leave the temple again, but there was no way that I would deliberately involve him in doing so. I knew that whatever we shared, whatever this was, had to be over.

Even if I didn’t want it to be.

I nodded, though. As if I agreed.

He gave me one fleeting, quick kiss and then I ran for the archway. I pressed myself against it, looking into the courtyard. I didn’t see anyone. I risked glancing over my shoulder one last time, but he wasn’t there.

It ended up being easy enough to sneak back in. I ran for the temple and no one noticed. No alarm was raised. I reached the temple patio and leaned against one of the columns to catch my breath.

I was safe. I had made it. It was time for me to clean the temple. I had a reason to be out of my bedroom and no one would question what I was doing.

There was sweat on my forehead and I brushed it away with the back of my hand. Had that been from running over here, or had it been Jason’s doing?

That made me remember something he had said and I took my sword and reached up to the side of my head and cut off a chunk of my hair. I was probably leaving a gaping hole behind but I didn’t care.

I held the hair up in the blooming sunlight.

Red.

It was definitely a dark red.

What did that mean?

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

I couldn’t get over the fact that my hair had changed color. It was so bizarre that it made my heart race and my hands shake. How had that happened?

It was a deeper red than that of the man who had taken Quynh. Perhaps that was why the goddess had done it—she had marked me with the hair of my enemy so that I wouldn’t forget to take my vengeance against him.

We didn’t have mirrors in the temple, so I hadn’t realized. It felt very strange to have something fundamental, something you knew to be true, change about yourself and to not even have been aware of it.

I tried distracting myself, using my time alone to look over the documents I had taken. It was a good choice because it made me forget all about my hair. The first thing I read over was the temple inventory. I ran through it twice and didn’t see any mention of the eye.

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