Page 171 of A Tribute of Fire

“So there’s more than one group of warriors trying to kill you?” Ahyana asked, her voice high-pitched.

“Apparently.”

“I’m so glad we came out into the woods alone with you then,” Zalira said with a slight smile and a shake of her head.

While I was glad she could joke, I couldn’t turn off my fear that we were about to be attacked. Especially not after bringing up past fights that I’d been involved in.

After a few minutes passed, she said, “I think we’re alone.”

It seemed that way. The others had already put their weapons away and I finally put my xiphos back into its sheath.

“We should clear the rocks,” Io said and Suri nodded.

The stones looked so big that I didn’t know how we’d manage it. “I guess we could try lifting them together.”

We gathered around the top one. Everybody got their hands underneath it, and I counted. “One, two, three.”

It was so easy to lift the stone that it practically flew out of our hands. Like the rocks were as light as leaves.

“Have you ever noticed how strong we are?” I asked after we placed it off to the side.

Zalira and Ahyana exchanged glances and then Ahyana responded, “Other than just now? No.”

“We fight men so easily,” I said. “That’s never been my experience before.”

“Until the other night, none of us had ever fought men,” Zalira said while Io’s face fell. I saw the tears beginning to form in her eyes, but Suri was there, putting her arm around her.

“I have fought many men while training. And I was beaten every time. I could hold my own for a while, but eventually I would be defeated. They were always stronger than me. But now? Something is making us just as strong.”

At first it was as if no one knew what to say in response. We easily moved the rest of the heavy rocks in silence, clearing away the mud as well.

Before long the spring had bubbled back up and was flowing again. We all washed our hands off and sat down at the edge of the spring to take a break.

Not that it was necessary. None of us were winded or tired.

“We should head back tonight,” I said. I couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong, and the red dirt had only intensified that feeling.

“Agreed,” Zalira said. “We should get as far away from here as we can.”

“Don’t you think we should make camp?” Io asked. “It’s been a long journey. I would like to sleep.”

It was true—we hadn’t been sleeping very much over the last few days. But it seemed more important to put as much distance as we could between ourselves and the spring.

“Let’s take a vote,” Ahyana suggested. It was three to two—both Suri and Io wanted to make camp, though I suspected Suri only voted the way that she did so Io wouldn’t feel alone.

Zalira took my knapsack this time and we began walking back in the direction that we’d come. It hadn’t taken us very long to unplug the spring, and it was currently twilight.

Io walked alongside me. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you said before.”

“About us being freakishly strong?”

“No, when we were speaking about how long Theano’s been the high priestess of the temple. For some reason it stuck in my mind, and today when I was speaking to Daphne about your medicine, I asked her about it.”

“And?”

“She said that Theano has been high priestess ever since Daphne arrived from her race, when she was eighteen. She’s sixty-nine now.”

My mind refused to accept this information. “Are you telling me that Theano has been high priestess of the temple for half a century?”

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