Page 29 of A Tribute of Fire

“How?” Andronicus asked.

That part I did not know. I had no idea how to help an untrained woman survive an entire city trying to kill us. She wouldn’t be able to run as fast as I could. Couldn’t fight. Wouldn’t know the way to the temple.

What was I going to do?

“Where’s Demaratus?” I asked.

“Passed out.”

“Already?” It was early.

“Because of you,” he said.

I nodded. Demaratus and I knew what we had signed up for. We were aware of the risks and all the possibilities.

But Quynh wasn’t.

This was so unfair.

Father tried to take Quynh into her room, but she immediately protested and he brought her to mine instead.

“You should rest for now. I will find a way to save you both,” he said as he helped us climb into my bed. His voice was so desperate, so scared. Despite his words, I saw how bleak his gaze was. He knew the truth as well as I did.

There was no escape from this.

At that moment I decided not to tell him what I had done. It would be better for him and my mother not to know, to think that this had all just been random, meaningless. If they knew I had caused my selection deliberately, it would destroy them.

“Don’t tell Prince Alexandros,” I said.

Father briefly knit his eyebrows together. “Why?”

“Because Quynh and I will find the eye and return to Locris.” Priestesses didn’t leave the temple. It was supposed to be a lifelong commitment, but I didn’t care. I would come home again with the eyeand my sister. “I don’t want anyone in Ilion to know that I’m there. Pretend that I’m still at the palace. Delay him and the betrothal however you can.”

My father’s expression indicated that he didn’t believe in the eye of the goddess but he didn’t contradict me. He only asked, “What if the prince sends ambassadors here to meet you?”

“Then I’m ill and can’t receive anyone. Send letters on my behalf if you need to. Don’t break the betrothal and risk Locris. We will be back.”

I’d never seen my father look so sad, not even when we realized that Haemon was gone.

“We will do our best to keep the home fires burning until you both return,” Father said, leaning forward to kiss me on the forehead. Then he kissed Quynh’s forehead as well. His voice broke when he said, “My little flowers, you have always been so brave.”

“We will keep being brave,” I said. “And we will return.”

Although he didn’t say it, I saw from his face that he didn’t believe me.

He kissed us again and told us to send for him if we needed him.

After he closed the door, I lay back and Quynh curled up next to me. I didn’t know what to say to her. I wanted to make this better but realized I couldn’t.

“Maybe it’s symbolic,” she said. “Maybe the chase is a ritual and there are dozens of Locrian maidens serving in the temple.”

“It’s not symbolic.” The traders at the docks had shared too many horror stories about what happened to the maidens. “I wish that it was.”

She didn’t respond for so long that I thought she had fallen asleep, overcome by the day’s events. But then she asked, “Can I sleep in here?”

“Of course.” When Quynh had first joined our family, she had been terrified of the dark. We had shared a bed for years after she’d arrived.

And now we were about to head into the worst darkness imaginable.

---