Page 53 of A Tribute of Fire

The dream I’d had, where I’d seen the beautiful woman in a field of wildflowers, suddenly filled my mind. I remembered that she had been watching the sun rise in the east, her face turned that direction.

What if that had been some kind of clue? My mind seized on the possibility. If it was, then it would make sense that her temple would lie in the west so that her statue would soak up as much light as she could.

Or it might have been located in the east so that she would be closer to the sun when it rose.

Desperation scrambled my ability to think clearly, to decide.

Because if I chose wrong, if we ran in the wrong direction, it would mean certain death.

Hope was all I’d had left, and it was quickly abandoning me.

“None of my men will participate in the event,” the captain said behind me, and I didn’t know what he expected us to do. Thank him? Was it an attempt to comfort us?

But he walked away before I could formulate a retort, letting him know exactly what I thought about his declaration.

Quynh’s hand shook in mine. “It’s so big.”

She was giving voice to my fears, and I was determined to chase them away. “We will find it. Don’t worry.”

The water in the harbor was deep enough, and free of dangerous reefs, so that we could go directly to the docks and weren’t forced to travel by rowboat as we had when we’d left Locris.

As the men threw ropes to those who waited on the wooden docks to catch them, I felt even more eyes on us. Everyone openly stared. Another wave of nausea rose up in my throat, but I swallowed it back.

Jason coughed and then announced, “The captain is waiting for you by the gangplank.”

I nodded and turned to look at him. There was something in his eyes, something I couldn’t have described with words. Instead I felt it, deep in my stomach.

He didn’t want me to go but was just as powerless as I was to stop it.

“May I ask a favor from you?”

His expression showed me that he understood how difficult it was for me to ask. “Anything, if it is within my power to do so.”

“If one or both of us makes it to the temple alive, I left a small pot in my cell. Will you bring it there?” I had my pack with my dagger, the bags of salt, food, and water. My throwing knives were in my belt, my xiphos attached to my thigh.

I had brought the pot with Locrian dirt to test once I found the eye and a life mage. I would put the eye in my soil and make sure it grewplants. I had to know that the eye would restore my kingdom before I returned home.

But there was no point in carrying something so heavy on my back when I wasn’t sure whether I’d make it.

“Yes,” he said. “I swear it.”

I was used to him being more insufferable, more arrogant, and wasn’t sure what to make of this serious man swearing himself to my request.

We reached the gangplank and the captain dismissed him.

Jason leaned in close to me so that no one else could hear and said, “If I could save you, I would.”

And I believed that he physically could have. That he would have fought off every crew member and then cut his way through the crowd gathered at the dock. The others wouldn’t even be able to reach for their swords before he would slice them open. He was capable of it, and for a brief moment, I allowed myself to fantasize that he would do just that—save Quynh and me by facing an entire army alone and succeeding.

“But you can’t. And you won’t. Your words don’t matter very much right now,” I said.

He lingered for a moment longer, as if he wished to say something else. But he didn’t and instead went and picked up a broom leaning against the main mast. To my astonishment, he started sweeping the deck.

I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it hadn’t been for him to start doing chores.

He began to sing, his voice strong and clear.

To the blue, to the blue

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