Page 96 of A Vow of Embers

Maybe I should stay quiet. That might have been kinder. I didn’t want to lie to Zalira, though. She needed to know that there used to be another way. “I’ve told you before, but remember that there havebeen other priestesses who took vows and still got married. Who had children. I have seen it in books.”

“Why did it change?” she asked, and I could hear her heart breaking. “Why can’t it still be like that?”

“I don’t know.” I rested my head against hers. I wished that I had answers for her.

I had to find more answers, to help my sister. I needed to get access to Alexandros’s mother’s library.

The rest of the adelphia had returned to get ready for the picnic. Ahyana took over for me, sitting with Zalira as I went back to my room.

When I entered I immediately smelled fresh wood.

Then I noticed that there was a wooden box on the small table next to my bed. I walked over to inspect it. It was open at the top and was a little enclosure for Luna. It had two levels with ledges and ramps and a spot at the bottom where she could hide.

Alexandros walked into the room and stopped when he spotted me.

“Did you do this?” I asked, my heart beating quickly as I waited.

He hesitated before answering. “It wasn’t much.” He went over to his trunk to find a tunic to change into.

Was this where he had gone this morning? I had thought he’d kill Luna when my back was turned and instead he’d built her a home.

I put a hand over my stomach. I didn’t know what to make of that.

Or how I felt about it.

“Didn’t your Daemonian battle master teach you to control your emotions?” he asked.

“What?”

“I suppose to his credit you do try to hide what you’re feeling, but your face is too expressive.”

My heart thudded slowly. “What is it you think I’m feeling?” I didn’t even know.

He regarded me with that intense stare of his, the one that made me feel like he was peering into my soul. “I always know what you’re feeling.”

Then he raised his right arm and let out a grunt.

“What’s wrong?” I hadn’t meant to ask him. I was still reeling from the fact that he thought he could read me like a book. Combined with me spending the last hour comforting Zalira, it might explain why I was being more empathetic toward him.

“Thrax hit me hard in the ribs today. I was ... distracted and didn’t block him the way that I should have.”

I briefly wondered what had distracted him and then zeroed in on the important part of his statement. “Your ribs? Which side?”

He gave me a questioning look. “The right.”

Exactly where I had felt pain.

“Why would you—” he began to ask, but I cut him off.

“I spoke with Themis today. The archon. She invited me to her rooms to talk with her.” I didn’t want him to know that I’d somehow felt his injury. I wanted to talk to my adelphia first. See if they knew anything about this. Maybe it was something that happened in Ilion between husbands and wives that I was unaware of. “She and Heliodora will give you their votes for king if you will allocate the surplus to fund education for girls.”

“You’re not authorized to speak for me.”

“I didn’t speak for you. I said I thought you were capable of seeing reason and not behaving like a boorish, sexist dog. I should probably ask Themis’s forgiveness for believing something so far-fetched.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“What I’ve done?” I yelled back at him. I was glad the door was shut but wondered if my adelphia could hear us. “What I’ve done is try to help you. What’s wrong with the proposal? Do women not deserve to be educated? Your own sister is educated but you don’t seem to care about whether half of your population can read.”

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