“No, you know her. Luna.”
Silence. Then: “Are you telling me your lizard is an aether dragon?”
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t toss her out the window?”
“Now I think I definitely should,” he said. “We don’t know anything about aether dragons. What they can do. How big she’s going to get. She won’t fit in the palace at the rate she’s growing. And she is growing so fast. I thought you were doing some kind of magic on her to make her get bigger.”
“It’s her own magic. I think it happens while she sleeps.”
He craned his neck to look at her. “Are those wings on her back?” he asked incredulously.
“I think so.”
“So now she’s going to fly and spread her silver mess everywhere.”
“It’s actually aether that’s falling off her,” I said, and he smiled as he shook his head.
“What is the greatest weapon?” he asked.
I hesitated for a moment. This wasn’t something I wanted getting out. But I knew I could trust him.
“Io thinks it might be the goddess’s golden sword that she used to create life. If it is, then we would have a god-weapon to use against Artemisia’s. The cave where it’s located is in Mount Idaia. We want to leave tomorrow to find out what’s there.”
He surprised me with his response. He nodded and said, “Obviously I’m going with you.”
“You were just crowned king,” I reminded him. “You can’t go, and we have to.”
“If you have to, then so do I.”
No, he had to stay here and rule. Get Troas prepared. “What if Erisa makes some kind of move while you’re gone? Or Pelias?”
“She’s locked in her rooms. And I’m not concerned about Pelias. I’ll leave Thrax here to keep an eye on things for me.”
“What will you tell the council?”
He shrugged. “I’ll tell them I’m going to meet with some delegation in person. The Thracians or the Apatians.”
That would give him the excuse he needed, but this mission had to be kept secret. “I need to ask a favor of you. Could you please not tell your phratry brothers what we’re looking for?”
“I don’t lie to them,” he immediately responded.
“I’m not asking you to lie. But tell them something vague. Like we’re looking for something that might help with the war. We don’t even know if this weapon is there. What if somebody else removed it a long time ago? I don’t want word to get out, especially if we fail.”
And I didn’t want word reaching Artemisia. I wanted her surprised when we fought.
“My brothers are trustworthy,” he insisted.
Dolion wasn’t. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him but I didn’t. I didn’t want to create a schism in their brotherhood. “Would you please do this for me?”
He had told me that I only had to ask and he would do it. “Fine. I won’t tell them. But won’t they see what you get when we’re all in the cave?”
I hadn’t told him about the writing on the scroll. I explained what it said about the worthy savior and that no man or beast could enter the cave. I half expected him to lodge another objection that he wouldn’t let us go in there without him, but to my surprise he didn’t.
Instead he yawned. “I’m going to take a bath. We can talk more about this tomorrow.”
He got up and went into the washroom.
And he didn’t lock the door.
