“Yes. Lysimache used one to keep herself alive for a thousand years and put pieces of it into the fountain water to make us strong. Whenwe found her at the temple, she had destroyed what was left of it. But there’s still one eye out there, and Lysimache gave it to Artemisia. I can use it to fix Locris and remove the curse.”
“How?”
“I’m not exactly clear on that point yet, but I hope I’ll figure it out. And if I can’t”—because I had died—“Io said she would try and restore it for me.”
“And you have to stay worthy to wield the eye,” he said.
“That’s what I keep being told,” I said. I desperately wished it could be different. “It’s why I told you I feel like there’s two terawolves inside me. The things that I want and the things that I have to do—my responsibilities and duties to the goddess.”
“Oh.” He looked surprised. “When you said that, I thought you were talking about being torn between me and your other man.”
“What other man?”
“The Locrian man that you love.”
For twenty seconds I had no idea what he was talking about. I didn’t love anyone else.
Then it came rushing back to me. The way I had told him at the end of our marriage negotiations that I loved someone in Locris.
He asked, “Do you remember the dream you had, when you were in a large cave with a pool of water, and one of the walls was a giant mirror?”
“You were there?” I asked in surprise.
“I was at the top of the cave, calling down to you, but you didn’t hear me. I watched what you were doing. I heard the voice asking what you wanted. And you said you wanted to see your fate. I couldn’t see in the mirror—I could only see you.”
Why had he been in the dream? Had I done that? Or was that the goddess?
“You said that you were seeing people that you loved. And you said the name of the man. Haemon.” Xander’s expression was flat but I knew what that meant. That he was hiding his reaction.
I had hurt him.
“Haemon was my brother,” I said. “I did see people that I loved in that mirror. My family, my adelphia, and I didn’t understand what the message was.”
“Your brother? Haemon is the one who died?” he clarified.
“Yes.” Had I really never said Haemon’s name to him at any time since we’d met? I couldn’t remember.
“Did you see . . .”
I waited for a few beats, but he apparently didn’t intend to finish his sentence. Was he wondering if I had seen him? The voice had told me that I would see my fate, my true reflection, in the water.
And it had been Xander that I saw.
What a mess I had made. When we had been in his house during the negotiations, he’d wondered how I could have done the things I had with him while loving someone else and I’d callously told him, “You were there. He wasn’t.”
Then I remembered all the other times he had brought up this other man. It had bothered him. He’d been jealous. It had been a nonissue for me because it wasn’t real and I frequently forgot about it.
Maybe this was one of the reasons why he had kissed Chryseis. To have me feel a bit of what he must have been feeling because of a lie I had told him.
I squeezed his hands tightly. “When I told you that I loved someone in Locris, I was talking about Demaratus.”
His face went blank as he tried to place the name. “The Daemonian whose hand you cut off?”
“I didn’t cut off ...” When he’d seen Demaratus in our shared dream, Xander had assumed I’d cut off his hand. But that didn’t matter. “Demaratus is Daemonian, yes, and he was my battle master.”
He looked utterly confused. “I suppose that makes a certain kind of sense. You do love fighting. But he’s much too old for you.”
“No, I’m not in love with Demaratus. I love him as my mentor and friend. I lied and pretended like I was in love with him to upset you. Iwanted to knock down your arrogance and ego. And because I wanted to hold on to my pride. I wanted to hurt you.”
