“We have to go,” I told him. If the trials were going to keep happening so close together, I was running out of time.
“I know you do,” he said, putting his forehead against mine. “I wish I could come with you.”
“We’ll be all right,” I said, and I prayed to the goddess that it would be true. I turned to my sisters. “Shall we?”
As I started to walk away, he grabbed my hand and tugged me back to him so that he could kiss me. It was sweet and delicious and overwhelming, and it made my toes curl.
And it had a message.
Come back to me.
“Do not die in the cave,” he said when he reluctantly pulled his lips from mine.
“I won’t.”
He walked with me to the mouth of the cave. I had to tug my hand away. “I’ll be back,” I promised.
“You had better. I don’t care what the scroll says. I will come in there after you.”
My adelphia and I walked into the darkness. The bioluminescence I had seen when I’d first crossed the ocean somehow also covered the cave walls and ceiling and suddenly flickered to life when we entered.
I took out my xiphos. Just in case. We walked down a short hallway, and at the end of it, there was a thick wall. I pushed against it. It didn’t budge.
The walls on either side of us were also thick and immovable.
“There’s a sign,” Ahyana said, pointing up toward the top of the cave. “What does it say?”
“Be ye worthy to enter here,” Io read out loud.
“That’s not at all ominous,” Zalira muttered.
“But how do we enter?” I asked. There had to be some trick I was missing. I thought of the secret passageways in the palace in Troas. Was there a seam to indicate a door? A lever we could pull to create an opening?
What if there was nothing here? Would our quest be over before it began?
As I ran my hand over the cool wall, I felt an indent. As I outlined it with my fingers, I realized that it was a handprint.
I told my sisters what I had found, and then Ahyana said, “Here’s another one.”
“I’ve got one!” Zalira said.
“There’s five,” Io told me.
Of course. One for each of us.
This had never been intended for the savior alone. I had to have my adelphia with me. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise.
“Let’s put our hands on them and see what happens,” I said. Because we didn’t know what we were dealing with, part of me was afraid that we would spring a trap, like the rocks suddenly growing up around our wrists and holding us in place while some beast came and attacked us.
“On three,” I said. We lined up and I counted. “One, two, three.”
We each put a hand against the print in front of us at the same time, and there was a terrible sound of rocks grinding and rending.
I jumped back, seeing my sisters do the same.
The wall in front of us pulled apart, revealing a staircase, also lit by the same bioluminescence.
The stairs had been hewn from marble and looked as if they’d never been used.
