Io read it out loud and I pulled out my xiphos. I put my hand on the door handle to open it. “Are we ready?”
The others also got their weapons out and nodded.
It was a room the same size as the one we had just left. It was lit up and we could see everything. Long, thick stalactites hung overhead.
And in front of us was a field of sickly yellow flowers. Their blooms were pointed up, almost like a triangle.
Io uttered a curse so foul that Ahyana gasped.
“What is it?” I asked, alarmed at her reaction.
“Manticore’s teeth.” Io spit the words out. “If we step on or brush against their petals, they will release a deadly poison that will kill all of us in seconds.”
Zalira looked as dazed as I felt. “How do you know what kind of flower it is?”
“Daphne joined the temple because her younger sister was killed by manticore’s teeth. She wanted to learn all that she could about plants and flowers to help others. It’s the first thing she taught us—what flora could kill us.”
The door slammed shut behind us, and I supposed it was locked like the other one. The only way out was through, just like before.
“What goddess would set this as a test?” Ahyana asked.
“The goddess of poison, maybe?” Io offered. “Combining her power with Dea’s?”
“Can’t you do anything?” I asked Io. Plants were her specialty.
“I’ll try. Dea Khloe.” She held her hands up and closed her eyes.
But just like with Zalira, nothing happened.
“I can’t feel the magic,” she said.
Had we been cut off from it? That seemed unfair.
“We’ll have to be careful. I’ll go first,” Zalira said. I was about to say that I would do it, but she turned to me and said, “You bring up the rear.”
“Take off your tunics,” Io told us as she shrugged hers over her head. “We can’t risk something accidentally hitting one of the flowers.”
Our clothes brushing against them would make them release their poison? It sounded as if they were highly sensitive. We took our tunics off, putting them into our bags. It left us in the pants and shirts Rokh had given us, which thankfully were tight.
“If we stand here long enough, do you think the flowers will start coming toward us?” Ahyana mused with an attempt at levity, but I suspected they probably would.
I had nightmarish images in my head of the flowers stepping out of the ground and walking over to us on legs made out of roots.
“Here I go. Step where I step,” Zalira said as she walked into the field. I held my breath as she placed her right foot down carefully and then did the same with her left.
Ahyana went behind her, followed by Suri, Io, and then me. I could see Io trembling in front of me but she soldiered on.
We all fell silent as we concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I could only imagine the kind of stress Zalira was under, as she was responsible for making sure that we all passed through safely.
Sweat dripped down my back as I watched Io and then put my foot in the spots hers had just vacated.
Zalira was nearly to the end when Io suddenly froze in front of me.
Petrified that she’d accidentally knocked into a flower, I said, “What’s wrong?”
“I have to sneeze!”
If she sneezed ... there was no way she could keep it from hitting the flowers. “You have to hold it in.”
