Four questions down. I thought of the fact that each one had seemed to be specific in some way to one of my sisters. Suri, who didn’t speak; Io, who was upset about my word not being kept; Zalira and Ahyana with their aspects.
That meant the next question was for me.
What if I didn’t know the answer?
“I shine brightest in the dark. Though I’m there I can’t be seen. To possess me costs you nothing, and without me you’ll lose everything. What am I?”
“Air?” Zalira offered.
“That doesn’t shine in the dark,” Ahyana said.
“If it’s cold, you can see your breath. Air doesn’t cost anything and you’d lose everything without it,” her sister countered.
Io began to fidget. “Maybe it’s light. It shines bright in the dark.”
“Or fire,” Ahyana added.
I looked to Suri and she shrugged at me, the worry evident on her face.
This was about something that had to do with me.
Goddess help me,I silently prayed.
Xander’s face filled my mind. And the memory was from last night, when we had been talking in the tent. When he realized that I didn’t love someone else, that I had adored the present he had given me, when I had cuddled up next to him on the floor even though I hated sleeping there, what I had seen in his eyes before we had been interrupted.
“You’re almost out of time,” the sphinx said, and the edges of her mouth curled up into a feral grin, her fangs showing.
We heard a rumbling, rock-groaning sound from her sister, as if The Devourer intended to wake. Golden light started to appear from the slits in her eyelids.
“Lia! What do we do?” Io shrieked.
“Hope,” I told the sphinx, my heart beating as loudly as thunder in my chest. “The answer is hope.”
The sounds of rocks moving immediately stopped, and the golden light went out of The Devourer’s eyes.
I nearly fell to my knees in relief. We had done it.
Io hugged me fiercely and the others joined in.
“That is correct. You may pass,” the sphinx told us.
I walked out in front of the sphinx first and stood there, waiting for my sisters to go by. When they were safely at the other end of theroom, I would join them. I needed to stay here to make sure that nothing happened. For all I knew the sphinx might be a liar. I wasn’t going to take that chance.
The door appeared on the far wall, indicating that we could leave. I had started to head toward my sisters when the sphinx spoke again. “Dea’s savior.”
I came to a stop.
“You have many,” she said.
“I have many what?”
“I do not answer questions; I only ask them.” She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
Hurrying across the room, I joined my adelphia, and we went through the door.
We went into the hallway and I thought about my riddle. There had been a message there for me. Because in a way, I had given up hope. I expected to die. I was planning for it, figuring out contingencies for how to help the people I loved after I was gone.
I needed to have hope again. To think that I could survive and find a way to make things work out.
