I was about to ask what was beyond the door but saw from her expression that she wouldn’t be forthcoming. I would have to go on faith if that was what I decided.
“Which do you choose?” she asked.
“The door.” There was no way I could spend eternity not knowing what was behind the door. It would have eaten away at me.
“I’m not at all surprised.”
She stayed put, and I didn’t know if there was something else or if I could go through the door. “So I just ...”
“Yes. Walk through the door.”
I hugged her again, not knowing if this would be the last time. “Thank you for everything.”
“I’m so proud of you, Lia. I told you that you were capable of greatness. My faith in you was justified. Remember who you are and who you serve.”
“I’ve tried,” I said.
She took a step back and gestured toward the door. Gathering all my strength, I walked through the meadow until I stood in front of the door. I put my hand on the latch and turned it.
“Send Antiope my love!” Maia called out just before I walked through. I was about to ask her why she’d said that, but I was pulled through the door, as if by some unseen, giant hand.
It disoriented me, and I took a moment to get my bearings.
I was still in the meadow.
But instead of Maia, the goddess herself stood in front of me.
“Euthalia,” she said with a smile so beautiful that I wanted to weep. She was so tall, her long golden hair hanging down to her feet. Her bright green eyes seemed to shine, her skin luminescent.
Her mouth had never moved before when I had seen her in my dreams. All her words had been in my mind. But she was speaking with me as one person would with another.
“Yes, I did speak to you in your mind. Almost every internal voice that you’ve heard has been mine. Demaratus was the one who got through to you the easiest, so I used it most often.”
She had just read my mind. I supposed that shouldn’t have surprised me, and yet it did.
But she was a goddess. Her glory was overwhelming. She was so beautiful, so bright, so loving. I was torn between wanting to fall at her feet and worship her and running the other direction so that she wouldn’t see every dark thing I’d ever thought or done.
“Why didn’t you just speak to me as yourself?” I asked, trembling at the idea of addressing the goddess directly. “Tell me what I needed to do?”
“Because mortals have free will. I would never force you to do anything. The choice is always yours. You have a spark of the divineinside you that can lead you if you let it. But the gods are not allowed to directly interfere in the lives of mortals.”
From the stories I’d always been told, the goddess had certainly interfered. “You pulled Ajax into the earth and killed him.”
“Yes, I killed him in anger and I was punished for it. The council of gods constrained me for a thousand years. And while I was bound, my son couldn’t attack. We have rules.”
That explained why Caria was attacking now. Her son had been forced to wait. “What good is it being a goddess if you can’t do what you want?”
She laughed, and it was a musical sound that delighted my soul.
Then I realized that was why Lysimache had been able to do so many terrible things. She had said that when she cursed Locris, she could no longer feel the goddess.
“Yes,” Dea said. “I couldn’t protect my followers from what she chose to do. Mortals are allowed to make their choices, even when those choices hurt others. You can only know the sweet when you know the bitter.”
“You should have swallowed her into the earth, too.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps I needed to let things play out to lead to this very moment.” She paused for a moment before adding, “And you should know that Ajax paid for his own crimes with his life. I never wanted any Locrian maiden to be harmed.”
I did know that. Lysimache had admitted as much. And I was also glad that I didn’t have some generational sin that I had to make up for. That the goddess had already taken her retribution on the person who deserved it.
