I had so many of those, he could have been worried about a variety of different people who might want to hurt Quynh to hurt me. Keeping our familial connection a secret from the rest of the court was probably the only thing that had kept her safe when the attack on the palace happened.
It made me very grateful that Xander had put that in place.
Basileia was looking at me expectantly and it made me feel as if I had to make conversation with her. “Did you travel here alone?”
“Of course. Who would I be afraid of?” she asked with a scoff. I wished that I had even a quarter of her confidence. She sat down in a chair and took out a dagger, which she started to clean. “Quynh is upstairs.”
I thanked her and ran up quickly. There were two doors and I stood in the hallway for a few moments. What if she didn’t want to see me? Sent me away? I wasn’t sure I could deal with that right now. I was desperate to see her and talk to her.
Choosing the door on the right, I opened it and there sat my sister.
My heart swelled as if it would pop, and I promptly burst into tears.
Chapter Nine
“Lia!” Quynh rushed over to hug me. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m just so happy that you’re safe and that you’re here. And that you’re willing to see me.” I was hiccuping and sobbing at the same time, trying to calm down.
“Of course I want to see you. Why would you think I wouldn’t? You are my sister.”
I cried harder at that and let her lead me over to a chair to sit. She poured me a drink of water and put it on the small table next to me. Then she got a chair of her own and sat close so that our knees were touching.
When I finally got a hold of myself, I said, “Because I’ve been awful to Thrax and you love him. I’m sorry.”
She gave me the kindest smile and it made me want to start crying again. “Lia, you have nothing to apologize for.”
That wasn’t true. I understood that it might make things worse between us, but I had to be completely honest with her. “Did he tell you how I tried to attack him when I saw him wearing your bracelet?”
She took me by the hand. “He did. And I understand why you did it.”
“You do? Everybody else thought I was overreacting. Including me.”
“You dealt with a lot of suffering and trauma from what you went through in the tribute race, and you thought I was dead for weeks. Thebracelet was the last piece of me that you had, and it means something special to you that it doesn’t to anyone else.”
“Yes,” I said, relief soothing my soul that she understood.
“Of course you’d have big emotions where the bracelet was concerned.”
I had to hug her again. “I thought that was why you didn’t want to come and see me.”
She pulled back so that she could look me in the eyes. “Because you wanted to attack Thrax? That would make me a hypocrite. Need I remind you that I’m the one who used to bite him?”
That made me laugh, which had been her intent.
“One of the kitchen maids seemed a little suspicious and asked me a lot of strange questions, some of them about you,” she said. “I was trying to lay low and stay clear of you so that she wouldn’t make the connection. She made me uneasy. I told Thrax about it and he kept an eye on her, but nothing happened. He wrote her off as a nosy gossip. After the attacks on the palace, she disappeared. I think she was one of the spies that were hiding in the city.”
It sounded like the attackers had the same plan that Quynh did—infiltrate the palace kitchens to find out information. “Did you ever notice a reddish-brown tattoo of a hammer on her chest?”
“I never saw her with her tunic off. Why?”
I explained to her everything that we had learned so far, including Artemisia’s role in it and who Lysimache was. I could tell that she already knew about the massacres in Lycia and the temple; Thrax must have told her.
“I’m so, so sorry for your loss. All those women that you knew and lived with and cared about.” The sympathy in Quynh’s voice was almost enough to get me to start crying again.
“Honestly, I can’t let myself think about it too much,” I confessed. “I have to push it out of my mind.”
“You’ve always been good at that. Ignoring and suppressing things you don’t want to confront.”
