She hadn’t meant it as a rebuke, but it felt like one. Changing the subject, I told her about the magic my adelphia and I could do and she asked so many questions about how it worked and how it felt.
“I am concerned that mine seems to be anger-based, when I’ve been trying to not let that emotion rule me.” The constant anger was eating away at my soul, destroying me bit by bit. It was exhausting. And I had witnessed what it had done to Lysimache. It had consumed her, and I refused to become like her.
“You’ll have to show me your magic sometime,” my sister said.
“When I get stronger. Right now I pass out not long after I use it.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, and given her expression, I knew what she was going to say next.
“You should tell Xander about the eye.”
My guess had been correct. “I can’t. I think he would take it so that he could use it to protect Ilion, and I couldn’t blame him for that. I would do the same. Iamdoing the same. I need it for Locris.” I waited a moment and then asked, “You haven’t told Thrax, have you?”
“No,” she answered immediately. “I told you that I wouldn’t, and I won’t until you say it’s all right.”
“Thank you,” I said. I wondered if it was hard for her to keep things from him. I knew I had a difficult time of it with Xander.
“At least you don’t flinch every time I say Thrax’s name,” she said cautiously, as if she knew that we were about to enter dangerous waters.
“I’m trying to be careful and manage my reactions. I’m also afraid of saying the wrong thing and upsetting you.”
“Lia, you could never say the wrong thing to me.”
“Oh, I think I could,” I said.
“No, you couldn’t, because we are sisters and that will never change, no matter what either one of us does. There is nothing but love and forgiveness between us and there always will be. I want your honesty. I would never want you to pretend just because you’re afraid of how I might react. Even if you hated Thrax, it would never change how much I love you.”
“Stop that. I am trying not to cry!” I told her with a half laugh, half sob, tamping down the emotions swelling up inside me. “I have been making an effort where he’s concerned.”
Her whole face lit up. “I know. He told me. It makes him so happy.”
“Why?”
“Because he knows how important you are to me.”
That made me feel ashamed, that Thrax had wanted us to be friends for Quynh’s sake and I’d been awful to him.
Then she carefully added on, “And he knows how important you are to his brother.”
What she’d said earlier was right—I did ignore and suppress things I didn’t want to deal with. And I fully intended to do so right now. “What is it you love so much about Thrax?”
She gave me a knowing look, telling me she understood exactly what I was doing, before a silly, lovesick smile settled on her face. “So many things. He is kind and loyal and strong and brave and smart and funny and ... Sorry, I could go on like that for a while.”
I understood the feeling, so I nodded.
“I realized how I felt when he took me into the city. Troas is such a metropolitan center that there are people from all over the world here. There is an entire quarter of people from Goguryeo and neighboring nations. The first time Thrax brought me there ... it was overwhelming. The smells of the food—it took me back to my parents and my village growing up. I hadn’t smelled those spices in so long! And the language! I understood it when the people around me spoke it, and it was like getting a piece of myself back. It was as if Thrax understood how much that would mean to me. He had given me something I never thought I would have again, and that was when I knew that I loved him.”
I realized with a twinge of sadness that Quynh was going to be happy in Ilion. Not just because of Thrax, but because of the connection she would have here to people from the land of her birth. That wasnot something she would ever have in Locris. “Was that before or after you told me he was only your friend?”
Shame filled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I knew how you felt about him. I was trying to make things easier for you but I should have been honest. I knew that it would hurt you if you discovered that I was falling in love with someone from Ilion.”
I thought of how I had cried in Xander’s arms when he told me that Thrax and Quynh loved each other and had spoken the words.
“You did tell me to choose a life for myself,” she said. “This is the life I choose.”
It took me a moment to remember when I’d said that to her. “I was talking about Andronicus.” He was the captain of my former regiment and had been courting Quynh before we were chosen for the tribute race.
“Andronicus? I haven’t thought of him in so long.”
