“We will be married by the time we go to visit Locris. Thracian women do not wait for marriage. Thrax suggested that we should delay, but then I ... gave him some very compelling and persuasive arguments for why we should not.”
I fought off the urge to cover my ears with my hands.
She apparently didn’t sense my discomfort with this particular subject, as she kept talking. “I didn’t want to wait to show him how much I love him. I’ve never felt ... I’ve never wanted someone so desperately like that.”
Unfortunately, I knew exactly what she meant.
“Are you going to get married soon?” I asked.
“No. We’re going to wait until ... everything settles down,” she said. While she was talking about the larger things happening right now, I knew she was also doing this because of me. Maybe to see whether I survived what was coming. Once again, Quynh was putting her life on hold for my sake. I didn’t want her to do that.
Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to change her mind, I instead nodded toward her stomach. “May I?”
“Yes, but you can’t feel anything yet,” she said with an indulgent smile.
I placed my palms on her and something bizarre happened. I could sense a bright white light inside her, pulsating up into my hands. I felt an overwhelming surge of love. “Youarepregnant,” I breathed.
“How do you know?”
“There’s a light inside you that I’ve only seen when I used magic, but right now I can feel it. A new, strong little life.” I had put my hands on Parthenia and this hadn’t happened. Why was it different with Quynh and her baby? It was like power was being fed into me. I could feel it swirling around inside my body, as if I could use it.
She put her hands over mine, perhaps hoping she might be able to feel it, too. After a few quiet moments, I removed my hands and the power immediately disconnected, as if being turned off. “What did Thrax think?”
Because I understood that this was how things had changed. We would always be sisters, would always love one another, but someone else was her priority now.
Two someones.
Her eyes were bright. “He’s torn between excitement at becoming a father and terror that something will happen to us.”
I was feeling the same way.
And selfishly, I was also a little sad. This was Quynh’s moment, and I knew that I shouldn’t be making it about my thwarted dreams, but Icould be happy for her while still disappointed that this would never happen for me.
“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, because I adore our family, but being adopted ... I have longed my whole life to have someone who looks like me. To see my face reflected back from someone who shares my blood.”
My throat felt a bit too tight. “I understand that. And I’m so glad that you’ll get to have what you’ve always wanted.”
“You can have this, too.” Her voice was so low it was practically a whisper.
“No, I can’t. I promised the goddess.”
“I don’t mean to speak ill of a deity you believe in, but why would she make you miss out on one of the greatest joys in life? Loving and being loved?”
“I’m not missing out on that,” I said. “I have you. Our family. My adelphia.”
“Romantic love is different. And it should be allowed. You can save Locris and then come back to Ilion and be married to Xander for real.”
I remembered the vision that I’d had, where I had been in Locris in the tree courtyard where he and I had first met, and he was cradling my pregnant stomach while kissing me. I could feel the love he had for me.
But that was only a dream.
“I promised the goddess that I would reopen the temple in Locris if she would help me. Now, with all the other priestesses dead ... it has to be me. One of the last things Maia said was that as long as there was one priestess who believed, the temple would go on.”
“Maybe one of your adelphia would want to do it.”
My heart lifted momentarily with hope, only to immediately crash back down. Ahyana planned on leaving with Rokh. Io and Zalira would never leave Ilion, and Suri would never leave Io. This was their home.
In the dream I’d had, the goddess had handed the eye to me. I was the one who watched Locris be brought back to life. It was myresponsibility. I couldn’t hope that one of my sisters would do it for me so that I could flagrantly break my vows.
