What it would be was impossible.
I told her that I wouldn’t need her again for the rest of the evening.
“I’m going to have a tray sent up for you and your husband,” she said. “You’ve both been so busy lately. I want to make sure you’re eating.”
I thanked her for her offer and decided that was probably a good idea. She left and promised the food would arrive soon. My eating schedule had become extremely erratic and I needed to keep my strength up. As did Xander. To that end I reached into my pocket to get the fortification potion Io had given me and swallowed it down. I instantly felt less tired.
Deciding that I needed to get cleaned up, I took a quick bath and dressed. I checked on the sleeping Luna. I was away so often now that I didn’t get to see her during her awake hours and it made me sad. I missed her.
There was a knock on the door, and it was a kitchen maid with a tray. I let her in and she put it on the table. I thanked her, and whenshe left, I grabbed a handful of grapes and began eating. I picked up the book Suri had found for me down in Xander’s mother’s library and started to read.
I found myself flipping back to the story I’d read earlier about the sun god who had cursed the people of Jacharus and turned their lands into a desert. That same line stuck out to me again—
The gods and goddesses quarrel with one another over the hearts of mortals as they draw their strength from those who believe.
I’d been trying to figure out what the hammer of Arion was. I had thought that Arion might be a person or a place. A city? A king?
But what if Arion was a god? Someone at war with the earth goddess? Was that the sun god’s name? Were his followers waging war against us to diminish Dea’s power because she had rejected him?
Destroying her believers would destroy her strength.
Why wouldn’t she stop it from happening?
Maybe this went back to Io’s belief that the goddess gave us what we needed and it was up to us to figure out the rest.
The bedroom door opened dramatically and Xander slammed it shut. He came over to the bed and fell down face first and let out a sigh.
“Hard day?” I asked, closing my book.
“Yes.” The word was mumbled into the mattress.
“There’s food over on the table.”
That got him to lift his head to see where I was pointing. “Later,” he said. Then he turned onto his side to face me, propping his head up with his bent arm. “How did your training go today?”
I told him the new things we had discovered—being powered by other people with the white light, turning the magic off before it knocked us out, Io’s fortification potion.
“Were you able to fight for longer?” he asked.
“I can’t use my power on my sisters,” I said. “I might hurt one of them.”
“You can always practice with me.” He stood. “Show me how long you can last.”
“Aren’t you tired?” I asked. I didn’t want him wearing himself out.
“I have incredible stamina.” He said those words in a way that made my breath hitch and my toes curl against the bed. “Show me what you can do, wife.”
What would he say if I asked him to show me how extensive his stamina was? Nothing good would come of that. I should beg off.
“I just bathed.”
He nodded appreciatively. “I can see that.”
I glanced down to make sure that my tunic wasn’t clinging to me and then realized he probably meant my damp hair. “I’m clean, and you want me to get all sweaty from fighting?”
“Getting sweaty is fun.” He was in a flirtatious and playful mood. I wanted both to take advantage of it and to tell him to stop being hot one moment and cold the next because it was infuriating.
His voice dropped an octave lower than normal. “Come on, wife. Let me make you sweat.”
