I nearly stumbled over my own feet as I came to an abrupt stop. “What?” I only vaguely noticed that the soldiers behind us also halted, giving Io and me the chance to speak without them overhearing.
“When you ran into that burning home in Lycia to save Xander ... I think that was your trial of fire.”
Blood rushed in my ears as my heart thundered in my chest. Was she right? Had the trials already begun? What would the other ones look like?
And if Io was correct, then I had survived one trial and only had four more to go before I died.
Chapter Two
When we entered the palace, I saw my pregnant maid, Parthenia. She had obviously been waiting for my return. She said, “They want you to go to the council chambers.”
I hadn’t bathed in days and was hungry and tired but knew I couldn’t refuse the request.
When I arrived at the council chambers, the entire room was in an uproar. People were yelling over each other and it looked as if a fight might break out at any moment.
Xander stood in the middle of the room, and the veins in his neck strained as he tried to make himself heard over the din.
“Enough!” Pelias, the self-appointed head of the council of elders, hit the wooden table with the butt of his sword, making all the glassware on it rattle. He was the father of Lykaon, the abusive monster currently betrothed to my sister Kallisto. Xander had told me he suspected that Pelias and Erisa, the former queen and Xander’s stepmother, were having an affair.
It made Pelias completely untrustworthy.
He was also the father of Chryseis, a woman I had seen Xander kissing, but I shoved that thought aside. I needed to pay attention to what was going on.
“Only one person should be speaking at a time,” Pelias said, putting his sword back into its sheath. “Prince Alexandros?”
I was a bit surprised he allowed Xander to speak first.
“We have been attacked,” he said. “We have an enemy who wiped out the entire city of Lycia and left traps there to kill us as well. They killed people in the weapons quarter, stealing everything they could. They slaughtered every priestess and acolyte at the temple. We need to prepare. Ask our allies for help. Send out spies to find out who is trying to destroy us.”
Erisa rolled her eyes. “We are not under attack! That is ridiculous and an overexaggeration of what’s occurred. What proof do we have that what you say is even true?”
Xander’s mouth dropped open, and I couldn’t blame him for the shocked reaction. Despite what I had just promised Io, I found myself crossing over to stand next to my husband, sliding my hand into his, trying to offer what support I could. He squeezed my hand and I ignored the tingles that raced up my arm.
“The dead bodies,” I said to Erisa. “Like the ones that my sisters and I buried at the temple. That’s proof.”
“It seems rather convenient that you supposedly buried them without any witnesses who can verify that what you’re saying is true,” Erisa retorted. “And how would a group of five girls dig a hole big enough to bury that many women so quickly? For all we know, the priestesses are traveling to care for plants or whatever it is that they do.”
I exchanged a heavy glance with Xander. I thought about asking him where he’d put Lysimache so that I could bring her here to verify what I was saying, but I saw in his eyes that he and I both arrived at the same conclusion at the same time—she would lie. The high priestess would say whatever she had to in order to keep sowing seeds of discord and doubt.
And I would never allow anyone to dig up the grave at the temple. The thought horrified me. Those women deserved peace and to be reunited with the earth.
Pelias agreed with Erisa, to no one’s surprise. “I acknowledge that there was some kind of incident, but that is what happens when we letso many strangers immigrate to our city. They are upset that they aren’t full citizens and they attacked the weapons quarter as a protest.”
Xander had told me about the people who came in from the country after the harvest season ended and would sometimes cause chaos—stealing, fighting, vandalizing.
It actually sounded like a believable theory, which was not good.
“We have no enemies,” Pelias added.
“Locris,” I immediately responded.
Pelias narrowed his eyes at me. “We have no enemies who could do us actual harm.”
I bristled at his response but he wasn’t wrong. Locris wasn’t in any position to launch an offensive against Ilion.
“We only have the prince’s men saying that the city was attacked,” Erisa pointed out.
“You also have the word of the residents of the weapons quarter,” Xander snapped back. I put my free hand on his forearm and felt his body relax a bit.
