“I thought you were coming yesterday,” Lysimache said as I entered the room.
“It may surprise you to know that I’m very busy, especially with an army on their way to invade us.”
She was again seated at her table with an untouched tray of fresh food. I set down the vase next to the tray and then backed away. I didn’t want to be within arm’s reach of her.
Dolion left the door slightly ajar so he could hear me if I called for help.
The high priestess reached for the vase and poured herself a drink. She downed the entire cup and I saw the look of smug satisfaction that temporarily crossed her features, as if she had fooled me.
“Shall we begin?” she asked.
“You’re going to answer my questions?”
“I said I would and I’m a woman of my word.” In a horrible way that was true. She had said she would avenge her sister and destroy two nations, and she’d kept herself alive for more than a thousand years to make certain that it was done.
“Should we start at the beginning?” I prompted.
She stayed silent for a moment before she spoke. “It was my brother who did this. His obsession with Menelaia is why the Great Warhappened. He stole her from her husband, brought her back to Troas, and risked the anger of everyone around him, including the goddess who protected marriage. Before he died I told him that I would make certain no one ever remembered his name, but they would never forget what he had done.”
I was tempted to ask for his name, but that was only for my own curiosity. It would be a foolish thing to do because it would definitely tip my hand that she was being compelled. “During the war, why didn’t you use magic to fight your enemies?”
“Our high priestess forbade it. She limited our access to magic because she didn’t want us using it at all. She thought that the glory and power of it belonged solely to the goddess and we shouldn’t try to take it for ourselves.” She sounded both furious and disgusted. “I practiced in secret. Kysandra refused—she wanted to be obedient to what the high priestess ordered. If she had only practiced with me ...”
The pain and regret in her voice were real. I told myself to not be affected.
“We could have saved our city,” she said. “But one woman’s opinion stopped that from happening. It’s why I knew my plan would work. That I could control everything once I took over the temple.”
Lysimache poured herself another cup and drank the entire thing again. Making herself strong. And dosing herself with Io’s mixture.
“When the army began to hammer away at the main gate, I tried to get Kysandra to hide with me in the temple because I incorrectly assumed the goddess would keep us safe. My sister refused. She had seen the Achaeans using the secret tunnels under the palace to gain access and knew they would attack from that position as well. She went to warn our father, to tell him to flood the lower levels to stop them, but he wouldn’t listen. What did a woman know about warfare?”
I had questions but thought it better to just let her speak. I would let her talk until she ran out of words.
“In the lower level of the temple, there is a room behind the statue where priestesses can hide. Kysandra tried to reach me there but shewasn’t fast enough. Ajax, prince of Locris, came and raped her in front of me, next to the statue of the goddess, then dragged my sister out of the temple.”
I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping. The blasphemy was terrible enough, but I hadn’t known that she’d witnessed her sister’s assault. That was horrific.
Her voice trembled slightly. “I was pregnant and I had just lost my son and husband. I was determined to keep my baby so that she could someday rule Ilion. I knew that if I went to my sister and tried to help her, I would meet the same fate. I wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t know how to fight. So I watched and bore silent witness to every scream of pain, every entreaty she made to the goddess that was ignored, every plea with your ancestor to stop raping her, and I could do nothing.”
All I could think about was what I would have done if it had been Quynh. Kallisto. My adelphia. What would I have done in Lysimache’s position?
She added, “Kysandra was good and kind and loving. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”
What would I do to men who harmed my loved ones? I had been ready to kill Thrax just for wearing Quynh’s bracelet. What would I have done if someone had assaulted her?
I could easily imagine myself lying in wait for a thousand years if it meant that I could destroy the people who had hurt and killed my sisters.
Lysimache had taken such great pleasure in pointing out how similar she and I were when we had fought, and much as I didn’t want to believe it, I was starting to.
We had the same aspect.
And there was a version of me that could make the same decisions she did, taking revenge on everyone who had hurt my loved ones, destroying the places that had caused my sisters pain and death.
“Are you thinking how you might understand what I’ve done?” she asked with a knowing smirk. “That I’m not the villain you imagined me to be?”
The fact that she could intuit what I was ruminating on bothered me as well.
She cocked her head to the side. “Do you know what it’s like to devote years of your life to a goddess who ignored you when you begged for her intervention?”
