Thousands of Locrian maidens. She was responsible for all their deaths. For the grief of their families and friends. “Why would you hurt innocent women?”
“Why should Locris get to keep their daughters and sisters when mine had been taken from me?” Her vehement voice unsettled me.“And think of all the Ilionian men that I told to hunt them down. Their souls will be forever tainted because they murdered those ‘innocent women.’”
Despite the fact that I knew this was real because she could only speak truth to me, I still had a hard time accepting it. “But we suffered from a plague because we stopped sending maidens.”
“The plague was an infected sailor that I sent to your shores. It was the oracle in Phocis who said that you had to reinstitute the race, wasn’t it? The same oracle that I paid a large bribe to and said that if any Locrians came to her for help, she was to tell them to keep sending maidens for the tribute race, no matter what.”
“All their deaths are on your head,” I said, still shocked. She had planned so many steps ahead.
“Have I upset you, Princess Thalia?” she asked in a mocking tone.
“You are pure evil.” There was no other way to describe her and her actions.
“What I am is effective. I win, daughter of Ajax.”
She wouldn’t win. I wouldn’t allow it. And at least now there would never be another Locrian maiden hunted in the streets of Troas. Quynh and I were the last ones because Lysimache could no longer convince these people with her lies. The tradition would be stopped.
Io had been right. The high priestess was more than eager to brag about her brilliant schemes. I needed her to keep talking, even if everything she said sickened me and made my stomach turn over. “How did you manage to stay in charge of the temple for so long? Didn’t any of the priestesses notice that you were always the high priestess?”
She gave me a conspiratorial smile, as if we were two neighbors gossiping. She was actually enjoying this. “It was easier than you might imagine. It was why the high priestess always wore a veil. I would choose my replacement, someone on the younger side who resembled me in height and had a similar voice, and announce it to the temple. I would say that once she became high priestess, she had to take a vow of silence for a year to honor the goddess. By which point everyonewould have forgotten my replacement’s voice and mine. Then I would kill her, take her place as the ‘new’ high priestess while the ‘old’ high priestess suddenly died from some illness. I would bury them with a veil on, and no one knew.”
“How did no one ever figure it out?” My adelphia and I had already begun to suspect that there was something strange about her long before we discovered her true identity.
“People generally believe what you tell them. And if anyone ever did suspect, well, they met an untimely end through an accident. Like Daphne.”
I hadn’t even had to ask her. She was volunteering information. “What happened with Daphne?”
“She served me a drink that had poison in it. One that she drank herself in order to lower my defenses. She was willing to sacrifice herself to make sure that I didn’t suspect her scheme, which I have to give her credit for. It was clever. And it would have worked. But I had been ingesting the eye of the goddess for so long that I was able to survive the encounter. Daphne did not.”
How could she treat this so matter-of-factly?
“I had planned your accident, as well,” she said. “You were going to cut your own wrists because of how much you missed your family. But before I could put it into motion, Daphne knocked me out of commission, and then the prince came for you.”
I couldn’t stop my gasp, which made her laugh.
“You said you made the women of the temple strong.” I didn’t indicate that I knew how she’d done it and I realized that I was skirting close to the edge, but I had to understand. “Why would you bother when they were all expendable to you? Nothing but a means to an end?”
“Every general needs an obedient army. Even if I didn’t care about them, I wouldn’t want them to be raped. No woman deserves that. They should be strong and know how to fight. That was important to me. You would judge me for that?”
“I judge you for all of this,” I said.
“Why? As I told you, you’re just like me. You are also willing to do whatever it takes to reach your end goal. You would use people, discard them if they no longer served you. You would do anything you had to in order to achieve what you want. Am I wrong?”
I suspected that she wasn’t, but I refused to give her the satisfaction. “And now you’ve condemned everyone in this nation to death because you are petty and small.”
She opened her mouth and nothing came out. She pursed her lips together in confusion and then said, “What have you given me?”
My pulse started to pound. “What do you mean?”
“I was going to lie to you about my motives but I can’t. You gave me a truth serum,” she said with a laugh. “I’m not sure it was necessary, as I’m mostly willing to tell you what you want to know. And again you make my point that we are alike. I’ve done that so many times myself. Drugging someone to get what you want no matter who you hurt. You would have made a fine heir, Princess Thalia. Perhaps I might have been able to sway you to my cause and get you to work with me if Artemisia hadn’t put her plan into motion.”
I would never have been her heir or her acolyte or anything else. No matter what she said, we werenotalike. I had to tamp my anger down and stay calm.
She seemed to sense my internal struggle.
“How does your husband deal with your fury and desire for vengeance?” she asked, again as if we were old friends catching up. “With your total disdain for rules, your willingness to do whatever is necessary to get what you want? You must be making his life miserable. Has he kept his promise to me? He seems like the honorable type. The sort who would keep his word.”
What was she getting at?
