“Speaking of things that Lysimache made up,” Ahyana said, “I was hoping you could tell us a bit more about what happened at the end of your interrogation. Not the part where she died, but what exactly she said. Zalira could only remember the gist.”
I didn’t think I’d ever forget—it was like every word of that conversation had been permanently seared into my soul as some kind of curse.
“At first she told me that she’d kept some rituals, reinstituted old ones that had been done away with, and created new ones.”
“But we don’t know which thing we follow is which,” Ahyana said in frustration.
It was easy to guess which particular rule she was concerned about. “I asked her what laws and rules she had changed, but she was resisting answering and didn’t say anything coherent. I specifically asked about priestesses marrying in the past, which she confirmed and seemed to indicate that the rules around it had been changed by different high priestesses, including her. When I asked her why, she fought not to answer, and what came out was, ‘Because couldn’t risk them,’ and then she slit her own throat so she wouldn’t have to answer.”
Ahyana frowned. “So Lysimache was willing to tell you every other part of her evil plan, but when it came to priestesses getting married, she killed herself rather than discuss it? That seems significant to me.”
She was right. It did mean something.
“Which way did it get changed?” Io asked. “Is marriage allowed and Lysimache undid it, or was it not allowed and she instituted it and then took it away again?”
Lysimache had mentioned the high priestess who had forbidden them from using magic. We didn’t know who had made changes over the centuries or for what purpose. What was true and what had been tampered with.
“Maybe she changed her mind about it every few hundred years to hurt people,” Zalira offered.
“I can see Lysimache doing that—telling women they could marry when it went against the goddess’s law just to condemn them in the next life,” I said.
“If it was allowed,” Ahyana said, “and Lysimache stopped it, then that means the celibacy vow is fake and shouldn’t be followed.”
There wasn’t anyone in this room who wanted that to be true more than I did. “Lysimache specifically talked to me about my relationship with Xander. She said that if I broke my vow, I couldn’t use the goddess’s power.”
“Did she know at that point that you’d given her a truth serum?” Io asked.
“Yes.”
Io looked troubled. “What exactly did she say?”
“She said, ‘And break your vow? I know you think you can save Locris. Do you really think you can access the goddess’s power if you do not do what you promised her?’”
“I was afraid of that,” Io said with a sigh.
“What?” Ahyana demanded.
“Not that I want to encourage anyone here, but it is possible with the serum to say something that isn’t a lie and sounds like the truth without it actually being true. Lysimache asked questions. She didn’t give answers or definitive statements. She let Lia’s imagination do the work.”
I dropped the date I’d been holding. By the goddess, how had I not realized that before? What did that mean?
Io added, “Someone like Lysimache, who told you that she’d used truth serums many times before, would know how to circumvent it.”
Ahyana instantly stood and after a moment sat back down.
“What was that?” her sister asked.
“I was going to go find Rokh, but I just remembered that he’s on a mission for Xander,” she replied.
My first thought was,What mission?My second was that if Rokh had been in the palace, Ahyana would have found him and broken her vow. It seemed she had decided the celibacy vow wasn’t real, but I couldn’t take that risk by leaping to the same conclusion. I didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. I’d made that promise to the goddess, and I had to hold to it if I expected her help.
“What did the high priestesses risk by priestesses being married?” Zalira asked, and no one responded.
“There’s no way to even guess,” Io said. “It could be a million different things.”
And now we would never know because Lysimache was gone.
“I wish I had a second aspect,” Ahyana said. “One that could bring the goddess down here so that we could ask her our questions.”
