He came and stood next to me as I asked, “Luna, did men attack our room?”
Yes.
“Maybe she’s just blinking,” Xander said.
“Then ask her a question that she would say no to.”
“Did centaurs also attack you?” He sounded as if he found this entire thing ridiculous.
Luna didn’t respond to him. Her eyes stayed open.
I repeated Xander’s centaur question and she immediately blinked twice.
No.
“See? She is communicating.”
“Or it was a coincidence.”
I felt frustration welling up inside me. I wasn’t sure why it was so important to me that he believed what I was telling him. I asked Luna, “Does Xander snore?”
Yes.
“I do not!” he protested.
“You do.”
“Does Lia snore?” He directed his question to Luna, and again she didn’t answer him.
Then I asked her if I snored.
No.
Why would she only answer the questions once I had asked them? “I suppose this means she’ll only communicate with me.” Or maybe I was the only person shecouldcommunicate with. That we had some type of bond that I didn’t fully understand that allowed us to speak. Xander’s phratry brother Rokh could sense her as well when he was in his raven form. What did that mean? This was all so odd.
Nothing in my life seemed to be making much sense lately.
“I’ve never heard of a lizard that talks by blinking,” Xander said, sitting down hard on our bed. He looked exhausted, and I wondered what he had been doing while I was at the temple.
And why he had been surprised by our rooms being destroyed. If he’d come straight back here, he would have seen it. I sat down next to him, still holding Luna close. “Where have you been?”
“The thought of you and your sisters at the temple, doing everything by yourselves ... I had to do something productive. I’ve been in the weapons quarter, helping them bury bodies and starting to rebuild what was destroyed.”
This was why he should be king. He cared about his people in a way that Erisa never would.
“I only returned to the palace because the council summoned me,” he added. Then he put his face in his hands. “So many dead.”
“It must have been difficult to have the council doubting and questioning what happened when you saw it all with your own eyes.”
He raised his head to look at me. “All of this has been difficult.”
That was an understatement. “How could this enemy do so much damage? Didn’t anyone hear them or try to stop them?”
“They attacked in the middle of the night. It took the people in the weapons quarter some time to get enough soldiers to help. I’m not sure if anyone even knows what happened in the temple.”
The middle of the night? Thrax had been with us. Which meant he hadn’t been watching over Quynh. “Where’s Quynh?” I asked, feeling completely panicked.
“She’s fine. After Thrax locked up your high priestess, he came straight back to the palace and moved your sister to a safe house. He has one of his Thracian half sisters watching over her, and she is the most terrifying woman I have ever met and might actually be a better warrior than Thrax. Anyone who crosses her will meet a swift end, and she is almost as protective of Quynh as Thrax is.”
