“What else would you do?” I whispered.
“I’d send grains all over Sparta. I’d make sure there were more healers available. I’d—”
She broke off.
“What?”
“I’d find a way to fix the river that used to flow past my back door. You remember hearing about the Eurotas? How it dried up after the gods vanished?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of the fact that there were a hundred other rivers that had dried up right along with it. I wasn’t sure that anyone could fix that though. Maybe Menelaus could, if he had the power people claimed. But he certainly hadn’t done anything about it yet.
“My mother used to say it was the gods taking their tears with them. I used to think it was poetic. Now I just think it was cruel.”
Another silence, heavier this time.
“What about you?” she asked.
I hesitated, thinking. What would I do, truly, if I were given the chance?
“I’d get rid of our ephor,” I said, the words forming before I even realized they’d taken shape.
“What?”
“Nikandros,” I clarified, my hands shaking just thinking of him. “He’s bled our village dry. Starved families to keep his stores full. Ordered punishments meant to break people, not correct them. He’s ruled like cruelty is a birthright.” I swallowed hard. “If I had the power … he’d be the first to go.”
Hewillbe the first to go, I thought to myself.
Anysa was quiet, but I felt her attention like a live thing.
“And then,” I said, my breath catching, “I’d take the king through the gates.”
She didn’t speak, so I went on. “I’d make him walk through the villages. Not the polished ones he shares his wealth with, but our villages. The hungry ones, the cracked ones, the ones where the air tastes like red ash and the children’s feet bleed into the dirt.”
“To shame him?”
“No,” I said. “To make him see. Really see. And maybe … maybe do something about it.”
Anysa exhaled. “Do you think that would work?”
I sighed. “I’m not sure. But gods, I want to try. Whoever wins needs to get him to help not just their village … but all of Sparta.”
She was the first to speak again. “Do you think the king will actually let his queen rule by his side?”
I hesitated, the image of Menelaus rising unbidden in my mind, the lion stalking behind him like he really was a god.
He didn’t seem to share space. He devoured it.
“I think we still have to hope,” I said slowly. “We have to win and start from there.”
“Do you think you’ll still talk to me after the Trials?” Anysa asked, a sudden hint of vulnerability in her voice.
“Will you still want to when you are queen?” I teased.
She snorted. Something our instructors might have fainted over if they’d heard. “Depends. Will you still laugh at my jokes?”
“Only if you keep telling them.”
She was quiet for a long time. “I hope it’s you. If it’s not me. I hope it’s you,” she whispered.
