Page 143 of A Vow of Embers

“It’s different with the two of you. You both take it as some kind of personal affront if a person you love gets harmed. But neither one of you can control the world or keep everyone safe.”

She might have been right but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try.

“That wasn’t the only reason he was angry,” she commented neutrally. She was giving me the chance to be honest with her.

“I snuck out into Troas to prove to him that the tariff on Locris was excessive, which I was right about by the way, and he was mad because he thought someone might have followed us to attack us and it turned out that he was also right.” It pained me to say it.

“How did you sneak out?” she asked. That was the part she was concerned about? Not how I had put him in danger?

“I gave him a full vial of your sleeping draught. It didn’t work.” I wondered if I should apologize to her for drugging her brother.

She smiled. “That’s because his hide’s so thick potions can’t penetrate it. If you’d told me it was for him, I would have given you a much stronger dose.”

Io was reminding me that she was on my side and always would be. Even against Xander. I felt bad that I had put her in this position, where she might feel like she had to choose.

“Why else are you upset?” she asked.

I told her about Haemon. How the tariff increase had led to his death. I told her how I had blamed her brother, although I now suspected that he wasn’t at fault.

“But I don’t know if it’s something I can get past,” I said. “I will always be angry with your nation because of his death. Ilion can’t give me two new brothers to replace the one it stole from me.” It was what the goddess required—that a person be compensated double for whatever had been taken from them.

“No, but Ilion and the goddess have given you four new sisters. The debt has been repaid as best it can be.”

Her words slammed into my chest, making it difficult for me to catch my breath. There was truth in what she said. No one would ever replace Haemon, but my sisters had helped to fill the hole I had in my heart from missing him.

“And I know Xander. He will make certain that Locris is repaid all that has been taken from it. He will make things right.”

Would he?

“You’re also upset because you think that he knew from the very start who you were,” she prompted, wanting me to talk to her. “That he lied to you and tricked you.”

I believed the vow that she had taken to me. Xander had just complained to me about it—how she was on my side and kept things from him. I wouldn’t speak about the eye of the goddess, as that was still something I was afraid she would justify in sharing with him. But I could trust Io with the history he and I shared.

So I told her the things I had left out before. Not all the intimate details, but I told her about the dreams and the times that he and I had spent together. How close we had grown before he destroyed it all.

After I finished telling her, she sat quietly, absorbing the information I’d shared.

“I realize that I don’t have all the facts,” she said. “He and I have never spoken about this, so I don’t know when he knew who you were. But I don’t believe that he would trick you and try to seduce you to force you to marry him. It sounds to me like if he hadn’t come to the temple and demanded you honor your betrothal, he could have kept up the charade. He could have continued pretending to be Jason and had you marry him, without you knowing his true identity. Coming to the temple as himself would have been a fatal mistake in his supposed plan.”

My mouth dropped open, as I’d never considered this before. Because she was right. He could have easily gotten me into his bed, and once that had happened, it wouldn’t have taken much on his part to talk me into running away with him. I would have happily accepted his proposal and eloped.

And after he had married me with witnesses present, making it binding and legal, he could have confessed that he was the prince and there wouldn’t have been anything that I could do about it. “I would have been so furious with him if he’d done that.”

“More furious than you are now?” she asked quietly. “You would have been mad either way. Why would he tell you who he was and ruin everything he’d supposedly been working toward?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. Not one that made any sense. Until I seized on something that might poke a hole in her theory. “Maybe he ran out of time. Why else would he take Quynh and keep her, if not to force me into marriage?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You should ask him.”

“What good would that do me? I don’t believe anything he says and he doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’m a liar and an oath-breaker. He thinks I’m selfish.” His accusations still bothered me.

“I know that there’s something you’re looking for. I haven’t told him that and I won’t. I also know that sometimes you have to break your word for a higher cause.”

It was why she had told him who I was—she thought he would be my best option for safety. So far she had been correct.

“Xander would understand that, too,” she said. “But you haven’t explained it to him. He doesn’t know what you’re trying to do, so it isn’t surprising that he only sees selfishness because he doesn’t know your reasons. Just as you don’t know his. Ask him.”

There was no point. He had fooled me so many times, lowered my guard, made me think things had changed, and I wouldn’t be taken in again. We would never be able to move past what we had done to each other. I shook my head.