Page 62 of A Vow of Embers

But I couldn’t find a single religious document. Io had specifically told me that her mother liked to collect ancient texts and I didn’t see anything like that. It made me think that her mother’s library, which the prince had promised to give me access to, was in a different place.

I asked Parthenia to contact local booksellers and find books specifically about the goddess, the temple, or works related to what the people of Ilion believed. I was willing to take anything, hoping that there might be some mention of the eye. She came back empty-handed, telling me she had sent servants to every bookshop in Ilion and they hadn’t found a single one.

“How can you not have any writings about your faith?” I had asked, incredulous. Nothing about how to worship or the words to say, the rituals and ceremonies to follow, or why things were the way they were.

“We have the temple and the high priestess to instruct us. We teach our children to worship the same way we were taught.”

She didn’t seem to understand how flabbergasted that made me. Nothing was written down? All it would take was one slight change—like maybe kneeling before a prayer versus kneeling after one had begun. A word or two accidentally omitted when someone was being taught a ceremony. The practice could be changed completely and no one would be aware.

Without it being recorded, documented, how could they know what was right?

I knew how important those written words were, as they had been almost completely taken away from us in Locris.

The palace library was also full of history books, each one more boring than the last. I skimmed, looking for specific references to the temple. I had brought a stack of them with me back to my bedroom, not wanting everyone to know exactly what I was reading. I had curled up in bed, and in the fifth book I searched, I finally found what I had been looking for.

After the Great War was over and Princess Kysandra had been violated and murdered by Ajax the Lesser, which was the reason for the tribute in Locris, the invaders had taken other priestesses and acolytes as spoils of war. With the fighting done, Ilion had begun to rebuild. Princess Lysimache, Kysandra’s sister, returned to Troas to lead the Ilionians. She served as regent until her younger cousin was of age and the council chose him to become king.

Lysimache lost the child she had once carried, so she could not provide the heir her people needed, as her husband and son had been slaughtered in the war. Once the line of succession was secured, Lysimache made the decision to return to the temple and take up the mantle of priestess once more, anointing herself high priestess so that she could bring the words of the goddess back to all of Ilion. We celebrate her for restoring what would have surely been lost.

I had to close my book because that struck me as so sad.

And then I wondered if this Lysimache had left any writings behind. At least now I had a name to use as I searched for information.

I also noticed the fact that they mentioned she had once been a priestess and became one again. Another priestess who had not only been married, but pregnant at least twice.

The bedroom door flew open and the prince marched into the room, already mad. I didn’t know why. I hadn’t done anything.

“Get dressed. My stepmother is hosting a dinner for her friends, which includes half the council. We have to attend. Your maid has already been sent for.”

As he went into the washroom, I realized why he was upset. Outside of our wedding, this would be the first time that he and I would be on display for everyone to see.

We would both have to behave. No angry words, no murderous looks, no pretending the other one didn’t exist. No dumping wine over his head.

I didn’t know if I was capable of it.

An hour later, we were seated at his stepmother’s table.

And once again, I was bored. Alexandros had spoken repeatedly about the grave danger that I was in, and as far as I could tell, he had been exaggerating. I walked around the palace by myself constantly and not a single person had tried to kill me yet.

I had on a fake smile, tuning out the conversations around me. And I was doing well clear up until the moment when Thrax sat down in the seat to my right.

Stifling a groan, I put my hands in my lap so that I wouldn’t reach for anything pointy.

“Still enjoying marriage, Lia?” he asked.

“I haven’t given you permission to use that name,” I said through clenched teeth.I will behave, I will behave, I will behave.

“My apologies, princess. It’s just that Quynh always calls you that, so I suppose that’s how I’ve started to think of you.”

He was talking to Quynh? I was torn between my desire to wrap my hands around his neck to choke the life from him and to press him for information, to find out any tidbit that I could.

“You are looking at my throat,” he observed in a voice tinged with laughter. “Should I be concerned?”

“I am going to kill you the first chance I get.”

Now the laughter came through, strong and loud.

Which infuriated me. “You don’t believe me?”