Page 77 of A Vow of Embers

After she’d left I turned toward Io. “God of desire?”

“Don’t you remember that story? He strikes the hearts of people with invisible darts and makes mortals fall in love or lust, depending on which type of dart he uses. He’s the one who fell in love with a mortal woman and married her.”

At my blank expression she continued on. “The god who took the form of a bear during the day because no one could look on his true self?”

Now I remembered. And the woman in the story had a better marriage than I did. I would have preferred the bear to the prince.

“Where is your husband?” Ahyana asked, as if she knew exactly what I’d been thinking.

“Maybe he has taken a long walk into the ocean with no plans to return. Then Io could be queen.”

“Women don’t rule in Ilion,” she said.

“They have.”

“When?”

I got up and grabbed the history book I had kept that talked about Lysimache. I had put a strip of papyrus on the correct page to keep my place. I opened it and handed it to Io. “Lysimache ruled as regent until her cousin came of age.”

“That’s not the same thing,” she said as she took the book from me.

“She did rule, even if it wasn’t as queen. And it sounds like the only reason she didn’t rule herself was because she didn’t have any children left to provide an heir. I would also like to point out to you that she was a priestess but still married and had children and then became a priestess again.”

“That’s impossible.” Io read it once, twice, three times.

“Does it actually say that?” Zalira asked, sounding so hopeful.

When I had come back to the palace earlier, after fleeing from Alexandros, I had asked her what had happened, wanting to know why she had run off. She had only shaken her head and said, “I promise I will tell you everything later. Not now.”

Ahyana had seemed to know what was happening and had it all in hand, her arm around her older sister. I trusted that Zalira would tell us eventually. It was unlike her to act this way and I was concerned.

“Is that what it says?” Ahyana asked.

“Yes.” Io had a hard time saying the word. “I don’t understand. Maybe this was how things used to be and aren’t any longer.”

“Do you think one day the goddess woke up and changed her mind?” I wished so badly I had the book from the administrative office, the one I had stolen and someone else had stolen from me.

I’d already decided the prince didn’t have it, as he would have used it against Theano, but now I was wondering if that was what he had hidden in the treasury and didn’t want me to know about.

She slammed the book shut. “It doesn’t matter how things might have been. They’re different now.”

“Without books to explain how or why that changed, how do you know that’s true?”

Her face took on a sickly pallor. I knew it was a lot for her to take in and that she wouldn’t like what she was hearing.

So it wasn’t surprising when she said, “We should go.”

We went to the dining room with Io and Zalira being uncharacteristically quiet. When we entered the room, everyone else was already seated.

“There you are!” Erisa called out. “We’ve been waiting and waiting.”

She had deliberately given us the wrong time to make us look bad. Because it wasn’t just her and her attendants in this room. There were dozens of noblewomen as well.

“Our apologies,” Io said. “I forgot how long it takes to get ready. Thank you all for waiting for us. We won’t be late again.”

She really did know how to play this game.

Erisa waved to a servant and they began to bring out the food, setting it up on empty tables. I watched and waited for Quynh to appear, but she didn’t. I tried to cover up my disappointment.