Page 85 of A Vow of Embers

Now she pressed her lips together, as if trying to hold in a laugh. “He is a man and you are a woman that he has kissed many, many times.”

Why wasn’t she understanding what had actually happened? “He did that to trick me. Beguile me. Seduce me into agreeing with his scheme.”

“He could have tricked you just as easily and left his tongue in his own mouth.”

I shook my head. How could I explain this to her so that she would see that I was right?

“And have you even thought about why he makes you so angry? I’ve never seen someone upset you this much,” she said. “The stories Thrax has told me ...”

“Because the prince is infuriating!”

“You promised not to attack him and yet you do. He makes you forget yourself and the promises you’ve made, which is so unlike you. You’ve never had a temper like this with anyone, and I’ve never known you to hang on to your anger this way. I think this irrational fury is covering up for very different feelings. Feelings you don’t want to admit to.”

I ignored the fact that it sounded like she was speaking truth. I protested, “You don’t understand! He’s lied and—”

She cut me off. “Lia, I know you. I know why someone lying to you would upset you. Your curiosity, your intellect, having to know how everything works ... he made you feel like a fool and you hate feeling that way.”

I couldn’t disagree with her. She did know me too well. And she was correct.

“Do you remember when that magician came to court when we were ten years old?” she asked. “How much that bothered you?”

He had been from a land far in the north. He wasn’t a life mage, but he used sleight of hand to make coins appear and disappear. I had badgered him to tell me how he had accomplished his tricks.

My grandmother had pulled me aside and said, “Sometimes you should let magic just be magic. If you’re always trying to understand how things are accomplished, you’ll lose your sense of wonder.”

I remembered thinking that it was better to know than to hope for magic to be real.

And here I was now, praying for a magic that would save my nation.

“That’s not the same thing,” I told her.

“Have you considered that there might be a reason that Xander has kept things from you?” she asked. “Sometimes a lie is necessary. You lied to the people at the temple about who you really were.”

“That’s entirely different.”

“It isn’t. You lied because you’re on a mission to save Locris. The prince lied because he is on a mission to save Ilion.”

Some part of me whispered that she was right. Quynh always had been the voice of reason, but I wouldn’t let myself listen. “I didn’t kiss anyone and use them to accomplish my goals.”

“But if you had needed to?” she prompted.

Io had asked me the same thing. I already knew the answer was yes. I had been prepared to do that with my adelphia initially. Use them to find what I was looking for. If someone had come to me and said that I could have the eye and all I needed to do was seduce the prince ... I would have done it.

And probably enjoyed it,a voice whispered inside me.

“Alexandros is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his ends. He’s ruthless and will stoop to any manipulation to get his way,” I said.

“Like ... you think he might sell his family’s jewels to bribe his way into a tribute race so that he could get into a temple in order to save his nation? While lying about who he really was?”

I wanted to tell her that the prince and I were not the same, but she kept talking. “You’re like two sides of the same mirror.”

Was she right? I was afraid that she was. She squeezed my hands tightly, as if she sensed this.

But even if I could acknowledge the ways that he and I were alike, that we had done so many of the same things, it wouldn’t change anything. “You don’t understand, Quynh. He hates me. He is furious with me.”

She nodded. “Thrax said the phratry is confused as to why he’s so upset. That he’s not usually like this, either. The two of you seem to be bringing these terrible reactions out in one another. He hasn’t confided in them about it. Why do you think he is angry?”

“He said something about me putting Io in danger. Which is ridiculous. It wasn’t my fault men broke into the temple and almostkilled her.” Not to mention that I was the one who had lured that man away from her and saved her.