Page 97 of A Vow of Embers

“Most of them won’t need it. They will become wives and mothers.”

“Yes, because they will have no other choice. You might have women in your land who could solve all your problems but you’ll never know because you’re choosing to keep them ignorant.” Someone like Mahtab, the woman who ran her own hetaera house, could probably run the entire port of Troas a thousand times more efficiently but would never be able to because her sex relegated her to another type of life. “How many poets, playwrights, sculptors, architects, mathematicians, scholars, orators, healers, and lawyers have you missed out on because you have denied them a chance to learn? And what happens to those women whose husbands die? Or their fathers?”

Losing their father had forced Zalira and Ahyana to join the temple. “Or those who marry men that abandon their families for someone new. What recourse do they have? You have the resources. What possible reason could you have not to educate them?”

It was the first time I’d ever seen the prince at a loss. “It is how things have always been done.”

“Just because things have always been done that way doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it. You can change it.”

“The goddess decreed it.”

“When?” I demanded. “I have a very hard time believing that, and I can’t find a single book that verifies that to be true. Her words are not written down anywhere.”

“Educated women are not allowed to join the temple.” He said it triumphantly, as if he’d finally caught me.

“So you would deprive the rest of the population for the needs of a handful? That is entirely illogical. Reading is wonderful. Learning is a pleasure and a gift. One all your subjects should be privileged enough to have.”

“What of the women who aren’t interested in it? Who would prefer to be a wife and a mother?”

“If that’s what they choose, then it will be with men who are worthy of them and their talents. They can teach their children all that they have learned. As far as I can see, this would only benefit your nation.”

“Would you choose it?” he asked. “If you were not a princess. Not an acolyte.”

His question surprised me. If Locris was restored and Quynh was safe, yes. “I have always wanted to be married and have children with a man that I loved. And the education I have would allow me to make choices. But that particular choice has been taken from me.”

A look of shame crossed Alexandros’s face. “Should we have women leading the army as well?”

He was trying to make light of the situation, probably to appease his own guilty conscience, but I wasn’t going to allow him to do so. “Do you think I couldn’t lead an army?”

“You’re an exception.”

I pointed toward his sister’s room. “Every member of my adelphia could lead an army to victory. Even Io.”

“Because they’ve been trained in warfare, strategy, and weapons. Not all women want that.”

“Just as not all men desire to join the military, either.”

“That’s a fair point,” he said, and I was stunned that he’d made a concession. “Why do you look so smug?”

“Because you just said I was right about something,” I gloated.

“I said you had a fair point. That is not the same thing.” His mouth twitched, as if he wanted to smile, and my heart leapt at that glimmer of Jason.

I had to push that feeling away. “I am right about this. And you should also pass laws to punish men who hurt women.”

“Not all men—”

I cut him off. “It doesn’t matter! Even one man is one too many. The good men should be stopping the bad ones. Women are sacred to the goddess and she is angry about how her daughters have been treated.” I didn’t know where the words were coming from, but I knew they were true. I felt them in my bones.

He expelled a breath. “Fine. Now I am saying you’re right. But what do you expect? Am I to just upend the entire social order?”

“Yes, because it needs to be upended. My father used to say that people will live down or rise up to your expectations of them. Expect your people to do better. Be the king that everyone in your nation needs you to be.” Without meaning to, my voice lowered and I pleaded with him. “Be the man I know you can be. The man that I once ...”

I couldn’t finish that sentence. I would never say those words to him.

As he had said, he seemed able to read my feelings without me speaking them. I saw him soften, the way the tension left his body.

Then I saw what looked like hunger in his eyes. Desire.