Page 9 of Minas (Dying Gods #4)

Britomartis

I should stay away.

“How can you spend all your time there, with her, when Adrienne could be lying dead somewhere? Do you care nothing for Adrienne at all?”

My brother had been furious last night, angrier than I’d ever seen him. I don’t blame him. He’s been trapped inside Knossos for four days, forced to play the part of devoted admirer to Xenodice, all the while knowing what she is. A murderer. An oath-breaker. The woman who—perhaps even now—is having a hand in Adrienne’s death.

But I can’t think that. I don’t think that. Jadikira will get there. Adrienne will be safe. She has to be safe.

“Of course I care,” I had retorted. “Adrienne is—she is—goddess help me, but I love her like I would have loved my own sister, had our sister not seen me as a rival for our mother’s affections. But Sira—well, you are a fool if you don’t think this is connected.”

It had been the truth. But not all of it.

One of the guards outside Potina’s temple gives me a knowing smile as I approach, but it quickly falters when I return it with a flat, unamused stare.

“It is an honor to see you again so soon,” the second, older guard says, her expression carefully schooled. “It is long since Potina’s temple has been so well visited.”

I should stay away. And yet here I am.

I lift my chin. “Then your people have been fortunate,” I say. Since most visits to Potina’s temple are to plead for the lives of those that even Diktynna’s servant’s cannot heal. Or to prepare the bodies of the dead. “And I pray Potina continues to bless them.”

The older guard dips her head in silent acquiescence, then moves aside to let me pass. I step forward, then still at the sound of shouting on the street behind me.

“Who is that?” the younger guard asks, her hand flying to the blade at her waist. Beside her, the other guard steps forward, climbing down the first step to peer around one smooth stone column, her post momentarily forgotten.

“Is that…” she squints, lifting one hand to shade her eyes from the glare of the winter sun. “That looks like Asterion, the Minas Crete’s brother.”

The world freezes, every sound falling away against the rushing in my ears. I spin so fast my skirt tangles at my ankles, my sheathed sword thudding against my thigh.

“But who is that woman?” the younger guard asks, a mixture of awe and fear in her voice. She steps back, as if seeking shelter in the eaves of Potina’s temple.

“I… I don’t know,” the other guard admits.

A woman walks between Asterion and Jadikira, pale skin a gleaming contrast to the men at her side, ornately decorated skirt fluttering in the breeze. She is dressed like a minas, like a goddess, but I would know that woman anywhere, with her golden hair waving like a flag behind her, and those sharp, unsettling eyes carefully observing her surroundings.

“Adrienne,” I whisper, one hand flying up to grasp the pendant at my throat. “That is Adrienne.”

And she is heading straight for Knossos.