The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(84)

I stared at her, taken aback by the scolding. It was starting to sound very much like the argument I’d had with Cai back in the Tarquin necropolis. Was I really that girl? Was that who I’d become?

“You’re a noble warrior and a steady friend,” Elka continued, shaking her head. “You also think too much, second-guess yourself, and carry everyone else’s grief and guilt. Well, I’m here to tell you, Fallon ferch Virico, that we have strong enough arms and backs to carry our own. And to help you carry yours. If we decide we want to. And it is we who decide.”

She took a breath and looked at me. Her pale blue eyes held wisdom beyond her years. And compassion. But there was also a scorching honesty there. And I knew, in that moment, that how much she valued our bond—forged from everything we’d been through together—was not above how much Elka valued herself. She sighed and picked up her spear. “You didn’t load any one of us onto a boat—either time—at sword-point, Fallon. So please, stop acting like you did and try accepting the bare face of friendship with all its beauty and flaws. Or don’t. Just let me know what you decide.”

And then she was gone. Leaving me standing there alone in the middle of my opulent palace bedroom, feeling like I had at Octavia’s party when Elka had cut the scarf that held us tethered together. The tension was suddenly gone, but I was left woefully unbalanced.

Ajani came to find me not too long after. I thought it was to lecture me some more, but no. It was Ajani. I could only wish to achieve a fraction of her serenity one day—but I didn’t think I’d ever live so long. Certainly not if I kept acting the way I had been, she seemed to agree. At the very least, Elka might just kill me.

“You’re angry and you’re scared because you’ve lost your sister,” Ajani was saying. “Elka’s angry and scared for the very same reason.”

“I don’t—”

“She thinks she’s about to lose you, Fallon.”

“She doesn’t need me. She has Quint.”

“And you have Cai, but that’s hardly the point.” She sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes skyward. “Sadly, I’m like the old maiden sister who winds up stuck with both of you.”

I flopped down on the bed and gazed up at the painted ceiling. “Aren’t you all getting tired of me dragging you to the ends of the world on my ridiculous fool’s quests?” I asked. “Just because I can’t seem to keep myself and my family out of trouble, why should the rest of you all have to suffer as well?”

“Because Elka’s right. We swore an oath.”

“To the ludus. And that doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“To each other. So that we may continue to.”

Her patient argument was wearing away at my stubborn—not to say irrational—refusals. But I wasn’t ready to give in. Not quite. “Neferet is Aegyptian,” I said. “She’ll stay here. Which means so will Antonia.”

Ajani shrugged philosophically. “If they do, it’s because they have already found their true home in each other’s hearts. And because Neferet really hates the cold.”

“And you?”

“I don’t mind a chilly evening here and there.”

I gave her a stern look, and she matched it.

Then she dropped her gaze to where her long, nimble fingers interlaced in her lap and said, “Truthfully? I’ve been asked to stay here and captain the queen’s palace archers.”

I gaped at her, astonished.

“The invitation came from Queen Cleopatra herself,” she continued. “I would be first in command, with my own regiment. It is a great honor.”

“Ajani! That’s . . . Of course you must—”

“So I very politely declined.”

“What?” I blinked at her, not understanding. “You what? Why?”

She looked back up at me, and there was that wise, amused glint in her eye that I was so familiar with. “You don’t think I’d let the lot of you go charging off on another of your ‘ridiculous fool’s quests’ by yourselves, do you?” She laughed. “You and Elka wouldn’t last a week without me. That’s what I told the queen. Upon reflection, she agreed and graciously rescinded the offer. I’m coming with you. To the very ends of your strange green island, if I must. If you’ll have me.”

I really had nothing more to say to that.

Nothing except, “I’d be honored.”

Ajani nodded, acknowledging my return to my senses.

I sighed. “Let’s go find Elka, then, and let her gloat over my apology.”

Ajani put an arm around me. “I can think of nothing she’d want more.”



* * *



—

Five days later, I stood on the docks of Antirhodos, waiting for the ship that would take me and my friends back across the Mare Nostrum to Massilia. It was barely daybreak, but I hadn’t been able to sleep a moment longer, and I was up before most of the palace had even begun to stir. That was where Cai found me as the rising sun’s rays gilded the tops of the waves ruffling the surface of the harbor. I could feel time racing against me, slipping faster and faster through my grasping fingertips the way the hours and days had flowed inexorably through Heron’s clepsydra—the Greek water clock the physician had kept in his infirmary back at the Ludus Achillea. How much of a head start did Pontius Aquila have? It was the question I kept asking myself over and over. Just sailing across the sea to Massilia from Alexandria—we would have to go by way of Carthage to avoid putting into port in Italia—would likely take a solid month.