Her eyes tracked Asia across the stage, bypassing the other royals and nobles lined upon the raised platform. The clouds above drifted slowly away from the sun, allowing the summer blaze to stab through her like shards of glass. The acoustics of the meadow bounced the cicadas’ tymbal through the air, shaking and rattling in a chorus praising the heat of the day. But despite the feverish warmth rolling along her skin, Aea shivered.

She’d made a vast oversight and brushed away Asia’s claim as if it were a joke. It was no longer amusing.
Aea swallowed and ran a hand through her hair, pulling it from her face, little diamonds of sweat swept away by her small and calloused palm. Asia wasn’t the sort to call a folly and take her amusements out on a foolish recluse. If she were, she would have let fly her arrow and hunted Aea through the woods when first they met. Granted, she wouldn’t have made it far before Aea pinned her with a blade like a hare to a tree, but that was aside from any point.

Her belly swirled with apprehension, not from fear of retribution, but a trepidation at being caught acting so obtuse. She hated that. When acting naturally, it seemed she was inclined to making such stupid assumptions and mistakes such as this.

Suddenly, Asia’s eyes landed on Aea and the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention. The princess, radiant in crimson, glided across the stage and toward her. The closer she got, the tighter Aea squeezed her lyre and when Asia was finally before her upon the temple dais, all words had fled. The was an instinct, an urge, to duck from sight and become lost in the crowd. Gods, she was a fucking idiot sometimes.

It was too late now. She’d stayed behind when Asia had gestured for her to wait, and it occurred to her just now that she couldn’t have left even if she wanted to. One didn’t say ‘no’ to royalty...she was fairly certain they didn’t, in any case.

“I take it that you finally believe me, hmm?” Asia was laughing and Aea’s lips twitched in a matching titter borne more from discomfort than true amusement. Her ears felt hot.

And then Asia held her hand out and Aea’s nervous laughter tapered off. She stared at the hand, then up at Asia’s face. Another bolt of disquiet shot down her spine and twined with the vortex already swirling in the pit of her belly. She felt eyes on her now, and she was fairly certain it had something to do with commoners not touching royalty. Aea let go of her lyre and wiped a slick palm upon the hip of her white peplos tunic before hesitantly placing her hand in Asia’s.

Urgency fueled her movements, one that whispered for her to leave the area and subsequent gaze of anyone that might find the sight objectionable. Asia’s status and bright red gown painted her as a beacon for scrutiny and Hektos’ voice shuddered awake, reminding Aea in a graveled tone that recognition brought spies that would stalk her steps and find their camp. Authorities would come, men who would put them all to the torch if they were lucky enough to escape the mines.

Aea tried to say something, but when she opened her mouth, she had no words, and so she closed it again. She was pulled upon the stage moments later and she’d never felt so utterly exposed in all her life. Her knees buckled and she froze once upon the dais, her eyes darting wildly about them before settling straight ahead, her hair falling over her face and her shoulders hunching. Go! She wanted to shout. Before they see!

“Let's go somewhere quieter to talk,” Asia said.

Aea nodded stiffly, numbly, and let herself be led away. Not fast enough. She kept her shoulders pulled inward and her gaze down lest she accidentally bump into someone important or frighten someone with her bared disfigurements. And suddenly, Asia let go of Aea’s hand and once more, her knees buckled, but this time they were in the middle of a milling crowd filled with nobility and royalty alike. The sensation of being much smaller than she was filled Aea’s limbs with potent lead. A cup was shoved in her hands and Aea clutched to it like driftwood in the middle of the sea.

An arm loped through hers and she startled, repressing a squeak of surprise, but only just. Like a whirlwind, she was pulled with Asia and swept away to parts unknown, but hopefully far away from here. As she was swept, she made the mistake of letting her lyre-weighed arm fall to her side and it almost immediately struck somebody.

Oh Gods.

Her head twisted aside and any apology she conjured died on her lips. Instead, she elected to pretend it didn’t happen and hope to every God she didn’t accidentally strike the queen of Taengea upon the backside. She pretended that if she forgot about the incident, so would the abused party.

Shadows passed over them, cooling Aea’s sun-beaten skin, and it was then that she looked up and found herself within a temple. Artemis. The eyes of the goddess were upon them now. Aea’s heart tripled, magma thrumming through her veins. They were so close to her sacred tree, and though Aea had questioned the existence of the Gods so many times in her life, an innate fear of them descended upon her. The sprawling branches of the tree seemed as fingers, reaching out to bury talons into her skull to siphon every bad thing Aea had ever thought or done to be picked apart and weighed upon a scale of punishment.
Aea was numb as she sat upon a bench—how did they get there? Would the priestesses not be cross that they were in Artemis’ sacred house?

“Now, I know you probably have a million questions, and you can ask me anything you want to ask me,” Asia said.

Aea set her lyre down beside her and the soft clack of wood to stone seemed to boom within the silence. She swallowed again and pressed her back against the wall, her gaze darting from Asia, to the tree, to the rest of the empty room. She drank the contents of the cup, not caring what was in it and sputtering when wine hit the back of her throat rather than water or goat’s milk. Coughing into her hand, she twisted her eyes shut and willed herself to calm down. After a moment, she was able to breathe again. Prepared this time, she tipped the cup back and gulped the wine down as fast as she could.

Seconds later, she held an empty goblet in her palms. It was so quiet in the temple, so cool and wide. If she pretended that Artemis was not watching, it almost felt as if she were in the cave again. But one did not ignore the presence of the Gods, for if they existed, they were watching Asia now—watching Aea’s behavior toward the princess by proxy. Aea still had not spoken, her tongue too tied, her shame and now her fear of saying the wrong thing choking her as surely as a hand round her throat.

“Since I know you didn't believe me before, I want you to know this. I swear on the River Styx that I will never lie to you about anything. I might leave something out if it is not my story or secret to tell, but I will let you know that it is not mine to share and you will always know why I can not say something. Everything else, everything in my power, you will know,” Asia said.

Aea bit her lip and stared into her empty cup. Her ears were no longer hot but blazing as if bared to the sun, her cheeks and chest quickly boiling to the same degree. Asia’s words were a confusing mixture of reprimand and assurance. It wasn’t clear if gratitude or apology should follow. Before Aea could clutch onto a decision between the two, before she could assume which one would please the goddess of the hunt more, Asia spoke again.

“I meant what I said before, if we met again, we were meant to become friends. The fates brought us together, so I will trust not only my instincts about you but also theirs in that we were meant to find one another.”

Asia let go of Aea’s arm and sat upon the bench, the lack of contact allowing Aea to draw in a deep breath. The silence of the temple trampled over them, washing through the space as if cleansing it of words. Aea’s heart fell between her ribs and she glanced at the tree through her hair. Instead of speaking immediately, she sunk into the quiet and hesitantly thought about Asia’s words, forcing her focus away from the overbearing weight of the temple little by little.

“I apologize,” Aea said quietly, pulling her eyes away from her surroundings to glance at the princess next to her. “For not believing you. I—” Don’t think the fates have a hand in coincidence.

The Gods, the fates, the furies, all of the maybe-there’s and hopefully-not’s, they only cared about mortals of import. And if they were directing Asia’s fate, Aea could not see how she could be helpful to it. She would like a friend, but the powers above them were terrible and all-encompassing—they did not deal in anything but blood and vengeance. Certainly not love or friendship. Even Aphrodite, their goddess of love, was more interested in vanity than bringing people together.

“I would like to be your friend,” Aea finished. She looked around the chamber, triple-checking that no priestess or disembodied presence was near—not that she’d be able to see it—before she angled her body slowly toward Asia. “But I do not understand. Where were your guards? Why were you out alone? How can we be friends? Would the...the king, or perhaps the other nobility, they would not approve surely? And you cannot promise on Styx to me, I...I-I-I—”

She grimaced and passed the cup absently between her fingers, worrying at it over and over again “You are a princess. I do not even think I am a civilian. It is not done, I am certain. It is like fish and birds. They do not interact unless it is to be eaten.”

All her uncle's stories said so. Her father said so. Aea did not know why it was so, only that it was. That is why they could perform for them, but never actually befriend them despite what Lady Ophelia said to Cassero. Empty words, symbols that meant nothing. It was not fair that Asia was a princess, but she was one and Aea did not know what to do with that. Did not know if she was saying the correct things. She was so uncertain that she was not able to use contractions or relax in the slightest. Any moment now, somebody could walk into the temple and see them, and Aea did not know what would happen as a result, but she knew it would not be good.