And it was the reason I no longer had my grandmother’s pearls. I had pawned them and given the coins to the selector to make certain I was chosen.
There was never any guarantee, of course—a man who could be bribed was a man without honor. He could ignore my request and choose another.
My name might not be called.
It was a risk I’d had to take.
We all gathered in the main square of the agora. The marketplace had been emptied out, all of the stalls and booths shut down. Only Locrians were allowed at the ceremony. No outsiders today.
The air was uneasy, the tension obvious. Dust swirled around thousands of feet. People did not make eye contact with one another. Parents hugged their daughters, afraid of their names being called.
All the girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen gathered together toward the dais that had been constructed in the center of the agora. There was no separation by status or rank. We were all, supposedly, equally at risk of being chosen.
I was extremely grateful that Kallisto was too old to be called.
One of my father’s advisers, a historian, stepped forward to tell us the tale that we had heard so many times before. He was an elderly man with a long, white beard. His gray robes were faded and tattered. Theymust have been beautiful once, but time had not been kind. He held up both of his hands, indicating that we were to be quiet and listen.
“All who have assembled, we bow our heads and take our solemn vow now not to repeat the story that I am about to share, and to never speak the names of the maidens selected. Say that you swear it, or your life is forfeit.”
This event was the closest we came to having any kind of religion. Taking the oath was sacred, and Locrians protected our own. Especially the maidens. Everyone bowed their heads and said, “I swear it.”
Satisfied, the historian began his tale, his voice booming through the open marketplace.
“The prince of Ilion offended the goddess by kidnapping the most beautiful woman in the world and hiding her behind the walls of Troas. That woman’s husband assembled together the greatest warriors the world had ever known, including Prince Ajax of Locris. These heroes called themselves the Achaeans, and they were those who honored the law of hospitality and the sacredness of marriage. They fought the Great War for years and years until finally, the Achaeans emerged triumphant, defeating the Ilionians.”
I pressed my lips together tightly, my stomach clenching. I hated the next part.
“As was custom, the Achaeans began to divide up their well-earned spoils of war. An Ilionian princess and priestess named Kysandra fled the palace instead of submitting herself to the victors, as required. Ignoring their instruction, she ran to the temple of the goddess and claimed sanctuary, throwing her arms around the feet of the goddess’s statue. Ajax of Locris found her there and punished her for what she had done.”
It wasn’t until I was fifteen years old that I had been told what that vile punishment had entailed. Ajax the Lesser had sexually assaulted Kysandra. Violated her in the worst way possible, despite the fact that she had been a virgin and had claimed sanctuary.
Ajax had violated the laws of man and the laws of the goddess.
My father had tried to explain that things were different then—that women had once been considered part of the spoils to be taken—but it still disgusted me. I was ashamed to be descended from such a man.
“The goddess was angry with Ajax of Locris for what he had done and swore in her wrath that Locris would pay for his crime. She cursed us with barren ground so that nothing would grow. Prince Ajax denied that a crime had taken place—he said that he had only pulled Kysandra from the temple by her hair. The Achaeans believed his account. Kysandra fled, hoping to use the labyrinth to evade the Achaeans and escape the city. Ajax ordered his men to give chase. They pursued her, caught her, and ...” His voice trailed off.
They killed her,I finished mentally. Those men had hunted her like an animal and murdered her in the streets.
The historian cleared his throat. “The goddess expected that the Achaeans would punish Ajax of Locris, but they did not. Furious, the goddess commanded the earth to open, and it swallowed Ajax whole in front of his fellow soldiers, burying him while still alive. The goddess then sent foul winds and thunderstorms to ensure that the Achaeans would take years to travel home as retribution for turning their faces away from what had happened in her temple.”
It was one of the reasons why no other nation had come to aid Locris after the goddess’s punishment. No one was willing to risk her wrath. Some people hoped to curry her favor by taking things a step further. Many mercenaries began to hunt the descendants of Ajax, the Aianteioi, and a council of nations passed laws to protect us, as they reasoned that we had done nothing wrong and did not deserve a death sentence for our ancestor’s crime.
“The goddess then demanded that Locris replace her lost priestess—that we were to pay tribute every year of two maidens, drawn by lot, to serve in her temple. We honor Periboea and Cleopatra, the first two maidens sent to appease the goddess.”
Our laws always dictated that retribution be made twofold. If one priestess had been taken, then two must be sent to repay the debt.
We all bowed our heads, honoring the first maidens with a few moments of silence. The only time that the goddess was ever spoken of in Locris was at the selection. The rest of the year everyone acted as if she didn’t exist, and to even mention her was blasphemy. It had always seemed strange to me that in this one instance she was talked about in this manner—as if she still had control over our lives.
Which I supposed she did.
Despite wanting to claim that they were past religion and no longer believed, even the Locrians did not dare to offend the goddess further by removing her part in the retelling.
“But the goddess had devised further punishment for all Locrians. The journey for the Locrian maidens would not be easy. They would be allowed to serve as priestesses, but only if they made it to the temple alive. They were to race through the city of Troas, and if they reached the temple, they would be received as acolytes. But the goddess instructed the men of Ilion to gather their weapons—their stones, their swords, their axes, their clubs—and attempt to slaughter the maidens before they could reach the temple. She promised that she would absolve them from shedding innocent blood for doing her will. The goddess wants a blood sacrifice but gives our daughters the opportunity to survive, a courtesy not extended to Kysandra.”
That was the part I had trained for. Every man in the city would be waiting for me, wanting to kill me. A reward was given to the man who slaughtered a maiden, and he was honored by his people.
No Locrian maiden had ever reached the temple alive, and so every year Locris had to send two more maidens to replace the ones who had been butchered in the streets of Troas.
