Page 3 of Thief of Hearts

Instead of trembling as he should have, he laughed. “I wouldn’t advise it. Quynh fights dirty.”

“Only against people who deserve it,” she said, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. While I would die for them both, they were also nauseatingly in love and I had to remind myself not to roll my eyes every time they were affectionate.

Xander had placed Lia on one of his legs and she wound her arms around his neck. She looked at me inquisitively. “Invara? That’s your goddess?”

I was sure I had mentioned her name before. I nodded.

“Do you know her aspects? Have you tried invoking them?”

Before I could speak, Thrax jumped in. “Invara is a goddess of war and fertility. She has two aspects, fighting and fu—” Quynh elbowed him hard in the stomach to stop him from finishing his sentence, pointing at the two children.

“Sorry,” he said. “Invara’s aspect of . . . physical relations means that we can worship her that way. And I like to worship her every chance I get.” He wrapped his arm around his wife, who giggled.

Invara, give me strength.

Lia ignored their flirting. “Or maybe you think Invara only has two aspects because those are the two Thracians care about.”

That was a fair point.

“It doesn’t really matter if she has more. I rely on my own inner voice. I don’t need to call on her for help because I’m already glorious at both her aspects,” I said.

“That seems like a waste to not even try. Using those powers is fun,” Lia said with a shake of her head.

My mother called to Thrax and Quynh, and they went over to join her. The rest of us watched Kyra continue to fight invisible enemies.

“I think she’ll be a great warrior,” I told her parents.

“She might become queen in her own right,” Xander replied.

That didn’t sound like something Ilionians would do, but I reminded myself that Lia and Xander had been working hard to change things.

As if she could hear my thoughts, Lia added, “Xander and I altered the law so that daughters can inherit as well.”

“Then why do you say ‘might’?”

Lia let out a whoosh of air and said to her husband, “Your son is kicking my ribs.” When she turned her attention back to me, she answered my question. “We had to keep the council voting for the next king or queen. We wanted to eliminate that process, but the people were insistent.”

Xander added, “We had changed so much that I thought they should be able to keep this one thing. The citizens wanted to feel like they had a voice in who was chosen through their representatives.”

“And in this single, lone instance, he happened to be right,” Lia added. “I tried explaining to the people that the system had been instituted to create chaos, but they wouldn’t listen. We will try to circumvent it by ensuring that only good people serve on the council so that they will make the best decision for Ilion.”

“Mommy, Daddy, look!”

While we’d been talking about her future, Kyra had apparently been busy trying to make sure she didn’t have one. She had lit the tip of the wooden sword on fire and the flames were racing down toward her hand.

Chapter Two

I gasped, ready to rush over and save her.

“I hate it when she does that,” Xander muttered.

His nonchalance shocked me so intensely that for a moment I couldn’t react. Why weren’t they running to help her?

“I know she’ll be fine but I do worry every time,” he added.

It took me a moment, but then I realized what I was seeing. The flames wrapped around her hand and arm, doing no damage. Kyra was flame-kissed, just like her mother. Fire couldn’t burn either one of them. It hadn’t occurred to me that she would have powers because she had her father’s black hair.

“She has magic?” I asked.