Journey Into Nyx by Jenna Helland

tie her hair back. But she was starving and wasn’t about to put back on her filthy clothes from the battle.
    “They’re celebrating even with Anax injured?” Elspeth asked as she entered the pleasant warmth of the back room. Her friends had begun preparing souvlaki. Meat and vegetables on skewers sizzled over the brazier. Everyone in the room stopped and stared at Elspeth when she appeared.
    “What?” Elspeth asked defensively.
    Anthousa shrugged and turned back to the food. “You look different with your hair down,” she said.
    Embarrassed, Elspeth plopped down beside Nikka on one of the couches. She fiddled with one of the silver metal skewers, which had a tiny winged horse on the end of it. Meletians put the symbol of Heliod on everything, even their cooking utensils. Daxos handed her a platter of food.
    “Where did you put my armor?” Elspeth asked Nikka.
    “Okay, first, I’m not your squire,” Nikka snapped. “Second, it’s on the table by your stupid spear. Third, if you put it back on, I will kill you myself.”
    There was a stunned silence, and then the three adults burst out laughing. Even Elspeth, who had been thinking about doing precisely that.
    “And since I’m not your squire, make your own souvlaki,” Nikka said with a faint smile.
    “It looks pretty self-evident,” Elspeth said. “I think I can handle it.”
    They ate and chatted, carefully avoiding talk of the battle. But as the music grew louder outside, Nikka became gloomier. She glared at the walls of the tent as if blaming them for not keeping the noise out. Daxos had whispered Cymede’s fate to Elspeth and Anthousa, but they had kept the news from Nikka. Even Elspeth agreed that more bad news right away might put her in a dangerous state of mind.
    “This is stupid,” Nikka said, dropping her half-cooked food beside the platter. “Why are we celebrating?”
    “Anax ordered his people to celebrate,” Daxos said.
    “Celebrate his gutting?” Nikka snarled. “Celebrate thedeaths of all the wandering soldiers?”
    “Honor the gods for your success with a revel, or else they might not give you victory in the future,” Daxos said. “Celebrate the living and honor the dead.”
    Elspeth recognized the phrase from her studies in Meletis. It was a teaching of Heliod’s, and apparently Iroas’s as well. Elspeth knew Daxos meant well, but it sounded trite in the face of Nikka’s turmoil.
    “Will the king live?” Anthousa asked.
    “I healed him as much as I could, and then his own people took over,” Elspeth said. “I think he’ll survive.”
    “People died!” Nikka practically shouted. “My father’s estate was burned to the ground.”
    “Where is your father?” Anthousa asked.
    “Meeting with advisors,” Nikka said. “He’s too
busy
for me tonight.”
    “He said he’d come for you first thing tomorrow,” Elspeth assured her. “You don’t have to go to the celebration. Just stay in here with us.”
    Nikka glared first at Elspeth and then at Daxos. “Yeah, right,” she said. “Like I want to stay here.”
    There was an awkward silence, and then Anthousa changed the subject. “What is the state of the gods?” she asked.
    “From what I can feel, the Silence isn’t over,” Daxos said. “Mogis broke it, as did Keranos. But I still can’t hear the other gods. I hear something strange, but it isn’t the gods.”
    “What does it sound like?” Elspeth asked.
    “There’s a noise like the crackle and rush of fire,” Daxos said. “Maybe it’s an echo from Keranos’s power. I’m not sure. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
    There was a loud crash outside, and everyone jumped. Uproarious laughter could be heard coming from the area near the bonfire.
    “Something is wrong,” Nikka blurted. “Everything justfeels wrong. Can you feel it in the air? I can’t hear that sound, Daxos. But the air feels like needles against my skin.”
    Elspeth laid her hand on Nikka’s arm. “What do you mean?”
    But