But she told the news quite otherwise than they had expected.
“Theria? No Pythoness, ye say? An’ did it take all ye men in day-long council to find that out? I knew it from the first. She’s no Pythia, no, not if she gave the best oracles ever. Take her away, do—before she puts notions into the heads of the two new ones, good as gold.”
Nikander did not wait for the finish. He ran past Tuchè to Theria’s room.
Theria sat there on her couch staring at nothing in the same melancholy apathy which before had so troubled the temple women. She did not rouse until her father stood quite before her. Then up went her longing hands.
“Father, Father,” she whispered amazedly.
But Nikander in his delight threw both arms about her.
“You are free, my own darling Theria, you are free,” he said. “The Council has freed you.”
But he should have been more careful with his news.
“No,” she said wildly. “Oh, I have to stay here. Here all my life—all my life.”
“Not one further minute,” he asserted. “Dear child, I have come to take you home.”