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The floor gleams with white marble, its circular expanse sweeping outward until it’s embraced by towering columns. Between those pillars, guards stand, motionless save for the faint rustle of wind in their white robes. Their faces are hidden beneath deep hoods, with hands clasped neatly before them. Yet my instincts warn me that they are far from unarmed. Another pair stand ahead, silent sentinels framing towering doors.
Acolytes of the Anemoi.
They are the only permanent occupants on the Isle, and they fall into two distinct categories: the studious and the valorous. Both devout. Both unforgiving in their neutrality. The Isle of the Winds has long kept its reputation as sacred ground, where even kings and queens must heed its laws.
I press my hands together, locking them in front of me as I follow Xerxes to where the others are already waiting for us. Silas stands tall while Cynna’s sharp gaze sweeps the room, taking in each figure and shadow. Titaia lingers at her side but leans toward me.
“Ready for another performance?” she whispers, the question reminding me so much of words she spoke to me when we first met.
“You bring the theatrics. I’ll bring the chaos,” I say just as quietly.
“Same arrangement as always, then.” Titaia smirks.
Silas lets out an exasperated groan. “Remind me why I agreed to this again?”
“He’s got a point; save the wit for the nobles,” Cynna adds, but I don’t miss the grateful smile she sends my way before she turns to Xerxes. “We’ll follow your lead.”
Xerxes nods, a bemused smile on his face that tells me he’s quite accustomed to the company of these three.
I roll my shoulders forward, bow my head, and fall into step a few paces behind the others. The doors seem to inhale at our approach. With a soft sigh, they part, but instead of an empty corridor, a wall of bodies steps forward.
The others still. I stumble, a breath catching like a hook beneath my ribs, then quickly right myself.
Keres stands at the front. My skin flares hot, then cold. My throat closes.
I knew he would be here. I knew.
But I didn’t imagine seeing him so soon.
He wears the gold-embroidered crimson of Eretria, the color dredging up memories: the bite of his blade, the weight of his hand, the lock of his door. My stomach pitches as his gaze rakes past me, lingering on where Titaia stands stiffly before he focuses on Xerxes.
I drop my chin another fraction, make myself smaller, faceless.
The room seems to sway around me, all light and sound narrowing to the shape of him as I peer up through my eyelashes. I swallow, drag air into my lungs, and count on my disguise.
“King Xerxes,” Keres calls out. His eyes shift to Cynna before landing back on Titaia. “Cousin.” He steps closer, lifting a hand as if to brush a stray hair from her brow, but lets it hover, smiling when her composure remains solid and unflinching. “What a sight you insist on being. I never imagined I’d find you here of all places.”
“I’ve never had the chance to attend the Games.” Her voice echoes faintly against the chamber walls, and pride warms my chest at the steadiness of her words. “When King Xerxes invited me as a guest of the North, how could I refuse?”
Keres’s amusement doesn’t fade. If anything, the sharpness in his expression grows as he lets his hand fall without touching her.
“A tragedy, truly, to see you stolen so brazenly from your home in the same breath the aunt and uncle who raised you were poisoned.” Keres’s gaze flicks to Cynna once again. “We still haven’t found the culprit. What would the Sorrows and Reveza make of such a situation?”
I hear the threat lining his words, see it in the lack of grief in his expression. If anyone poisoned them, it was Keres.
My stomach twists as Cynna’s steady stance wavers, but it’s Xerxes who steps forward.
“Are you suggesting that the North has committed an act of war?”
The guards behind Keres shift, and, though the Acolytes remain still, I sense them bracing in silence.
“War? Such an ugly word. I prefer misunderstanding,” Keres says. “For instance, your failure to answer my request for my cousin’s return. Misunderstandings accumulate.”
“I am not an item to be returned,” Titaia bites out, and Cynna’s hand ghosts near her elbow—steadying without touching.
“You’re right. Family is not an item,” Keres says. “It is an obligation.”
His words infuriate me, but I keep my head bowed, maintaining a cinched handmaiden’s posture despite my body’s desperation to strike. I am close enough. I could end him here. It would be clean. Efficient.
