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He ducked as she released the arrow, his heart springing inside his chest as it flew past. Xerxes spun after it, finding the arrow plunged into the heart of a scarlet warrior lying motionless inside the Per-Siana formation around him. A B’rei Mira soldier holding a blade that had almost reached him.

When he twirled back, the maiden was back to fighting among the throng, a shimmering collection of reflected light in a crowd of blood and men. An enemy sword caught the end of her braid, snapping the string holding it all together, and Xerxes watched her dark hair untwist and meet the wind. She didn’t stop moving, didn’t stop to see what had become of her King.

A speck of heat moved through Xerxes’s body. He marched after her, swatting aside a burn division soldier in dirty, beige rags on his way, his lips twisting to the side. He grabbed the maiden’s arm and nearly took the full force of her blade for it when she spun, but he blocked it with his metal gauntlet. Wide brown eyes looked back at him through slits in a gilded mask. She glanced down at where he held tight to her arm.

“How dare you?” Xerxes demanded. “You almost shot me! Don’t you realize who I am?”

The maiden tore her arm away. Instead of answering, both her hands came against his breastplate. Xerxes was pushed off balance—he sailed into the sand, falling flat on his back, barely missing the point of a red-feathered arrow as it skated over where he’d just been. He slapped a hand over his thudding chest.

Twice in the last thirty seconds, he’d nearly been killed. He needed to focus, or he was going to be…

The Gold Maiden tried walking past him there—not helping him up first, or apologizing, and even kicking a teensy bit of sand over him on her way. Xerxes’s lips thinned and he grabbed her ankle before she could pass. He yanked it, and the maiden fell forward, her stomach hitting the sand at his side, the rest of her body propped up only by her elbows. Her mask tilted toward him slowly like she could hardly believe it.

“Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “Who does that to a king!”

The maiden didn’t reply; she stared, her mask making it impossible to know her reaction.

Xerxes glared right back. What kind of soldier could be so good at fighting and so bad at royal-related manners?

And why wouldn’t she reply when he asked her a direct question? Did she not know how to speak? Was she mute? Or cursed? Maybe she traded her voice to a Jinn in exchange for these fighting powers.

Xerxes grunted and rolled up to his feet. He swatted sand off his arms, off his shoulders. Truly, he was already a mess though, even before she’d hurtled him into the dirt.

He didn’t realize the maiden had also stood until her voice came from behind him—younger than he expected. And there was something else about it that stirred a slow current within him, making him slow his sand-slapping.

“If you can’t see that I just saved you, twice, then you must have the intelligence of a brick.” And then she added, “Your Majesty.”

Xerxes’s fingers halted over the fabric of his tunic hardly showing through the mismatched pieces of armour he’d acquired these last days. The dizziness he’d overcome before washed back in now, threatening to push his face into the sand as treacherous, slow, forbidden thoughts crept into his mind.

A brick?

Memories knocked at closed doors. Memories of a maiden.

Xerxes whirled.

This golden creature before him was almost as tall as him, and broad, built like a warrior. She stood with a fierceness most men didn’t possess. His shoulders dropped when he realized, a heavy breath coming out his nose.

She was nothing like the maiden he knew who was small in his arms and splashed water recklessly and had cried when her rosy-cheeked Folke friend had been killed—by the Divinities, what was he even doing thinking such thoughts?

Xerxes shook his head at himself and dragged a hand through his hair. He glanced over to where the last of the B’rei Mira warriors were either escaping, being taken hostage, or being slain.

He returned the scarf to his face, covering his scowl. He glared at the Gold Maiden one last time, unable to decide whether he was feeling appreciative because she’d rescued him, or if he felt threatened by her—because she’d rescued him. He opened his mouth to ask more pointed questions, but the dizziness flooded back in a wave, and he teetered. This time, when his hand reached out and found nothing for balance, he slumped to the ground, staring up at the blue morning sky where all the gods must have been laughing at his fortune. Whether it was the days of fighting, the lack of water, the loss of blood, or the lack of sleep, he didn’t know or care. Help was here. So, for just a minute, he would let himself drift off.

His eyes slid closed as the silhouette of a bright maiden appeared over him, blocking a portion of the sunlight. She, along with everything else, dissolved into blackness.

He had a strange dream about Ryn.

“Open your eyes.”

Mornings were a curse.

Though, this wasn’t quite a morning. The tangy orange colour leaking into the tent indicated it was late afternoon. Threads of leftover smoke laced the air, and murmured conversations created a steady hum outside.

Xerxes stared at the intricate soot-worn thread patterns in the fabric above him. It was a wonder how every tiny string had a place, each one carefully woven together to serve a greater purpose. A host of individual strings that held obediently to their tasks, clinging together to form a tent that would protect those inside from the sun, wind, and rain.

Though remarkable, a tent was only as good as its weakest thread. If one snapped, the rest would soon unravel.

Xerxes rubbed his eyes as the remains of his dream scratched against the edges of his mind. There wasn’t much of a difference between dreams and nightmares. Usually, they had the same faces and outcomes. The same maiden in the same situations.