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Xerxes cleared his throat as soldiers around the tent stared. “Um… someone tell me about her first.” He dropped his arm back to his side. Then, when he didn’t know what to do with his hands, he clasped them together again. “We know plenty about our provincial divisions, but I have no information on burn divisions. I want to know everything about this commander and how she can do what she does.”

Reza raised an eyebrow from where he sat with his feet up on a melon crate. He folded his arms, a provoking smile forming beneath his wiry beard. “I’d also like to know,” he said. “What’s her name? Where is she from? Is she single?”

Xerxes shot him a look, and Reza shut his mouth.

“Adassah Cahana, Your Majesty,” a commander said from the back of the tent. The others parted for him to come forward, revealing a stitched nametag that read: COMMANDER HALL. He stepped into the stream of light coming in through the tent opening, revealing a severely deformed left ear. “From the seventy-fifth province.”

Xerxes’s hands slid apart, his arms falling back to his sides. “Cahana? Isn’t that… an Adriel surname?” he asked. He’d never bothered to study Adriel lineage, but he’d heard of that name before—he was sure of it, even if he couldn’t remember where.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Commander Hall rubbed a finger over his wrinkled ear as he performed a shallow bow. “She’s quite something to behold. She’s likely gained a reputation among the enemy’s armies now too after she killed a giant and let three B’rei Mira divisions go free afterward. You know how fast word travels out here.”

Reza’s head snapped up from where he sat, melons tumbling from the crate as he adjusted his feet and tipped it over. “She did what? Did you say she killed a giant?”

“She did it to end the stalemate.” The beam of light rippled over Commander Hall’s armour as he inched backward. “Only one soldier was allowed to try.”

Xerxes put his hands on his hips, his fingers digging into his flesh above his belt. “That’s why you were at a stalemate? Because no one would try to fight their champion?!”

All the commanders from Sindahir Valley went quiet, and Xerxes pinched the bridge of his nose. “Never mind.” He didn’t care. He’d wanted hope for the army, and now he had it. Even if it had come about in an odd, shiny, golden way. Even if he hadn’t been able to bring it himself.

The tent opening shuddered and the messenger with the bushy eyebrows raced in. Xerxes was relieved to see him alive after so many had died while fleeing the attack. The messenger’s eyes were wide, his lip quivering. “Your Majesty! An enemy envoy has approached our camp with a message!” The shout cut off all other discussions. “It’s from King Alecsander.” His voice hitched on the name.

A shiver raced through the tent. Commanders exchanged glances, dark murmurs filled the space, and expressions fell. Reza was suddenly at Xerxes’s side, his smile replaced with a deep frown and a crease between his brows.

Xerxes’s hands balled into fists, his body warm beneath his tunic. He thought about pulling his shirt off right there in front of everyone to cool down.

Alecsander really was here. Close enough to send a message. Divinities, have mercy—why hadn’t the warlord shown up during the battle?

“He wants to meet with you, Your Majesty.” When the messenger squeaked the words out, the whole desert and all the mountains around it paled in comparison. Xerxes’s hand lifted to his prickling chest and rubbed it in slow, circular motions. “To discuss options for the future of Per-Siana,” the messenger finished.

For a split second, Xerxes’s quiet inhale was the only sound to be heard.

Then the whole tent erupted in arguments, shouts. Accusations.

Xerxes’s hand froze over his chest, his gaze darting from commander to commander as men pointed fingers, shook heads, flung hands through the air. In one second, the serene strategy tent had turned into a cage of animals barring their teeth.

“You can’t go meet him in person, Xerxes.” Reza’s words were the first to settle in Xerxes’s ears beneath the noise. “Send a representative.”

“What if King Alecsander assassinates you on the spot?! We should put together a committee to represent the Per-Siana throne and send them in your stead!” Commander Zerralae shouted at Xerxes with flushed cheeks.

Xerxes dragged a step back, the heel of his boot splitting the sand. Commander Zerralae sounded like an angry father. And as Xerxes studied the faces around the meeting, he saw a dozen grown men seeing him as a child in this moment. Older men who scolded him, directed him…. didn’t believe in him.

No one had spoken so brazenly to Xerxes since the start of the war. But now that everything was on the line, he wondered if this was how the commanders had always seen him. Maybe this was how all of Per-Siana saw him. Maybe this was why the Intelligentsia didn’t bother following his orders about the burn divisions, why they’d ruled over him for so long back in the palace.

“Who will go then?” Xerxes asked. It came out quiet, but it hushed the heated grownups arguing about his fate. “Who will go if not me?”

They were like tipping dominoes. Commander Zerralae looked to the ground first, hiding his red cheeks. Then Commander Yem’s gaze fell as if he spotted something interesting in the sand. Even Commander Malore glanced off at the tent wall. One by one they toppled before him, like a childhood game unfolding before his eyes.

Xerxes released a small huff of disbelief. No wonder they’d allowed the Adriel burn division commander to fight the giant in their stead. Xerxes pointed at them, the same righteous rebuke they’d given him a moment ago rolling off the end of his tongue, “This is why I will go!”

More eyes dropped, teared up, looked away. Xerxes staggered to the planning table in the middle of the tent, settling against it. The cut on his stomach burned, and he pressed his raw knuckles into the tabletop to steady himself.

“I might be a young king, and that might make me look unfit, but at least I’m willing,” he said to his commanders. “I’m not a coward. That’s more than I can say for the rest of you. You say I can’t go myself—yet none of you volunteer?”

And then there was a new voice, high and feminine. It came from the entrance of the tent like a melody clashing against Xerxes’s tight, sandpaper-rough flesh.

“I’ll go.”

Commanders adjusted to look upon the maiden standing in the opening wearing full armour despite the afternoon heat. The orange-pink sunset burned against her gold plates like fire on gemstones. A few low rasps and grumbles flittered across the space, some of the men glancing back to Xerxes to see what he would do.