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Xerxes took in a deep breath and whispered it out slowly. He eyed Commander Adassah as he folded his arms, hugging them tight to his injured middle. The maiden’s dark hair was back in a tidy braid, her armour cleaned of the blood she’d spilled. His gaze drifted down to her feet where he realized how high her heeled greaves were. He wondered what her real height was beneath that shiny shell.

“It’s a good idea, Your Majesty. Send the Gold Maiden,” Commander Zerralae had the nerve to say, and Xerxes could have slapped him.

Commander Adassah didn’t come into the tent. She remained outside, her silence making everything unclear, like whether or not she thought she was better suited to face Alecsander of B’rei Mira than Xerxes, or if her volunteering for this was to gain more power and influence in his army, or if she had other reasons to want to go. Or if she was even aware of the consequences that would follow if she was captured or killed before his men. If she even realized how much of a beacon of hope she’d become. Her offer made her seem a little clueless about it.

And she thought he had the intelligence of a brick.

Either way, she was the hope of Per-Siana now. He couldn’t afford to lose her.

And so, he said, “No.”

Commanders deflated across the tent. Shoulders dropped, sighs slipped out. These foolish men didn’t realize what they were doing asking Xerxes to send her.

The only way to save Per-Siana anymore was negotiating a deal, and even that would take a miracle. If Alecsander got offended by the sight of a representative, the only chance for Per-Siana’s survival would be lost.

“I’ll go,” he said, hugging his arms tighter until his leathers bunched at his chest. “This is my responsibility as King.” Rumbles of disagreement rippled in, crawling over his skin, crashing against his ears.

“When does Alecsander want to meet?” Reza asked the messenger. “How much time do we have to alert the council in Per-Siana and put together a negotiation package? Two months? Three?”

Xerxes’s mind drifted away. He thought about calling in scribes from the provinces to prepare his proposal for peace.

“Nine days.”

The messenger’s words were so quiet, Xerxes almost didn’t hear them. But his nails dug into the leather at his elbows. He suddenly lifted his hands with nine fingers up, and he stared at them. Just nine.

Curse the Celestial Divinities.

No king, council, or kingdom could muster a suitable negotiation in nine days. Not even the esteemed Intelligentsia were smart enough to agree upon a decent offer in that time.

Xerxes fled the tent, abandoning his cowardly commanders and brushing past the woman in gold standing by the entrance, taking in a sharp breath against the quickening in his chest that told him he was out of his mind for willingly going face-to-face with the ruthless War King who wanted nothing more than to see Xerxes a lifeless corpse in the sand.

Or worse, Alecsander might not outright kill him. When it came to kings, Alecsander often took trophies, not lives. But maybe the gods would finally be on Xerxes’s side for once. Maybe this meeting with the warlord would be the end of the wars, and everything could go back to normal in Per-Siana, and he could go home.

14

RYN

Xerxes swept by like sand slipping through her fingers. Ryn didn’t move a muscle, even when his shoulder brushed hers as he passed. Her inhale was too silent to reach him, the biting of her lips hidden by her mask. Her throat was frozen closed with a thousand unspoken things she never got to say that day he’d yelled at her in the palace prison. When he told her he never wanted to see her again.

Ryn’s hands clung to her thighs, hands that had no right to reach for the King of Per-Siana. As soon as his footsteps and medicinal fragrance vanished down a path, her hand jerked up, her palm slamming over her pulsing heart shielded by her breastplate.

Xerxes looked almost the same as he had in the palace. She’d expected his hair to be longer, his stubble to be more obvious, his body to be weak from lack of food. But his shoulders were wide, his stride strong but for a subtle limp, his black hair the same crazed mess—no crown. Apart from an unexplainable vivid ink stain marking the side of his neck, Xerxes had only two notable differences. The first was that his skin was a deeper shade than before. It suited him better than the pale flesh of someone hidden away in the palace basement, rarely seeing the sun. The second was his eyes; the sharp-edged dark blue pegged her to the ground in a paralyzed state when he’d first looked directly at her. His gaze was cruel almost, a hard tone that left a warning ringing in the air.

Ryn turned for the path that would take her to the wide community tent shared by all of Burn Division Twelve. The scents of medicinal creams faded as she left, her nose twitching as she considered what sort of injuries Xerxes had sustained that needed such potent healing creams. She thought he’d passed out from exhaustion on the battlefield, but maybe he was hurt.

A grunt slipped out. Served him right for the way he’d grabbed her leg and thrown her into the sand after she’d saved him. She’d been prepared to do everything she could to avoid speaking to him, glancing his way, or touching him once they crossed paths. But he’d touched her first.

When she’d arrived over the hill at the Helbite Cliffs to witness the state of Xerxes’s division—dead bodies in navy leathers, tents on fire, dozens screaming—she’d almost collapsed to her knees. Her heart had thundered as she’d scanned faces and builds of deceased soldiers, looking for one with black hair and hollow blue eyes in a robe of nobility with a white dragon coiling the sleeve, because for a moment, she forgot that Xerxes would be wearing armour instead of his kings’ coat.

He was in a disguise when she found him, tight armour clinging to his body and a scarf over his face, giving no indication he was the King of Per-Siana except that Ryn could recognize him anywhere, scarf or none.

She’d nearly dropped her sword when El had said, “He’s here.” She didn’t need to ask who El was taking about. She’d felt Xerxes standing behind her, felt the brush of his eyes along her back. When she turned and beheld him for the first time since he’d sentenced her to prison, she wasn’t ready for the subtle quirks of his face that felt too familiar. Or the way he stood tall like he hadn’t missed her or suffered a single second of regret for his decision. She wasn’t ready for his typical, easily-riled temper when she’d knocked him to the ground either.

A mere breath of a smile tugged at her mouth. It faded just as quickly as it arrived, replaced with a grimace, and she glanced down at her armoured feet, kicking dust with her toe. She wasn’t allowed to smile about the King. Nor was she allowed to be concerned for his wellbeing, which was why she never asked anyone for a report on him after he’d passed out and was carted away from the battle. She’d avoided Xerxes’s tent like it contained the cinder plague she’d been lucky enough to evade in prison.

Heva refused to wear her helmet on such a hot day, so Ryn had told her to stay in the tent and play mancala with Faro to avoid Xerxes and any former Folke soldiers who might recognize her. Heva was lucky no one from the divisions at Sindahir Valley had found her familiar after she’d paraded through them swinging around a meat kebab and singing off-key ballads with Faro on the walk.

Ryn shifted her ankle back and forth as she approached her division’s tent. Xerxes’s fingertips weren’t there anymore. She wasn’t sure why she could still feel him grabbing her like that, punishing her. Assuming she was disrespecting him like everybody else.