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No, Xerxes didn’t miss his tree. And maybe he felt less of a monster now than when he was at the palace scarfing down pears. But he missed the excuse to go on rampages, to be a wild menace and tear through the gardens. He missed the power to destroy.

“Did you think the gods were done with you, Xerxes, son of Draco?”

Xerxes sprang up in bed, chest heaving, temples damp. The nightmare melted away, and he glanced down at his nightshirt, realizing he’d torn a button right off. The whole thing hung open now. He laid back again, placing a hand over his rising chest, tapping lightly against the cut there to assure himself he was no longer dreaming.

He laid awake until the new day began.

One hundred thirty-three.

In eight days, Xerxes would meet Alecsander of B’rei Mira.

Xerxes stood at the head of the strategy tent where the smells of cold tea mixed with twitchy nerves, glancing from one commander to the next standing at attention. He wasn’t sure what they were waiting for. A speech from their King, maybe. A miracle.

He’d gone over what he might say to Alecsander a hundred times. The deals he might propose. Arguments as to why peace was better for everyone. And then he’d gone over the reality of it; that the War King had always taken what he wanted, and no one had ever been able to stop him.

Xerxes’s fingers grazed his jaw where the ink stain peeked from the collar of the breastplate he decided to wear today. When he’d looked in a physician’s mirror earlier, he’d noticed the ends of the violet marking were veining into small runes he couldn’t identify. The stain was larger today than it had been yesterday too, branching down his neck and up toward his ear.

He folded his arms instead. The fruit and roasted desert bird he’d had for breakfast sat heavy in his stomach. He scanned the side tables for wine, wondering if it would be strange to get it himself instead of waiting for someone to bring it to him.

Bodies in beige outfits with miscellaneous pieces of rusted armour walked past the wide tent opening. Their shoulder plates hung lower than where they ought to be, their breastplates were dented and lopsided, and neither were the customary colours of Per-Siana uniform. A maiden in gold followed at the end of the line. She looked Xerxes’s way. At least, he thought she did, but with her mask on it was impossible to know where in the entire vast desert she was looking. Instead of following her horridly dressed division, she slipped into the strategy tent and took a discreet spot at the back.

Xerxes bristled and flicked his cape off his arm, unsure if he was grateful or annoyed she’d finally decided to show up to a commanders’ meeting.

Another female-shaped burn division member in a metal helmet stepped in behind her even though this tent was not for just anyone to enter. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Bastone Issacs followed—a foot soldier with almost no rank or status. He wasn’t even wearing war leathers, just a loose beige tunic that made him look like one of the criminals he oversaw. They kept quiet at the back, and Xerxes stifled an eye roll as he turned toward the desk behind him and picked up a lead pen. In seconds, the strategy space had transformed into a circus tent. He might as well ask the lizards in the sand outside if they wanted to join too.

“There you are. You were gone when I woke up.” Reza’s voice spoiled the quiet atmosphere of the anxious meeting. “Why do you never use your scribing desk?” he asked Xerxes like there weren’t a hundred eyes watching everything the King did and said in this moment. Reza came around and knocked a knuckle off the exquisitely carved desk. “The army hauls this huge chair around to every new camp too, and you never even sit in it.” Reza nodded down to the plush, horrid thing that had always reminded Xerxes of a throne.

Xerxes blinked out at the rising sun outside, craving another dip in the pool as heat settled over the tent village.

He scowled. “How am I supposed to know what she’s thinking?” he asked Reza with a mutter. Reza’s nose scrunched. The General took a gander at the commanders clustered together in the hot tent, then he glanced back at Xerxes. “How outrageous is it for a king to be expected to deal with a commander who won’t even allow me to see her facial expressions?” He tsked and huffed in the same breath. “She could be killed for insubordination.”

Reza scratched the back of his head. He sat on the edge of the desk beside Xerxes even though Xerxes didn’t give him permission, his green cape pinching beneath him.

“Maybe it’s not so offensive to wear a mask in the seventy-fifth province,” he offered. It seemed he’d figured out who Xerxes was talking about.

Xerxes bristled. “Stop defending her.”

Reza shrugged. “If you’d ever found the time to leave the palace and visit the seventy-fifth province, Your Majesty, maybe you would understand the people from there better.”

Xerxes rolled his eyes after all. “If you’d been at the palace for the last ten years, General, you would have understood why I couldn’t leave.” With that, Xerxes faced the commanders. They stood a little taller, some clearing their throats, many clasping their white-knuckled hands in front of them.

All looking at their King who may die in just eight days.

Who would either save Per-Siana or send it to ruin.

“Soon, I’ll meet with the man who started this war,” Xerxes said to them. “I’ll need to be accompanied by an army division. This is customary of any meeting between kings.” His lip curled when he added, “And Division One no longer has the numbers to offer. So, I’ll need another one to come.”

On cue, Reza stood, his green cape filling the corner of Xerxes’s vision. “The King shall choose the best division to take. Be ready to comply,” he ordered the room.

It was as if the god of death swept through the tent after that.

Commanders shuffled their feet as they exchanged frowns and glossy-eyed glances. Commander Yem’s bottom lip even quivered. Quiet whispers sailed around with words such as, “Vafat… death sentence… What if…” Reza released a grunt at Xerxes’s side.

Xerxes leaned back against his desk and tapped a finger where he gripped the edge. The lead pen in his fingers snapped in half, both pieces falling into the sand as he studied the wrinkles of fear that had been crippling his army since the beginning. No one wanted to face the Vafat magic. No one wanted to stand across from Alecsander. No one wanted to try. These were the survivors of the war who’d maybe witnessed too much evil to see a way out. There was a small part of him that didn’t blame them for their hesitation. There was a larger part of him that did.

His gaze landed on the three soldiers at the back: quiet, hardly moving, not daring to draw attention to themselves. Knowing their place among the esteemed Per-Siana army commanders. His eyes locked on the maiden in the middle outfitted in gold, not a single trait visible for him to see. There was no hint if her face contained the same fear-stricken expression as the other commanders. No clue if her skin was smooth or soft, if she had a mole, what size her nose was. Just her dark, cascading hair twisted into a braid that spilled down her breastplate.

He wasn’t sure what it was about the Gold Maiden that bothered him so much. Why she made him want to chase her down, why he was so desperate to see her real face, why her very presence brought something alive in him he didn’t like and couldn’t find the words to explain. But it didn’t matter. Of all those in this tent, only she’d been willing to try against the giant in Sindahir Valley.