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“Xerxes!” she screamed, grabbing his face, tugging at his coat. Her gaze flew around the oasis, but no one was in sight to help. “Xerxes!” she cried again, shouting his name at the heavens and shaking his shoulders. “Xerxes, wake up!” The heat of tears burned behind her mask.
Xerxes’s eyes peeled open, and Ryn stopped—a hand flat against his chest, the other gripping a fistful of his collar. He stared, stricken, like an apparition had appeared before him, like a soldier facing his worst fears. Then, a flicker of wild crossed his eyes, and Ryn inhaled.
She didn’t know how long he’d been listening, if he’d only been pretending to sleep and had heard her scream his name. She hadn’t actually seen him hit his head on a rock when he fell.
“Your… Majest—”
“Don’t you know you can be killed for touching a king like this, Maiden?” he said, his tone level. Too calm.
Ryn glanced down at her hands on his chest. She pulled them off, the icy desert air sweeping against her palms. She realized she was still leaning over him and crushing one of his arms when his gaze flickered down to it. She adjusted her legs to rise but stalled when he spoke.
“Wait.” A drip raced down his cheek over the violet marks. There were more marks now than before he’d left the camp—they’d branched out and turned to symbols at the ends. “Have breakfast with me tomorrow.”
Ryn dragged her gaze up to where his eyelashes were heavy with beads of pool water. He stared through wet hair stuck to his forehead, his lips purpling in the cold. “I don’t care when you wake. Come as soon as you’re up. That’s an order,” he said.
Ryn’s hair slid off her shoulder, draping beside them and shielding him from the moon. He glanced over at it.
“Fine.” It came out soft, not with the cold, emotionless tone she’d hope for.
Xerxes lifted a strand of her hair, bringing it before his face and rubbing it between his fingers. After a moment, a slow, strange smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He suddenly released a laugh, and Ryn’s mouth parted at that stomach-tightening sound she hadn’t heard in so long. He dropped her hair and sat up, forcing her to scramble back and sit on her legs.
Xerxes rested his elbows on his knees. He watched a shiver race down her body with a sweep of bitter wind. He studied her mask, or her eyes, maybe. Then he said, “I’ll see you in the morning, Commander.”
“F… fine,” she forced herself to say.
“Don’t sleep in.”
“Fine.”
The mere shadow of a smile returned to his mouth. Xerxes shook his head and climbed to his feet. With that, he turned and headed for the path, his royal coat dripping into the grass with each stride. Ryn hardly noticed when he disappeared into the night, when his pattering footsteps faded out.
Her arms came around herself, a fresh shiver driving up her body, cold biting at her neck. But she couldn’t will herself to move from where she sat in the grass.
She’d panicked. Every force within her had screamed Xerxes’s name when she thought he was bleeding out.
Curse her wretched, weak Adriel heart. She thought she hated Xerxes.
“El…” she whispered against the wind. Her hand fell against her heart where the organ slammed inside her chest, drawing her back to that boy on the island she knew. Breeze cascaded over the oasis, ruffling the grasses and drying her damp hair. “Tell me how to leave before this feeling gets worse.”
It was the weak cry of a weak person. El should have chosen someone else for this life, for this assignment—whatever it was. Ryn was unfit to lead a division. To be used by El. She couldn’t even keep it together in the presence of the King.
19
XERXES
One hundred and thirty-eight…?
At least, that was what Xerxes had thought. He didn’t know the number anymore.
The feasting tent had never been so quiet. Reza had complained at first when Xerxes demanded everyone leave apart from the cooks, but in the end, one hard stare from their King made all the soldiers obey. Now morning light spilled across fourteen empty dining tables and the cooks waiting patiently at the far end out of earshot, keeping their gazes on the ground.
Xerxes dragged a finger around the rim of his wineglass as he watched Ryn march in. Her glistening heeled-sabatons made her half a foot taller than she was. In her armour, she carried herself more aggressively than when she’d been helplessly screaming his name by the pool last night.
He could hardly believe he hadn’t realized before how much of her illusion was coming from her armour. She was tiny beneath it all, as tiny as a scheming maiden who scaled down palace walls and tried to escape through gardens and baked salty pies. Her every movement made his shadow of a heart do things it shouldn’t. She was his enemy—that hadn’t changed. But she was the maiden he wanted. And for the first time since last night when he’d discovered who she was, he realized he’d sealed her fate along with his. Had he known days ago at the strategy meeting that Commander Adassah was Ryn, he never would have suggested that Burn Division Twelve accompany him to meet Alecsander of B’rei Mira.
But that was a problem to deal with later. First, he needed her to confess who she was.
A slow smile spread across his face. It was so obvious it was Ryn. He wasn’t sure how he didn’t see it right away when she’d kicked sand on him during the Final Stand battle, nor did he have a clue how he was going to keep this discovery to himself. But he would spend the remaining three days of his life trying everything he could think of to force her to admit it—and she would admit who she was, if it was the last thing he ever accomplished as King of Per-Siana.
