Page 56

Xerxes scrubbed the sand from his body. Moments of quiet passed over the oasis, and after a while, a smirk found his face. Bastone Issacs must have had no idea his precious Gold Maiden was Estheryn Electus. If he knew, the soldier wouldn’t have been so quick to hand over Reza’s report on her.

Xerxes spent the afternoon in the pool. Eventually, the sunset crawled over the desert, engulfing the camp in the sweet hues of lush red and crisp orange. He was a prune when he climbed out and sauntered back to his tent to sleep. He wasn’t sure why he found it easy to drift off this time, but his eyes slipped closed and his mind found the peaceful slumber it had craved for one hundred and thirty-eight days.

20

RYN

Two more days until Xerxes would stand in the presence of Alecsander of B’rei Mira. Ryn wondered if she should have volunteered to face Alecsander alone even with Xerxes returned, but she knew Xerxes wouldn’t go for that. At least with El’s spirit in her veins, Ryn might survive. She couldn’t say the same for Xerxes.

She’d whispered manic prayers to El all morning as she pulled on her armour, as she sat through breakfast without eating, as she headed into the desert to train with Burn Division Twelve again at General Reza’s request. She hadn’t seen Xerxes throughout the morning, but it was probably better the division train without him there.

It was better for her, anyway. Xerxes had a particular way of becoming an enormous distraction. All day yesterday he’d done things that had left Ryn in a state of panic.

“Do you think the King has figured out who you are, Ryn?” Heva had asked last night after everyone else fell asleep on their mats. “Or is he just teasing a random army commander to distract himself? It’s not like him to throw himself at a woman, but maybe being in the army has made him desperate. And there aren’t many women here to choose from, but of all of us, the Gold Maiden is by far the most interesting. Maybe he’s changed his mind about chasing women since the palace.”

They were the questions Ryn had been asking herself every hour of the day yesterday. She tried to tell Heva she was wrong on both counts, but with how Xerxes had left her heart a twisted mess with every glance, smirk, and question, she worried Heva was seeing things clearer than she was. How desperate was Xerxes for a distraction that he would throw himself at an army commander like this? Especially one he knew nothing about.

Now under the blinding morning sun with the wind singing in her ears, General Reza looked like he might faint as he tried to show Faro how to properly hold a sword. Faro swung the blade, and Ryn cringed at the miserable aim of it. Yusuf snorted a laugh from the back of the group until Heva smacked his arm.

Bastone hadn’t said a word or even looked in Ryn’s direction since last night. He was the only one in the group not smirking at Faro’s awkward swordsmanship.

“What’s wrong?” Ryn asked him below the General’s instructions. His eyes were glazed as he stared off at the buttery dunes nearby and she realized he hadn’t heard. “Bastone!”

Bastone’s gaze slid over to her. “Hmm?” he asked, brows raised. He bit his lip, the scar on his chin tugging.

Ryn made a face even though he couldn’t see it. “Have you been paying attention to anything the General has said since we started training?”

Bastone scowled. His gaze darted to her shoulder, and his expression changed. “Estheryn…” Her name was a snap of warning as an itch formed on the side of her neck. She reached to scratch it, but Bastone grabbed her hand out of the air, holding it still, his bright eyes round.

Ryn blinked as the tickle on her neck crisped to a crawling sensation. She inhaled a sharp breath, biting down on a shriek. Bastone raised his other hand as if he meant to swat at whatever it was, but he hesitated, staring instead with a frozen arm.

Fingers touched the side of Ryn’s neck and the crawling sensation vanished. Ryn whirled, coming face to face with Xerxes standing there. A striped yellow scorpion squirmed in his fingers. He stared at her with his mouth parted like he forgot where he was and didn’t realize what he was doing.

“Your Majesty!” Ryn shouted at the same time as General Reza. She reached to slap the scorpion from Xerxes’s hand, but the tail came down and a stinger plunged into his palm.

As if snapping out of a daze, Xerxes gasped and flung the scorpion to the sand where it raced away. Ryn was nudged aside by General Reza who held Xerxes’s palm up, his green cape sliding over and cutting off Ryn’s sight of Xerxes’s hand.

“I’m fine,” Xerxes stated. “It’s…” His dark lashes fluttered.

“Xerxes,” the General scolded. “When was the last time you ate something? You were just stung by a deathstalker! Being as weak as you are, it could kill…”

Reza barely had time to catch Xerxes as his legs collapsed beneath him. Faro and Bastone leapt forward to help, but Ryn didn’t move. She watched Reza shout for the physicians, shout for the antivenom, shout that the King was in trouble. Even when Bastone and Faro carried Xerxes back into the camp, Ryn stood still.

She stared at the empty desert plain where the wind began filling in the footprints left behind. All of Burn Division Twelve had gone back to camp. The morning was gone, making way for a greenish gray overcast afternoon. The cliffs appeared light purple in the shade, the trees a crisp emerald where bolts of sun broke through the clouds and speared the leaves.

She realized General Reza had stayed behind too when his voice cut through the silence. “He did it to save the hope, Commander Adassah,” he said. “The King is protective of the symbol of hope the Gold Maiden is to the men. Don’t feel guilty that he saved you; he just wanted to protect that hope.”

Hope. Xerxes thought she was a symbol of hope to the army?

Ryn shook her head, her bangs sweeping over her mask. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter why he did it—was Xerxes out of his mind? Ryn stormed across the plain and back into camp, sabatons clattering as shelters passed by in dark blue blurs. She entered the medicine tent and shouted for the physicians to leave, surprised when they immediately obeyed, dropping their jars and boxes of herbs and scurrying out. The second the flap slipped closed behind them, Ryn ripped off her mask and leaned over Xerxes on his bed with his eyes closed, his shirt ripped open from whatever medical procedures the physicians had performed. The purple ink stain shone over his left shoulder, inching across his throat and down his chest now—much larger than Ryn realized.

“You’re crazy, Xerxes!” she snapped at him. “Why would you do that?” The scent of heavy tonics lifted from the bed. White cloth wrapped Xerxes’s hand over the sting.

Ryn grabbed the cot frame above his head. “I’m angry,” she whispered through her teeth. Hot tears burned in her eyes. “I’m so angry at you, Xerxes. For so many reasons. But I’m the most angry at you for doing this.” One wretched tear escaped, a tear that belonged back in a conversation from months ago. At first, she’d wanted him to regret abandoning her, she’d wanted a chance to explain. But now, she wanted him to see that only a foolish, mad king would do something as stupid as taking a scorpion sting from someone else just to protect a bit of hope.

Xerxes’s eyes peeled open. They settled on her. She stared back at those dark-lashed eyes she’d once considered friendly. The eyes of the boy who’d been trapped on an island, who wouldn’t speak up for her when it counted, but who now sacrificed himself for an insignificant commander over a morsel of hope. Xerxes didn’t look surprised when he took in her face. He didn’t gasp or curse or do anything, he just whispered, “I knew it.”

Ryn moved to stand, to flee the army with her whole division now that her secret was broken open between them, but Xerxes’s bandaged hand came around her wrist. When she tried to pull away, he tugged her right back and her ponytail slipped over her shoulder, brushing the purple marks on his chest. “Stop running. It hurts to hold you here.” He nodded to his bandaged palm.