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“I’m going to stay,” she stated. “The rest of you can do what you want. I have nothing to go back to in Per-Siana.” She didn’t even know if Kai was alive. She had no house, no allies, no Priesthood. She had only Geovani and the priestesses, and living with them would bring them trouble. “But I need to find information on my cousin.”

Faro nodded. He dropped his ribbon and folded his hands. “I’d like to find out about my neighbours as well. But then I’ll fight by your side until I reach old age, Adassah. Or until I take my final breath defending the border of Per-Siana. I have no interest in returning to the kingdom.”

A weak smile formed on Ryn’s mouth.

Heva tugged her fingers through her hair. “I’m ready to stay here too, Ryn, if this is what you want,” she said. “The army needs recruits anyway. And most of our division don’t have homes to go back to.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and reached back for her helmet in the sand. “We can discuss it later though. We should go spar one last time before the General officially announces the war is over. Let’s go now and maybe we’ll have time for a bucket bath before lunch is served.”

Almost the entire division was present. Ryn glanced around, taking in the prisoners one by one. Not a single one of them had raised an objection to staying in the desert, and a small smile creased her mouth as she realized it was a strange sort of family to have found.

23

XERXES

The storage tent was a mess of things leaning against each other or stacked into high towers: spears, shields, half empty barrels of wine, wood crates, dishes. Xerxes didn’t realize just how many unnecessary things had been getting hauled around from place to place every time they moved camp. But he found a mirror in one of the piles—an old, tragically dull oval framed in embellished metal. He could hardly believe what he saw after he set it on a stack of crates and stared at himself in it.

The war was over, like he wanted. So where was his Divinities-forsaken smile?

His forefinger traced over the ink tainting his cheek, creeping back into his hair, spearing into the side of his eye. When he leaned in toward the mirror, he could see the right half of his iris was as bright a purple as the rest of the marking. Even his eyes were changing colour, as if his very existence was being wiped away by this stain.

He’d expected to find the marking dissolved after the deal with Alecsander had been made. He never expected to find it still growing, new symbols forming over his throat. He folded his arms, snarling at the monster in the mirror. The monster who, despite B’rei Mira’s wrath and conquests, had found peace for Per-Siana at last.

Strange, how he couldn’t find a reason to smile after all that.

Xerxes poked the mirror, tipping it off the crate where it fell into a pile of weapons and smashed into a dozen pieces. In the scattered shards at his feet, he saw various versions of himself. He saw a pretty king. He saw a lonely king. He saw a king who had an apology to make.

“Ugh,” he growled. He hated apologies. He despised them almost as much as he despised the thought of having to go back to the palace and argue with the Intelligentsia about taking a wife—which they would certainly expect him to do now that he’d lived. The rumours had already run rampant through the army of the Intelligentsia’s official announcement about interviewing eligible maidens across Per-Siana to be Heartstealers. The heralds had been sent out, the papers had been written, the temple heads had been notified. Xerxes had torn up the report when it arrived at the strategy tent, but at least two dozen soldiers had already heard the messenger sputtering on about it as he delivered the scroll. Xerxes couldn’t deny it anymore even if he wanted to.

It was a terrible day to be a young, single king.

He scuffed his hair, finding a small scrap of consolation that at least soon he could bathe in the warm palace pools and forget the feeling of sand on his scalp and in his clothes. He’d never have to dump it from his boots at night again either.

A sigh escaped, filling the quiet storage tent. He patted dust off his sleeves as he left, twisting the signet ring on his finger that he’d finally found in his royal robe pocket, and resolving to do the thing he didn’t want to but knew he had to: apologize to Commander Adassah for his behaviour toward her these last days. In truth, he felt a king shouldn’t have to apologize for anything. This was half her fault anyway—if she’d just taken off her mask like he’d asked, he wouldn’t have been mistaken about her identity and dumped water on her to try and get her to de-mask. He wasn’t even sure what he was apologizing for. It was stifling hot out the day he’d emptied a jar of water over her head. It was an act of kindness, if one chose to see it that way.

But the General insisted he apologize. And the General was right more of the time than Xerxes would admit. If he knew for sure Adassah was Ryn, Xerxes wouldn’t dare apologize, but the problem was that she maybe wasn’t Ryn. And now that Alecsander was gone and Xerxes’s mind was less distracted, he realized The Gold Maiden had the attention of Per-Siana and great influence in the kingdom, and how important it was to stay on her good side. He had enough enemies back in Per-Siana to deal with; he couldn’t handle an Adriel uprising on top of it all if Commander Adassah decided to vindicate her people and turn against him.

Xerxes chewed on the inside of his cheek as he passed the lookout rocks. Burn Division Twelve’s tent was the most modest dwelling in the entire camp; beige, like the criminal garments they all wore, and nestled at the foot of a cliff. One of the prisoners had laid a palm leaf down at the entrance like a rug—Xerxes barely suppressed an eye roll. Were they planning to make this scrap of fabric their lifelong home?

Xerxes paused outside, hugging his arms to himself. Faint chatter trickled out through the inch-wide slit. He didn’t hear Commander Adassah among them, though he couldn’t exactly pinpoint her voice anymore. He’d erased it from his mind when he discovered she might not be who he thought.

The maiden had no idea what she was going to see once she returned to Per-Siana. He thought of the tall banners and the paintings in the streets, and he huffed. It must have been nice to be so liked. Those bold Mother City artists didn’t know that their shiny war hero might be hideous beneath that mask, and he wondered if everyone would praise her so much if she ended up being covered in scars or as naturally ugly as a goat. Even if she did fight like the gods, not everyone could handle the whole kingdom seeing them as a beast.

Xerxes’s hand drifted to the bright stain on his cheek as he thought about that. Scents of cooking meat and roasted vegetables drifted over the oasis from the feasting tent, making men come crawling out of their quarters, sniffing, and his own stomach growled.

The flap of the burn division tent ruffled, and Xerxes snapped out of his daze. He stepped aside for a small, frail-looking woman with long hair. The woman ducked into an odd bow when she noticed him, then she scurried down the path. Xerxes made a face as he watched her go. He supposed he only had himself to blame for everyone being so afraid of him.

He huffed again and swatted the tent flap aside. He stepped into Burn Division Twelve’s tent, fighting the impulse to plug his nose at the stale, sweaty smell. A few people in stained clothing went quiet when they saw him, one even stood and saluted. But Xerxes didn’t see a gold-masked maiden anywhere among them. So, he turned and left.

Whatever. He tried. Apologies weren’t really for kings anyway.

A high-pitched grunt lifted past the cliff behind Burn Division Twelve’s tent, and Xerxes slowed his walk and looked back. The cliff was pale and speckled with salt-like crystals that darkened at the base around an opening he hadn’t noticed before. He could vaguely see yellow sand beyond.

He turned that way, following the sounds of clashing metal and female laughter past the tent and through the jagged, arched tunnel in the cliff. A stone rattled in his boot, lodging itself beneath his heel, and he sighed, pausing to kick his boot off when he reached the opening.

Xerxes spotted her out there in her gold mask. Commander Adassah raised her blade against another female burn division soldier in a helmet, out of view of the whole camp. Xerxes glanced around at the conveniently private training area as he pulled his boot back on. The cliff provided shade, a coveted relief from the heat. If only he’d known about this place back when…

Commander Adassah pulled off her mask and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. Her lips were spread into a smile, her unkempt hair sticking to her cheeks in damp strands over a light splash of freckles and a tiny nose. She chuckled and made a comment to the woman with her that Xerxes couldn’t hear past the slow rise of thudding in his own heart. She returned her mask to her face and carried on, undeniably unaware of the person standing in the cliff opening, watching.

Xerxes was as motionless as the stone cliff beside him.