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“What’s your point, Your Majesty?” Damon’s words came out clipped. He nudged his plate away, a green grape rolling off. Across the table, Yelenos folded his arms, the deep sleeves of his coat spilling onto his lap.

“My point is they’re still going to attack! Their strategy was to get our armies out of the desert! They wanted us to relax and trust them so they could get past our greatest line of defence—they wanted to get past the Gold Maiden! But they’re going to come now that our guard is down, and they’re going to take Per-Siana!” Xerxes yelled, ripping off his robe as heat barrelled through his stomach. “Don’t you see?! Their whole tactic changed when the Gold Maiden arrived at the Last Stand battle. Now, they just want her out of the way!”

Only one person reacted; a noblewoman who quietly inhaled from her seat. But a councilman in a bright blue robe patted her on the shoulder as if to say she ought not worry. Xerxes stared, his lips parting as he waited for them to see it. Nobles all around the table exchanged subtle glances and went back to eating their breakfast. And it was at that exact moment Xerxes beheld the doubt around the room; the faces, the sideways looks, the failure to meet his gaze.

Xerxes’s jaw dropped and he slid a step back. He was King. He was…

A slow creeping smile sliced across Damon’s pale face at the head of the table. And only then did Xerxes realize that Damon was sitting in his seat. The seat that belonged to the King of Per-Siana. Xerxes’s back hit the door, the only sign he’d reeled through the room.

The Intelligentsia… they’d been hard at work while he was gone. And he could only blame his own behaviour for how easy it must have been to convince the council that Xerxes was crazy after how he’d barged into the palace when he realized the Mother City prison was empty, how he’d destroyed the painting of Nyx, how he’d nearly killed Damon that day. Now he perceived this group of the kingdom’s decision makers, the voters, the authorities who had the power to step in when their King was unwell and too unfit to make decisions for the people.

It was a trumpet of war going off inside Xerxes’s head. People looked at everything in the room except for him. Back to eating. Back to striking up whatever conversations they’d been having before he arrived. Whispering out the sides of their mouths so he couldn’t hear what they said.

But he’d been cured of his voices. He didn’t go on rampages through the gardens anymore, he didn’t lose control. He’d gained his mind back—they just couldn’t see it.

Divinities have mercy. B’rei Mira was coming and they thought he was rambling on about a conspiracy theory. Xerxes hated himself for not realizing when it was so obvious, when it was written right there in his favourite childhood strategy book. Alecsander’s move was child’s play. Xerxes had held him off for so long, had cost B’rei Mira months’ worth of resources, becoming an obnoxious pest. But when the Gold Maiden had shown up, Alecsander had been driven to cheat to break through her. Per-Siana was never going to be safe. And Xerxes had just tried to tell the only people in the kingdom with enough power to do anything about it.

Not one of them believed him.

25

GEOVANI

Dust floated through the streams of light, bathing the First Temple in warmth. Geovani watched the priestesses choose their books for their morning studies. She grimaced when Seeda wandered to the bench in the sanctuary and fell onto it. The priestess was out in seconds, snoring into the space with her raging nasal issues.

Geovani wandered over to a priest sitting in the corner of the room with his arms folded and a hard look on his face, watching everything, forming his own opinions inside that stubborn thing he called a head. She stopped at the window closest to him and fluffed the curtains a little, peeking at him when he wasn’t looking.

“There’s an old Adriel saying that when you read the scriptures every day, they find a home in your heart,” she said after a minute when he didn’t move or speak. The young priest looked like he was even refusing to breathe, and she sucked in the laugh that almost snorted out. Then she nudged a cart full of books toward him with her toe. “Wouldn’t hurt to read a few.”

Mordekai Cahana glanced over at the cart rolling his way. He stopped it with the heel of his boot. “I know the scriptures,” was all he said. Then he went back to being miserable and ridiculous. So, Geovani grabbed a book from the cart and smacked him over the head with it. The priest almost fell out of his chair.

“Ow!” he accused.

“Knowing them is different than applying them, Mordekai,” Geovani informed him. “It’s the second one you have trouble with.”

“My name is Kai,” he mumbled back as he rubbed his head. He glanced at the book in her hand and flinched when she extended it toward him.

“Everyone living under my roof studies the scriptures in the mornings. Start on chapter twenty-three. You’ll thank me later.” Then, after biting down on her lips over a smile, Geovani added, “It’s about controlling one’s attitude.”

Mordekai glanced at her in a way that might have been loathing—though, he didn’t loathe her. He was just stubborn; she could see that well enough.

Oh well. Geovani went back to fluffing the curtains.

Kristen ran into the First Temple waving a paper in her hand. “I have more news about Heva and Adassah,” she exclaimed.

Geovani watched Mordekai sit up a little straighter, his gaze falling on that paper in Kristen’s hand and moving across the room with it.

“That must mean they’re alive?” Geovani asked the question she assumed Mordekai was too proud to ask a mere priestess. Heaven forbid he seem interested in something going on in this temple.

“Yes, of course! The Intelligentsia invited the Gold Maiden to the palace!” Kristen stated, and Mordekai leapt from his chair.

“What?! Ryn is… coming to the palace?”

Geovani didn’t hide her snort-laugh this time.

But Kristen shook her head. “No. She refused the invitation,” she said, and Mordekai’s face changed. He sank back into his chair. Instead of handing the news slip to Geovani, Kristen handed it to Mordekai who took it slowly to see for himself.

“Hmm.” Geovani patted down the curtains now. Then, too quiet for anyone to hear, she mumbled, “This news doesn’t seem right. I thought Adassah would be the one you’d use to take this kingdom back. Am I wrong, El Tsebaoth? Are we really to never see Adassah Cahana again?” She stopped her fluffing and tapped a finger against her chin instead.