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It took a few seconds before she heard a reply.

“You’ll see Adassah again.”

Geovani grinned. A second later, she spun to the others. “I have a council meeting shortly. I’ll return with cookies if I can steal some from the palace kitchens.”

Geovani was surprised to see King Xerxes at the meeting. She meant to pay attention to the arrogant ministers of the kingdom during the presentations, but she found herself watching a lonely young king instead. His crown hung slightly off tilt, his handsome blue gaze was somewhere else, his robe of nobility hung open. He sat in the chair only in body, not in mind.

Whatever the discussion was at the meeting, Geovani hadn’t bothered to be a part of it.

It had been many years since she’d dared to approach the King. In the past, she might have been scolded for it, threatened, or even had the First Temple raided for such a thing if she was caught. But this situation felt special.

She smoothed down her dark green ministry dress as she rounded the corner of the hallway in the direction she’d seen the King run off to after the meeting. She found him standing by a great window looking out at the kingdom he was meant to rule. She walked up beside him quietly, as to not frighten him. She knew his tormenters had left him, but he was still a creature with a temper, after all. And he was distracted. Two things to be wary of.

Geovani folded her arms. “It’s a sad day when a king attends his own council meeting and won’t utter a single word.”

King Xerxes glanced over at her. When he saw her there, a soft cringe stole his body. It was the same reaction everyone had to the High Priestess of the Adriels; the stain upon the palace’s perfect Weylin image.

“Leave me, Priestess. I’m not in the mood to chat.” Even when speaking quietly, King Xerxes’s voice was low for his age. Geovani had noticed it long ago, but it showed even more now. Or maybe it was just that he was getting older.

She sighed. “Open your eyes, Your Majesty. If you have something to tell the kingdom, you’re the one person in all of Per-Siana who should have the power to do it.”

The King’s gaze slowly drifted back to her at that. His mouth tipped down at the corners, his dark brows coming together. The look remained skeptical, but there was something else to it. Perhaps a glint of curiosity. “Why does everyone keep telling me that?”

“Telling you what?”

“To open my… Never mind.” He shook his head and went back to ignoring her. He pulled off his crown, folded his arms, and gazed at the nothingness outside.

Geovani smiled and looked out the crystal-clean window too. “If you have a message you want to get out to the kingdom, I’m someone who has practice doing that.” Not that she was admitting anything. But if he asked, she was tempted to confess her hand in all the publicity the Gold Maiden was getting in the city. Hope was on Adassah’s side, after all. And Per-Siana was starving for it. “Praise El,” she whispered to herself.

Maybe not quietly enough. She realized the King was watching her again. He stole a glance down the hall, then looked back at her. His hand slid into the pocket of his kingly silk coat, and he pulled out a tightly folded letter.

“Can you get this to General Reza at the border?” he asked. “In secret? It’ll be intercepted by the Intelligentsia if anyone finds out.” His thumb fidgeted over the juts in his crown.

King Xerxes’s throat bobbed as Geovani reached over and took the letter carefully then slid it away into the folds of her ministry dress. “I can, Your Majesty.” She gave him a shallow bow. Then she stepped away, squinting her eyes as she looked him up and down. There weren’t any unseen signs on him, nothing apart from that wildly bright mark on his face. But Geovani had realized everyone could see that once she heard people in the palace whispering about it.

Still though, until this King acknowledged El’s whispers, he’d be fighting mostly alone. What was it with young men—priests or kings—always being so stubborn?

“It might be time to open your eyes and see things clearly, Your Majesty.” She pursed her lips, then added, “And for the record… they all say I’m crazy too. That’s how they silence people, you know. They make them out to be crazy so no one will listen even when they speak the truth.”

The look on the King’s face was priceless. For all his years of ignoring the High Priestess, she now had his full attention.

She smiled as she left him there, her skirts swishing around as she moved as well as an old woman could through the palace, out the front entrance, through the gate, and down the road toward the First Temple, the King’s note sealed safely in her pocket.

26

RYN

The new camp rested at the foot of the border mountains where wildlife often wandered out from the forest. It was pleasant to find and gather firewood and vegetables from the lush trees, green plants, and berry bushes easily spotted in every direction; a kinder environment than the desert for those reasons, plus a few others. No one was trying to take Ryn’s mask off anymore.

A certain quietness hummed over the mountains. Birds whistled soft tunes in the distance, a nearby stream trickled, the breeze ruffled the treetops.

Thus far, the camp had been in good spirits. Food was delivered from the kingdom on carted wagons often, and the collection of soldiers who’d stayed in the army as border guards under General Reza got three full meals a day. Only a few members of Burn Division Twelve had left to go find their loved ones. Everyone else had stayed behind with Ryn and Heva—even Dolem.

Ryn heard animals howling in the mountains the first night. She’d sat up on her cot and listened for a while. When she emerged from her tent with a bow and arrow to check if the small beasts were inching toward the food supplies, she noticed a black cloud swirling over the desert dunes far in the distance.

The second night was the same. Ryn left a sleeping Heva and wandered to the edge of the encampment where dry stalks of grass met sand. She squinted at the coiling smoke in the heavens, almost too far away to see except that tonight it looked closer than the night before.

The third evening swept in with a chill. Ryn sat on a boardwalk at the edge of camp, staring out at the desert and chewing on a long stalk of grass as she waited for the cloud to show up. It occurred to her she hadn’t spent time in the presence of El in several days. Everything had been busy with moving to the new camp and setting up. And maybe she thought she was good now that the war was over. Though, that wasn’t any reason to stop meeting with the God Original. She plucked handfuls of grass from the ground and tossed them into the wind. Then she picked up her mask resting beside her and studied the slender holes, the piercing feathers, the tiny dents she’d accumulated over time.