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He didn’t know what future they chose for him. His thoughts were all locked on one impending doom: a War King coming to seek, kill, and destroy.

He snapped out of his daze when Damon’s icy, smooth voice lifted through the room, saying, “… to appease the people who consider the Gold Maiden a hero. Our invitation to the Gold Maiden to participate in the Heartstealer trials was rejected as well.” A few heads nodded around the room, and Xerxes’s fingers curled over the armrests of his chair. “She refused both our invitations to visit the palace, so we shall proceed as planned and inform the people that it was her who rejected the trials after we kindly sent inquiries to ease their begging.” A few councilmen murmured. “It’s important the people understand that she has rejected their pleas, not us.”

Xerxes grunted. Until this moment, he had no idea the Intelligentsia had attempted such an idiotic thing as inviting a revered army commander to the Heartstealer trials. How humiliating. The Intelligentsia couldn’t even keep their greedy little fingers off his army. And of course Ryn had refused again. It seemed the Intelligentsia would use that to try and turn the people against the Gold Maiden now. Typical.

Damon went on, “We only sent that burn division commander an invitation in the first place because some Weylins got sucked into the theatrics of the war and are rooting for her, muttering some Adriel god’s name in the streets—”

Xerxes leapt from his chair, and Damon’s words came to a halt. “Theatrics?!” He couldn’t believe his ears. “You think the war was just theatrics?!”

Damon ignored—ignored Xerxes’s comment and carried on, turning his attention back to the council. “Our King is lucky she isn’t coming. Since her tainted blood forbids her from being Queen, he’d have to choose a different wife, and the people would hate him for it.”

Xerxes’s jaw dropped. He huffed in disbelief and fell back into his chair, gripping his fingers together until they turned white as he watched Damon’s careful movements, the sage’s words so calm sounding that no matter what Xerxes said or did, he would look like the crazy one in comparison. It was like watching a dark haired, younger version of Belorme. The same tactics. The same collected words. The same manipulation. Xerxes glanced off to the side, dropping his cheek into his fist again, disgusted at the sight of everyone in the room. His gaze landed on a quiet High Priestess in a long emerald green dress sitting in her customary council seat at the back where most couldn’t see her. Xerxes wondered if his letter ever made it to the border.

“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.”

Xerxes dropped his arm to his armrest and eyed the old woman just as she glanced over in his direction. She smiled, slow and bizarre-like, and his mouth twisted to the side.

Truly, she did look crazy. But maybe that was only because that’s how he’d always been told to see her.

Xerxes tapped a finger against the shiny wood. What exactly was it about this old woman that the Intelligentsia found so threatening that they had to turn the entire council against her by making her look out of her mind? She served the Adriel God—a god the Weylins had no interest in—so it wasn’t like many would listen to her to begin with. But to be entirely silenced like that…

His eyes travelled across the council as Damon informed them that Caliope Ingrid was not returning to the pool of maidens as an option because, through careful calculation, the Intelligentsia decided that involving the former maidens would only make the numbers large and the options “more confusing” for the King.

More confusing. Xerxes could hardly bear to sit and listen any longer.

There was nothing he wanted more than to race from this room and by the grace of the Divinities find himself back in the sand. But, as much as it destroyed him to sit, to listen, he just heard Reza’s words in the desert over and over again.

The kingdom needed an heir.

Illness pooled in at the thought of bringing a child into this war. He rubbed his eyes, the left one blurry and terribly itchy. If there was any chance Alecsander was coming to take Per-Siana, having an heir mattered more than ever. But even if Xerxes managed to endure these trials and had time to take a wife and have a son, he’d have to hide his child somewhere Alecsander would never think to look. Because these fools on his council might not believe Per-Siana was still in danger, but Xerxes had never been more certain of anything.

Xerxes didn’t leave his room for two days. He didn’t come out to eat. He didn’t bathe. He didn’t light a candle at night even though he hardly slept. He didn’t even attend the Moon Prosperity Parade outside the palace; the Folke had carried an empty palanquin with drawn drapes and pretended he was inside. Instead, he stared at the mountains in the distance through his dust-covered window, cloaked in the darkness he’d lived in for over ten years.

Eventually, palace servants came in with a heaping tray of bread and jams and half-dragged him to the pools. They tried to scrub him, and he shoved them away to do it himself. They waved bits of torn bread in front of his lips, and he growled at them, finally stuffing half the crisp bread into his mouth all at once. He nudged them away when they reached to comb his hair. Shave his face. Rub him with balms, sprinkle him with rich powders, clothe him. Place a crown on his head.

The large celebration the council threw for the resurrection of the Heartstealer trials lit up the entire palace from end to end, the gardens outside, and the streets. The city turned into a revelry beneath the stars, music playing late into the night and spilling over into morning. Diamond-studded chiffons were hung from the balconies, fresh flowers were arranged in bright bouquets, and hired dancers spun through the Hall of Stars.

Xerxes remained quiet through it. From his seat upon the glass dais, he stared out the doors into the empty courtyard where the pink sunset was turning to purplish blue. Soon the goddess Nyx would spit out the moon.

Only the most esteemed nobles were present in his Hall of Stars beneath the watchful gazes of the Celestial Divinity statues arching the room. They laughed and chatted and clinked glasses, ignoring the fact that they could only eat and drink freely because of all Xerxes and the army had suffered through. These smiling people hadn’t a clue of the blood their King had seen, of the sleepless nights and hungry bellies of the soldiers who crossed half the desert for them.

It was the next dreadful morning that the new maidens arrived. Xerxes didn’t join the council down in the atrium to welcome them. He thought about hiding in the men’s bath chambers, but eventually he wandered up to the lobby balcony, shadowed by the new great white dragon statue hanging from the ceiling. He watched a few beautiful young women with dumb looking faces come in, blushing, giggling, timid, and nauseatingly polite with their quiet, almost whispery speech. A dozen council members flocked them, offering praises, practically kissing the atrium floor at their feet. Xerxes cringed and glanced off, placing a hand over his abdomen where his stomach turned, and for a split second, he debated rushing to find a quiet place to wretch.

A roar lifted from the streets outside. Xerxes’s eyes travelled back to that treacherous front door where another dumb looking maiden was looking around in surprise like everyone else, wondering what the ruckus was about, why there was cheering past the palace walls. She scooted out of the way a second later, making way for a fourth, and what Xerxes desperately hoped was the last, maiden to come through. A beam of sunlight reflected off a gold metal plate in the newcomer’s outfit, mostly eclipsed by the archway.

Xerxes’s hands froze on the balcony rail when the maiden marching up the palace steps appeared in the archway, her heeled sabatons attached to armour greaves clamouring toward the lobby. There was no timid bowing, or giggling, or politeness; just a cold, fearsome gold mask on her face, causing flutters to break out in Xerxes’s chest. Two soldiers in navy army leathers flanked her, wearing silver near-replicas of her mask.

The Gold Maiden halted in the entrance at the blue tiled line that separated the outside of the palace from the inside, just before the open doors, turning every eye toward her emerald and gold dress beneath gilded feather-shaped pauldrons and a very familiar green cape fluttering at her back. Xerxes tore away from the rail, leapt across the balcony, and raced down the stairs into the atrium. He pushed people out of the way, startling guests as he marched across the tiled floor.

The Gold Maiden studied that blue tiled line through the slits in her gold mask, the gilded toes of her boots staying just behind it. Her gaze rose to his when he appeared before her. Xerxes looked back and forth between her brown eyes.

Whispers and questions sailed through the atrium from guests, councilmen, and Folke. Xerxes glanced at the two guards in war leathers wearing silver masks. Army soldiers. His men.

Ryn studied the atrium. Seeing the inside of the palace that most citizens would never lay eyes upon in their lifetimes. Making everyone believe this was the first time she ever saw it, when it wasn’t.

She looked back at him.

He looked at her.