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Xerxes took her hand and pulled her across the threshold into the palace.
28
RYN
A king held her hand.
Xerxes had pulled hard enough to bring her against him, his royal coat flush with her deep green dress. Ryn peered over his shoulder at the Weylin nobles around the room. The warmth of his cheek beside hers tingled over her skin along with the sugary fragrance of his palace soaps meeting her nose. His Weylin fingers clutched her Adriel ones in front of all these noble guests. There was a time when such a thing would have sent her nerves spiralling, would have made her cower before these lords and ladies. But now she felt nothing beneath their stares. She looked back at them through her mask.
Statues decorated the lobby that hadn’t been in the palace before, and some gaudy artwork was new. But the looks in people’s eyes were the same—the startled, jaw-dropped spectators here for a show along with the alarmed, pointed stares of the Intelligentsia sages. Ryn’s gaze snagged on Damon and got stuck there.
His cold lips were turned into a deep frown.
Xerxes tilted his mouth to her ear, and snoopy eyes around the room widened a fraction more. He whispered, loud enough for Heva and Bastone behind her to hear, “Don’t trust anyone here. They will try to bribe you. They will try to scare you. They will offer you anything and everything to turn you against me.”
Ryn released a quiet grunt. “I know.”
A tight breath escaped Xerxes, deflating his chest. He inhaled once more, then released her hand and turned to everyone else. “Move,” was all he said in a low, cutting tone.
Nobles scrambled out of the way, including the maidens in long sparkling navy gowns who’d entered the palace before Ryn.
Ryn only walked in a few steps before pausing in front of Damon. She slid the official navy and silver Heartstealers invitation from her dress pocket, speckled with desert sand, and she handed it to him.
Damon took the card slowly between his thumb and forefinger like it was diseased, his black eyes flickering over it.
“Thank you for the invitation,” Ryn said. “I’d like to inform you that I intend to try my hardest in the trials.”
Damon’s gaze shot up, his dark lips thinning as he produced a pathetically forced smile. She cringed, glad her mask hid her disgust.
Xerxes was leaning against the hall arch when she turned around. His deep blue question-filled eyes were settled on her as he pulled at one of the gilded buttons on his coat, stretching the string holding it on. The button dangled when he released it and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“Why are you staring, Your Majesty?” she asked as she approached. She peered past him toward the hallway where she already knew she’d have to choose a room to live in for the duration of the trials.
“I’m trying to convince myself you’re real and not my imagination.”
Ryn glanced back at him. She placed a treacherous hand over his chest, caging in his heartbeat. He inhaled quietly when she splayed her fingers, giving him proof that she was every bit as real as him, made of flesh and bone. Someone in the lobby gasped, a noble somewhere whispered, “How dare she?!” and Folke took a step closer. But no words of rebuke came out when Xerxes’s lips peeled apart.
Even so, she couldn’t touch him like this. The King.
The Weylin King.
Ryn dropped her hand and left the lobby, following a pair of organizers waving her forward into the same hall she’d once walked with Marcan just half a year ago. Her hand lifted to her stomach, her muscles tightening as memories shouted from the walls, slipped before her eyes, whispered from beneath her feet. She almost hadn’t been able to cross the blue tiled threshold at the palace doors. Her mind had filled with the memory of the first time she stood there in bare feet wearing a dirty garden dress. The first day the Folke had come to her and Kai’s house and barged in to take her. The heaviness of the Intelligentsia’s magic had closed her throat too, had made her want to run. But then Xerxes appeared in front of her with that look on his face and pulled her into the atrium of heavy magic scents and potent noble perfumes.
Ryn walked to the room at the end of the hall even though the organizers stopped at a different one. She pushed the door open. Then she took one step in, looked around, and said, “I’d like this one.”
Cheering sounds still trickled in from the streets through the bedroom windows, leftover from when Ryn had arrived at the Mother City on General Reza’s horse. She hadn’t expected the parade that formed around her, the tossing of flowers her way, the clapping, the cheering. She never dreamt people would hang posters on their storefronts or raise flags above temples with a tall maiden in gold. She’d nearly choked when she saw one that said, EL TSEBAOTH IS COMING TO HEAL THIS LAND in Adriel letters.
She thought she’d been invited to the palace because of Burn Division Twelve’s success in the war. Now she realized it was because of this—the swaying hearts of the people. The sages might try to kill her tonight. If they failed, they might try again in the morning.
She glanced over at Heva who was probably thinking the same thing. Heva’s silver mask turned Ryn’s way, but she said nothing. It was strange seeing Heva’s black hair brushed, put back into a smooth ponytail. Silver and blue beads were laced in, turning her back into the Folke guard she once was.
The organizers scrambled around to prepare the room. Ryn went to the window, taking in the gardens where the fruit trees and shrubs had grown several inches taller. She folded her arms and waited until the organizers dismissed themselves. Heva and Bastone appeared on her right and left, sliding their masks off in unison.
“We need to keep an eye on the Chancellor,” Bastone said in a low voice. He tossed his mask onto the windowsill. “He looked like he wanted to feed you to a den of lions.”
Ryn’s mouth curled into a weak smile. “He will try.” Then to Heva, she said, “Did you send word to the priestesses?”
Heva nodded and ran her fingers over her smooth hair. “I heard that Geovani can’t come to the palace anymore unless there’s a council meeting. Something doesn’t feel right about that, Ryn. Something is going on out in those streets. Maybe she’ll send us a message to explain.”
