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The way he said her name sent a strange flitter through her chest. She didn’t answer.
Xerxes’s jaw slid to the side, and a slow smile danced across his lips even though his eyelids remained heavy. If Ryn didn’t already know Xerxes often looked haggard and unkempt, she might have guessed he wasn’t sleeping well.
“You’re going to ruin these trials, aren’t you?” His low voice trickled over her skin into her ears. “Don’t you know I’m doing this to take a wife?”
A Weylin wife. One of the three beautiful noble girls waiting at the far end of the room.
Ryn folded her arms too. “Am I dismissed from your presence now, Your Majesty?” she asked instead of answering. A few whispers exploded from the nobles, breaking the serenity in the room and telling her she hadn’t been quiet enough.
Xerxes released a near-silent huff through a dull smirk. Then he nodded and stepped out of the way, even opening his arm toward the silver arch. “Everyone out of the way, unless you want to see firsthand what it’s like when the Gold Maiden draws her sword,” he shouted over the crowd.
Organizers and nobles alike scooted back from the carpet, leaping behind each other as Ryn headed down the middle of the room, passing by the other maidens huddled together, passing the Intelligentsia, and left the Hall of Stars.
The organizers left her alone after that. Heva and Bastone spent the next day taking turns investigating everyone who would talk to them in the palace. A crease was forming between Heva’s brows, growing deeper every time she returned with more bits of news.
“I think I need to go to the First Temple,” she finally said at noon. “I’m telling you—something isn’t right. None of the Folke will explain what’s going on in the streets. I need to speak with Geovani.”
A wave of fruit smells washed through the room from the open chambers window. Ryn glanced out toward the garden, thinking of the priestesses and how long Heva had been away from home. “If you leave the palace, they might not let you back in,” Ryn warned. “This might separate us.”
Heva nodded, her beads clapping together. “I’ll toss a letter over the wall by the lilacs if I can’t get in. Bastone will look after you.” She folded her arms and shifted her weight. “Ryn… if we’re separated by this, we’ll meet back at the border.”
It felt too much like a goodbye, and Ryn took in a deep breath. At least if Heva returned to the border, she could look after Burn Division Twelve and send a message to Ryn if there was trouble. “I’ll see you at the border then.”
Heva took her hand, her thumb ring pressing into Ryn’s knuckles. “Remember to rebuke the fear. The God Original will fight for you. Just be still.”
Ryn nodded and forced a smile. “Go forward, Heva,” she whispered.
Heva left.
Night swept in with a chill hours later. Ryn rubbed her eyes behind her mask as she wandered through the palace. She’d slipped away from her chambers as soon as Bastone had roamed down the hall to scout for threats. He would be mad when he realized she wasn’t in her room again.
Only a few lanterns were still lit in the palace, painting the hallways in copper. The soft murmurs of the city drifted in from an open window prisming white moonlight along the ceiling.
“This is ridiculous, El,” Ryn mumbled as she headed down the halls. “Did you see that Introduction Ceremony? Why am I doing this?” Her fingers itched to touch hot sand. Her sword tapped against her side as she slipped into a dark passage and through a narrow arch where she was immediately met with the quiet tweets of birds, the low trickle of water, and the coolness of the night air coming in through the open ceiling.
The Abandoned Temple hadn’t been touched since she left. Ryn found a small smile when she realized. The ivies spilling into the room from the ceiling were longer, almost brushing the floor now. The water lapped over her feet as she walked in and studied the statue on the far end, the figure standing on a crumbling island of stone.
How she’d missed this place. She hummed a few lines of Dolem’s song, recalling the battles in the desert, wondering if Faro had learned anything about his former neighbours. If Yusuf and Kiran were getting along. The music echoed around the temple, swooping back to her and washing her clean of the day’s events.
A sloshing sound lifted behind her, and she whirled. Someone lifted off a beam in the dark where he’d been leaning, and Ryn’s flesh tightened when moonlight travelled over Xerxes’s unruly hair as he sauntered over. She placed a hand against her chest to settle her heart, cursing herself for being startled by him.
“What are you doing up so late—”
“How did you know about this place, Maiden?” His words were careful, challenging.
Ryn could just make out his eyes and long lashes in the dark. She swallowed, realizing as she looked around that this temple wasn’t easy to find. “I went for a walk and ended up here.” She bit her lip. “General Reza got your letter and told me to come protect you. That’s the only reason I’m here, Your Majesty.”
It was as good of a subject change as any.
Xerxes stared as water lapped at the ankles of his boots. “I invited him to come. I never expected you’d be the one to show up.”
Ryn fiddled with the fabric of General Reza’s cape. “He couldn’t make it.” She turned toward the statue. The pillars around it had lost more crumbs, the dents in the sides larger. Her gaze fell to the chunks in the water at the base that hadn’t been swept away or smoothed over by the stream yet.
A thought crossed her mind, and she glanced back at Xerxes in the dark. “What are you doing here?” Her belly warmed as her mind flashed with a memory he’d have in this place. She tried to avoid looking at the spot on the floor where he’d kissed her. Where she’d foolishly whispered that she liked him.
“I’m thinking about someone,” he admitted as he drifted around her, his robe hanging open and shifting with his movements. One of the buttons was missing now. A moonbeam bleached his arm, and Ryn noticed dark patches from battle scars on his knuckles before he slipped out of view behind her.
“Who?” she rasped, tearing her gaze up from his hands.
