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“He will if he sees us as a threat. I’ve heard enough about King Xerxes to know how he eliminates threats.”
“Bastone!”
“You should raise forces in the kingdom and strike at the King and his Intelligentsia. You should take this kingdom and rule it yourself. I’m not an Adriel, but I’ll still be killed at your side if this King decides he doesn’t like having a threat like you around.” He swatted a branch out of his way as he took a step toward her, his bright eyes shimmering. “I will help you. Look around—these nobles don’t even care that we fought a war for them. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Stop.” Ryn pushed his chest, forcing him a step backward. “Of course it bothers me. But I won’t attack Per-Siana people and destroy families for it. Don’t bring this terrible idea up again.” She moved for the lilac bushes, taking a branch tip across the side of her neck and wincing when she came back onto the path. She marched toward the palace, yanking open Heva’s note to read as she walked.
RYN,
I KNEW SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT.
THE FOLKE WERE DISPATCHED SEVERAL MONTHS AGO TO CALM AN ‘ADRIEL UPRISING’ THEY’RE CLAIMING HAS BEGUN. YOUR PEOPLE ARE BEING DRAGGED FROM THEIR HOMES, SOMETIMES MURDERED RIGHT IN THE OPEN STREETS.
THE INTELLIGENTSIA HAVE USED THE HERALDS TO LIE, MAKING THE REST OF THE KINGDOM SEE ADRIELS AS A THREAT. THEIR GOAL IS TO WIPE OUT THE ADRIEL PEOPLE COMPLETELY. GEOVANI HAS BEEN USING THE GOLD MAIDEN’S VICTORIES WITH EL TO STIR HOPE IN THE CITY, AND IT’S WORKING, BUT THE PRIESTESSES COULD BE CAUGHT AT ANY TIME.
ALSO, YOUR COUSIN IS ALIVE.
SEE YOU AT THE BORDER.
- H
Ryn lowered the note, realizing she’d stopped dead still inside the atrium. White light burned against the windows, making the paintings inside glow.
“What is this, El?” she whispered against the rhythmic clicks of carts being pushed by servants at the far end. She took a turn into a pastel-toned hall. “My people are… being killed in the streets?” Hadn’t she just told Bastone she would never do such a thing to the Weylin nobles? But the Weylins were attacking and killing Adriels? “How do I… How do I stop this?” She found herself far down a secluded hallway with no windows or lanterns. She rubbed her forehead where sweat tickled her hairline, then she put a hand flat against the wall, using it for support as her breathing steadied. “Bastone is wrong. I can’t take back this kingdom with brute force. I can’t start killing everyone in my way! So how then? Who else can possibly save my people?”
A breeze flittered into the hall, rolling down her limbs and softly curling around her fingers. Then a voice filled her head.
“Him.”
Him…?
A huff of breath escaped her.
Xerxes. Of course it was Xerxes.
This had always been about Xerxes.
Right from the beginning, El had told her to save Xerxes. First from his voices in the palace, then from the cloud in the desert. She scrubbed her eyes through the holes in her mask.
All this for one person. One person who could change everything, if he only believed it in his mind.
Ryn’s hand slid off the wall. The scent of baking rippled over her as she passed the kitchens, searching the halls for Xerxes’s navy robe. She went for the men’s bath chambers next and was snapped at by a dozen Folke relaxing there. So, she tried his bedroom, ignoring the guards who drew their swords when she passed them and swung the King’s chamber door open. The room was dark, empty, and dishevelled.
She made a noise in the back of her throat when it finally dawned on her that he’d mentioned a council meeting in the garden.
Ryn broke into a sprint, her soul aching for those dying this moment outside the palace. How could she not have known things had gotten this bad in Per-Siana? That while she was in the desert, her people were dying at ruthless Weylin hands?
She found the dark blue Council Hall doors covered in gold sun runes, and she shoved them open, bringing Damon’s speech to a halt inside. All murmurs stopped, every eye in the council room turning upon the maiden in gold standing in the doorway.
She stepped inside, wading through the tense silence beneath a hundred sets of eyes. The cries of children filled her ears. Adriel children like she’d been when she was torn from her parents, left to try and survive on her own.
One single word slipped out.
“Murderers.”
Gasps floated through the space. A few councilmen stood from their seats.
She came here for Xerxes, but looking at them now, all she saw were the Weylins who’d hated her mother enough to kill her. The Weylins who wanted Kai dead. “How many Adriel men and women have you crushed because of your greed and blind hatred? How many hearts have you deceived with your lies?” A vase of fresh Damask roses rested upon one of the hundreds of desks around the coliseum-style room where the councilmen sat. Flowers that praised the goddess Nyx, a goddess who was dead. Slain by El.
