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Another pause. Xerxes’s chest expanded when he inhaled to speak, but he closed his mouth again. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I have no power here.” It sounded like a confession.

“El Tsebaoth thinks you do.” Ryn glanced up at where dust glowed in light streams between the crumbling pillars, similar to how it had the first day Ryn entered the Abandoned Temple with Geovani… where everything had started.

When she glanced back at Xerxes, she found his frown returned.

“El Tsebaoth… is that the name of your god?” he asked, his eyes squinting curiously. He said the name no differently than how he often mentioned other gods.

Ryn wiped her damp hands down her hair to smooth it back into place. She shook her head in disbelief and turned for the archway again. “Forget about me, Xerxes,” she said, taking another step. “I didn’t come here to steal your kingdom or your heart. I only came here for General Reza. I’ll be happy once you’re married to a noble.” Though it came out firmly, there was a waver to her words that made her wonder if he could tell she was lying.

Xerxes’s quiet laughter rumbled through the temple. The sound of kicking water followed, and he appeared at her side. He rolled his eyes and dragged a hand through his mess of dark hair as he muttered, “Curse the Celestial Divinities, you would have made a fearsome queen. It’s driving me crazy that you’re not a Weylin, you know.” His boots clamoured through the stream as he marched ahead. “And stop lying. I was confused the day of the scorpion sting, but I remember clearly what you said. And now I know it was real.”

Ryn’s stomach tightened. She forgot to follow him out.

“Watch your back now. The Intelligentsia will probably attempt your assassination today after what you said to the council. You were clearly revolting by calling them murderers. Warn your guards and don’t drink anything offered to you. Maybe I can end these trials quickly and you can get out of here before things get messier.” Xerxes’s voice faded as he vanished through the archway and tapped over the hall tiles. Ryn watched until his navy robe of nobility sailed out of view.

She twisted her fingers as she imagined Xerxes picking a noble wife immediately just to end the trials faster—for her sake. She drew a hand up to her slow, heavy heartbeat, feeling the pulse against her fingers.

The night rolled in with whispers and smoke.

It had taken Ryn most of the night to fall asleep. Her nose wrinkled with the tickle of cinders, and her eyes peeled open, her vision sharpening on the curtains above her bed shuddering in a cold breeze. She lifted her head and peered over at the window to find it closed. Bastone didn’t stir from the cold where he slept, but her skin pebbled from icy breath crawling down her arms.

She sat up with a start, dragging her fingers up her forearms. “El…” she whispered as the curtains ruffled again. “Where is that wind coming from?”

“Get up, Adassah. They’re here.”

Ryn threw off her covers and grabbed her mask off the bedside table, scanning the room for anything wrong. “Who’s here?” she whispered as she tiptoed to the wardrobe and opened it quietly. She took her sword and crept past Bastone snoring quietly on the lounger.

She pushed her chamber door open.

The wind was heavier in the halls, channelling by with low whispers as she stepped out and clicked the door closed behind her. A lantern fell off its hook nearby and she jumped when it smashed to the floor. Something crimson fluttered by it, tumbling over the tile in her direction. Ryn pinned it down with her toe and crouched to pick up a dark red leaf, turning it over in her fingers. It sliced her thumb when she ran it along the veins on the back, and she gasped at a bead of red blood forming.

Low rumbling and deep creaking sounds drew Ryn’s gaze up to the nearest window. Her lips peeled apart, her feet dragging her toward it over the cold floor, and she placed a hand over her mouth.

A black cloud raged above the palace, swirling high into the heavens, purplish lightning snapping through it with a screaming sound that grew in her ears. The colossal storm was swallowing the palace whole; the windows were nearly blacked out, thick smoke dragging over the glass.

“WE’RE HERE FOR XERXES, SON OF DRACO.”

Ryn’s flesh tightened and she dropped the leaf back to the floor.

“Offer him up to us and your PALACE shall be spared.”

Smoke crept along the ceiling like a rising tide. Deep rumbles of thunder growled within it, and a snap of lightning lit up a sitting area down the hall.

Ryn jerked toward Xerxes’s bedroom, her bare feet slapping the floor as she veered through scatters of leaves twirling in the wind. One sliced across her arm, and a drip of blood tumbled down her skin as she came around the last bend to Xerxes’s room, skidding to a halt.

She stared, her fingers curling around the handle of her sword.

There in the hall stood a tall, snow-white creature in a fluttering scarlet hood, flesh and coat marked by glowing bronze runes. In one hand it held a long silver blade; the other hand was on the doorknob of Xerxes’s bedroom.

“Don’t,” Ryn rasped in warning.

The creature’s long hood tilted in Ryn’s direction revealing narrowed violet eyes. She raised her sword, patting her chest for her flute even though she knew it wasn’t there. Neither was Dolem to sing. She tore the sheath off her weapon and put both hands around the grip, the sheath clattering over the floor.

“I won’t give him to you,” she warned.

31

XERXES