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Xerxes swallowed and rubbed his dizzy head, fighting the urge to wretch. “How horrifying.” He dropped his hand, taking a good look at Prince Norkin. The fool didn’t even look scared to be here. He was still smiling.

Xerxes brushed his damp palms down his toga. The thought of using his first reunion with Norkin to pry for information left him even more nauseated, but his resolve steeled when he imagined Ryn’s dead body out in the sand. “Do you know what happened at the Per-Siana border? Do you know how things… ended?”

A Vafat swept past, leaving a breath of cold behind, and Xerxes closed his mouth. Norkin didn’t reply until the creature was out of earshot. “You mean how Alecsander called off the battle and brought his despicable army home?” He released a bitter laugh. “The whole palace has been gossiping about it. Half the nobles at this table are acquaintances of mine these days. They tell me everything.”

Xerxes turned to face him, desperation inching into his voice. “Do you know if she’s alive, then? The Gold Maiden? What happened to the Per-Siana army? Did Alecsander let them go?”

Norkin raised a light eyebrow. “Worried about your war hero?” he guessed. “I suppose I would be, too. She’s ruining all of Alecsander’s plans. It’s wildly amusing. You’d better keep her away from me, Xerxes, because if I ever meet her, I’ll marry her on the spot.”

A muscle twitched in Xerxes’s lips, but he composed himself. “So, she’s alright.”

“For now. But King Alecsander hasn’t stopped sending her invitations to come here since the battle. You must know how obsessive King Alecsander is though, whether it’s land or women, he always gets what he wants. Your hero denied his first invitations, but he’s sent riders with orders to keep pestering her until she comes.” Norkin huffed a laugh. “You should have seen Prince Mansour begging his father to let him go hunt down your Gold Maiden himself.”

Xerxes relaxed against the wall, bringing his gaze to the table where he realized Prince Mansour was watching him. Everyone else, including the white-painted woman with missing fingers, was gobbling down food. Xerxes thought of how furious Prince Mansour must be after he’d been so certain how the battle would go. He’d underestimated Per-Siana, and for that, Xerxes accidentally smiled.

Prince Mansour’s black-gold eyes narrowed.

“She won’t come here though, will she?” Norkin guessed.

“No. She will not.” Xerxes set his cold gaze right back on the B’rei Mira heir, and neither of them blinked—a tight tether splitting through the room.

“Ah, just my luck,” Norkin sighed. His chains rattled. “I wanted to see if she was pretty.”

That broke Xerxes’s gaze with the enemy Prince. He glanced over at Norkin who was back to dozing off against the wall.

Curse the Divinities, Ryn was pretty. Not flashy, but definitely pretty enough that the savages of B’rei Mira would notice. She’d stolen Xerxes’s heart, after all, though… perhaps her beauty had nothing to do with that.

He lifted a hand to his chest where his shadowed heart beat slowly, daring anyone in this room—including Alecsander—to obsess over his maiden. No, Ryn could never come here or she’d be eaten alive by these savages. She didn’t know the dangerous thoughts of men, or court politics, or enemy strategies. She belonged in the desert now; an extension of the sand and mountains. She belonged there with her god.

Maybe if Xerxes died here, Ryn would finally get smart, take the palace from the Intelligentsia under her real name Adassah Cahana, and become the Adriel Queen of Per-Siana her people wanted.

Xerxes smiled at the thought as he copied Norkin and leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes falling closed. If he slept without the effects of the red powder, maybe Ryn would show up in his dreams.

5

RYN

For weeks, the cloud had turned the border into a cold place, and Ryn had despised it. But now, she squinted up at the bright sky where the sun beat down on the camp making her limbs heavy and sweat trickle down her back beneath her armour, and she wondered why she’d wanted to get rid of the cloud so badly.

By the Divinities, the afternoons were so hot she thought she might faint. She shielded her eyes with her hand, looking out at the waves of the great brown sea. It had been four days straight without an enemy division coming to face her. Four days since she’d looked into the face of Alecsander of B’rei Mira for the second time in her life. A shiver moved down her warm spine when she thought about it. Had El not been the fire at her back, she would have run away screaming at the numbers that had shown up to try and overthrow the border divisions. She’d almost vomited when they filled the desert as far right and left as her eyes could see, especially when Yusuf began gagging. But there was one thing she knew, and it was that El had sent her Geovani, and for that, she knew she would live. Numbers didn’t mean anything. She’d nearly forgotten that four days ago until the great giants of light appeared.

It was that shift in the atmosphere that had ultimately cleared her mind. They were at a stalemate with King Alecsander; at least, that’s what the enemy King had concluded out loud. But now Ryn knew where Xerxes was. It wasn’t just that she’d heard that familiar laugh high above the murmurs of restless warriors, it was that Alecsander’s gaze had roamed up a cliffside during the conversation. Xerxes had been there—she was sure of it. And Ryn couldn’t reach him in that moment, but now she knew Alecsander was keeping Xerxes with him.

It turned her insides to know that this army needed her more than he did right now. But at least she knew for sure he was alive. And that gave her what she needed to keep fighting.

Also, the God Original was never at a stalemate. What a joke.

Two riders appeared between the dunes, the sun glimmering off their bronze armour and pectorals. They raised white flags as the messengers had done the day before, and the day before that. Ryn already knew what they would bring. She disappeared into the camp, deciding to leave the messengers to General Reza.

Instead, she made her way down the boardwalk to the sleeping tent she shared with Heva where, coincidentally, a handful of priestesses now slept too. Only Heva and Nebulin were there when she arrived, Heva laid back on a rock with an arm over her eyes.

“It’s so disgustingly hot,” she complained. “I’m going to shrivel into a prune, Ryn. And you’ll be lost without me if I do.”

“Why don’t we go up the mountain to the pool?” Ryn suggested, and Heva’s arm flew off. She sat up, squinting at Ryn through the sun on her face. “It’ll be a farewell gift to the priestesses before they all leave tomorrow.”

“That’s like half a day’s hike,” Heva said, but she began looking around as if calculating what supplies they’d need for the journey.

“Oh, bless you, Ryn!” Nebulin said. She fanned her face with a wooden plate with one hand, and she lightly held a colourful butterfly by its wings with the other, marvelling at it. “I would walk half a day for a dip in a cool pool.”