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Xerxes lifted his head, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he beheld a muscled man on the other side of the door in a large headdress. The first servant had returned too, holding unleavened bread and a new, smaller jug. The servant stepped forward and slid both items through the bars into Xerxes’s cell, causing Xerxes to step back out of the way.

He stared at the bread. At the water.

Xerxes bashed them both to the side, the jug smashing against the stone and water splattering halfway to the ceiling. The servant yanked his hands back to himself, and the man in the headdress beside him muttered something in the B’rei Mira tongue. He then waved down the hall, and this time seven servants appeared in matching kilts, one rattling a ring of keys.

Xerxes backed away until his shoulders hit the wall of the cell as they filed in holding scrub brushes, soap, bottles of oils and perfumes, and clean garments. The two at the end pushed in a wide cauldron of water on a cart. Powders and syrups were drizzled into the basin, and the man in the headdress nodded down to what Xerxes desperately hoped wasn’t a bath.

Xerxes folded his arms. He stayed that way, glaring, daring them to try and take off his clothes, until two scarlet-dressed soldiers with spears marched in. Blade points prickled his throat, almost hard enough to draw blood, and a dark laugh escaped Xerxes’s dry lips. Perhaps death would be better than obedience. Perhaps he didn’t want to know what lay beyond the door of his dark cell. Perhaps it was a mercy to never make it out.

Xerxes grabbed the blade of the nearest spear, and the guard shrieked. The edges dug into his palm, blood seeping through his fingers and tumbling over his knuckles. He dragged the spearhead toward his own throat, tempting the guard to do his worst. Protests in foreign speech lifted through the room as the servants pointed.

A being with peeling white skin covered in glowing bronze runes entered, and Xerxes’s grip faltered when a pair of dark purple eyes locked onto him. “Vafat,” Xerxes cursed with a clenched jaw, picturing his Per-Siana palace, his Folke, his atrium. Things he may never see again because of these horrid creatures.

The Vafat reached into his pocket. Xerxes didn’t have time to flinch or move before the being flung red powder against Xerxes’s mouth. He coughed, spitting the leafy herbal taste back out as his tongue numbed.

A fresh curse escaped him as the spear slipped from Xerxes’s fingers, his mind spilling into itself, and his vision patching with black spots. It wasn’t enough to make him sleep again, but it was enough to keep him from fighting back. Xerxes rebuked the Divinities as his itchy sand-worn clothes were peeled from his skin, as his weak body was lowered into the bath and scrubbed clean, as he was redressed in a one-shouldered crimson toga, as a glittering pectoral was placed over his chest and bronze cuffs were threaded up his biceps. His wild hair was combed, perfumes dabbed on his neck, liner drawn on his eyelids, and every mark of Per-Siana culture was wiped from his appearance like dirt being scrubbed off a basin.

A twisted, dark gold coronet of roses was placed on his head. And there he was; a trophy. Xerxes refused to look in the mirror when a servant held one up. He didn’t care if he looked beautiful, he felt disgusting.

The light in the hallway was blinding when he was finally guided from his cell by spear points, prodded along like some beastly animal with his wrists bound in a gold chain. Xerxes vaguely registered pillars with detailed pictures as he passed them, barely noticed the laughter and voices or the smell of exotic foods as he entered a wide Banquet Hall. He was yanked toward a solid metal ring on the wall, and there the end of his gold chain was fastened.

It was at least an hour before the powder’s effects faded. Xerxes blinked, his senses sharpening as the aroma of a grand feast rushed in, heavy and potent, and his stomach growled. Chatter, lyres, and celebration rang abruptly in his ears, and the leafy fragrance of smoke and foliage tingled his lungs along with the familiar weight of magic settling on his shoulders.

His lips parted as he looked around, examining a vast sea of red and bronze, copper and rubies, gold and scarlet fabrics. A long banqueting table filled the centre of the room where platters of pomegranates, crispy and juicy cooked birds, and flat breads were being set. People in sparkling gowns and kilts with brassy jewelry and cuffs wandered around sipping from small chalices, and a long stage hosted a team of women in half veils dancing in perfect unison. Xerxes glanced down at a square pedestal under his sandalled feet, then back at the large metal ring his chain was clasped to. Illness crept into his stomach, the weakness of his days of sleep making his knees wobble as his gaze dragged over to another pedestal beside him where a stranger was also chained to the wall. And then another one after that, and so on, all the way around the glorious Banquet Hall. Every one of them, young and old, had some form of beautifully twisted crown and were dressed in crimson and bronze; Alecsander’s insignias. The colours of B’rei Mira’s flags. As if the War King wanted to show everyone who owned them. Enemy lords and ladies passed by, observing, pointing and commenting on various hostages. Nameplates glittered at the foot of each pedestal with indecipherable glyphs sketched in. Xerxes’s toe ran over his name plate as he made guesses about what was written there.

“Where’s the South Prince?”

Xerxes’s attention lifted to a couple before him. A young woman whose white-painted face mimicked the Vafat stood there, her dark eyeliner oddly drawn with black lead pen, and long pure white hair swept past her waist. Bronze runes circled her neck like a piece of printed jewelry. But the worst of all was her hands, both missing their pinky fingers. She spoke in a thick Mira accent as she studied the empty pedestal to Xerxes’s left. “Did he try to escape again? I wonder what the King will do to him when he’s caught this time.” Her laughter rippled over Xerxes’s flesh like nails scraping a smooth rock. “Maybe he’ll finally feed him to the Ring Cobra.”

The woman’s gaze travelled to Xerxes next, a dark curl of her claret lips forming a smile that didn’t reach her black eyes. “This one’s pretty,” she commented, inspecting his face. His markings, maybe. With so much of his chest showing, the marking was a display of its own.

Xerxes glared.

The man with her traced a finger down a long black braid as he added, “You’re right, Sigilene, he is pretty. And angry.” He glanced down at the name plate at Xerxes’s feet, and he read aloud, “Xerxes, son of Draco. Fallen King of Per-Siana.” Then to the woman, he said, “Ah, this is the new one from the kingdom we just conquered.”

The words sailed into Xerxes’s chest, and his tight shoulders dropped, his insides filling with weight that threatened to drag him down to his knees.

Conquered. The word was a curse that split his heart open and sucked the blood from his veins.

“W…” Xerxes’s swallowed. “What has happened to my kingdom?” The words were a coarse squeak of sound.

The woman raised a silky eyebrow, black eyes going wide. Then she burst out laughing, the cold noise crashing through the room and turning heads. B’rei Mira nobles noticed Xerxes there, alert, and many wandered his way, all shoving each other as they reached out to him. One brazen woman even stepped onto the pedestal until a guard in copper armour nudged her off gently with a spear. Xerxes reeled back as hands came against his shoulders, his chest, fingers brushing along his jaw and cheek. “Welcome, fallen King,” they sang, chuckled, mocked in accented words.

“He’s finally awake.”

“Over here, King Xerxes. Say hello to me.”

“Look that those blue eyes!”

“How do you like your new home, Per-Siana King?”

“Look at me, son of Draco!”

“His skin is so soft.”

“STOP TOUCHING ME!” Xerxes growled at them. “How dare you? You think I won’t bite off your fingers?!” The threat was lost to the crowd’s noisy chatter as they looked him over, the word ‘Per-Siana’ bouncing off their lips amidst their excitement. A minute later, horns sounded and every Mira savage turned and headed for the long table in the centre of the Hall.

Xerxes tore his attention off them, landing it on the other museum hostages bound to the walls, each one likely a fallen royal whose kingdom was stolen, their home lost, their people destroyed. Three others were stained with bright purple markings like his, veins and runes marring exposed flesh. None of them gave him a nod of assurance or a sympathetic glance. The royal hostages looked down, they looked off, they fiddled with their gold chains. It was an all too familiar display, as if Xerxes was back in the desert standing in the strategy tent before his own commanders too paralyzed by fear to go face the evils when he needed them, terrified like a bunch of children. Not a single person here would help him. He was alone, again. Only this time, he was hidden in a foreign land where he’d never be found. Xerxes’s breaths grew thin as he lifted his bound hands, tugging at the pectoral weighing on his bare chest. Unfamiliar magic buzzed in his ears, calling to him like an old friend, inviting him in. He squeezed his eyes shut as the pressure stole his breath, tempting him to embrace a life of moist greying skin, obeying gods who laughed in his head, and reaching for a curse long buried.