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“Not Adassah.”

Her frown deepened, her old bones creaking in objection as she wondered why Adassah wouldn’t be used for such a task. Wasn’t she to take Per-Siana in El’s name? Wasn’t she the one El chose for such a time as this?

8

XERXES

Happily Ever After endings only came to royals in fairytales. They weren’t for beast Kings or abandoned sons or war captives. They weren’t for young Kings, lonely Kings, defeated Kings. Kings whose kingdoms would soon be infiltrated and decimated by enemy War Kings.

Xerxes wondered how many days Per-Siana had left. He imagined the palace in piles of glass and debris, the gardens torn apart, the outer wall smashed to pieces. He imagined the Intelligentsia and council imprisoned, the provinces invaded, the homes of those who rebelled burned to the ground. He imagined the temples of Helios and Nyx turned into ports of worship for a snake deity.

He pictured Ryn’s body, beautiful and broken, laid to rest in gold.

Minutes turned into hours and hours into many days until Xerxes forgot to keep counting. He went through the motions of being cleaned, perfumed, beautified, and placed on display. He didn’t utter a single word, not even when Norkin asked him if he was alright. Nor when Norkin asked him where his markings went. Not even when Norkin told him stories in what must have been a compassionate attempt to distract him from the truth—that his kingdom was being invaded. Not even as Prince Mansour laughed a little too loud for Xerxes’s nerves at the evening banquet, or at the celebration of victory where the Prince’s name was chanted through the night.

A certain morning came with sun that cursed his eyes to see the capital city. The daily schedule was becoming easy to predict. Throne Room in the mornings, Banquet Hall in the evenings. In the beginning, Prince Mansour had unchained royal hostages and played around with them, once making two brawl as entertainment. Xerxes imagined it wouldn’t be too long before that ruckus started up again now that the heir Prince had returned.

He wondered when it would be his turn. He wondered what he would do once his leash was taken off and the Prince who’d stolen everything from Xerxes was just a few strides and a few quick moves away from being sent to the Dakozah underworld. Maybe Xerxes would join him there after. Maybe Alecsander wouldn’t be so desperate for a pretty Per-Siana King in his Museum if his heir was no longer breathing.

“Xerxes.” Norkin’s voice. “Wake up. Something is happening outside.”

Xerxes peeled his sticky eyes open just as a passing guard kicked his foot. He sighed and dragged his foot back from where it had been hanging over the edge of the pedestal, then pulled himself to stand, vaguely aware of a commotion in the wide entrance of the Throne Room. A bowl of some ritualistic sacred water was knocked off a table, and someone shrieked. Servants rushed by with towels, and Xerxes lazily watched as they worked hard to clean it. In his palace, magic sponges would have floated over and scrubbed the floors on their own, but perhaps B’rei Mira wasn’t as sophisticated as Per-Siana in that regard.

The cleaning servants looked outside, twitching and ducking when shouts lifted past the entrance where Xerxes couldn’t see. Two guards sprinted in, nearly slipping off their feet as they dropped to a knee before Alecsander, their kilts splaying. When they both started shouting at once, Xerxes stuck a finger in his ear in annoyance to block out all the noise.

“She’s here!”

“She’s come! That Per-Siana—”

Shouts at the entrance drowned them out as gazes tore to the Throne Room opening. A guard fumbled his spear, and it clattered to the ground as a silhouette of someone entering from the outside stairs eclipsed the burning sun. Xerxes caught a glimpse of navy, then a flit of gold. His stomach dropped as a woman in a gold mask and broad-shouldered pauldrons marched in. Her heeled boots pounded over the floor and a navy-blue cape rippled at her back; a cape with a white-stitched crest across it that danced in the breeze… a royal crest—his crest.

Xerxes’s jaw dropped. What sort of trickery was this?

A flutter drove into his chest as it dawned on him that whoever was impersonating his murdered Gold Maiden must have a death wish. If it was someone from Per-Siana, these savages would kill her. If it was someone from B’rei Mira making a mockery… Xerxes would kill her.

The woman in gold came right into the middle of the red carpet amidst gasps of horror and questions, the Vafat creeping from the halls and slowly surrounding the room in silence. All watching.

But Alecsander… Xerxes realized Alecsander was frozen to his throne, black eyes fixated on where she stood. And then she spoke, and all the strength in Xerxes’s knees drained.

“What’s the matter, King?” she said to Alecsander. “Did you think I was dead?”

Outrage and terror bled across the witnesses, and Xerxes stepped forward, yanking against his chains, his chest a wild nest of battering and squeezing.

King? King?!

Across the room, Prince Mansour’s face was white, his mouth hanging open as people turned to him in question. Xerxes’s ribs rose and fell. He inhaled to shout at her, to demand she explain herself, take off her mask, reveal her face.

Alecsander stood, a slow movement of robes and nobility. His hood slid off, revealing his glittering nose ring and sleek black hair and beard. “You came.” It was a curse; a cold, detached voice that embedded in Xerxes’s flesh.

“Bow to the King of this great empire, Gold Maiden,” the Vafat in the room whispered as one in growly, soft voices.

The Gold Maiden’s head tilted as if taking the creatures in. The spectators waited, the cape rippling at her back. Then she said, “I will not bow before a King whose hands are stained with the blood of my people.” Nobles slapped palms over their mouths, and shadows crawled across the floor, circling her ankles.

A man in a tall headdress stepped forward on the dais, a gold sceptre sparkling in his hand. “Bow or die, Commander Adassah. Everyone must bow to the King—even guests,” he rasped. The Gold Maiden’s mask aimed back toward Alecsander.

“Well, you’re not my King.” Her response cut the murmurs in the room and left the Vafat growling as she turned her back to the B’rei Mira King and marched toward the pedestals instead, shoving aside a noble in her way. Xerxes flew backward and shook his head as she approached, as she stepped up onto his pedestal. As she stared at him through the holes of her mask.

“Don’t do it,” he whispered, warned.