Page 23

“I told you, I’m here to save you.” She was sure Xerxes could hear the doubt in her voice. Even she could hear it.

Xerxes’s mouth twisted to the side. “I have every confidence that if I was turned to a corpse, you would have gone straight to the Per-Siana palace, challenged the council, and set everything straight to save your people. So again—why couldn’t you have just let me die a hostage King?”

A fire roared in her heart, into her throat, burning her cheeks. Ryn almost choked, until words boiled up from her soul and tore into the silence: “I will not let you die!” She screamed it. Xerxes was in front of her, a hand pressed over her mouth before she could blink, his panicked eyes darting to her doorway.

“You don’t want me to die, but you’re yelling to alert the guards that I’m here?” he said, then fired his gaze back to her. “How brilliant. I should appoint you as the palace professor to teach my future royal children the laws of life.”

She didn’t laugh at his sarcasm.

He sighed. “Divinities, Ryn. I hate this place. It’s a constant nightmare. My wrists are marred from being tied up, and everyone here keeps touching me with their filthy hands.” He shuddered. “Someone is going to get slapped soon. But that doesn’t mean I’m alright with you coming here, as relieved as I am to see you. Ryn,” Xerxes whispered, rubbing his forehead. “You should not have come.”

Ryn’s jaw tightened. “I’m not leaving. I’m going to save you. Again.”

Wind rattled the glass doors as Xerxes chewed on his lower lip. “Fine. Have it your way.” He angled his head. “Tell me what you discussed with Alecsander in the Throne Room after I left.” He glanced over at her breastplate tossed to the floor, then her cape on the bed.

“I made a deal with him.”

“What sort of deal?” he demanded.

She picked at her nails, her toes curling in her boots. “There’s an annual tribute to a cobra god that takes place every year here before the harvest. I’m to compete in it against King Alecsander’s heroes.”

Xerxes’s cheeks paled. “A… tribute?” Another gust of wind hit the glass, the only sound in the room as Xerxes stared. He opened his mouth but closed it again like he was afraid to ask. His throat bobbed before he finally said, “Where, Ryn? Where will this competition take place?”

“In the Outer Rings.”

Xerxes’s fist came over his mouth. “Tell them you changed your mind,” he said through his fingers.

Ryn inhaled and exhaled slowly. “No. I’m doing it.” She took in his wild eyes, more blue with the accent of liners. His skin in scarlet looked radiant, too. “He can’t kill you if I win, under any circumstances—that’s the deal,” she told him. “This way no one can touch you, Xerxes. It’s how this Per-Siana citizen can save her King.”

His growl was loud enough to make her flinch. “And what if you don’t win, Maiden?! What did you bargain in this outrageous deal you made?”

Ryn shrugged her stiff shoulders beneath her gold plates. “If I lose, I join the Museum. And my fate is in his hands. Like yours.” Her throat swelled and she fought the urge to swallow beneath his stare.

“Curse the Celestial Divinities, Ryn!” Xerxes roared, gripping fistfuls of his silk garment at his thighs, crushing it. “I will not let you do this.”

“You have no say here. You’re a hostage, and I’m a guest.”

“Wait… you will—rule over me?” His dark lashes fluttered in disbelief. “Careful, Maiden. You’re still my citizen. I might get out of this alive, and I will retaliate if you dare to disobey the order of your King.”

She scoffed. “What will you do? Throw me in prison?”

His mouth slammed shut.

Ryn released an exasperated sigh and yanked off her shoulder plates, tossing them into a heap with her breastplate. Then she laughed. The sound was a strange mix of bitter and light rolling off her tongue. Xerxes’s skin was pebbled when she looked back.

She unbuckled her greaves and stepped out of them, becoming small before him.

“I can see I have no control over you anymore.” Xerxes worked his jaw. Murmured chatter passed by in the hall outside along with the muted thuds of boots. Xerxes lowered his voice. “I know someone who’s been in the Outer Rings and survived. He must know how to navigate that maze.” He reached into his garment and pulled out a set of keys on a thick iron ring, staring at it for a moment.

Voices sounded in the hall, and Ryn glanced at the door. “You should leave, Xerxes,” she whispered, “before they realize you’re here with me. Don’t give them a reason to have you executed before I’ve sealed your fate in this competition.”

“You seem pretty confident you’ll win.” Xerxes didn’t look up from the keys.

“You seem pretty worried I won’t.”

He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, his gaze tracing the cape on her bed once more, the royal emblem with a curled white dragon. “I thought you were dead, Ryn. I thought it was over.” Xerxes adjusted the scarlet robe at his shoulder. “I’m getting tired of being dragged through the underworld thinking you’re dead when you’re not.” He pointed in her face first, almost spoke but didn’t, then poked her shoulder instead. “You and I are going to escape this horrid palace. And when we make it back to Per-Siana, I’m going to declare the boundary between Weylin and Adriel broken and tell the men to start taking Adriel wives. I have to believe that’s all possible, or I won’t make it much longer here.” Xerxes took her chin on his way to the glass doors, tilting her face up again. “And you are going to be my wife. Adassah.”

Ryn’s next breath caught, her cheeks heating. “Do I have any say in this—”