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“But you want to stop me,” she asked with caution.

A long pause filled her chest with night air as a triad of tweeting birds sailed by the balcony. Ryn watched them dive toward the staggered walls around the palace, wings outstretched. They coasted above the darkness between the walls, punching through patches of mist. Ryn inhaled when they began shaking, struggling. One dropped into the dark sea below, then another, and the last, as if the magic down there was reaching up to grab whatever it could, pulling them into the shadowy pit.

“If you choose to fight alone, you’ll be shattered, Adassah.”

“What are you saying? You want me to save Xerxes. That’s my purpose. I’m doing what you want.” Ryn tore a bloom from the ivies. She twirled it in her fingers, studying the purple-red petals. She squeezed the throat a little too tight and blinked when the blossom fell off of its stem.

“I can make the best of any situation. But you must give up this pursuit. This quest will be your undoing.”

Her pursuit. Her eyes sailed to the city of blinking lights where a rust-gold moon rested so low it looked to be part of the structures. Bumps crawled over her flesh, a new chill shaking her bones until she crossed her arms to seal in the little heat she had left.

Once she killed Prince Mansour to avenge Heva, then she would return to El, and everything would be set right.

“I trust you,” she promised. “I’ll be back. But I can do this part on my own.”

The warmth left her.

10

XERXES

The crescent balcony was only large enough for one person. Xerxes had seen small peephole balconies like this before when he’d visited a noble’s palace in the fourteenth province as a boy.

The stone floor was ice cold against Xerxes’s bare feet where he stood, staring up at a much larger balcony just one leap away where crisp jade ivy hung in wide curls with fat leaves and fragrant blossoms. A maiden stood up there, wrestling with the night and the god of her ancestors. Xerxes wasn’t sure why he could hear El Tsebaoth’s voice in her head. Maybe El Tsebaoth wanted him to hear it. Maybe it was the same reason Ryn had been able to hear the voices in his head back when he was mad.

Either way, the visit he’d planned could not happen now. What right did he have to interrupt an Adriel woman and her god? A god Xerxes’s own ancestors had once sworn did not exist and should not be exalted.

How strange things had become since he got here.

“I can make the best of any situation. But you must give up this pursuit. This quest will be your undoing.” What quest? Ryn had a quest? Xerxes folded his arms. Didn’t she trust Xerxes enough to tell him? He tapped his chin. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised Ryn was up to no good. She was a scheming Adriel, after all.

“I trust you. I’ll be back. But I can do this part on my own.”

There it was. The thing Xerxes was waiting for. That little creeping fear that had planted itself inside him after he met her earlier and saw the look in her eyes when he asked about her god. Xerxes shook his head in disbelief and fled the balcony, leaving Ryn to her thoughts. The keys rattled in his robe as he slipped down the dark hall toward the back staircase he’d discovered last time, swishing past silken banners and flickering torches as he padded down the stairs. He could hear servants milling about nearby, so he squared his shoulders, slowed his pace, and lifted his chin—exuding the confidence of a noble in case he was spotted.

He sailed into the row of cells and peeked in every window until he spotted light blond hair. Truly, Norkin looked the same now as when he was a child, covered in juice and hooting laughter into the heights of the Messa Palace lobby. His dimples showed even when he was sleeping.

The keys made no sound when Xerxes drew them out and tested each one in the lock. The only thing that alerted the Messa Prince inside to Xerxes’s presence was when the lock clicked. Xerxes swung the door open, entered, and pushed it closed behind him. Then he scooted around the corner far from the window.

Norkin was already sitting up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Finally,” he muttered.

“Are you always sleeping?” Xerxes asked, stuffing the keys away and folding his arms. “Do you have a condition or are you just lazy?”

Norkin snorted a laugh. “It’s better to sleep than be awake here.” He flung an arm over his propped-up knee. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“You could have kept the keys and come to visit me, you know. Why did you give me the keys and tell me to come find you?” Xerxes patted the lumpy spot on his robe, and the keys clicked together.

“Because they’re watching me.” Norkin yawned and stretched. “Because I keep trying to escape.”

“They’re…” Xerxes slid back to the window and peered out. “Then do they know I’m here?!”

Norkin shrugged and Xerxes scowled.

Armour tapped down the hall and they both went quiet, Xerxes creeping on silent toes back out of sight. A guard passed, muttering to himself. The light of the torch he carried faded down the hall.

“Let’s whisper plots,” Xerxes said. “I need my maiden to survive the next few days. Whatever the cost is, I’ll pay it. And I want her to escape this place, too… If either of those two things don’t work out, I’ll have to kill Alecsander myself.”

Norkin stood with a grin, brushing dirt off his knees and elbows. “Excellent. I knew my fate would change when you showed up here, Xerxes. I knew it even more when she showed up.”