Page 29
“This tree belongs to those who’ve sacrificed to it.”
“But my tree never belonged to Ryn, and she still cut it down,” Xerxes reasoned. He glanced back at the door, tilting his ear toward the hall still void of footsteps. He tapped a nail against the weapon’s handle and wandered over to a barrel in the corner overflowing with glittering leaves yet to be burned. He wound up and kicked the whole thing over. The boom rumbled out the door and down the hall.
Two Vafat filled the doorway, their bronze runes glowing.
“Good evening,” Xerxes muttered. “I’d be lying if I said it was nice to see you.” He dropped to his knees as they rushed in drawing long thin blades they aimed at his heart.
A dark figure appeared in silence, shadows slithering over the floor toward him standing in the doorway. Xerxes shrank to sit on his heels at the sight of Alecsander. An odd, subtle red flame hovered around him as his golden eyes darted around the room.
The War King entered on slow, hushed footsteps, his hood nearly hollow in the dim light. He eyed the dagger in Xerxes’s hand then glanced at the tree. And then he said sharp, cool words Xerxes wasn’t expecting:
“If he has taken even a single leaf from my tree… sacrifice him.”
Vafat yanked Xerxes to his feet. He growled as they tore off his cuffs, wrestling off his robe and belt, leaving him in nothing but his white under kilt; his keys, scroll map, and dagger clattering to the floor. He was forced back down, knees hitting stone, and the Vafat whispered, “He hasn’t a single leaf. What shall we do?”
Alecsander’s golden irises sank to copper. A weight pressed upon Xerxes’s shoulders even though no one touched him, and he clenched his jaw, neck muscles straining to keep his head up.
“Kill him!” A voice like thunder channelled through the room as if the tree itself had spoken.
Xerxes’s stomach dropped when Alecsander drew his sword and the Vafat swept out of the way.
“The Spirit of Death has no power over you. Tell it to leave in my name.”
He almost didn’t hear it—Xerxes scrambled backward, his knuckles sending his scroll map rolling over the floor. His hand fell on his dagger, fingers clasping around the handle.
“Kill him! We want Xerxes, son of draco, dead!”
“Silence, Death!” Xerxes shouted at the tree. “El Tsebaoth demands it!” He raised the dagger as Alecsander’s sword came down, and the blades crashed into each other. But it wasn’t Xerxes who flew back at the impact; a white light burst from his dagger, and Alecsander staggered, shielding his eyes.
There was no time for Xerxes to marvel. He climbed to his feet and held out his blade toward Alecsander of B’rei Mira. In front of his Vafat. In front of his wretched tree.
“You’ve taken enough from me,” Xerxes said through his teeth. “You cannot have my life, too.”
Alecsander’s eyes froze open, copper tones lightening to gold. He frowned, then slid his sword away in a slow, sharp sound that rang in Xerxes’s ears. A cool wind ruffled the branches overhead, dislodging a scatter of red leaves that floated down to the floor.
“Arrest him.” It was Alecsander’s cold voice—the human one. The King.
His golden eyes plunged to black again as Xerxes snatched his belongings off the floor, wrapping the keys and scroll inside his robe a second before the Vafat grabbed his arms with long pale fingers. They dragged him out with them, but Xerxes jerked himself to a stop before Alecsander in the doorway.
“If you weren’t such a coward, you could have faced me one on one in the desert. We could have settled this like Kings. Only a gutless, fearful man would pull a petty children’s trick during a negotiation because he was afraid of one woman in a mask.”
Alecsander’s blackened eyes narrowed. And Xerxes laughed, the noise lifting high enough to rattle the crooked branches above as he was led out. It boomed down the halls; it made other royal hostages come to the windows of their cells to peer out into the hall; it made the Vafat bind another muzzle of fabric around Xerxes’s mouth when they finally reached his cell.
11
RYN
Yellow afternoon sunlight hit Ryn’s armour, and she squinted as it reflected into her eyes. She hadn’t been able to eat the rice or spiced unleavened bread brought to her room all day. She wasn’t sure she could trust what evils might be hiding in it anyway. She emerged from her bed chambers flanked by seven palace guards, as if Alecsander worried she’d try to rebel even though they had a deal. Once in the bright Throne Room, Ryn was sprinkled with some sort of fragrant water as chants lifted from the Vafat. Smoke coiled up from wide brass barrels turning the Throne Room into a misty sea, and she coughed. Rules for the Tribute were announced by a leader in a tall headdress, but she could hardly listen as her eyes and throat burned.
She realized Alecsander was there, watching in silence. Ryn offered him something between a bow and a nod. “Keep your end of the deal when this is over,” she called through the smoke. “Unlike the last deal you made with Per-Siana in the desert—the deal you broke.”
A breath of a smile found his face, something that might not be considered a smile at all. Ice tickled Ryn’s bones when a Vafat beside her spoke back, “The King needs only one Per-Siana hostage for his Museum. What use does he have for two of you? We will see which Per-Siana star survives and makes it onto a pedestal in the morning.”
Ryn’s gaze slashed back through the smoke to Alecsander as she tried to sort that out. “You’d better not touch my King while I’m gone.” Across the room, a Vafat’s mouth thinned just a little at the threat. “I will win,” she promised.
Alecsander’s face shifted, light flesh glistening with gray as if morphing into a stone statue; a lifeless puppet who’d fallen asleep. He didn’t even blink. Ryn ignored the shiver crawling down her spine and redirected her attention to the layers of walls outside the palace barely visible through the smoke, to the morning sun, and to the distant city.
Next, Ryn was led to a mirror-filled fitting room where servants in crimson kilts measured her with their hands and held up various red fabrics, strands of gold coin hems, and braided belts.
