Page 3

He didn’t want to live if Per-Siana was gone. If his homeland was rubble and his Weylin heritage was erased from existence, then with his dying breath he would call to his voices, turn into a beast, and rampage through this palace, destroying everything in sight—starting with King Alecsander, the man who’d cheated. Who’d claimed Xerxes as a showpiece for his Museum of the Living.

Xerxes would die with his people.

He was nobody’s showpiece.

2

RYN

Rain and wind pounded against Ryn’s armour, her slick mask flying off when a gust roared over the border mountains, uprooting plants and tipping over supply boxes. Damp hair stuck to her cheeks as she watched Bastone catch the mask out of the air. He threw it back and braced for a curved B’rei Mira blade that nearly threw him off his feet.

“They’re breaking through on the left!” Heva shouted, pointing down the line to where General Reza’s division waged war. A crack of lightning hit the sand by Heva’s toes and she was thrown off balance, tripping over a loose panel of the destroyed boardwalk. The camp was in pieces, trees broken and tipped over—all victims of the black cloud’s wrath.

An arrow sailed past, spiralling through the storm and plunking into the red kilt of an enemy in full combat with General Reza. The warrior gawked and fell to a knee where Division One soldiers engulfed him. Ryn watched the General stagger back a step and wipe moisture from his forehead before releasing a throaty cough that echoed across the sand.

Ryn slid her mask back on, trapping sticky hair against her face. She glanced back at Kilen firing arrows from the mountain slope and signalled for him to come fight—pointing toward the General. Kilen stood from the high bushes and drew his sword before springing over shrubs and racing down the boardwalk.

Ten more lines.

Ryn settled her gaze on the jagged formations of B’rei Mira warriors pushing toward the Per-Siana border. Ten lines left. Ten lines of enemies. And then maybe they could breathe again.

“El, please don’t let any more come over that hill,” Ryn begged. They couldn’t take it. Forget Burn Division Twelve, the whole Per-Siana army was going to collapse under the pressure of these incessant attacks. Her belly groaned in hunger; her tongue was dry with thirst. She’d hardly had a chance to take in a full breath in two days.

“Brace yourself.”

Light flickered in Ryn’s vision, and she stole a sideways look to where a glowing burst put the lightning to shame, spreading around her like wings and throwing back shadows gnashing their teeth. B’rei Mira warriors slowed, gasping, some releasing horrified sounds and running away like they’d met the very spirit of fear they’d tried to infect Per-Siana with.

Thunder roared over the desert, muting the sounds of battle. Ryn’s gaze travelled up to the swirling, restless storm that had grown large enough to take a bite out of the provinces at Ryn’s back if it wasn’t stopped.

“Commander Adassah!” A blue-sashed messenger staggered over uneven sand, a parchment in his fist. He raised an arm to shield himself as the wind picked up, his sleeve flapping. “You have a message from the Mother City!” He winced against the rain pelting his face as he extended a letter to Ryn. She slid off her gauntlets and took it, peeling the soaking paper open.

Grunts and clashes faded behind her as she read the note, and the messenger took off the way he came, ducking when thunder clapped over the mountains again.

“Wait!” Ryn called after him.

The messenger skidded to a stop, a stricken look on his face when he turned back and watched the bloodshed of the frontlines. Ryn stalked after him and held up the note.

“Tell Geovani that if the council will not accept her guidance and denounce Damon to appoint her as the new chancellor, then I’ll use her. Do you have a lead pen?”

Rainwater flooded the messenger’s eyes as he blinked, patting his pockets until he produced a pen. Ryn carefully scribbled a sentence in Adriel letters below Geovani’s message on the soggy page, tearing it in places. It was barely legible, but she tossed the note back and it stuck to the leather at the messenger’s chest. He peeled it off, eyes widening as he read it. “Give this to the High Priestess. Trust me—I have a songwriter who is more of a soldier than most of the men here.” Ryn nodded to the Per-Siana army. “Bring it directly to the First Temple. That’s an order.”

The messenger’s throat bobbed, but he nodded and raced off, darting through shrubs onto the mountain path where his horse waited. Ryn watched him mount and disappear into the mountain shadows as she yanked her gauntlets back on and lifted her sword. A faint light on the iron illuminated the sand where she stood, and soft music hummed over her hands, her arms, up to her shoulders. A song no one else could hear.

“El,” she whispered, gaze dragging to the enemy. Nine lines left now. Shadows slithered in the sand like a nest of provoked snakes. “When will this end?”

Three straight days of fighting, heavy rain, clashing swords, and cold winds.

Those nine lines had cost Per-Siana border soldiers serious injuries that would take time to heal, and the medicine tent had been destroyed last week.

Pain radiated from Ryn’s lower back as she hobbled into the feasting tent. She released a croak as she lowered into a chair, slumping her crossed arms onto the table and laying her forehead upon them. Agony breathed down the back of her neck every time she turned it too, and on top of that, her stomach was angry, begging for bread or rice.

The entire army should have been wiped out weeks ago, and the murmurs throughout the tent made it clear the soldiers knew it. Ryn could feel their curious stares and glances in her direction. But they’d stopped asking questions after their bodies and minds became too tired to care about the reason for their survival. Even so, it was evident some of them were beginning to wonder if perhaps death would be better than this.

A new wave of B’rei Mira warriors came every day. Every. Single. Day. No exceptions. And they hadn’t broken through yet, but with every wave, they made it a few inches further. The dark cloud above thickened and spread a little wider with every battle, like arms reaching both ways down the border.

A long tear in the tent ceiling gave everyone inside a view of the raging black storm blotting out the daylight and crushing any traces of afternoon warmth. An icy breeze slithered in, and Ryn shivered. The barrels in the corner rattled—the last supplies from the Mother City, and the only wooden objects that had survived the continuous attacks. Most men didn’t even have beds to sleep on anymore. Sand was their mattress at night, the relentless black cloud their canopy.

“I can’t feel my hands.” Heva splayed her fingers on the table. Bruises speckled her knuckles, her thumb swollen inside her silver ring. “Or my legs. Or my head.” She leaned back in her chair and released a loud, coarse sigh, face tipped up toward the ceiling. Bloodshot veins webbed across her eyes, her cheeks stained with dirt and old blood. “How many B’rei Mira warriors can possibly be left? I feel like we’ve already fought the whole kingdom.”