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Kai dropped Heva’s hand. “Stay here!” he shouted, taking off through the field, crushing wheat and mud as he imagined the priestesses having returned, of the Folke coming to burn the temple with them inside it.

He broke through the edge of the field in seconds and raced over the grass, bounding up the front stairs and flinging the temple doors open. He didn’t check for Folke, he didn’t check for witnesses, he took in a deep breath and charged inside, fanning smoke away from his eyes as he crossed the lobby to the sanctuary, as he checked every pew for signs of pink dresses. He went to the study area next, live flames eating bookshelves and swallowing the High Priestess’s collection of ancient Adriel texts. He released the breath he was holding when his lungs screamed, and he shouted into the haze. “Is anyone in here?!”

There was no reply, so he headed back for the front doors. He inhaled a breath when the cool air touched his face, and he rubbed his burning eyes.

A cough sounded through the roaring of the fire. Kai drifted a step back in, tilting his ear toward the temple. Another cough.

Kai glanced toward the hall of bedrooms and tore into a sprint, hopping over a fallen Adriel flag crisping at the edges. He raced to the first bedroom and looked inside, but nothing moved, so he went to the next one, and the next.

He stopped at his own bedroom.

A girl in a pink dress lay flat on the floor, cheeks stained with ash. Kai dropped to a knee and tapped her cheek. “Wake up, Seeda!” He shoved his arms beneath her and lifted, her hot body burning his arms as he carried her down the hall then through the sanctuary. He trotted down the front stairs, cold wind taking the heat off his flesh as he lowered her onto the grass.

Seeda’s eyes peeled open, revealing burn marks on the whites and ashes speckled across her irises.

“What were you doing in there, Seeda? Didn’t you see the smoke!?” Kai scolded.

Her eyes fell closed again, but her lips parted. Only a breath of sound came out. “The First Temple was on fire… I went in to save Heva.” Her head rolled to the side, and Kai patted her arm, shook her shoulder. When she didn’t move, he slid his fingers along her throat to feel for a pulse. His hand shook when he couldn’t find one.

A strangled, horrified sound lifted behind him. Kai turned, and there stood Heva, eyes bright red, legs shaking. She toppled to the ground and crawled over, abandoning her sword. Heva shook Seeda’s leg, tears streaking her cheeks as she whispered over and over, “Tell me this is a dream, Priest. Tell me this is a delusion from your medicines. Tell me this is just a dream.”

Shuffling across the street brought Kai’s attention to a crowd gathering; some pointed at the flames, others whispered. A Folke in blue and silver moved among them, sword drawn, shouting for the crowd to settle down, and Kai’s hand slid over the grass to Heva’s, his pinky curling around hers.

“We need to go,” he whispered. “Right now, Heva. We need to leave.”

The Folke glanced their way, and Kai turned his head quickly, concealing his face with his other hand.

To his surprise, Heva climbed to her feet on her own, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. She limped toward the field and grabbed her sword from the grass, biting her lips over a moan as she bent. Kai stood, and she reached for him. So, he slid an arm around Heva’s waist, and he stole a look back at the Folke as he and Heva moved for the storage buildings nearby. The Folke was distracted, shouting at citizens asking questions and demanding answers.

When Heva’s breaths grew thin, Kai scooped up her legs and carried her.

15

XERXES

The bath water was hotter than normal, a temperature that reminded Xerxes of the luxurious palace pools in Per-Siana. The soap was different though; oily and bland. He waited as servants scrubbed him pink, robed and crowned him with a new gold wreath, and fastened sandals to his feet. It was the first time in seven days that guards weren’t outside his door. At first, Xerxes thought they forgot to show up, but after the servants excused themselves and carted the bathtub around the far curve in the hall, Xerxes slipped out of his cell and closed the door behind him, realizing that maybe they no longer cared. It wasn’t like he could escape—Norkin had proved it wasn’t possible. The fools hadn’t even searched his cell for his keys even though he’d spilled them on the floor in front of the Vafat by Alecsander’s tree.

The guards would come soon to bring the royal hostages to the Museum pedestals. He had maybe twenty minutes.

Xerxes padded over the floor, glancing at Norkin’s cell as he headed for the staircase. He passed beneath a blooming arch of scarlet flowers tangled into a metal frame, and he came to the small man-sized balcony. Breeze tickled his hair as he braced his hands against the frame to climb onto the rail and jump for the balcony above, but he yelped when he saw a maiden there, hanging off the wall by her fingers.

Ryn’s dark hair was down and loose, her lips painted a rosy red, a crimson dress hem fluttering at her ankles. It reminded him of when she scaled down the wall of the glass palace in Per-Siana. Xerxes reached for her before she realized he was there, and her body stiffened until she saw him. She unlatched her fingers from the ledge, catching his arms and balancing on the rail of the small balcony with her toes.

“If slaying my enemies in the desert hadn’t worked out for you, Ryn, you could have been a festival performer at Celestial revelries,” Xerxes remarked as he pulled her onto the balcony too small for them both. Divinities, she was stunning in red, even though he hated the enemy flag colour on her. “You could have been one of those rope walkers over the Mother City.”

“I was coming to see you.” She peeked around the wall into the palace.

Xerxes tried not to feel too pleased. It was about time she came to see him after one of the longest, most treacherous weeks of his kingship. He spotted an open door across the hall and led the way over, then closed the door once they were both inside a dark room. He watched Ryn take in the modest space of art supplies, frameless portraits leaning against the wall, and paint-speckled easels perched by a window at the far end. She paused before one portrait in particular of a fellow with ink-black hair, dark eyes with flecks of gold, reddish lips, a dark gold coronet, and a stomach-turning smile. Xerxes walked past her, lifted the painting off the floor and studied it for a moment. Then he tore it to shreds.

“There,” he said when he was finished, tossing the frame aside. “Now it’s a puzzle.”

Ryn squeaked a near-silent snort when she laughed, and the sound drove deep into Xerxes’s soul. Her smile faded though, and his mimicked it; a slow decay of a moment’s joy.

His time was slipping away.

“You’re angry with me,” Ryn said, pushing her hair behind her ear, turning to the paintings again. She nudged one aside with her foot, unearthing a sketch of a forest behind it.

Xerxes’s chest rose and fell with a full breath, and he folded his arms. “I’ll only be angry with you if you agree to marry that B’rei Mira Prince. But you won’t, right, Ryn?”