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Dust stars floated around the room, glittering as they drifted past the window. Ryn wandered over and lifted a hand to catch one in her palm. “I miss the days where the only thing I had to worry about was making apple pie for a friend’s birthday.”

Xerxes’s jaw slid to the side. She didn’t sound like she was blaming him, even though his command to the Folke to bring her to the palace had pulled her from her simple life after her father traded her to Xerxes in a deal. He scratched the back of his head, shoving aside his new gold-wreath crown.

“Even if you weren’t my King, Xerxes, I wouldn’t let you die.” Ryn dragged her brown gaze back to him from the window.

Xerxes stifled an eye roll, and a headache threatened to form behind his eyes. “I didn’t participate in that Tribute because I thought there was any weight in your deal with Alecsander, Ryn. We both know Alecsander doesn’t keep his deals. Even if he says he won’t kill me, he probably will once you give him what he wants. He’s made it quite clear he only needs one prize from every kingdom he conquers—he doesn’t need us both alive.” Xerxes scuffed his hair and tugged off his wreath. He tossed it into a basket of paints on the shelf where the servants would never find it. “Don’t be foolish and assume that this ‘deal’ to marry his son and set me free will come to fruition either.”

Ryn hadn’t blinked in several seconds.

Xerxes adjusted his weight, a pebble sinking through him even though he couldn’t pinpoint why. “He’s got a tree, you know. Like my pear tree.” His sandals dragged over the rough floor. He wandered by a shelf, eyeing bottles of glitter and jugs of paint. “That tree must come down. I can feel it.”

Her voice came out quiet. “Then take it down, Xerxes.”

His chest deflated. “I tried.” He turned to face her, the sun hitting the side of her brown hair and giving her a heavenly glow. “It’s not that simple. I think only one of its owners can face it. Someone who invited it in. I think someone else is meant for that job.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure that even makes sense.”

Just their quiet breathing and the muted, faraway clattering of the palace servants entertained them for several seconds.

Xerxes’s voice deepened when he spoke again. “I’m not afraid, Ryn. As soon as I woke up here, I knew I’d never leave this place alive. I made impulsive comments about taking you as my wife, but your efforts in this kingdom are in vain.” He gently kicked a paintbrush toward the wall. “Maybe your god will accept me into his afterlife dwelling place.”

Ryn’s brown eyes were wide when he glanced up, glossing over as she stared in a way that made Xerxes’s tongue freeze in his mouth. “Stop talking, Xerxes,” she whispered, and the words hung in the air like glass, waiting to drop and shatter.

“Wait…” Xerxes’s shoulders tightened as he read her face. He took a step toward her. “…you’re not going to take Alecsander’s deal… are you?” Ryn turned for the window, and his jaw dropped. “Ryn,” he growled. “Who will defend Per-Siana once I’m gone if you agree to this? Who will lead them, Ryn?! Per-Siana won’t take you back if you’ve married the enemy!”

“I’m no King.”

Xerxes’s grunt filled the room. “Do you still not get it? You’re the Queen Per-Siana needs. Go back and overthrow the Intelligentsia! Save your people, Ryn! I all but gave you permission back in Per-Siana to do it!” He held up his bare hand. “If I had my signet ring, I would hand it over to you and command you as your King to raise an iron fist against the council and sit in my chair!”

Ryn was glaring when she spun around. “If El wanted me to rule Per-Siana, he would have delivered it to me. I won’t carve my own path through it and take it by force when he hasn’t told me to,” she said. “If El wants me in that seat, he will part the ocean in the way, and I’ll walk into Per-Siana on dry land.” Her chest fell in her dress and she released a loud, coarse breath. “It doesn’t matter though. I’ll never take Per-Siana away from you. And I won’t let you die! This cannot be El’s plan!”

Xerxes ground his teeth. “Well, have you asked him if it’s his plan—”

“It can’t be!” she shrieked. “It can’t be, Xerxes!” She stomped a foot, and he strode across the room, kicking aside bottles—one toppled and spilled bright violet ink across the floor. Xerxes stood over his Heartstealer maiden, the one he would have chosen long ago had her blood been different. His thin lips hung just above her trembling rose-painted ones.

“You’re too scared to ask him, aren’t you?” he demanded. Tears welled in her eyes, and it was all the confirmation he needed. “Let me go, Ryn. I don’t have much to live for anyway. I was always on my own. I don’t even have a family anymore—just let me go.”

Ryn drove onto her toes and pressed her lips hard against his. Xerxes’s heart squeezed, then tumbled around, and he kissed her back, driving her against the window and winding his fingers into her hair. His shadow of a heart pounded against his ribs, but he found himself. He forced his lips to stop on hers, and he pulled them off, catching his breath as his soul and body screamed at himself, at her, at the gods.

Ryn closed her mouth, her throat shifting. “I will do whatever it takes to ensure you don’t die,” she promised, and Xerxes’s lively heart slowed, sinking down and crushing his stomach. It was strange—there wasn’t a speck of comfort in her tone. It was more like a rebellion; the peace had left her eyes. He set his jaw and moved his fingers out of her hair.

She almost looked unfamiliar. It was like staring at a broken version of Ryn.

Even so… she was his maiden.

“Let me make one thing clear; if you dare to agree to marry that awful, vulgar man—” Xerxes angled his head, sharpening the gaze that had commanded armies, provinces, and a rebellious council “—I will take him to the grave with me long before the wedding.”

The threat was a beastly one, and it worked. Ryn’s watery eyes changed, the hardness dissolving into fear; dark brows tilting inward, rosy lips pulling into a frown.

“My time is up,” Xerxes said. He reached into his robe for his keys as he turned and left, pushing the door open quietly, marching across a modest hall beneath the flower arch, and picking up speed on the stairs. He could hear the guards approaching from the wide space at the far end of the hall of hostage cells. He barely slipped back inside his chamber before they flooded the hall with spears and curved swords.

The pedestal would be crushed beneath Xerxes’s weight from all his pacing, but his body itched to move every time he stood still. His chains slid over the ground after him like a metal snake as he eyed Prince Mansour across the Throne Room sitting in a special chair sprinkled with rubies. The Prince glanced back at him every couple of minutes. After a while, Prince Mansour shifted in his seat and shot Xerxes a bothered look like he might have been catching on to the fact that Xerxes wanted to throw him off a palace ledge into the misty walls below.

Finally, Prince Mansour got up from his odd throne and left the room, and only then did Xerxes stop sending his piercing gaze across the space. Both Prince’s thrones were empty now, though Xerxes had never seen Prince Emad sitting in the other one.

Norkin laughed. “This is so entertaining,” he said. Xerxes cut a look at him, and Norkin pointed between Xerxes and Prince Mansour’s empty throne. “My dream is to see you two in combat, I think. You’d beat him, Xerxes—he doesn’t have any real battle experience, he’s just sneaky.”

Xerxes shook his head. If only Norkin realized Xerxes would give his kingship birthright for an opportunity like that. He turned away from Norkin, tugging at the tight chains on his wrists.

“Where are you? I’m beginning to wonder if you even see what’s happening here,” Xerxes murmured to the god of the Adriels. “El Tsebaoth—my maiden is…”