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Day six, boils broke out upon all the nobles so badly, they resorted to wearing veils like the ones Ryn wore. But it was only B’rei Mira citizens who received the flesh-peeling boils. None of the Museum hostages were marked. Xerxes stood before the War King with clean skin and repeated what the Adriel god told him to say.

The next plague didn’t even wait until morning; hail pounded upon the palace throughout the night, shooting through homes in Pyriwell, breaking apart wagons and smashing through palace windows. It shattered over the palace tiles like diamonds tearing apart, chunks of ice making it all the way down the hall and slamming against Xerxes’s cell door.

At that point, it became comical. Xerxes’s laugh rang through the hallway from his cell as he listened.

Butterflies. The tiny creatures made a unique sound when they flew. Xerxes awoke to the low humming of winged insects in flight. He lifted his head off the floor just in time to see an emerald green-winged bug shoot past his cell outside. He started when thousands more whizzed by shortly after, a swarm thick enough to blot out the hallway lights. They covered the ceiling, the walls, every seat, the banquet table, beds, curtains, windows—a thing of nightmares.

Last came the darkness. The sun never rose, and the palace was absent of its morning warmth. Everything was so pitch-dark Xerxes could hardly see his hand before him when he lifted it. Torches flickered, giving off a faint orange light as guards approached. Like every other day, they came in, wrestled Xerxes to his feet, and brought him to the Throne Room. He winced as he crushed dead butterflies beneath his heels. The fools never gave him sandals anymore. The servants had stopped coming to beautify him too—he hadn’t had a bath in ages.

The Throne Room was copper with dim firelight, like a midnight dance or revelry was about to take place even though it was late morning.

Alecsander could hardly be seen in the dark, but faint orange light rippled down his left side.

“I wonder, if I kill you, will the plagues stop?”

Xerxes cleared his throat, shrinking just a little. “Probably not,” he admitted. He stole a glance over at Ryn for the first time in days. He hadn’t been dragged to his pedestal with the other royals. He’d barely left his cell, had hardly seen her apart from the mornings when he was forced here to answer to Alecsander, and most days she hadn’t been there. “The God Original will just use someone else if I’m dead.” He pulled his gaze back, settling it on Alecsander. He tried not to notice how Ryn was wearing a crimson veil today. How she looked like a bride.

Alecsander’s broad chest rose. A finger tapped slowly on his armrest. “Perhaps it’s not you performing these godly acts,” he reasoned.

“It’s not,” Xerxes said. He opened his mouth to warn Alecsander about the God Original yet again, but Alecsander’s gaze slid over to Ryn, and Xerxes’s mouth froze open as he realized what Alecsander must have thought he meant.

Ryn also had no boils on her flesh. Alecsander studied her, the golds of his eyes sinking to a dark copper, burning like a light from his hood, then fading again.

Xerxes stepped forward. “I mean, she’s not—”

“When I made a deal with a Per-Siana official a decade ago to send a B’rei Mira woman to wed a young Per-Siana King, I did not expect that one day we would be here like this, King Xerxes.” Alecsander’s dark eyes swept back, and his finger stopped tapping. “His name was Belorme. The Chancellor who convinced King Draco to use you in a marriage alliance.”

Xerxes’s shoulders sank. He’d never heard Alecsander speak so much at once. For a moment, it made him seem human.

“The Per-Siana Chancellor had a young sage kill your wife so I could wage war upon Per-Siana. Your Intelligentsia thought they’d be spared if they complied with my demands. Unfortunately, my Vafat had no such deal with them. Which is why they’re dead.”

Xerxes was no longer breathing. His thoughts, the blood in his veins, all slowed to a cold, rigid stop.

A smile crept across Alecsander’s mouth. Xerxes’s mind screamed questions he couldn’t ask, shards of memories ripping from their places and hanging before him like a tattered map of his boyhood.

And then Prince Mansour appeared, sauntering through the Throne Room in a crimson toga that matched Ryn’s veil. “What’s the matter, King Xerxes? Did you spend the last years thinking you were a murderer?” Prince Mansour sank into his throne and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and staring Xerxes right in the eyes. “Were you afraid of yourself for being a monster?”

“B… Belorme…” The man’s name was barely a word on Xerxes’s mouth as his memories drove him back to a day when he awoke in his own bed beside a woman he hardly knew, her pale body a corpse on his sheets. He’d been so terrified, he’d raced from the room right into Belorme’s arms in nothing but his sleeping garments.

Xerxes closed his eyes in disbelief.

Damon. Damon always acted as if he knew something Xerxes didn’t, always had that plot behind his eyes to overthrow the Per-Siana throne. Neither the B’rei Mira Prince nor its King had to tell Xerxes who Belorme had used to murder the first Queen.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Prince Mansour’s snapping voice drew Xerxes’s eyes open.

Ryn stood before him. A chiffon veil covered the bottom half of her face, but even in the dim lights he could see her parted lips through it, the glisten in her eyes reflecting the lapping torchlights. She raised a shaking hand and pressed it over Xerxes’s heart, gold bangles clattering at her wrist. Xerxes stared back. What a foolish maiden. How could she lay hands on him like this after she was parading around in foreign bridal wear?

“It’s inappropriate for you to touch another man, Commander Adassah,” Prince Mansour’s cold voice cut through the silence. “Aren’t you my Crimson Veil? My bride?” The challenge was clear.

Ryn dropped her hand, her words a dry whisper, “He’s still my King.”

“Well, he’s my hostage!” Prince Mansour returned, and Alecsander twitched on his throne. “Get away from him and come sit with me.”

Ryn’s lips tightened behind her veil. “I have agreed to nothing yet. I am not your bride. I’m still deciding, Prince Mansour. Watch your words.”

Prince Mansour’s face contorted, eyes unblinking as he glared at her. Xerxes had the impulse to step in and cut off his line of sight, but he remained planted on the carpet. He could not save Ryn from this fate. Only she could. Only her god could.

He watched her drift back to the seat beside the enemy Prince, and she stayed there as Xerxes was once again led from the Throne Room. He was tossed back into his damp cell, and a stale piece of bread was thrown in after him for dinner.