Page 45

TELL THE KING WE’RE HERE TO RESCUE HIM

(BUT I CAME TO RESCUE YOU)

BDXII

Ryn crumpled the note in her fist, looking out at the guards to see if anyone had noticed. She bit her glossed lip as she shook her head. How did Bastone even find out where she was? She slid the note beneath her pectoral, right over her heart, and she tightened her jaw as she dared to imagine Burn Division Twelve hiding within the B’rei Mira city that had so ruthlessly attacked her people. Her gaze twitched over every new person who raced to the streetside waving flags and carrying armfuls of blossoms. It fell on Prince Mansour and her thoughts froze over as she imagined him doing the same thing he’d done to Heva to Faro, to Dolem, Yusuf, to Bastone. The thought of her burn division rattled her out of herself like she’d been living in a daydream. Thoughts of them had felt so far away, but if Bastone was in B’rei Mira, this no longer felt like a dream at all.

“I will not die for you!” Bastone had shouted those words back in Per-Siana. She brought a hand over her mouth.

“El Tsebaoth. El Shaddai!” she whispered through her fingers, through her veil, and the air shifted around her, warmth flooding into her veins. “I yield. Not my will, but yours be done. I’m here now, use me.” Body, mind, heart—she gave them back, letting the peace that transcended her understanding flood in.

Ryn’s tear-speckled lashes fluttered as the whole street sank into darkness, shadows of foreign false gods whipping around like she’d screamed the words, hollow gazes narrowing, wings spreading out of some of the beastly ones.

“I will do whatever you ask.” She climbed off her chair and dropped to her knees, not caring who looked at her in question as her legs crushed blooms. The guards around her inched closer. “Whatever the outcome might be, it is well with my soul.”

“Get back on your seat!” a guard snapped, pointing a spear in her direction. Ryn’s hand flashed up and she grabbed the point of the spear, holding it tight as a warm breeze wrapped around her fingers. Her gaze slid over to the guard, and when she made eye contact, El’s strength filled her bones, and she crushed the metal in her hand. People screamed.

Back at the palace, Prince Mansour didn’t believe the guards when they tried to tell him what happened. He’d grabbed Ryn’s hand and turned it over to find no cut or blood whatsoever. Ryn excused herself while they were still talking, and she raced up several sets of stairs to her room. She shoved the glass doors open and came onto the balcony where the ivies ruffled in the rising night gales.

“What do I do?” she asked the sky.

“Go kill a lamb in the kitchen and spread its blood over the door of Xerxes’s cell.”

Ryn blinked. “…What?” She scratched the back of her neck. “That’s disgusting.”

“It’s a symbol, Adassah. Not even the spirit of death can overcome the blood of the lamb.”

For a moment, Ryn wondered if she was still talking to the same Adriel God she knew. But she took in a deep breath and nodded. A second later, she was back across her room again, fleeing into the hall in her red bridal dress.

After searching through half the palace and ducking around pillars to avoid guards, it was just her luck she happened to enter the kitchen seconds after a butcher had slaughtered several animals for the evening banquet. She bowed in apology as she stole the lamb and grimaced while she caught its blood in a bowl. Then she went up to the cells of the Museum royals, finding them all empty. The evening banquet must have already begun.

“This one.”

Ryn glanced through a small barred window, seeing a rock floor, moss poking from the ground, and dark walls with no windows that reminded her of the Mother City cave prison. “Is this where he sleeps?” She used her hands to smother the lamb’s blood over his door. “This is the strangest thing you’ve ever asked me to do,” she added with a whisper.

“A plague of death is coming. This will save him.”

Ryn leaned back to peer down the dim hall when she heard noises in the wide area past a row of glyph-covered pillars. When no one appeared, she picked up the whole bowl and splattered the rest over his door. It dripped over her pectoral, dots splashing her cheek and drenching a patch of her dress.

She jogged down the hall and tossed the bowl into the first closet she saw on her way. At least her gown was red. Maybe no one would notice the blood. She moved for the Banquet Hall where voices lifted in a chorus of noise, giving her hope she could slide in the back, and no one would see she was late.

The first course was being served when she arrived, silver platters carried high over servant girls’ heads. She became aware of every Vafat in the room as they turned their heads toward her, their sharp violet eyes narrowing like they were seeing her for the first time. She tried to walk past, but she slowed her steps when Xerxes charged to the end of his platform, gaping. Ryn’s hand patted over her pectoral, then to her cheek, feeling wetness. Lambs’ blood. She looked down and realized how much worse the mess she’d made was than she thought. She took a step toward Xerxes to quickly explain, but her feet came together when a guard marched in from the opening where barrels of flame lit up the entrance in the night, and shouted, “A Per-Siana negotiation team has arrived, Your Majesty.”

Ryn’s attention pulled off Xerxes and settled on B’rei Mira guards marching through the opening, surrounding a group in navy blue war leathers and silver armour. The navy soldiers stopped in the middle of the room before they reached the table and dropped to one knee. Guards drew curved blades and held them toward the group, half with the Division One white dragon sewn into their sleeves, and half with the beige ‘BURN DIVISION XII’ Weylin letters across their backs. A Vafat paced around them. Ryn spotted Yusuf among the men, plugging his mouth with his fist like he might vomit. A middle-aged man in the front of the group glanced up, his droopy eyes sailing across the room and settling on Xerxes as his emerald green cape ruffled at his back.

17

XERXES

“We don’t negotiate.” It was the collective whisper of the Vafat that had Xerxes in a chokehold as he beheld General Reza standing in the Banquet Hall, two dozen men of the Per-Siana Army at his back including Joshua and other Division One soldiers Xerxes knew by name. They appeared strong and healthy, nothing of the weak and overrun army he’d imagined. He spotted familiar faces of Commander Adassah’s burn division soldiers, too.

The thought brought his attention back to Ryn standing at the entrance of the Banquet Hall drenched in blood. It looked like she’d been attacked by a pack of wolves. Xerxes didn’t know who to stare at anymore.

“Apprehend them.” Alecsander’s voice cracked over the Hall, and the room got colder.

Xerxes watched Reza stick out his arms willingly as B’rei Mira savages approached the Per-Siana soldiers with chains. Guards in red ushered them toward a hallway, Joshua’s celestial bells clattering in the mix. The Per-Siana soldiers left desert sand in their wake.

“Don’t harm them!” Ryn’s voice sailed across the room, and a hundred sets of eyes located her by the entrance, blood glistening across her gold chest plate, dragged down her cheeks in finger marks, soaking the hip of her dress. Her begging deepened Alecsander’s frown, and Xerxes spotted disdain in the War King’s face. It was the first time Xerxes wondered if he planned to kill her instead of marrying her to his offspring. The spark of admiration was gone, the curiosity and thrill of fear were nowhere to be found. Alecsander looked inhuman as he stared, and Ryn shrank beneath his gaze.