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Another in beige stepped from a temple, and a few in half-navy, half-beige came from an alley. It was a sparse collection of people, Adriels and Weylins alike, perhaps horrified that their palace had been taken over by foreigners and that their streets were invaded. Horrified that foreigners thought they could come in and speak their language and impose their religion upon Per-Siana, wiping the Per-Siana culture away more every day. It wasn’t a quiet takeover anymore. The Vafat came in larger numbers every week. Most stayed in the palace, but some wandered the streets, murmuring and inflicting dreadful curses over Per-Siana. At first, Geovani was inclined to believe people were too afraid to challenge them, that they’d lay down and let the kingdom be trampled by foreign gods. Especially because the Vafat brought news of the Gold Maiden’s apparent new hatred for Per-Siana and weak allegiance to her people, pulling some of those who had started to follow El Tsebaoth into a whirlwind of doubt over whether he would still come heal this land. But…

Then there were those in beige.

Hardly noticeable the first few days, but growing in numbers. There were more today than there were yesterday, and there were more yesterday than the day before that. What gave them away had nothing to do with the colour of their clothes though, or the way they moved in small flocks, or stuck to the edges of the streets out of view of the Vafat travelling to and from the palace. It was that when Geovani watched with her spirit eyes, they glowed.

And so, she prayed for them, day and night, pacing and watching closely as spirit filled their bellies and light blew into the streets with their words. She saw the young people of this nation ready to roar back at their deceitful leaders like an army of lions. She saw the dangers ahead, but she saw fire in their hearts, too. She saw it all. How the young people might take the kingdom back. She thought Adassah would be used to turn things around because of El’s special love for her. But El Tsebaoth didn’t want just one heart. He wanted all of them. And so, he was building an army.

22

XERXES

Weeks ago, Xerxes’s cold flesh had craved the desert heat. Yet, when the time came for him to bask in the hot sun on the rolling dunes, to feel the sand in his boots he both hated and missed, Xerxes didn’t feel a thing. Bright light had spat against his eyes, springing water from their wells and bringing a stinging pain he didn’t try to blink away or shield his eyes to relieve. The only way he knew he was still alive was to feel that pain. Otherwise, he might have mistaken himself for a skeleton of bones trudging through the underworld with no organs, flesh, or blood. A creature with no heart at all. A creature who’d lost it somewhere in a river, left it behind to be collected by whoever found it. A lifeless stone that might roll up onto shore somewhere.

The journey across the desert had been nothing less than a phenomenon. It was a blond burn division soldier with a bow in his hands who sounded the alarm that the enemy was coming, blowing into a horn from atop a dune. They’d only gone several miles into the desert, had hardly been riding for two hours. General Reza had whirled on his horse, and Xerxes almost fell off the back. Sure enough, the horizon speckled with the blinking lights of torches and raised scarlet flags, dust rising off spinning chariot wheels. Reza had looked ahead toward a colossal dune half the size of a mountain, one they would struggle to climb over before the B’rei Mira units reached them. But there was no other way; the dune stretched too far in both directions to go around.

The sound of Reza’s sword ripping from its sheath filled the night air. “Prepare to defend your King!” he shouted over the soldiers, and the metallic music of weapons being drawn followed. Reza’s body shook with a moist cough as Xerxes drew his own sword, hardly aware of what he was doing. He came back to himself when the roar of enemy warriors rumbled over the sand, and Joshua’s celestial bells rattled as his horse trotted three steps backward.

Xerxes looked ahead at that dune. He wasn’t sure what came over him as he slid from Reza’s horse, as he charged toward the hill. As he skidded to a halt at the bottom and dropped to a knee, thrusting his sword deep into the sand. There was a voice in his head and a breeze at his shoulder when everything started to shake. The horses stumbled back and forth, their riders yelping. Xerxes’s face lit with a glow the others might not have seen as the dune quivered. A punch of light burst off his sword, spearing into the sand, and the ground tore apart like a canvas being ripped in half, sand parting before him, shooting into the sky on both sides as the path before him flattened.

“By the Divinities…” Division One soldiers whispered among themselves as Xerxes stood, tearing his blade out of the sand. And General Reza was there in an instant, his hand extended. Xerxes grabbed it, climbed onto Reza’s horse, and they fled, three dozen horse hooves pounding over the earth on a level path where a dune had once been.

Xerxes twisted around when the B’rei Mira units caught up. He beheld the dune roaring like a desert creature, the sides of the opening slamming shut like jaws and devouring the B’rei Mira army and all their chariots, drowning them in a sea of sand. The dune settled back to its original form, a peaceful scene in the desert. Only the Per-Siana soldiers escaping and the glowing stars above bore witness to what had happened.

The days it took to reach Per-Siana were a blur now as Xerxes stood on the Navy Road. His hood tickled his cheeks in a cool breeze that rushed down from a spinning black storm cloud. Lightning flashed above; a sign in the sky no different than a mark of claim by a divine hand. A palace of glass rested before him, catching rare rays of light and casting rainbows over a gate held in place by white walls where the leafy tops of trees peeked over from inside. Silvery arches led to pearl balconies seven floors high, some spearing into the clouds. A place that was once a home with many decorated rooms, lantern-lit hallways, and a secret basement filled to the brim with memories.

An army waited at Xerxes’s back, packing the Navy Road with blue and silver. Half the Per-Siana army that fought at his side in the desert war had arrived at the news the King had returned; Commander Hall, Commander Zerralae, Commander Malore, along with their provincial divisions and many more. But Xerxes’s expectations were rattled the most when he’d discovered that the majority of those who’d shown up were not soldiers at all, but people; regular citizens, wearing beige and holding flags marked with the ‘XII’ of Burn Division Twelve. An army he didn’t realize he had, crawling out from the corners of the Mother City, chanting for freedom. Not the Folke, not the Intelligentsia, not the Weylin nobles who were supposed to be his supporters… but Adriels. People meant to be despised by him, but who were, as he realized standing before them, his citizens.

“Don’t follow me in,” he said to Reza at his side. The General tapped his fingers against his belly, hugging his helmet to his hip.

“I’ll wait for your signal,” Reza said. “Don’t be too long, Xerxes. You’re not alone here. You don’t have to do this by yourself.”

Xerxes pulled his hood off, then unfastened his cloak and handed it to Joshua at his side. He drew his sword, eyes narrowing on the gate where eight Folke stood guard. “These citizens don’t need to get marred for me today,” he said, stealing a glance over his shoulder plate. “Divinities, some of the people in burn division colours are children.”

“But I’m not a child, Xerxes. I’m ready to die for this moment. I’ve lived a long, devout life,” Reza had the audacity to say, and Xerxes stifled an eye roll.

“Stop talking or you’re going to die just from overexerting yourself with flowery words, Reza.” The General shot him a look, his mouth thinning beneath his wiry beard. “Ill, old men shouldn’t fight wars. When are you going to retire?” Xerxes added.

General Reza grunted as Xerxes took his first step toward the palace. The army vibrated at his back as he marched to the gate and glared at the Folke. The Folke’s cheeks were pale as they observed the numbers gathered in the street, their backs nearly against the bars of the gate. They didn’t fling wide the gates; they didn’t even notice Xerxes there for a moment.

“You dare refuse passage to your King?” he growled at them, and the Folke shuffled themselves, exchanging looks. One finally found his mind and reached to unlatch the glorious silver gate and shove it open. The others helped pull the doors aside, and Xerxes marched into his garden, his armour releasing clangs as he crossed the paths, pushed through untrimmed rosebushes, and came to the entrance of his palace.

He stopped at the front doors, closed to the city; great beams of rich wood carved with ancient Weylin sun and moon runes meant for royalty. An offering of worship to the Celestial Divinities that founded and chose this royal lineage Xerxes was born into.

It was time to face monsters.

“Are you still with me?” he asked. The garden bugs buzzed in response.

A warm embrace came around him like a second skin, and he wasn’t sure how he knew he wasn’t alone, but he knew. He knew because he was familiar with the empty longing of being alone, and this was not that. Though… this felt familiar too.

He angled his head as a thought rushed in. “El Tsebaoth,” he murmured, aware of the Folke by the gate and scattered through the gardens watching him talk to himself. “Have we met before?” It was the quick flicker of a cherished memory, a mother who’d passed before he even memorized what she looked like. And a feeling of sadness once she was gone, crying out into the night for help. He couldn’t quite recall the details of it, but he pictured his own small hand lifting through the darkness, and another hand, warm like this, reaching back and taking it. It was strange, a time so long ago Xerxes wasn’t sure it had really happened.

Noises lifted from the atrium inside, and Xerxes didn’t wait for El Tsebaoth’s response as he kicked the palace doors open. A dim atrium awaited him, a dusty tiled space absent of lanterns and natural sunlight, and he studied the Celestial Divinity statues. Marks covered their stone bodies. The same foreign glyphs were messily graffitied along the muralled lobby walls in bright violet ink, and pages littered the floor with similar glyphs in strange patterns like a spell system.

The halls were quiet when he stepped in. The fountain in the lobby was dried out; the tub a pale white instead of the gray stone it was when moist.

Creatures moved from the shadows, beings with snow-white flesh branded with glittering bronze runes and long gaping hoods atop sweeping red robes. Hisses and murmurs crawled across the floor, prickling Xerxes’s feet.

But of course, he wasn’t afraid of them simply for being beastly.