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“Careful, Xerxes.”

Xerxes’s mouth twisted to the side. Every inch of him called to his inner monster, but he sat back on his throne again. His finger traced over the mask at his hand, brushing over the cheek. Cold metal. Lifeless gold.

He hauled himself off his throne and picked up the sword leaning against it, already unsheathed. Each step echoed through his empty Throne Room as he came to the end of the dais, the sound of his sword dragging behind him irritating the peace.

Alecsander took several slow steps into the room in kind. A low scraping sounded when he drew his sword and held it at his side, a hissing red glow crawling down his blade like he’d dipped it in phantom blood. His impressive B’rei Mira red and brass armour with stamped glyphs and a rising black snake made him look twice his usual size.

“I used to hear voices, too.” Xerxes glowered down as the familiar sensation of a sword in his hand set his impulses on edge. “The only difference is that I didn’t embrace them because I didn’t want them. I never wanted to be a god. Even the mere thought is horrifying.”

A bird screeched outside the window and the sun went behind a cloud. Alecsander shifted as darkness swallowed the Throne Room, racing over the floor to his feet. Xerxes stared at him long and hard.

“Do you know how I beat them? The voices? The gods?” He crouched atop the dais, bringing his gaze level with Alecsander’s black-gold one. A muscle moved in Alecsander’s jaw, his nostrils flaring. A slow smile broke across Xerxes’s lips. “I think you already know,” he said. “I think that’s why you came. Because the weak, human man inside of you can’t accept the thought that there might be a god more powerful than yours after all the blood you’ve sacrificed to gain your power.” Alecsander flinched when Xerxes stood. “That’s why you were so afraid of the Gold Maiden. That’s why you killed my maiden. Because you were afraid of her god and what he allowed her to do.”

The quiet murmurs of Alecsander’s gods were the humming of insects as they rose behind him in figures. As they turned to challenge the King of Per-Siana; invisible beings only Xerxes could see.

Xerxes took one step off the dais, foot falling against the glass. Then he brought the other foot down, a clattering echo that grated against the nerves in the room. “This is the battle that was supposed to happen in the desert. You and me.”

Alecander’s dark red mouth twisted into the first smile Xerxes had seen on him. His eyes sank to a mix of copper and black, a shadow crossing over his face that morphed him into something else.

Yes, this was who Xerxes wanted to fight. Curse the gods. Curse the Celestial Divinities, and all the false gods across the maps. The cry of a young boy roared up from within him, racing from the darkness and stopping to look around only to find that he’d run right into the light without knowing. And now he could turn around and face that darkness with an army of light standing behind him, filling his veins, going before him and clearing the way.

“Let’s go,” Xerxes said.

His sword swung down with a melodic rush.

Alecsander blocked, and all the voices nearby began to shout as red and white flashes tore through the Throne Room.

26

SARAI

“You are not permitted to be here. Fall before us, or You shall be punished for your disobedience. You shall be EXCOMMUNICATED AND HUNTED DOWN by the ancient gods. You shall never be accepted by anyone again! Bow before us.”

Ashy mist coiled over the floor as Sigilene crept into the hidden room—that secret place in the basement she’d first visited long ago. Her earliest days in the palace had been spent in this dark room with the red glow, the colour touching her face now, so washed with tears that her real skin was showing. She hadn’t been back here since she was a little girl, listening to angry voices that had made her shiver at the time. The same voices who spoke now.

A roar rattled the branches overhead. “You must repent. We demand blood and flesh as compensation. Take that bow in your hands and do our bidding. Only then will you be accepted. Only then will you discover who you truly are.”

A small flame turned the reddish hue in the room to orange when Sigilene lifted her bow, a fire arrow holding tight to the bowstring. She peered down it at that dark, thick trunk that took up half the basement, a blur of colour in her vision.

“Liars,” she whispered.

A shiver raced through the room. The voices turned to booms that made the floor teeter, and a scatter of leaves detached overhead.

“Don’t you dare touch what does not belong to you! You think you have sacrificed enough to be called worthy? You think you can face us now? You are nothing in comparison to the gods. You are worthless. You have no future. You belong to us; you are a slave!”

The arrow slid past Sigilene’s finger as she released it.

“We are legion. Your kingdom shall fall! We shall come awake and—”

The arrow hit the bark, and the tree went up in flames, gold and yellow bursting into the branches and eating the leaves in seconds with a righteous roar. The voices shrieked and cursed and blamed her as they were swallowed by fire.

“Be. Quiet.” A whisper. A demand.

Firelight blurred against the moisture in Sigilene’s eyes as she watched it burn; the great trunk the priests of the Sphynx Elite had ushered her toward at eight years old while making promises after she had sacrificed her fingers to it—a practice she’d been taught in school and specially selected for. The priests told her she looked better without her full hands, that this was the kindest thing she could do for herself, and that soon she would discover who she truly was.

But they had no idea who she was.

Curse her teachers who had seen her childlike curiosity and chosen her for this, simply for asking questions. Curse the priests who had shown up at her home and convinced her parents she could be more if only she embraced a different, greater identity she wasn’t born with. Curse her own choices for becoming a face forced to hide behind thick makeup and outfits that hid the little girl she once was. The priests said Sarai had died that day, and Sigilene was born.