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“Slay him right now!”

“This is your last chance—"

“I’m here.”

Quiet.

Xerxes’s inhale was the loudest thing in the cell. He buckled forward, panting, hands going limp against the dirt, eyes dragging up to the empty air around him; the stone walls, the barred window, the muted light coming from the hall. The bitter cold fled, leaving a silence behind that allowed Xerxes to hear even the distant chatter of servants far away.

“Where did they go?” he rasped into the quiet, blinking through tears. “The voices…?”

When warmth touched his back, he spun on a knee. But the chamber was empty behind him. He slapped a hand over his shoulder where he thought someone touched him, his thumb meeting the cold sweat at his collarbone.

“Light and darkness cannot coexist. I’m here, so they left.”

Xerxes blinked, damp strings of hair catching his eyelashes. “El Tsebaoth?” he guessed. “You’re all the way out here? Did you follow me?” He bit his tongue so he wouldn’t spew out more questions.

“I’ll stay with you.”

Xerxes worked his jaw, then sniffed and lifted the sleeve of his scarlet toga to wipe his forehead. “I’m angry,” he admitted. “I want revenge. I want to destroy this place.”

“Do not be afraid, Xerxes. You’re not alone, not even here.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall as a servant passed by, a bald head bobbing past the window. Xerxes released the breath he was holding, his shaking fingers pressing over the weak shadow of a heart in his chest. And when he touched softness, when he beheld warmth forming there that allowed him to feel—possibly for the first time in many months—he wept. It was a slow release of sobs, of fears of what he had almost become only seconds ago. Of how close he had been to falling into that monster of his childhood.

El Tsebaoth, that god of his lifelong enemies, remained quiet.

“I hate being alone,” Xerxes confessed in a rough whisper. “I hate always fighting alone.” His jaw clenched. “But if I discover that my kingdom is no more, I know I will embrace the voices of my youth, and I will let them consume me to deal one last blow against Alecsander.”

Xerxes wasn’t sure if it was a threat. It wasn’t like El Tsebaoth could do anything to resurrect Per-Siana if it was gone. It wasn’t like one god could save it if it wasn’t. And Xerxes had been taught about the gods in his childhood properly enough to know that if a mortal dared to threaten a god, he should be ready to die for it. His throat tightened when he swallowed. “So… if it comes to that, if I cave to those voices, I ask that you use whatever powers you have to strike me dead—after I destroy Alecsander.”

Maybe in the end he didn’t wish to die a monster. Perhaps he just wanted to die as the lonely King of Per-Siana.

“Wake up, Xerxes. Your soul is still sleeping.”

The clattering of keys woke Xerxes from a deep sleep. He rubbed his eyes, wincing at the crisp morning light flooding through his window. It bled over him when his door swung open. Three servants came in along with the same two muscled guards, their spears already pointed at him. What—did they expect him to pounce like a beast? Did they feel the need to herd him from the room like a barking dog who might bite?

“I’m not in the mood to entertain your cowardly King,” Xerxes informed them. The servants cast him blank-faced stares like they hadn’t a clue what he was saying. Perhaps it was absurd to assume all B’rei Mira citizens knew the common language. So, Xerxes grunted and dragged himself to his feet as sponges were pulled out and another basin of water was carted in.

No Vafat powder today, he observed.

He stripped and climbed into the tub with silver spears hovering at his throat, and he waited as the servants scrubbed him clean, pulled a wretched comb through his hair, got him dressed and beautified, placed the rose crown upon his head, and fastened his wrists together with the gold chain. He sniffed his new robe in disgust as he was led from the room. It smelled of bitter root oils and burned tea—repulsive B’rei Mira scents. Xerxes plugged his nose as he was nudged into the same Banquet Hall as before. He took it in afresh, senses alert as enemy nobles perked up around the room at the sight of him; their pretty new prize. But his attention caught on the end of the table where a man with a long black beard and dark gold-flecked eyes sat in a crimson robe of nobility that spilled over the sides of his chair. Xerxes’s gaze narrowed on Alecsander for a split second before his arms were grabbed and he was wrestled to the pedestal, then chained there.

Alecsander’s dark golden gaze flickered over to Xerxes for just a moment, and Xerxes’s beastly instincts sharpened. He expected Alecsander to gloat, to smirk, to do any number of things. But he didn’t expect the War Lord’s lip to curl in a subtle snarl, a quiet tug of frustration creasing his forehead. Alecsander slid his gaze away and settled it on something else. His nose ring caught a ray of sunlight splitting through the pillars of a wide opening that gave a clear view of a strange set of curved walls below the palace and the B’rei Mira capital city beyond that.

Xerxes unclasped his fingers, pulling against the gold chain cuffs at his wrists. He watched Alecsander for another moment, but the War King didn’t look at Xerxes again. Finally, Xerxes tore his attention off, biting his tongue so he wouldn’t scream across the room and challenge the War King to a deathmatch.

A hairless, priestly fellow in a copper robe appeared at the end of the table. Xerxes ignored him as he offered some sort of chant-prayer to a snake deity and a sphynx god. Instead, Xerxes studied the unusual curved walls beyond the palace through the gaping opening of the Banquet Hall. He hadn’t noticed them last time.

When the priest-fellow finished his wailing tribute, nobles at the table delved into platters of food. Xerxes’s stomach tightened slightly, and he tried not to watch them lick their lips, take their bites, and enjoy themselves.

A tetrad of Vafat slinked in on silent footsteps, their violet eyes and peeling, paste-white flesh making them look like painted statues. Brass horns peeked out from one hood, and bronze runes marked the cheeks of the other two with their hoods off. They stationed themselves in a formation, watching everything in the room without blinking once.

“The South Prince has been caught.” A man in a brass helmet marched in. It wasn’t Alecsander who replied though; a young man with a thin glittering coronet, reddish lips, and hair as black as Alecsander’s sat up straighter in his chair.

“Bring him in,” the young man said with a warped smirk.

The white-haired woman with no pinky fingers sat beside him, her pale, caked-on makeup hiding all the colours that made her human. She draped an arm across the backrest of the young man’s chair in a sultry, possessive way. Xerxes couldn’t remember her name; was it Sigil? Serene? Some weird Mira name.