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The group stays silent.

We pass through a dining hall with long tables and benches for seating, fresh foliage running along the middle of it. It’s partially set for the next meal, which will never come—at least, not for its intended guests.

Do you like it?Memnon asks me, sidling closer. Outwardly, he’s been careful to craft his answers so they seem to benefit his people, but I can hear many of his stray thoughts, and most of them revolve around me. I remember all over again that this plan came about because he believed with full conviction that I deserved to live in a palace.

I take his hand and give it a squeeze.I love it.

And I do. I’m breathless with excitement. The marble halls, the massive columns, the view out to the sea and the boats perched on it—it’s all beyond even my imaginings as a queen.

I smother the worry that rises on the wings of that excitement. Worry over future battles that will be fought for this land now that we’ve grabbed it from Rome.

We head up a flight of stone stairs. “These are the royal residences,” Memnon explains.

How do you know the layout of this place?I ask.

My mother and I stayed here as guests when I was younger, when the former king’s brother, Mithridates, ruled.

My attention moves to Tamara, who’s been quiet this entire day. She peers around, pleased, her proud gaze returning to Memnon again and again. If either of them feels remorse for ousting the former ruler, they don’t show it.

“Warriors,” Memnon says, “you will each have your choice of rooms. Feel free to move any family in here that you’d like. We will still move about the steppe, but while we are in Panticapaeum, we will live like gods.”

A shout goes up from the warriors around Memnon, and soon, the men and women guarding him break away to peer into the various rooms.

“No one is to take the room on the far end of the hall,” Tamara declares. “That one’s mine.” With that, she strides toward the last curtained doorway, Katiari shadowing her.

Memnon turns to me.Would you like to seeourroom?

You already have our room picked out?I ask, arching a brow.

Well, it’s the king’s private quarters, so I figured it was the best room in the palace.

I follow Memnon down the hall toward a room no one else is lingering nearby. Drapes a thick, rich wine color hang from the doorway, obscuring what lies beyond.

Memnon holds those drapes open, and the two of us enter. The first thing I notice in the spacious room is the bed, more massive than anything I’ve ever slept on. At the foot of it rests a chest painted with stylized griffons.

Across from the bed is a table laid out with the king’s trinkets—a decorative knife, a small stone carving of the god Mars,a partially opened bag of polished knucklebones, and a tabula game board.

“Look out the window,” Memnon says, nodding to the gap in the stonework on the far side of the room. I head over to it, already noticing the briny smell blowing in from outside. The scent reminds me of salted fish and that call to adventure these horse riders feel when they look to the horizon on the grasslands.

Laying my hands on the cool stone, I peer out at the sun-glittered water and the royal docks. A red ship currently bobs at the dock closest to us, its white sail rolled up, the great eye painted near its bow, peering up at me.

“This is yours. All this is yours,” he says.

I turn back to Memnon, and his eyes shine a little too brightly as he watches me.

“Iwillconquer the world,” he vows, echoing his long-ago words to me, “just to lay it all at your feet.”

A shiver courses through me at the devoted, ominous pledge.

Memnon crosses over to me, his gaze searching mine. “I know you’re afraid of Rome, butIam not. I will not bow to that boy king.”

I stop myself from saying that Nero is hardly still a boy.

“Nor will I tolerate their incursions any longer.”

Deliberately, Memnon lowers himself to his knees, then presses a kiss to my lower belly. “The only one I bow to is you.”

Alcohol and victory are a potent combo for a Sarmatian.