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“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

His hands balled into fists. He eyed her most vulnerable places, same as every person’s most vulnerable places, only hers seemed far more delicate and easily breakable to him in this moment.

“Lay down, King,” she said, and that snapped Xerxes out of his trance.

“What?”

What, by the Divinities, was she suggesting?

“I’ll play for you so you can sleep,” she clarified, and the eruption of flutters that had taken over Xerxes’s chest settled—he shook all improper thoughts from his mind, clearing his throat and dragging his fingers through his messy hair as his rational judgements returned to where they were supposed to be. Such as: How dare she come in here?

His hands flexed, tempting him to do something about it.

But when she set the harp down and knelt before it, Xerxes found he couldn’t speak to stop her from playing. He waited, hoping she would. Wishing she would never stop once she started.

“Slay her right now!”

“This is your last chance—"

The tune lifted through his bedroom, and all went quiet. Just the light, soft sound of harp strings remained.

Xerxes’s muscles loosened. But instead of falling onto the bed like she’d suggested, he found himself moving toward the maiden. His walk was strong now, instead of the clumsy staggering it had been in the hall. He saw her clearly for the first time since that day he’d helped her escape the palace in the garden.

She’d called him ugly. She’d called him heartless.

And he was.

Heartless, anyway. Not ugly. He was a pretty King.

And truthfully, she was not ugly either. A flutter returned to his chest at the hazardous thought.

Divinities, she was not ugly at all. She was prettier than he’d perhaps let himself notice. Not in an evident way, not in comparison to the typical fair maidens of the Mother City. She was a disorderly sort of pretty with her ruffled hair and torn, stained garments. But seeing how she’d entered his room without his permission, likely knowing the consequences if he decided to inform on her, and how she’d kicked him into a pillar in the yard before witnesses… It proved she was fearless. And that perhaps was the most attractive thing about her.

“If you’re a witch, I’ll have you hanged,” he warned as she played. It was a lie. He would keep her, no matter what.

But a smile cracked over her mouth. Any rational person would have been afraid at the threat of death. Only a lunatic would smile.

Xerxes smiled too. Just a little.

Then he whirled around before she could see it. “You aren’t, are you?” he asked just to be sure. “A witch?” He should go to bed. He should take this rare opportunity to sleep before it passed him by. Before she left and he’d be disrupted all through the night by voices again.

“How insulting. Areyoua witch, Your Majesty?” she asked. He twisted to glance back at her in surprise. “If you are, I’ll have you hanged,” she added.

Xerxes blinked. He turned away from her again, and he bit his lips together. He couldnotlaugh before this maiden. What if someone in the hallway heard? Divinities, she was trouble.

He climbed into his bed without another word. He thought he might have difficulty falling asleep with her there, but his body relaxed against the mattress and his eyes drifted closed almost as soon as his head found his pillow.

Xerxes had hired magicians, a magus, and the best physicians to try and silence his voices. Not even the Intelligentsia who heard from the Celestial Divinities had been able to find a solution. He’d changed his diet, used medicine for sleep, undergone needle therapy. Xerxes had tried everything.

He didn’t care if this maiden was a witch and was lying through her teeth. He didn’t care that she might cast a spell over him. That she might feed him a potion and trick him into making her Queen. That she might try to assassinate him with magic, like Belorme warned.

In this moment, Xerxes didn’t care that she was dangerous.

He would keep her.

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RYN