Page 17

He tore his eyes away from the maiden. He did not need more of a reason to hate himself today.

He settled his gaze on something at the side of the room instead—a Folke guard he spotted, standing by the arch.

The fellow had blond hair and a familiar nervous look upon him.

Xerxes tilted his head, recognizing him as the new guard who’d invaded the baths that morning. The one who claimed to know Estheryn.

Xerxes didn’t mean to glance back at Estheryn, but as soon as he did, he caught her stealing a look over at the blond fellow, mid-twirl. It became painfully obvious that the two knew each other. Were possibly close enough that he had a sweet little nickname for her.

Xerxes’s finger tapped slowly against his chin.

“You want to kill him, don’t you?”

“Of course not,” Xerxes replied, not caring that the sages down the dais could hear him.

But it was a lie. Xerxes wanted to tear that guard apart, and he had no idea why.

He sighed and closed his eyes, waiting for the Initiation display to be over.

Fighting the call within him and the stream of icy water pooling through his veins.

He rarely got urges so shortly after eating a spellbound fruit—It was far too early for this nonsense.

He could handle this. He could hold on for one more hour until it was over.

And then he could race back into the basement and rescue himself with a pear before he lost his mind.

He. Would. Not . Lose. Control—

“Open your eyes, Your Majesty. Or people might think you’re having a hard time,” Belorme’s voice slithered into his consciousness, and Xerxes’s skin went tight. The Chancellor had sounded less like he was giving advice, and more like he was laughing.

Laughing. Because he’d pulled one over on Xerxes today.

He had, once again, reminded Xerxes who really had all the control in this palace.

He had reached out his hand and influenced the maidens who were supposed to belong to Xerxes, yet, who were really only puppets on strings Belorme tugged along himself.

Like every other soul in the palace, in the kingdom. Including Xerxes.

Xerxes would destroy him. And his display.

His eyes flashed open, and he found himself standing. He heard himself shouting. All the music and dancing ceased as Xerxes called over the Hall of Stars, “What good is dancing for the welfare of this kingdom? Will dancing keep the Per-Siana people safe?”

Nobles gasped and rushed out of the way as Xerxes marched down the dais stairs, across the navy carpet, and through the maidens who shrank back at his nearness.

He approached the blond Folke guard at the back of the room by the arch.

Xerxes stood over him, a swelling hunger creating such a ruckus in his stomach, he was hardly sure he was really seeing the guard at all.

Xerxes reached for the fellow’s sword and tore it from its sheath. A noble or two screamed; the Folke guard’s face paled.

“Your Majesty!” Belorme called from the dais with no more laughter in his voice. “I need a word!”

Xerxes whirled to face the room. He lifted the sword, pointing it directly at the maidens who had been used to mock him.

“I want to know which maiden can overtake me in a fight,” he stated.

One of the maidens slapped a hand to her chest, the others backed away.

Xerxes did not care. He did not stop. He pointed toward the glass door beneath the Divinity statues of Iris and Boreas.

“Into the courtyard. Every. Single . One of you.” His gaze cut to the nobles to assure them he expected their obedience as well.

A shadow swept over the room as if the clouds in the sky had heard his command and taken the sun hostage.

By the dozens, people filed out of the Hall of Stars and into the courtyard. Rain spat upon the stones as Xerxes marched out. The nobles rushed to stand beneath the nearest balcony held up by four large pillars; the only dry spot left in the yard.

The maidens hadn’t even gotten all the way outside before Xerxes grabbed the first one, dragging her with him by her outrageously decorated gauntlet. The metal didn’t feel real—Xerxes guessed it to be painted bark, or worse, some sort of craft board. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream.

He tossed the first maiden ahead, and she whirled to face him with large eyes. “Draw your sword,” he commanded her, eyeing her silly, bow-covered belt that was an insult to any soldier who’d seen real battle.

The maiden’s hands shook as she struggled to pull the sword from the sheath on her back.

When she got it out, Xerxes slashed it in half before she even lifted it, and she screamed as both pieces of her craft board weapon soared to the ground.

She fell backward onto her rear and raised her hands to shield herself.

“You fail,” Xerxes stated. “Next!” he shouted to the crowd.

When a maiden didn’t volunteer, Xerxes marched over and grabbed another one, determined to make every maiden hate him by the end of this.

His mind spun with voices that weren’t his, his body was ice cold, his pulse a raging drum imprisoned in his flesh.

The girl screamed and begged—it only angered him more.

“Is this how you will plead for your life if the ruthless B’rei Mira soldiers come? ” he shouted at her.

She shrank to her knees and clasped her hands together to beg. When she didn’t immediately draw her sword, Xerxes drew it for her. Then he turned and hurled it across the courtyard, far into the gardens beyond. The sword soared like a bird, weightless.

When he turned back, he found the maiden trembling. For just a second, no more, a touch of sympathy moved through him. But it vanished just as quickly as it appeared. “You fail,” he told her. He turned for the last maidens, already shouting for another one to come forward, but one already had.

Xerxes stared down at the sneaky, insult-hurling, wall-climbing maiden before him.

She stood between him and the last maiden as though she planned to stop him .

It was laughable. Xerxes’s vision turned hazy, and through the blur, all he saw was the outline of another presumptuous maiden in silly, outrageous armour.

A light buzzing sound reached his ears when she drew her sword, pulling it from the back sheath with less difficulty than the others.

It filled Xerxes’s mind with noise as she held the sword out and lowered herself into a defensive position.

Xerxes eyed how the rainwater dripped down the sword—the heavy prop.

He tilted his head in thought. Then he smashed his sword against it.

The loud ringing of metal colliding with metal sang over the courtyard. The maiden spun away with the impact, but she wasn’t tossed off her feet. The realization was so startling that for a moment, Xerxes was shaken from his trance.

“Is that real?” he asked her.

Her —Estheryn Electus. That was her name. That’s who this maiden was.

Estheryn nodded as she tightened her grip on her weapon, turned back toward him, and raised it again. Xerxes could not believe his eyes. Her artist had given her a real sword. What a fool. Yet…

A slow, wicked smile spread across his face.

Finally, a challenge.

“Hit me, then,” Xerxes invited. Obnoxious whispers lifted from the crowd of onlookers tucked beneath the balcony. His gaze snagged on the movement of her throat as she swallowed. Rain drenched her dark hair, ran down her face. Made her fake armour look slick. She didn’t look afraid though.

“Hit me, then, Maiden,” Xerxes said again.

“Strike me down. Kill me if you must.” He nodded toward the Intelligentsia standing in a line outside the doors in their damp cloaks.

Their faces were lost to the dim shadows of their hoods.

“They heard me. You’ll not be punished even if you strike me down. ”

Estheryn’s gaze darted over to the Intelligentsia, then back to Xerxes.

She still refused to move. So, Xerxes lifted his sword and placed the tip gently at her throat.

He used it to tilt her face up to meet his eyes.

“Don’t you know that I own you?” he whispered.

“Don’t you want to kill me and set yourself free? ”

Her brows angled inward, confusion rippling over her features. So, Xerxes added, “Did no one tell you that your father gave you to me to save himself? That you were the price for his freedom?”

Her lips parted. It was the most remarkable, fascinating reaction.

Xerxes could not get enough of it. He shoved her sword aside, and he stepped in, standing over her darkly.

In some ways, she was the only interesting thing that had entered his life since before he could remember.

And for that, he supposed he’d decided already that he wouldn’t let her go.

“You were traded to me in a deal overseen by the Celestial Divinities. If you try to run, the Divinities will find you and you’ll be punished.” Xerxes paused to think. “Or I will. But for your sake, I think you’d rather deal with the Divinities.”

Her sword flashed through the air before he could brace himself.

Xerxes leapt back, but her blade caught the collar of his coat of nobility and tore through it.

Folke guards drew their own swords, and one of the maidens shrieked from the side.

But Xerxes laughed, lifting the shredded piece of fabric at his collar to see.

Estheryn raised her sword again, and Xerxes smashed the weapon out of her hands; the metal sending a sharp clatter over the yard as it hit the stone.

He grabbed Estheryn by her belt and drove her four steps backward to a pillar, pinning her there.

She gaped, her startled gaze meeting his.

Xerxes’s sword was pointed against her waist, his fist around her belt, his body her cage.

He was about to inform her she had failed like the others, even if she had been bold enough to bring a real sword.

“She must die. You must kill her for us,” one of the voices stated.

Estheryn’s face changed, even though Xerxes had said nothing. The timing was strange. So was her reaction. It was almost as though she’d heard…

Xerxes’s smile vanished. The haze cleared from his mind, the ice fled from his flesh as Estheryn looked back and forth between his eyes, her brows tugging together.

Xerxes nearly dropped her and tore back.

She couldn’t hear his voices. No one could.

“Kill her before it’s too late!”

“Kill her now!”

“We want her dead!”

“Do it! Do it!”

“Quiet,” Estheryn whispered.

Xerxes blinked. “What?” he asked, wondering what he was doing here, wondering why he’d brought the maidens outside in the first place. Wondering why the voices wanted her dead so badly and were all shouting at once. He wanted to go back inside.

Estheryn’s mouth tipped down at the corners. She had a strange, hesitant look as she studied him. Then she said, “I wasn’t talking to you, King.”

A ball of heat dropped through Xerxes’s stomach. His grip loosened on her belt. He thought he might be sick as she stared. Just stared. And stared some more, like she’d torn open his flesh and could see all the things inside of him he had hidden away.

No, he must have imagined it. Never had anyone witnessed or heard his insanity.

But who was Estheryn speaking to then? Terror wrapped his heart. Xerxes thought to turn and march back inside, to run for his tree, until he realized… His mind had gone quiet.

Quiet.

Just his own thoughts were there.

His mouth parted. He lowered his sword from Estheryn’s side, and he pulled his other hand back to himself.

Was she a witch? Was she a divine sorceress or a Peri or a Jinn? How could she hear—

Estheryn kicked him in the stomach.

Xerxes flew back, the sword falling from his grip and smashing to the ground, his body slamming into the adjacent pillar. He gasped in shock as a fast, dull pain flooded into his abdomen.

“How dare you?!” Damon’s voice was a mere ghost in the back of Xerxes’s consciousness, the ringing of the sage’s sword being drawn a distant echo. The stomping of feet over the wet courtyard didn’t settle in until the sage was standing before Estheryn.

The sight of Damon slashing his sword at her shook Xerxes from his dream. The sage’s blade caught the maiden in her side, burning through her false armour and throwing her to the ground.

A Folke guardswoman appeared out of nowhere, blocking the sage off, her own sword drawn. She would die today, Xerxes was sure, as Damon’s cold glare settled upon her. “Know your place, Folke!” he said. He smacked her, but she kept balance even when her face swung to the side.

It was Belorme who cut in, walking to the scene slowly with his hands folded behind his back. “No need to make the situation worse, Damon,” he said in his collected tone. “This was supposed to be fun. You took it too far.”

Xerxes didn’t remember pushing himself off the pillar, or walking to where Estheryn was on the ground, or lifting a hand toward her.

But he caught himself there, his arm hanging in the air as he wondered what he was planning to do.

Help her up? Check her wound? Make sure she wasn’t going to bleed out?

He pulled his hand back, balling it into a fist at his side.

He didn’t intervene when the guardswoman with her red cheek dropped to a knee and lifted Estheryn from the ground.

The guardswoman wasn’t much bigger than Estheryn, but she lifted the maiden with trembling arms and carried her off through the rain.

The blond Folke guard had rushed in, too.

The fellow had stopped himself the same way Xerxes had—Xerxes watched him slide back into formation as Estheryn was carried through the doors. No one noticed he’d moved at all.

Xerxes wasn’t certain, but he thought he heard the Intelligentsia members growl as Estheryn Electus left. He’d never heard them growl before. It was strange—like something was happening in the air around him, but he couldn’t see it.

He was left staring at the doors where Estheryn had disappeared, wondering what it was about her that had gotten the Intelligentsia so worked up. That had gotten his own chest out of sorts. That made the voices in his head beg him to race after her and kill her immediately.