Page 30

RYN

Rumours rose in the palace that the Folke had gone into an intense period of training.

No one offered an explanation why. Heva was excluded since she was a Heartstealer guardswoman, but even with her asking around, none of the Folke knew or admitted exactly what it was that had sent the leaders into such a frenzy.

Ryn spent her morning in the Abandoned Temple, resting in El’s quiet presence.

After that, she went with Heva and six Folke to visit the First Temple.

Geovani’s teaching had been of old Adriel miracles that left Ryn with a buzz in her stomach.

The woman spoke of seas being parted, of fire falling from the heavens, and of manna coming from the sky to feed the Adriel people when they were hungry—all by the power of the God Original.

Ryn wasn’t aware how many hours had passed until Heva interrupted and said they needed to get back.

“Bye, Ryn!” Nebulin, the youngest priestess, blew a kiss and accidentally let go of a butterfly she’d been nurturing all day. She chased it through the temple until Seeda flung the front door open and let it be free.

Ryn’s Folke guards wore disguises now, posing as a band of travellers. It worked—few people noticed them on the journey back. They pulled off their cloaks and travel bags as they came into the palace, and organizers were there to receive them.

Ryn smoothed down her ruffled hair on her way to her room. She slowed her steps when she recognized Calliope’s voice drifting from the largest set of maidens’ rooms above the crackling fireplace inside.

“He turned me away last night.” It was said in a hushed state, barely a whisper.

Heva glanced back at Ryn in question when she didn’t follow, and Ryn waved her forward. The guardswoman shrugged and went into Ryn’s chambers alone, likely to find a snack after she’d complained the whole walk back that they’d missed lunch.

Ryn silently leaned against the wall outside Calliope’s door.

“What do you mean, he turned you away last night?” Calliope’s artist asked with an edge. The artist’s voice was scratchy—the opposite of Calliope’s. Calliope’s voice was pretty, like smooth music.

“I mean, after you got me all dressed up for my scheduled evening with the King, he wouldn’t see me,” Calliope said. “We only get one evening with the King. So naturally, I’m enraged.”

Ryn’s eyes widened.

An evening with the King? What did that mean? She almost covered her ears and fled from her hiding place, but the artist spoke again and Ryn couldn’t help herself. She leaned toward the doorway, keeping a flat hand on the wall for balance.

“So, you’re saying first the King refused to spend an evening with Ulita, and then he refused to spend an evening with you? What’s gotten into him? Is he really crazy like the rumours say?”

Calliope made a tsking sound. “Obviously he’s lost his mind. Didn’t you see him in the courtyard that day? I was lucky to be the only maiden he didn’t face off with in that state.”

In the courtyard. When Xerxes had driven the maidens outside with a sword and demanded they fight him. Ryn remembered every second.

She relaxed against the wall. She wasn’t even aware there were scheduled times for evening visits, or what exactly an ‘evening visit’ entailed, but what did it matter if Xerxes wasn’t interested in meeting the maidens at all?

She pulled off the wall and turned toward her quarters.

“It’s not that unusual for him. My uncle is Intelligentsia, remember? He told me King Xerxes never once went within three feet of his last wife.” For someone with a pretty voice, Calliope’s laugh was ugly and cruel when she let it out. “Not even on their wedding day.”

Ryn stopped walking.

The artist made a scoffing sound. “He must have really disliked her if he went straight from avoiding her all the time to killing —”

“Hush!” Calliope’s voice was loud this time.

Ryn clasped her hands together. She wasn’t sure what bothered her more—Calliope’s gossip, the idea of an evening visit with the King, or the reminder that Xerxes had… had…

Ryn’s chest tightened. Somehow, she’d forgotten Xerxes had killed his first wife.

In the moments between him catching her red-handed in the gardens and showing up to rescue her, she’d started to see him as a boy stranded on an island in this palace.

Not as the heartless young man who once did something so unthinkable.

For days now, she’d wrestled with whether she should tell Xerxes his life was in danger. The truth was, she wanted to tell him. She didn’t want to watch a stranded person die. She wasn’t even sure when her mind had changed about that.

But that meant she’d be the one to assassinate the King in the end—if Kai got what he wanted.

“What do I do?” Ryn whispered into the hallway. She looked up at the ceiling when there was no answer. “I’m asking you, El. What do I do?”

“Go to bed.”

She released a heavy sigh.

“Ryn?”

It took Ryn a second to figure out where the soft voice came from. She turned all the way around before she saw Matthias at the end of the hall. She rushed over, turning pink as she wondered if Matthias’s greeting had alerted Calliope and her artist to her creeping outside.

She pulled Matthias through the hall, keeping her head down as she passed Calliope’s room, flung the door to her chambers open, and shoved Matthias in ahead of her.

Heva was lounging on Ryn’s bed with her dirty boots still on, and Ryn scowled. “You know, there might be a reason Seeda despises you so much,” she said.

Heva only grinned.

“What news have you brought, Matthias?” Ryn asked as she fell into a chair. “Has Kai changed his mind about me being here?”

Matthias kicked his toe against the floor. “Uh… No. I haven’t spoken with the Priesthood.”

Ryn’s face fell. “Then what are you doing at my room?”

“Well…” Matthias glanced back toward the closed door. “The King sent me to guard you.”

“What?” Heva lifted her head from the bed. “Does he think I’m incapable?”

Matthias scratched his head. “Maybe… If I let something bad happen to Ryn, the King promised to punish me. But it’s a good thing—I don’t have to sneak around to get here anymore.

” He released an uneven laugh and dropped his hand to his sword awkwardly.

Then he turned to Ryn and changed the subject.

“Do you remember that time we stole sumac from the park trees and the neighbours chased us all the way down the street for it?”

“How do you still remember that? That was shortly after I moved in with Kai,” Ryn said, even though she wasn’t finished discussing the King’s threat to Matthias.

The sumac heist was one of her favourite memories—she and Matthias had mud all the way up the backs of their legs from running through the rain by the time they returned to the house. “The kabobs we made with the sumac were delicious,” she added.

“Of course I remember it. I remember every moment with you, Ryn, since the day you showed up,” Matthias said. His cheeks flushed, and Ryn’s smile faded away.

She remembered too.

In fact, Ryn hardly had any memories of the last six years without Matthias in them.

Matthias was the one who spent the most time around her and Kai, who checked in at the house to make sure she was warm when it rained, who gave her a reason to laugh every year on the anniversary of her mother’s death.

And with Kai and Theo lost to their plans to make Ryn a Queen or an assassin, maybe Matthias was her only friend now.

Ryn ran a hand down her hair as that settled in, along with Xerxes’s threat. “Matthias, maybe you should escape the palace before it’s too—”

Marcan barged through the door, and Ryn jumped. The artist was followed by six makeup artists and two more assistants carrying a sparkling navy dress with gold sleeves.

“Do you ever knock?” Heva mumbled from the bed.

“Not really.” Marcan waved his assistants over.

“Estheryn, come try this on. If I got the sizing correct, you’ll be a dazzling goddess on the ballroom floor for the dance tonight.

” He held up the gown, and Ryn sighed as she took in the remarkable gold threads and glassy blue beads over deep ocean-blue satin.

Another dress that would ruin everything.

The ballroom was grander than the Hall of Stars; more glitter, more lights, louder music. Ryn waited for the host to announce her before stepping into the glowing space—not that anyone was paying attention. The chatter in the room was nearly deafening.

Chandeliers hung from a glass ceiling below a dazzling night sky, and cool wind rippled in from four sets of open balcony doors. The walls were covered in mosaic murals of heroes and villains from Per-Siana myths; The Huma Bird, the Azhi Dahaka, the Peri, the Jinn.

Ryn searched the room for the other Heartstealer maidens first. Each of them was surrounded by a small crowd, and five Intelligentsia hovered by Calliope.

She beamed, her smile a velvety crescent of pink.

Truly, Calliope was the most beautiful person Ryn had ever known.

With dark hair like satin and glassy porcelain skin, she practically glowed in the chandelier lights.

Ryn had barely used a hairbrush before coming to the palace; she couldn’t imagine ever having hair that shiny.

The other two maidens, Ulita and Lis, stood at opposite corners of the room with their noble friends, and Ryn realized this was the first event where there had been no training, choreography, or order of events; it was strictly social.

Her stomach tightened. She had no idea how to be social.

If she hadn’t promised Xerxes a dance, she might have tried to sneak back out of the ballroom without anyone noticing.