Ryn gasped at the sight of an enormous tree, laden with pears of gold and rich green leaves.

She wandered into the room ahead of Xerxes, marvelling at the prettiest fruit tree she’d ever laid eyes upon.

Above the tree, a tunnel channelled far up into the palace toward a crystal window that let the moonlight in, making the tree glow.

She reached for the nearest pear, wondering what a fruit of such colour might taste like.

Xerxes grabbed her hand, his fingers wrapping tight around hers. “Don’t touch it,” he warned. He pulled off his hood, letting the moon light his face.

Ryn dropped her hand and studied the pears. “Are they poisoned?” she guessed.

“No. They’re medicine.” He glanced at them too, but not in a grateful, admiring way like Ryn. “Medicine for me .” His throat bobbed when he swallowed. “Even being near them makes me want to…”

“To what?” Ryn realized his hands were balled into fists, his flesh tight.

“To…” He looked at her strangely now. Fearfully. Ravenously.

Ryn took a slow step away from the tree, away from him, and Xerxes slammed his eyes shut.

“Can’t you hear them?” he asked. “Can’t you hear how the voices go wild when I’m here?”

Ryn looked between him and the pear tree. “I told you I’m not a witch,” she said. “I can’t just…” But as she looked between the crooked branches, she wondered why she couldn’t? She stared at the glistening bark, the shapely leaves, the plump pears…

She saw shadows.

Ryn nearly stumbled backward into the wall at how many there were, at how encompassing the blackness around the tree was; limbs woven through the branches, strangling the trunk, misting from every fruit. And, Divinities, the voices…

“Kill her!” they shouted.

“Kill the maiden!”

“Kill her before it’s too late!”

Ryn dragged her gaze over to Xerxes standing in the same place with his eyes pinched shut.

Before, when she’d heard his torment, she hadn’t been able to make out clear words.

She hadn’t realized the anger, and hatred, the fear channelling through his mind.

She hadn’t realized just how convincing the voices could be.

“Are your voices telling you to kill me?” she rasped, her hand finding the wall at her back.

“Yes,” Xerxes admitted. “Always.”

When his eyes peeled open, they were bloodshot.

“Are you thinking about doing it?” Ryn’s mouth was dry. She wished she’d left the palace. Forget what Kai wanted, forget what Geovani wanted, forget what El was hoping for from her. The King was being tempted to do something terrible to her. Always .

“I don’t want to,” Xerxes promised. “I want the voices to leave. I want to be a king with a sound mind. And I want to save my kingdom from being destroyed by my enemies.” He paused, and he glanced at the pears with resentment.

“I want back the years I lost while relying on this wretched tree.” His gaze cut to Ryn. “You can cure me, right?”

Ryn wasn’t sure anymore. A sharp, metallic sound came off the tree, twirling in her ears and growing louder by the second. “Where did this tree come from?” she asked. If Xerxes was consuming fruit that looked like this, wrapped in spirits and false gods, no wonder he was losing his mind.

“The Intelligentsia. The Celestial Divinities had mercy on me for my illness and gifted it to me through them. When I eat its fruit, I’m cured for a little while. Most of the time,” he said, looking off.

Ryn released a breath. “So, they gave you the illness, then they gave you the medicine,” she remarked, and something in Xerxes’s eyes changed.

“What?” he demanded.

Ryn shook her head. “I don’t know how to fix you, King,” she admitted.

“But I made a deal to figure it out. So, I will.” Her body buzzed with the desperate urge to leave this basement, to escape these painful noises and the ice-cold air.

She frowned at the tree once more. “El,” she whispered, calling on the most powerful name she knew.

“El Tsebaoth… is coming for you,” she warned the gods.

“Ryn!” Xerxes shouted.

A thousand chilling voices screamed. Xerxes grabbed her wrist and tore her toward the staircase. He glared at her as they jogged up. “Why would you do that? Why would you irritate them?” he asked.

“Kill her!”

“Kill her now!”

Ryn shook the dark noises from her head, the chaos from her ears.

They burst from the stairwell into the palace hallway, and Xerxes slammed the door shut. He leaned back against it, pressing a hand over his heart as he caught his breath. “Don’t irritate the voices, Ryn,” he warned. “Don’t do that to me.”

Ryn took in his rising and falling chest, his glazed eyes. “You must be exhausted hearing that all the time. I bet you can’t even sleep.”

Xerxes ground out a despicable laugh. “You have no idea.” He pulled himself off the door and turned, gazing down at her with drooping eyelids. “Sleep is one of many things I want.”

Ryn raised a brow. “What else do you want? Aren’t you the King? Can’t you have anything?”

Xerxes took in a deep breath. He studied her for a moment, then he let it out slowly.

He turned and started walking down the hall. “Well, for many years, I wanted to laugh,” he admitted. “And then a maiden appeared who started making me laugh all the time.”

“Wait.” Ryn tilted her head as she scurried to follow. “Are you talking about me?”

He spun, and she almost walked into him. “Of course I’m talking about you,” he stated. “And while I’m talking about what I want, I want these Heartstealer trials to be over, and I want to never have to think about spending an entire evening dancing with maidens I can’t stand to be around again.”

The statement sounded like Ryn was at fault for something, though she couldn’t imagine why.

“And I want everyone to stop trying to force me to take another wife,” he added, his voice rising.

“And I want my kingdom back! And I want somewhere quiet I can go in this cursed palace where I won’t run into people all the time .

And I want…” Xerxes realized he was shouting.

His chest fell as his wild blue stare settled back on Ryn.

Her knees weakened when his gaze dropped to her mouth.

But he tore his eyes back up to hers just as quickly.

“Divinities, I don’t know what I want anymore,” he rasped.

He stared at her. She stared back.

Finally, Ryn looked at the floor and folded her arms. “I know of a quiet place where no one in the palace goes,” she said.

When Xerxes didn’t reply, she took his hand. He remained silent as she led him down the halls, creeping along on her tiptoes and avoiding nearby guards. After a few turns, she ducked into a side passage.

Minutes later, they stood in the narrow arch of the Abandoned Temple.

“It’s wet,” Xerxes remarked, dropping her hand. “That’s why I don’t come here.”

Ryn stepped inside, letting the water trickle over her Folke boots. “Yes. It’s also why no one else comes here,” she said.

Xerxes’s mouth twisted as he eyed the river on the floor, and Ryn chuckled.

“Are you scared of a little water, King?” she asked.

His jaw slid to the side. “You do know I can get you in trouble for referring to me as ‘ King’ , right? The proper address is ‘Your Majest—'”

Ryn kicked water at him. It splattered up his Folke jacket, over his neck, and across his mouth, cutting off his words. His eyes widened. “Did you just…”

Ryn flung a hand through the air. “You complain too much.”

His blue gaze narrowed, and he was still frowning. So, Ryn kicked water at him again.

Xerxes ducked this time, springing backward through the arch with his arm raised like a shield. He lowered it slowly, dark lashes blinking, a bead of water trailing down his neck.

Ryn wound up to do it a third time, but she waited, giving him a chance to try and talk her out of it.

His jaw clenched. “If you dare —”

Water sprayed over his body, soaking his hair, and sprinkling his shoulders. Ryn’s laughter soared into the temple heights with the birds, and she slapped a hand over her eyes. She didn’t even know she had a habit of taking things too far until this moment.

She dropped her hand. “Fine, stay over there and be grumpy—”

Xerxes grabbed her waist, sloshing through ankle-deep water as he hooked his boot behind hers and kicked out her foot.

Her legs buckled, and she dropped. Xerxes must have meant to throw her into the water, but he changed his mind at the last second and held on.

His eyes rounded as he sailed down with her, using one hand to brace against the floor and the other to catch her, breaking her fall.

Ryn found herself flat on her back, water leaking into her clothes. A king was over top of her, holding onto her. She lifted her head just high enough that her ears were out of the stream in case Xerxes spoke. His jaw was dropped; his body frozen in place.

A slow smile broke over Ryn’s lips as she took in that expression.

When he saw it, the edges of his mouth curled up, too. “Stop that,” he warned.

“Not to be rude again, but how long has it been since you had fun? Do you even know how, or are you completely incapable?” Ryn asked, and his smile wavered. She made a scoffing sound. “What do you think, King? Is fun one of your many wants?”

He dropped her the rest of the way into the stream and flicked a dollop of water into her face. “Not all of us are allowed to have fun, Maiden .”

“Ah. Is that why no one here has ever seen you laugh?”

His smile vanished at that. “Careful.”

Ryn thought about Heva’s training in the wheat fields. Sure, the King was built like a Folke, but she quietly raised a leg and hooked it around his anyway. Then she yanked his supporting arm free and rolled.

Ryn came over him, her hair flipping to the side, her hands braced against the floor by his head. Xerxes lay flat in the water, his dark hair floating in the stream that covered his ears. Ryn cast him a shallow smile. He wouldn’t be able to hear what she said now.

And so, she whispered, “I like you.”

Divinities.

She liked him.

Ryn chewed on her lip as it dawned on her. Maybe she hated herself for it.

She’d thought they were opposites in the beginning, but she was wrong.

Xerxes was the same as her. He was a boy who’d lost everyone and had grown up with no one to tell him what to do.

He was the boy on the island in the story.

She was the girl on the island. The only difference was that Ryn had a cousin who’d stepped up to raise her. Who had been there for Xerxes?

Why? Why did she feel all that about the King, of all people? Why had she even said that to him, even if he couldn’t hear it?

She realized her smile had left moments ago. She didn’t know how long she’d been staring at him, or how long he’d been staring back.

“King…” she began, suddenly worried he’d read her lips or that he could somehow hear below the water. She adjusted to climb off him—to stand. But she stilled when Xerxes rose onto his elbows, his face drawing close.

He pressed his lips against hers.

Ryn’s heart leapt in her chest. Drips ran down her cheeks, her mouth wet with stream water.

Xerxes raised a damp hand and slid it into her hair.

He kissed her lightly, and he sat up, bringing her with him and kissing her deeper, sending trails of water running down into their collars.

Ryn’s pulse thundered as the air in the room warmed, as the walls teetered, as everything around her spiralled away.

Xerxes slowed his movements. He pulled back an inch, and he hovered there, just a breath away, his chest rising and falling. His fingers were still tangled into her hair.

“Ryn,” he whispered, and she could hardly fathom him speaking her name after what had just happened. “Don’t ever say that again.”

Don’t ever say… That .

Ryn couldn’t move.

Xerxes stood, pulling her up with him. She remained in a trance as he took her hand and led her out of the Abandoned Temple and down the halls, leaving a trail of water across the floors.

He brought her right to the door of her room, and he left.

She didn’t remember anything that took place after that. Going inside. Getting ready for bed. Falling asleep. It was all a blur.