It took Marcan nearly the entire day to fit Ryn into her dress after she demanded he find a way to work her sword into her outfit. He’d huffed at first, but after a while he got to work on a silk braid down the back of Ryn’s dress for her sheath to rest in.

When hours went by and Heva still didn’t return, Ryn started scratching at the flesh on her knuckles, pacing in circles, yanking her hair—only to have Marcan slap her hands away so she didn’t destroy everything he’d worked so hard on.

Ryn glanced at her door every few minutes, wondering if Xerxes was getting ready.

Wondering if he had any idea what was coming.

Wondering if she should have warned him when she had the chance.

The makeup artists were placing tiny navy gems around Ryn’s eyes when she decided she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Am I all ready?” she asked Marcan, glancing at the clock in the corner of her room. It was less than an hour until the trial. If she was going to warn Xerxes, this was her last chance.

“Yes. You’re perfect.” Marcan stood and looked her over, admiring his work.

“Good.” Ryn headed for the door again, and Marcan’s face changed.

“Where are you going?! You can’t let anyone see you until the trial!” He chased after her and caught her arm.

“I need to see the King,” Ryn said.

“What?! You especially can’t see him !” the artist objected, pointing down to all her skirts and tulle and gems.

Ryn tugged her arm loose. “I’ll be right back. If Heva shows up… don’t let her leave until I return.”

The hallway was warm when Ryn swept out, her skirts whispering as they fluttered behind her. Her sword pressed into her back, and she tilted her head back and forth to try and loosen it. Music lifted from somewhere in the palace as the rehearsals began for the event taking place very, very soon.

Ryn broke into a run. Her footsteps echoed as she came around the bend to Xerxes’s chambers. The guards outside his door looked at her oddly, but they didn’t stop her from knocking.

“King!” Ryn called.

“He’s not here,” one of the guards said. “The organizers took him away a few moments ago. You’re not allowed to see him until the trial.” His eyes narrowed a little. “And you would do well to address him as ‘Your Majesty’ ,” the guard added.

Ryn ducked into a shallow bow. “Yes, of course,” she apologized.

Marcan flew into view at the end of the hall, staggering to a stop. “Estheryn!” he scolded. He marched to where she was and turned her around. “You cannot be here! You’re expected at the Hall soon to prepare for your trial!”

Ryn swallowed as Marcan escorted her back. When they reached her room, she dug a hand into her hair, and Marcan smacked it away again.

Where was Heva?

Ryn lost track of the seconds passing by as she was led to a room off the Hall of Stars with the other maidens. She hardly noticed the other three women standing around. She wrung her fingers and poked her head back out the door into the hallway. There were no female Folke guards in sight.

Music lifted inside the Hall, signalling the beginning of the trial.

“Relax. Just relax,” Ryn whispered to herself as Calliope passed by.

Calliope cast her an odd look. “Madwoman,” she muttered.

Someone appeared at the door, and Ryn spun around too fast to see who it was. A blast of dizziness swept over her, and she grabbed a table for support as she took in the organizer entering the room with a large book in his hands. Ryn’s shoulders dropped.

She stood in silence after that as Calliope took up nearly the whole space to practice her dance. Ulita cleared her throat and quietly sang through a few lines of her song, and Lis arranged her cart of perfumes and practiced fanning the scents in specific directions.

Ryn took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s going to be all right,” she whispered to herself as she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Her sword pressed against her spine with too little assurance.

All she had to do was get through tonight.

She didn’t even know for sure the B’rei Mira assassins would be at this event—she’d only assumed it based on a guess.

And maybe Heva was somewhere out there, doing her job.

Maybe she’d discovered something and was working to end the threat, if there was one.

“Are you nervous, Estheryn?” Lis asked, drawing Ryn’s eyes open.

“A little,” Ryn admitted, though Lis wouldn’t understand why.

“Me too,” Lis said.

Ryn cast her a small smile of assurance.

An organizer appeared and escorted the maidens to a backstage area. Ryn had a clear view of the stage, and the large crowd of nobles filling the room. There were more people here today than at past events. Ryn eyed them one by one, guessing which one might be a spy hiding in plain sight.

When she saw Xerxes in a gilded chair with a blindfold over his eyes, nausea and relief washed through her at the same time. At least he was still alive.

Xerxes’s lip was slightly curled into a scowl, and he held tight to the armrests of his chair. His royal coat wasn’t even done up. It looked like the organizers had wrangled him into that blindfold and dragged him to the stage, and contrary to Ryn’s nerves, she smirked.

Ulita went into the trial first. Ryn watched the crowd, studying each face, catching each movement. After a few minutes where nothing happened, she relaxed. It didn’t make sense for an assassin to wait this long if they had something planned.

Ulita sang a lovely tune, and the guests clapped her praises when she was finished.

Unlike the whistling and cheering nobles, Xerxes hadn’t moved a muscle.

Nor had he found it within himself to offer Ulita a nod or smile of assurance.

Ulita bowed to the nobles and returned backstage, fanning her cheeks.

Lis went next.

Xerxes did move this time. He reached up and plugged his nose the moment she began fanning perfumes at him. Ryn bit down on a smile, and a few nobles in the crowd chuckled.

The tension drained from Ryn’s body as it became clear she’d gotten herself worked up over nothing.

Even Matthias hadn’t imagined something might happen tonight.

She let out a long, heavy exhale as she went to her cart and lifted the silver tray of apple pie.

As soon as this ridiculous show was over, Ryn would go find Geovani so they could search for Heva.

Maybe the guardswoman had simply fallen ill and was sleeping it off in one of the spare palace rooms.

Lis returned.

“You’re next,” an organizer urged Ryn.

Ryn took in a deep breath and carried her tray out.

She moved slowly, letting her footsteps tap in spaced out beats across the stage, letting the nobles—and the King—wait.

Truly, she had no desire to rush through her turn, then be forced to watch Calliope run her hands all over Xerxes’s shoulders and face while he was blindfolded.

Naturally, the organizers had decided to save Calliope’s skill for last.

However, Ryn revelled in the thought that Xerxes would be shocked to realize there was someone who’d chosen ‘touch’ and was doing a dance.

She almost smirked in front of all the nobles when she pictured Xerxes thinking it was Ryn who was dancing because of what she’d told him in the garden.

As it was, her boring pie would be the least exciting thing Xerxes would experience during this trial.

Ryn dropped the silver platter on the stage table with a clatter. She grabbed the fork and gouged out a large bite of pie, then carried it over to where Xerxes miserably waited. His frown was priceless.

“I’m going to have to sit there with my eyes covered like a fool. I have to endure whatever nonsense the maidens come up with,” he’d said. “I hate the thought of it.”

Ryn bit her lower lip so she wouldn’t laugh and give herself away. She leaned over him, bringing the pie toward his mouth, but realized she didn’t know how to make him open it without telling him to—which would reveal her—and she’d been given strict orders not to touch him.

The nobles watched and waited around the room. A man in the front row folded his arms and began tapping his foot against the floor. So, Ryn nudged the pie against the King’s lips with the fork, leaving a dollop of whipped cream on him.

Xerxes sucked on his teeth a little. But he opened his mouth, and Ryn stuck the bite of pie in.

There, it was over.

Ryn pulled the fork out.

Xerxes chewed once, then stopped. Ryn moved to stand, to glide toward backstage and never think about this trial again, when Xerxes’s hand flashed out, catching her wrist in midair and holding her still.

The fork hung between them. Ryn’s mouth parted as whispers flittered through the room.

As it dawned on her she was touching Xerxes against the strict instructions of the organizers.

A slow smile spread across Xerxes’s face. He swallowed the pie, holding tight to Ryn. He licked the whipped cream from his lips.

He yanked his blindfold down.

Gasps and chatter erupted in the Hall of Stars.

Xerxes’s blue eyes settled on Ryn standing there. She gaped back at him.

“Your pie tastes salty,” he remarked. “I almost spat it back out.”

Ryn closed her mouth, biting hard on the inside of her cheek and feeling warm beneath so many pointed stares. “Liar,” she finally said. “My pies are delicious.”

“Go back there and eat a bite.” Xerxes nodded toward her pie on the table. “It’s fit for cattle, not kings.”

Ryn made a snorting sound and tried to pull her arm free, but Xerxes stood, keeping his hold on her wrist. He turned and shouted at the room, “This trial is over. I’ve chosen the winner.”

Visitors clapped and cheered in an explosion of noise, but the Intelligentsia leapt from their chairs at the back. It was impossible to see their expressions beneath their hoods, but everyone in their section was rigid, their hands balled into fists.

Ryn managed to yank her arm free from Xerxes, thinking only about the cover of backstage. She forced a smile across her face. “What are you thinking?” she asked Xerxes through her teeth.

He flashed the room a smile, too—one a little more gloating that glided right to the back of the room where the Intelligentsia stood.

“I was thinking I’d like to end this before Calliope’s turn,” he murmured back.

Ryn released a doubtful grunt. “I thought you liked Calliope,” she said. She wasn’t prepared for the look on Xerxes’s face when he turned his head toward her. His wild, accusatory, horrified eyes nearly made her jump.

A hooded man nudged someone out of his way halfway through the crowd. Ryn’s gaze darted to the movement, taking in the man’s pale face that didn’t belong among the tanned Per-Siana skin tones.

Her stare lifted to someone else at the back of the gathering, far behind the pale man, positioned in the oval archway where he was mostly darkened by the hall.

Someone Ryn knew from the years they spent together growing up in the same house.

Someone who’d lit candles so she could see at night and had put bread on the table for her in the mornings.

Someone who had left her in the palace all this time.

A small gasp escaped her lips.

Kai.

She thought it was an illusion.

Her cousin’s green priest robe was gone. Instead, Kai wore a sleeved cloak that brushed the floor. Ryn wanted to scream, “What are you doing here?!” but she realized Kai’s gaze wasn’t on her. It was trained on the pale-skinned man in the hood pushing through the crowd.

And the pale-skinned man’s eyes were set on Xerxes’s back.

Ryn’s stomach dropped when the man reached for something beneath his cloak. “King!” she screamed, grabbing Xerxes and shoving him behind her as the man lifted a loaded crossbow.

He fired.

B’rei Mira.

Assassin.

They came. After everything. They came.

Ryn’s breath stalled as the arrow spiralled for her chest. She braced for it as a streak of blue fabric flashed in the corner of her eye—a Folke leapt into the crosshairs. The Folke took the arrow instead.

Visitors screamed and pushed as they raced for the exits.

Folke guards drew their weapons, a unanimous ring of metal around the room.

Ryn felt her sword be taken from its sheath at her back.

But she only stared down at the blond Folke shuddering at the foot of the stage with an arrow through his body.

She was vaguely aware of the pale-skinned man loading another arrow and aiming his weapon.

An arrow from somewhere else plunged through him first, and Ryn jumped as the pale-skinned man was thrown to the floor. He rolled over once, then went limp.

Kai stood several paces back, bow raised, his arm pulled back from releasing the bowstring.

Guards leapt upon the B’rei Mira assassin, yanking his lifeless arms behind him.

No one rushed to help the blond Folke bleeding out at the foot of the stage.

No one tried to save her friend now that he wasn’t moving.

Matthias.

Matthias was dead.