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She slumped back into her seat. The Heartstealer maidens had already been chosen weeks ago. So, why had the Folke arrived at her door and claimed she would face the trials?

There was no banner depicting an ordinary, unsuspecting garden girl with a terrible secret. There was no banner of the King either, nothing to confirm or deny the circulating rumours of his beauty. Ryn imagined he was hideous, like his soul.

As the carriage headed across the palace grounds, maidens gasped at glass buildings spearing out from the main palace in the shape of a great star with bridges and balconies ten stories high.

Dark silk spilled from the rails, inlaid with starry crystals and flowing in the evening breeze alongside vines of ivy dangling like a vertical garden.

There was so much glass, so much marble and silver, and too many depictions of the starry heavens to count.

The carriage passed through a small orchard last, and when the fragrance of fruit filled the air, something squeezed in Ryn’s chest.

The carriage came to a halt at wide entrance stairs. Folke guards helped their maidens down from the transport one at a time, and the young women tapped their way up the staircase into the tall, gaping mouth of the palace.

Heva stood at the bottom of the carriage with her arms folded. Ryn paused, wondering if she was supposed to wait for her guardswoman to take her hand and guide her down the steps like the other guards had.

Heva shot Ryn a look when she realized. “Do you want to hold hands or something?”

Ryn made a face and climbed from the carriage on her own, jumping off the last step and wobbling when her feet hit the dirt. “Aren’t you supposed to protect me?” she mumbled, barely loud enough for her guardswoman to hear.

“Protect you from what? A few scrapes on your way down?” Heva grunted. “You’re already covered in those.”

Ryn glanced at her arms where tiny cuts speckled her elbows, leftover from being pulled out from beneath her bed. Fresh bruises were blossoming over her wrists from wrestling against the guards too. Even the shoulder of her dress was torn.

She hugged her arms to herself as she followed Heva up the wide stairs and through a tall silver archway.

The evening wind picked up, tossing her hair and tugging at her hem, and she shivered.

But she paused at the top of the stairs, her toes coming along a blue line of tile where the palace doors might reach once closed.

Ryn thought of her warm kitchen where she’d just been with Kai. She turned and gazed back at the city, her throat thickening as she imagined Kai, Matthias, and Theo gathering without her in the empty house, sitting around the rickety table in the kitchen for Matthias’s birthday.

Her gaze fell on a temple with a gold domed roof glittering beneath the last sliver of sun a few blocks from the palace. Something about it made Ryn forget about her guardswoman waiting for her inside. She’d heard of a building with a golden roof before.

Her throat constricted so she wouldn’t scream for it—that building just past the wall of the palace grounds.

It looked exactly how Kai had described his temple; the building where he worked.

The building where he spent his long days studying with the Priesthood, along with the occasional nights he didn’t come home.

Ryn traced the road from the temple with her eyes, over the white wall encircling the palace grounds, through a large garden inside, and all the way to a narrow path before the entrance where she stood.

If there was ever a right place to escape to…

Heva’s hand found her shoulder. “I said don’t risk it.”

When Ryn met her guard’s eyes this time, there was more than a command there; a sharp warning rang through the silence between them.

Ryn’s shoulders relaxed. It wasn’t like she could run for the temple right now anyway.

She turned her back to the Mother City, to Kai’s temple, and stepped over the blue line of cold tile in her bare feet.

Maidens squealed and pointed at a starry ceiling mosaic sweeping from the entrance across a glass atrium.

The ceiling hosted a depiction of a war in the clouds where the seven gods of the Weylin people fought at the beginning of time.

It was the biggest mural Ryn had ever seen in her life.

Every stone sparkled; every detail was intricate.

Her gaze dropped to a giant fountain piercing the middle of the room surrounded by statues of the seven Celestial Divinities.

Ryn couldn’t remember the names of the primary Divinities apart from Nyx.

Beyond the fountain, two broomsticks floated by, sweeping all on their own.

Ryn nearly fell over as she leaned to watch them around the fountain.

She’d heard of the magic of the Intelligentsia flowing through the palace, she’d even felt the weight of it on her way in, but she’d never imagined that the gossip about the palace cleaning itself was true.

Warmth bled into her stomach as she became aware of it—that heavy presence no one else reacted to.

She rubbed her temples as the atrium went in and out of focus around her.

Groups rushed for the other maidens. Ryn blinked the fog from her eyes as two maidens were escorted away and disappeared down a hallway. “What’s happening?” she whispered to Heva.

Her guardswoman sighed. “The artists are choosing the maiden they wish to beautify. None of them seem interested in you though,” she said, then added, “The best artists were paid by rich benefactors or politicians who hope their chosen maiden will inherit the second throne of the kingdom. It’s a power struggle.

” She waved a hand through the air like it wasn’t worth explaining to someone like Ryn.

Ryn watched the last maiden receive a group of helpers along with trunks of supplies and a rack of gowns. She, and her crew, disappeared down the same hallway as the first two maidens.

Only Folke guards remained in the atrium, securing the entrance at Ryn’s back, and Ryn glanced at Heva.

She didn’t have a chance to ask another question before the sound of clumsy, clunking boots met her ears, growing louder until finally a young man raced into the atrium with pink cheeks and a large suitcase beneath his arm.

He skidded to a stop, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. When he looked around at the empty entrance, his face fell. Then he noticed Ryn.

His face fell again.

He glanced back the way he came as if debating whether he should run away. “This is what I get for arriving late, I suppose,” he muttered under his breath—not quietly enough. He sighed as he hauled his suitcase over, looking Ryn up and down with a scowl. “You’re the only option left?” he asked.

“She is,” Heva answered for her.

The young man nodded. “Come with me, then. I’m Marcan .” He emphasised his name and waited for a moment, like he expected something. Ryn looked over at Heva, then back at Marcan.

“Divinities, do you really not recognize my name? Did you grow up over the border or something?” Marcan asked, still talking to Ryn. “I’m Marcan. The Marcan.”

Most Weylins might know who Marcan was, Ryn realized. “Ah, right,” she said, nodding in feigned recognition. “ Marcan .”

Marcan rolled his eyes. He stomped over the tiles to the hallway after the others, waving for Ryn and Heva to follow. He remarked without missing a beat, “You don’t look noble.”

Ryn clasped her hands and squeezed her palms together. She glanced at a passing servant, then at Heva, then back toward the atrium. “My name is Estheryn Electus.” She stated the name she’d learned to say with ease. The name she’d spoken so many times it was starting to feel like her real name.

“Alright, Estheryn Electus, your name passes. But still…” Marcan glanced over at her, at her dirt , specifically. “How, by the Divinities, did you manage to get chosen as a Heartstealer?” he asked.

Doors were left open down the hall, giving Ryn glimpses of the other girls trying on silk dresses and glistening gold jewelry in their rooms. They probably really were the fairest young women in all of Per-Siana. Ryn couldn’t come up with one reason as to why she dared to walk among them.

“I have no idea,” she admitted.

Marcan made a face without questioning her further.

“I should warn you; I am not this kind of artist. I do stunning mosaics with glass and jewels, rare gem paintings, and coveted wall art,” he bragged, but his voice shook when he added, “I’ve never decorated a woman in my life.

I don’t even know how to beautify a mess like you, and now my reputation will suffer for it.

Don’t you know what we’re up against? Calliope Ingrid has at least three political figures backing her, along with her family’s deep pockets!

” He took in a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly.

“I wasn’t given a choice about coming here, you know.

” Marcan swallowed and put the back of his hand against his pink cheek.

It shouldn’t have been a relief that someone else did not want to be here, and while Ryn would never allow herself to feel kinship with a Weylin, she studied Marcan’s back, seeing a soul just as lost and alone in this vast building as she was.

Ryn had no interest in being beautified, and she especially had no interest in standing out.

Maybe Marcan would keep her look simple and she could stand at the back until the King chose a wife and the fuss would pass over.

It occurred to her that when the Folke had come to her house to collect her, the man reading the scroll had said, “Should you fail, you will be returned home to this location at the end of the period.”

So, there was hope. If Ryn couldn’t find a chance to escape, all she had to do was blend in, stay quiet, and keep out of the King’s sight. Maybe— maybe no one would ask questions about her, and she could make it through this trial period alive.

“Do a simple mosaic on a dress, then,” Ryn said to Marcan with a shrug. “If that’s what you’re good at.” The suggestion was the least she could do for a fellow palace prisoner. Though, thinking about wearing any kind of ‘maiden dress’ made her stomach turn.

Marcan scowled like it was the most absurd idea he’d ever heard. But after a moment of walking, he tilted his head and tapped his chin.

They entered the room at the very end of the hall—furthest away from the others. Heva grabbed a torch from the hallway and began lighting candles when she came inside. “Wow,” she said as she looked around.

Silk furnishings filled the living area, and a great spoked bed covered in dangling pink-blossom ivies rested at the far side of the room.

But while every piece of furniture was meant to catch the eye, all Ryn saw was the wall of windows.

She moved for the closest window, and as dusk consumed Per-Siana, she stared out at the city that didn’t feel all that far away, at a particular temple just a few blocks from the palace with a domed gold roof, straight in her view.

“Do any of these windows open?” she asked with a dry voice.

Marcan grunted as he clattered around with his suitcase and began setting up a station in the living area. He murmured, “How should I know?”

Ryn looked down the row of sills, her heart fluttering when she spotted a lever.

She rushed over and cranked it, gasping when the window opened with a pop .

She turned until the window was a wide, gaping doorway, inhaling the wind and filling her chambers with the sweet fragrances of fruit and the flower gardens outside.

She slapped a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t let a sob escape as her eyes filled with tears, keeping her back to the room where Heva and Marcan were.

A long time ago, Ryn had a mother. She never had a father she cared to speak of, but she did once have a mother who loved her.

A mother who used to brush her hair so it never grew tangled the way it was now, who used to wash her dresses so she didn’t wear stains like she did now, who used to whisper beautiful, loving words so that Ryn didn’t feel alone the way she did now.

One thing her mother always said was, “When a door closes and traps you in, the Adriel God will open a window.”

Ryn bit her lower lip and held her breath so she wouldn’t reveal that her heart was screaming for her mother, for her home, for her people.

She didn’t believe in the power of an Adriel God, not since her mother died.

Nevertheless, the saying proved to be true.

Perhaps her mother’s spirit was out there, watching over her.

Maybe her mother had been checking in on her from time to time and had sensed Ryn’s distress.

Ryn laughed, tasting the metallic flavour of blood from biting her lip so hard. She lifted a hand to her punctured lip, not caring if Heva and Marcan were exchanging strange glances behind her, wondering if she was crazy.

The King could have his fun with the three girls who wanted to be here. Ryn would be long gone before he ever learned any of her names—her false one, or her real one. What a fool he was to have tried to take her hostage in the first place when in her very room she had a doorway to freedom.