Page 94 of The Scarlet Star

Xerxes released a raspy huff and swiped the tears from his cheeks. “I’ve been told that before.” Though, onlyoneperson spoke this time, not many voices. Even so. “I want no part of you,” he said. “I’ll never trust a god again.”

“I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Xerxes swallowed. He closed his eyes, willing himself to create a shield around his mind to block the voice out. Waiting for the voice to spew more nonsense. For a flood of voices to join it and take over…

Xerxes peeked an eye open after a moment. He looked around.

“Where did you go?” he asked warily.

Only the quiet breeze and the warm sunlight responded. He grunted. “Am I still crazy?” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair and rubbing his eyes. He glanced down at his clothes, noticing he wore a mangled shirt with holes and old dirt stains on it. He hadn’t been paying attention when he got dressed. Someone might mistake him for a gardener if he wasn’t careful.

He smirked at the thought. Then he bit his lips, his smile fading.

“I don’t want you,” he said to the new voice, just to be sure it was really gone. “Don’t waste your time with me—I won’t listen.”

Exactly ten years ago Xerxes had responded to the call of a voice in his head. He’d been lured by promises during his most broken moments. He would not make that mistake twice.

No, he wanted nothing to do with voices. There was only one thing Xerxes wanted now, and it happened to be the one thing he’d been sure he never wanted again.

Ryn did what she’d promised, and whether it was by her power or her god’s, Xerxes was cured.

She might leave him now. The thought sent a different sort of fear into his body.

For all his utterings of not wanting a wife, of refusing to marry ever again, he was ready to announce himself a fool. Even when he’d made the deal with Ryn at the dance, he knew full well he couldn’tactuallygive her half his kingdom—not without her becoming Queen. At the time, he told himself he would just go back on his promise if it came down to it. But now he wondered if he’d always hoped to choose her since that day.

Ryn didn’t know yet that Xerxes would choose her.

That was… if he could convince her to stay.

Xerxes left the tower, descending the stairs and coming into a dim hallway lined with useless unlit lanterns. Thankfully, pockets of early sunlight crept in through the glass at the end of every hall.

Only now did Xerxes hear the wailing through the palace. Only now did he notice the miscellaneous items scattered over the floor like people had dropped things and fled. Even some of the windows were shattered and glass was strewn everywhere. It crunched beneath his boots as he marched around the bend into the atrium, trying to guess what had happened.

The atrium was in shambles. Xerxes raised a brow at the destroyed chandelier, its crystal pieces scattered from one end of the floor to the other. He wondered what fool had been swinging from it to have made it fall. But his attention tore to the entrance when a series of men raced in from outside. Soldiers.

Soldiers who were battered, bleeding, and breathing heavily as though they’d sprinted a great distance. They shouted for all to hear, “The B’rei Mira armies have attacked!”

The news dropped through Xerxes’s stomach like a hot coal.

“They’ve crossed the border! Our men can’t hold them off!” one bellowed. “They’ve already destroyed three villages! They’re coming for the Mother City next!”

Xerxes found himself waiting. Waiting for voices to tell him what to do. To tell him to rush into the battle, to hunt for King Alecsander and brutally kill him for daring to set foot in Per-Siana.

But the voices were gone now, and Xerxes realized he had to make the decision himself.

“Your Majesty?!” Folke guards appeared around him. One Folke drew his sword and fumbled it, dropping it to the ground. The commotion alerted the battered soldiers, and the moment the soldiers saw the King, they rushed over and dropped to a knee at Xerxes’s feet.

“Please,” a soldier begged. “Tell us what we must do, Your Majesty.”

Xerxes took in the crowd of men surrounding him, wearing his colours in two different uniforms; Folke and Army. He glanced around the atrium where nobles clutched each other and servants’ faces were pale. None of these people would survive if the B’rei Mira armies made it to the palace. Xerxes would be a deceased King, his home would be shattered like the palace in Messa, and his people would become subjects beneath the vicious rule of Alecsander of B’rei, the war legend.

For once, every person in the palace saw the danger they were in.

“Arm the men, and gather our armies,” Xerxes instructed. No members of the Intelligentsia were around to object, not that hewould have stood for it if they did. “Per-Siana will prepare for war.”

Gasps and whispers surged through the room; a councilman released a loud wail of agony. Xerxes turned and headed toward the Strategy Hall to prepare. He was sure he was the only one in the palace who’d seen this day coming.

“Your Majesty!” someone called after him. He didn’t stop, and whoever it was chased him to catch up. “The great white dragon has fallen from the sky!” the man shrieked. “It’s lying dead in the streets! The people are in an uproar—they believe the Celestial Divinities have abandoned us!”

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