Page 23 of The Scarlet Star

“If you were hired to assassinate one of the maidens, at least tell me which one.” Though, Xerxes shouldn’t have asked. He didn’t care which one. Any of them could vanish and he wouldn’t lose sleep over it, not that he slept much to begin with.

Except that he was sort of curious if it washismaiden—the one he chose to be here against the Intelligentsia’s wishes. Perhaps the Intelligentsia were the ones who’d hired this fool. Perhaps that was why Belorme was so willing to let Xerxes have his way with the Heartstealer numbers. Because Belorme had planned to have the “extra one” murdered all along.

“Just tell me, out of curiosity,” Xerxes waved a hand through the air, “is it Estheryn Electus you’re here to kill?”

“Ryn?” the fellow breathed then shut his mouth quickly. He tried to cover his mutterings by shaking his head as if to answer Xerxes’s question, but it was too late; Xerxes heard it.

Xerxes twisted his mouth to the side as he ran that new name over and over—and over and over and over again—in his mind.

Ryn.

So, she had a nickname. A cute little name people she knew called her by. Truly, this was the first person Xerxes had crossed that knew anything about Estheryn Electus. Xerxes hadn’t looked into the maiden himself, but the Intelligentsia had. Howdelighted Xerxes had been when he saw the legendary sages grow frustrated by how little information they could find on her. It only made him more pleased to have gone against them in the first place.

But Xerxes knew his instincts were right, even if he’d been wrong about this particular fellow being an assassin. The Intelligentsia might kill Estheryn Electus soon, especially after she’d arrived at the Introduction Ceremony inthat dress.

Xerxes shook the memory from his mind. “If you really know Lady Electus,” he said to the fellow, “then you should keep an eye on her. Otherwise, she’s not going to live long here.”

Xerxes wasn’t the charitable sort, so he wasn’t sure why he bothered with the warning.

Deciding his bath was over, he stepped from his pool and wrapped himself in his bathrobe. The fellow in the other pool said nothing else. The stunned look on his face had said enough.

Time for breakfast.

The table was colourful with hot meat skewers and eggs, bread, figs, and fruit. The Intelligentsia ate mostly in silence, occasionally discussing things Xerxes knew full well were just to fill the empty space. They never discussed anything important in front of him. They hardly ever even discussed things in front of the council anymore, though the council members at the breakfast table were too dull to realize it.

Xerxes placed a hand over his stomach, finding he wasn’t as hungry as he thought. Or maybe he was, just… He glanced toward the kitchens. He could have sworn he smelled pears.

“You’re starving.”

Theotherhunger had come earlier than normal today, and during the monthly King’s Council Breakfast of all places. Xerxes was used to waiting until the evening to feel the effects of his disease.

A particularly presumptuous napkin rose from the pile and flew at Xerxes, dabbing his mouth clean even though he’d hardly eaten anything. He swatted it away. Then he rose from his seat, not bothering to excuse himself or tell anyone where he was going. A few heads lifted, but no one said anything as Xerxes left the dining room, feeling the Intelligentsia’s feast magic slip off him, and headed for the long hallway that would take him to the basement stairs.

Minutes later, he studied his tree in the oval room with a sigh. It was still perfect. Not a single leaf turning brown, not a single fruit beginning to wilt. The pear he’d eaten the evening before had already regrown. He plucked it from the branch and rolled it over in his fingers. Here he was again, at the mercy of this tree. Every day it was the same—boring. A stale and repetitive occurrence of events. Nothing at the palace intrigued him anymore. The food had lost its taste, the aromas of the gardens had turned bland, and the people—he could not stand to be around them. For seven years, he had done this dance, relied on the knowledge of the Intelligentsia while simultaneously hating them for having insight when he didn’t.

At first, Xerxes had been terrified of himself. He’d raced for the tree each evening with gratitude, had worshipped it for saving him from becoming the one thing he hated most in all of Per-Siana. But after several years, the ongoing need had become a monster of its own. Xerxes often wondered what would happen if he simply stopped eating the spell-covered pears. He wished, just once, he could race through the palace as a free man, as the worst version of himself, and tear everything apart.

“Do it.”

“We will help you have fun!”

Xerxes smirked at the thought. He would be dethroned in hours. Probably hunted through the city and killed by the Folke. It would be a sweet end to a long existence of suffering, and the Intelligentsia would rule the kingdom in his stead.

His smirk twisted into a sour scowl at that. Belorme was like an uncle to him; a cruel, arrogant, overbearing uncle. Even so, Xerxes could not stand the thought of that man winning.

He sunk his teeth into the pear, the savoury juice sweet on his tongue. A spark of greed moved through him, an obsessive pull. He devoured the entire fruit in seconds. Then he glanced up through the skylight tunnel, and he hurled the core as high as he could, seeing if he could beat his record. The core slapped against the stone overhead, leaving a juicy mark just below the stain from yesterday’s fruit.

He grunted and brought his gaze back down to the luminous tree before him. The branches whispered an invitation as his restless night of sleep caught up with him, and Xerxes found his eyelids growing heavy, his breathing slowing. The next Heartstealers event wasn’t taking place for another few hours, and he didn’t exactly feel like being around the nobles, the council, or the servants until then. So, Xerxes took hold of the lowest branch and pulled himself up. He climbed into the tree’s rafters, his coat of nobility hanging down like a navy curtain as he laid back along a branch. He fell asleep.

He awoke to the voices screaming in his head.

Xerxes fell from the branch, his robe catching a twig and filling the oval room with a tearing sound as he landed on the tree’s protruding roots. He moaned, glancing down at his sleeve where a four-inch rip across his shoulder sliced through the face of the white dragon. Then he rubbed his eyes and tried to remember where he was and what he was doing.

The voices in his head were all laughing now. He blinked the sleep away and looked around, seeing a hundred golden pears within reach. He wanted to eat one, desperately. He reached for the closest fruit when a beam of sunlight spilled over his hand from the skylight as though the sun had discovered his hiding place. His hand froze there as he thought about that. Thought about how he was hiding.

As he realized he had somewhere to be.

Xerxes scrambled from the roots and leapt to the cobbled floor. He swatted twigs and emerald leaves from his robe as he marched for the arch and sprinted up the winding staircase. He had no idea what time it was, if the Heartstealers event had already begun. If the whole palace was in a frenzy looking for him.

---