Page 26 of The Scarlet Star

“You fail,” Xerxes stated. “Next!” he shouted to the crowd.

When a maiden didn’t volunteer, Xerxes marched over and grabbed another one, determined to make every maiden hate him by the end of this. His mind spun with voices that weren’t his, his body was ice cold, his pulse a raging drum imprisoned in his flesh. The girl screamed and begged—it only angered him more. “Is this how you will plead for your life if the ruthless B’rei Mira soldiers come?” he shouted at her.

She shrank to her knees and clasped her hands together to beg. When she didn’t immediately draw her sword, Xerxes drew it for her. Then he turned and hurled it across the courtyard, far into the gardens beyond. The sword soared like a bird, weightless.

When he turned back, he found the maiden trembling. For just a second, no more, a touch of sympathy moved through him. But it vanished just as quickly as it appeared. “You fail,” he told her. He turned for the last maidens, already shouting for another one to come forward, but one already had.

Xerxes stared down at the sneaky, insult-hurling, wall-climbing maiden before him. She stood between him and the last maiden as though she planned tostop him. It was laughable. Xerxes’s vision turned hazy, and through the blur, all he saw was the outline of another presumptuous maiden in silly, outrageous armour.

A light buzzing sound reached his ears when she drew her sword, pulling it from the back sheath with less difficulty than the others. It filled Xerxes’s mind with noise as she held the sword out and lowered herself into a defensive position. Xerxes eyed how the rainwater dripped down the sword—the heavyprop. He tilted his head in thought. Then he smashed his sword against it.

The loud ringing of metal colliding with metal sang over the courtyard. The maiden spun away with the impact, but she wasn’t tossed off her feet. The realization was so startling that for a moment, Xerxes was shaken from his trance.

“Is that real?” he asked her.

Her—Estheryn Electus. That was her name. That’s who this maiden was.

Estheryn nodded as she tightened her grip on her weapon, turned back toward him, and raised it again. Xerxes could not believe his eyes. Her artist had given her arealsword. What a fool. Yet…

A slow, wicked smile spread across his face.

Finally, a challenge.

“Hit me, then,” Xerxes invited. Obnoxious whispers lifted from the crowd of onlookers tucked beneath the balcony. His gaze snagged on the movement of her throat as she swallowed. Rain drenched her dark hair, ran down her face. Made her fake armour look slick. She didn’t look afraid though.

“Hit me, then, Maiden,” Xerxes said again. “Strike me down. Kill me if you must.” He nodded toward the Intelligentsia standing in a line outside the doors in their damp cloaks. Their faces were lost to the dim shadows of their hoods. “They heard me. You’ll not be punished even if you strike me down.”

Estheryn’s gaze darted over to the Intelligentsia, then back to Xerxes. She still refused to move. So, Xerxes lifted his sword and placed the tip gently at her throat. He used it to tilt her face up to meet his eyes. “Don’t you know that I own you?” he whispered. “Don’t you want to kill me and set yourself free?”

Her brows angled inward, confusion rippling over her features. So, Xerxes added, “Did no one tell you that your fathergave you to me to save himself? That you were the price for his freedom?”

Her lips parted. It was the most remarkable, fascinating reaction. Xerxes could not get enough of it. He shoved her sword aside, and he stepped in, standing over her darkly. In some ways, she was the only interesting thing that had entered his life since before he could remember. And for that, he supposed he’d decided already that he wouldn’t let her go.

“You were traded to me in a deal overseen by the Celestial Divinities. If you try to run, the Divinities will find you and you’ll be punished.” Xerxes paused to think. “Or I will. But for your sake, I think you’d rather deal with the Divinities.”

Her sword flashed through the air before he could brace himself. Xerxes leapt back, but her blade caught the collar of his coat of nobility and tore through it. Folke guards drew their own swords, and one of the maidens shrieked from the side. But Xerxes laughed, lifting the shredded piece of fabric at his collar to see.

Estheryn raised her sword again, and Xerxes smashed the weapon out of her hands; the metal sending a sharp clatter over the yard as it hit the stone. He grabbed Estheryn by her belt and drove her four steps backward to a pillar, pinning her there. She gaped, her startled gaze meeting his. Xerxes’s sword was pointed against her waist, his fist around her belt, his body her cage. He was about to inform her she had failed like the others, even if she had been bold enough to bring a real sword.

“She must die. You must kill her for us,”one of the voices stated.

Estheryn’s face changed, even though Xerxes had said nothing. The timing was strange. So was her reaction. It was almost as though she’d heard…

Xerxes’s smile vanished. The haze cleared from his mind, the ice fled from his flesh as Estheryn looked back and forth between his eyes, her brows tugging together.

Xerxes nearly dropped her and tore back.

She couldn’t hear his voices. No one could.

“Kill her before it’s too late!”

“Kill her now!”

“We want her dead!”

“Do it! Do it!”

“Quiet,” Estheryn whispered.

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