The gardens were alive with the sounds of hammers on wood and the flapping of canvas. The workers were working round the clock to set up the tents for the grand reception, which would be held after the wedding ceremony. The largest tent already stood—the tent she and Iyer would be sitting under—, right beside the fountain, where she could drown Gavriel easily if he opened his mouth.

Arynn crossed her arms in front of her chest as she walked down the winding cobblestones paths with Iyer at her side. They had left his family members in the castle behind them, drunk on wine and bubbling laughter. The two much preferred the cold night wind over the heat of the bodies trapped inside the room.

"What do you want out of life," asked Arynn as she lifted her eyes to the black skies above. Twinkling silver stars hung high above their heads, laid so carefully to align three of them right above her. A life fighting battles and waging wars was inconstant and uncertain—Arynn could never be sure she would make it out alive. But she was sure about those stars, who would be there to hang above her head in every night sky.

Iyer scuffed his boot on the stones and came to a stop in front of the gazebo. He reaches his hand out behind him and wrapped it around hers, and said, "Not to be King. That's for sure." A grin spread on his lips when he saw her startled face. "I am the eldest twin. I was born and groomed to sit on the throne my entire life, but the throne is not mine—not really. When an outsider looks in, they see a golden crown lined with velvet, but I see a set of shackles."

Arynn's throat went dry. "Shackles?"

"Yes," he said as he took a seat on the half stone wall. "The crown, the title—it gives you power. It's this thirst for power that drives people to madness—my grandfather, my mother. It made them do terrible things. My grandfather was a good man, until he got it into his head that it was the Addinells and not the Sidewinders who should be on the throne. He killed a man for it, and sent his son fleeing."

There was a pause, and then, "My mother was next in line for the Tohari throne, and she went mad with grief when Gadrion took it away from her. The thirst for power made her kill Gadrion's wife after he was dead. I know she set her pet snakes on the Queen and her newborn baby. They were the snakes from the Everglades around the castle. They squeezed Lysane to death and the others were pit vipers and vipera aspis; the most venomous snakes we have. They bit the baby, and she died. I can understand why she would have Gadrion killed, but his wife and child were innocent. I wouldn't have killed them."

He turned his startling blue eyes toward her. "I like to think I'm a good person," he said. "I don't want the thirst for power to turn me into something I'm not, because once you have power, you'll only want more and more and more of it. I don't want to turn out like my grandfather and mother—unloved and dead."

"You won't," said Arynn before she could stop herself. She looked away from his burning gaze and settled her hands in her lap. "There is too much good in you to be twisted into something dark and cruel. I feel the gods themselves would have to intervene to make that possible."

Iyer was good—undoubtedly so. He had a light in him, somewhat like Keelie's that burned brighter with every kind and selfless thing he did. He snuck away into the city during the day, with a sack of fruits and his harp, to feed the children in the square and give the money he earns to the vagrants. He thought that no one would recognize him if he bound his blonde hair in a black cloth, but her men had spotted him from a mile away.

He chuckled. "The gods have no time to worry about small men like me. They would much rather watch mortals like you—the great ones. My mother always wanted me to be great," he said. "But I just want to be left at peace with my harp and glass chessboard. I'd much rather leave the ruling to those who want to do it."

Her eyes glittered darkly as she turned her face to him completely. Her heart went still in her chest as her lips formed around the words on her tongue. "And what if I were to take your crown from you," she asked. The hairs on her arms stood on end when his face went blank.

"As I've said," he answered. A soft breeze teased the blond tufts if hair that fell into his downcast eyes. "It was never my plan to rule this kingdom, as an Addinell does not belong in the throne. The crown is yours if you want it, Eve."

The name was thrown into the conversation so casually, as if he had done it many times before. And for a split moment, panic rose from the pit of her stomach and rendered her limbs useless. She wondered if he'd said it before. Eve—it was the name Khazara had claimed for herself the very first time they had laid eyes in each other. Evander had been a torture to pronounce for her Solaric tongue. Breathlessly, Arynn asked, "What did you just say?"

"I said," he repeated. "The crown is yours if you want it, Eve."

Arynn reared back as if she'd been struck with a backhanded blow—she felt that in someway she had been struck. She felt threatened and was ready to flee. The reaction was purely instinctual—something she had done since she had been given another name. The only person she had allowed to know about her identity, outside of her generals and Keelie, was Khazara.

"How do you know?" She was going to kill Aleksei. She would spike her little body to the bedroom wall and flay her alive with a blunt knife. The death would be slow and painful—she would scream and she would retch, and Arynn would not blink. Something in her chest caved as the betrayal sank into her skin. What had she done to warrant this?

Iyer's lips pulled into a lazy smiled as he raked his long and slender fingers through his hair. They were nicked from the tugging at the strings of his harp—making them pink and more beautiful. He did not have the hands of a fighter; his were the hands of a lover—like his soul. "The walls are not as thick as they look, and sounds escape underneath the doors. I overheard your conversation with your handmaiden."

Oh, thought Arynn dumbly.

"Then why am I still alive," she couldn't help but ask. Iyer had known who she was for quite some time now, and he hadn't breathed a word of it to anyone—much like his lesser half, Withian. Her eyes fell to the golden serpent brooch on his tunic. It is the symbol of the Sidewinders, he had said to her. He had known.

He lifted his hand from his lap and raised it to her face, hesitating when she pulled her face slightly away.

"You are far too pretty to die," he said as he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. "It would be a shame to waste your greatness on death. Your name will be remembered long after you're gone. It is known."

Her name would be remembered long after she was gone—it was a blessing, it was a curse. She would be great, they had told her for as long as she could remember. She would be immortalized in songs—her name a battle chant on the lips of thousands of men. She would be great, they all said—but no one had told her that to be great, was to be lonely.

"Why am I not dead," he asked.

Arynn rose to her feet. "Every time I entertain the idea," she admitted, "I tell myself that it's too early in the day for killing princes—even when it's midnight." There was a pregnant pause before she spoke again. "I don't want you to die, Iyer. I wish for us to be friends. And I wish for what is rightfully mine to be returned to me as well. I do not want to be like your mother—I will not make a son pay for the sins of his mother and grandfather."

"I want us to be friends as well," he said softly as the left the gazebo and returned to the cobblestone paths.

They stopped in front of the fountain and watched the water drizzle into the basin. The structure was breathtaking—a large tub rested on the ground, made of jagged rock. A single spire stood in the middle of it, adorned with carvings of flowers.

An ivory statue sat at the base of it—it was a woman with wavy hair that fell past her shoulders. A circlet sat on her forehead, thick and inlaid with peridots and jade. Aheia the Creator, the patron deity of Icark, stared into Arynn's soul with unseeing ivory eyes and made an uneasy feeling settle over Arynn.

Ona marai karet, was carved into the stone at Aheia's bare feet. It was Strudox, the language of Toharia, carved there by the first Icarkian king—Ikarian Sidewinder. The words translated to a simple phrase; an order—you must create. Arynn couldn't help but think that she only created chaos.

"What are you doing," asked Arynn as Iyer kicked off his boots and climbed into the basin. The water sloshed between his long and slender legs as he waded further into the fountain. "Iyer," she said to draw his attention to her. "What are you doing in there?"

"Living," he replied.