"Don't move," a voice hissed in her ear. Deep. Masculine.

Instead of following the order, Hesi grunted, squirming against the grip snaking around her body. "Let go," she snarled, but with a hand plastered over her mouth, it came out as "Mff pho."

The grip tightened enough to crush her ribs. "How did you end up here?" the voice asked, more to himself rather than her. Then, he cursed—an entire creative string—and dragged her back into the cloak of the corridor's darkness.

She growled and swung her head back, hitting the man's nose. She heard a strangled grunt. The grip loosened. She whipped backwards, flinging an arm and catching a sturdy lump of flesh. Another grunt. Finally, she rammed her elbow into his stomach. Something slapped the floor with a heavy thud.

"Don't touch me." She gritted her teeth at her tone. Give her a forked tongue, and she could pass off as a Mayaware.

As her eyes adjusted, she glimpsed a silhouette of a lean man with a curly mop atop his head. He coughed and shuffled up. In the faint light of the moon, she traced wavy locks, dark skin, and passive, hooded eyes scanning her from head to toe. "Yeah, I apologize." He dusted his clothes—oddly composed of a knee-length shirt belted at the waist with braided twine—and massaged his sore abdomen. "You are not supposed to be here. They will sense you soon."

She narrowed her eyes. "So will you." She studied him the same way he did. He wasn't a Mayaware—that much was clear. That meant he was the only other option—human. "What are you doing in this palace, in Berheqt of all places?"

Instead of answering, the man snatched her wrist. He pulled her forward. "Stop that." She slapped and clawed at his grip, but it wouldn't budge. Was this man made up of Mayaware skin? How come he was this strong? "Let me go."

"How stupid can you be?" he chided. The darkness added more acid to his tone than he probably intended. "Your scent is all over the palace now! I don't know how to explain this come morning."

The royal palace's walls registered when her eyes adjusted completely. They passed columns taller than the ones in the trading courtyard. More statues of hissing and frowning Demon Kings lined the dim corridor, their gazes following her across. She stuck her tongue out at them.

"Where are you taking me?" She asked the man after a silent minute. His grip hadn't loosened. He turned a corner, not telling her. Her shoulder bumped against a rough, stony surface. A hiss flitted out of her mouth. Darpeh, that hurt. Her soles skittered against the floor, but the man, even half-scurrying, walked so quietly he could have been hovering over a pool of feathers. How come he wasn't afraid of being sniffed out by the guards? And...how did he know where to go, even in the darkness?

Who was this man?

"You should know better than to wander in the dark, alone and with nothing to mask your scent!" he ranted.

She clicked her tongue. "There are no deshet branches here, genius."

"Deshet!" He spat the word like a curse word when it wasn't. "Do you think it could help you?"

She frowned. What was his deal? "It works. I've used it for a long time." She frowned at the implied scorn in his tone. "What are you so fired up about?"

He paused and turned to her so suddenly she thought he changed his mind and would now leave her to the demons. "My problem..." He got into her face, his eyes burning like the torches watching them. "...is that as soon as the demons wake up, all they will sense is a trace which should have been in the bridal palace as long as the High Prince isn't calling. Do you understand?"

She pursed her lips. It sounded like a big headache for whoever he was. "I have things to do, and I don't have time to worry about scents or demons."

"You should." He resumed their haphazard walk. Her wrist hurt, and it might bruise tomorrow. "The demons' eyes are weak at night, but their sense of smell is strongest. They will sense you from a mile away. Qer's trousers. Even the High Prince will know you were here."

Her head perked up. "The prince?"

The man scoffed. "This is not a place for sightseeing. I hope you were aware of that when you sauntered in. This isn't the Steel Fortress. Festophis does not have power here. The King does, and he doesn't like human scent tainting the air of his palace."

She stared at the back of his head, willing lightning to burn his hair. "How do you know that?" she asked, her tone sharpening to an edge. "That I am in Festophis' slate?"

"I know all that happens in Berheqt," was what he replied before he cranked a handle down and swung a door open. He shoved her inside and shut the door behind him. She nursed her throbbing hand as he pushed past her, heading towards a tall shelf full of clay pots.

She eyed the tables pushed against the corners of the room, bearing pieces of parchment, sticks of graphite for writing, and scattered pieces of wilting and fresh leaves. Flowers with petals of different hues and shapes grew from large palthes—enormous pots used to transport water popular in Ser-Methon.

The man muttered under his breath, scouring for something in his royal shelves. "Zowere. Dulls senses and appetite. Useless." He moved to the next jar and sniffed its contents. He recoiled, clapping the lid back so hard he almost cracked the container. "Sufret. I'm not even sure why this is here. Except, maybe, for tea. Useless."

He yammered about more names foreign to her ears. Before she could ask what he was on about, though, he strode past her again and dropped an assortment of tools and ingredients onto a table. His hands flew, operating cranks, knives, and scissors as though he worked with them most his life. A small pot of water boiled over a lamp whose flame ate live coal. The fire beamed straight at the pot's base, not an ember departing.

She drew closer, albeit not losing the caution in her tense limbs should he decide to grip her wrist again or do something worse. "What are you doing?" she asked.

He ignored her and dropped chopped brown leaves into the boiling pot of water. Tea. He made tea. How presumptuous. Who in their right mind would do it after dragging a girl to a hidden room?

"What would happen if the High Prince knew I went here without his permission?" She attempted to get him to look at her again, but he moved back to the shelf to get more ingredients from hell's anus, no doubt.

He shrugged when he returned to the table. "You will be dead by dawn. Probably," he answered. "Skinned alive with your insides flavoring the demons' banquet stew. Maybe your eyeballs would enhance their Cani wine. They love eyeballs in their goblets."

She fought against fear climbing her throat. She watched him mix the warm water with a wooden stick as though he stirred soup made from human entrails. Where did he get these instruments? The trading courtyard? Who was he to walk around freely in Berheqt and not get eaten?

"Who are you?" she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. "You can't tell me what to do like you own the place."

A snort rang from him as he transferred the contents of the pot into a separate cup made from a hollowed-out gourd. The sweet and salty scent of the brew wafted in the air, making her head light and calming her gut. "I am what you call a steward," he said, passing her the smoking cup. She wanted to slap it out of his hands, but his gaze told her he would flay her alive personally if she refused him. "I am the official marshal of the royal Mayaware and all of Iren-Washep's nobles."

"Was that why you could walk around these halls and remain unscathed?"

He heaved a breath. It was heavy. "Yeah." He massaged his temples and strode to another table. He scrawled something on a sheet of parchment with a graphite stick.

"What is this?" She pointed to the cup in her hand. "I don't drink tea."

He faced her again, his frame never leaving his work table. "It should change your scent for at least twelve hours before the Mayaware realizes the human scent here was yours," he explained, shoving his wavy locks away from his eyes. "I can make up an excuse that a camel broke free. I tried looking for it with its owner—a human—so they will understand the scent wafting around."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Humans can trade here?"

"If you listened to Yobekh's lectures, you would have known," he replied, returning to his writing. Must be the records.

"How did you know that? Are you a god?" She took a sip of the tea and almost spilled it when she recoiled after the hot liquid touched her tongue. "Darpeh, this does not taste the same way it smells. What is this?"

He raised his head and turned to her again. "Maatsek leaves and fesel broth," he said, as if that would explain everything. "And no, I am not a god. Just good at listening through walls."

"Are you a spy?"

"You could say that."

Silence coated the air between them until she drained the cup of the last drop out of respect for his effort. The tea left a burning, bitter taste at the back of her throat. Ugh. She cleared her throat and braced the table's rim with her hands behind her. "Why do you know these things?" she asked.

He blinked. "What things?"

"You know, these things." She kissed her teeth and waved a hand in the air. "Such as what kind of tea would change my scent or that deshet is not an excellent substitute to mask my trace."

He set his graphite stick down, pausing in the middle of a paragraph—or at least, it looked like a paragraph. A haunted cloud passed across his face. "Unlike you," he said. "I've been here for far longer."

"Why?"

Her question rang in the air in an electric wave, hovering overhead before dying between them. He gaped at her unblinkingly, and she held his stare, daring him to answer. "Why are you here?" She drove the question home. "You could have escaped to Ser-Ib or to the neighboring continents when the upheaval happened. Why are you still here?"

He shot up from his rickety stool and faced her. She tilted her head and matched his stance. "What about you?" He jerked his chin at her. "Why are you here?"

She smirked. "You first."

A flicker of annoyance flashed across his eyes, but he threw his arms up and ran his twined fingers down his hair. "Fine." He sighed. "I'm here to kill them. That's why."

Her saliva went down the wrong way, making her double over and cough her lungs out. He was going to do what? "You could have done that a long time ago." She cleared her throat of the last of her strangled coughs. "Why didn't you?"

"I don't intend to fight them with blades or whips." He strode back to his stool and retook it. His shoulders slumped, but he hadn't lost the ember burning in his eyes.

"Well, what do you intend to do?"

The man raised a glass vial into the meager light shining through the slits of a window barricaded by planks wood nailed against stone. For the first time, he smiled at her. "Poison."

They paused for a minute, but the silence shattered when a laugh broke out of her lips. Soon, she giggled, hugging her stomach and slapping the table's surface. The pots clunked against each other, and the tools bounced from their perch. "Oh, that's so stupid." She wiped a knuckle below her eyes. Dear gods, she hasn't had a good laugh in so long. "You could have done it while they're sleeping. Saves you much hardship."

And if this man could reach every corner of this place, what stopped him?

She didn't amuse him. "With what?" he reasoned. "Only huurshe ores are effective at banishing the Mayaware. They can be found in the mountains of Ser-Tehra, and the Mayaware got rid of those when they took over."

She mulled over the times she plunged knives, curved blades, and spears into their frills. So...they didn't die? A more depressing question formed itself. "Are those why they took over Ser-Tehra and built Berheqt over it?"

He inclined his head to the side. "Wanna bet on it?"

"How's your poison thing going?" She jerked her chin at the sheets scattered over the table. She set the cup down and strode over to him. Before she could peer at his writing,his arm swept across, shuffling the sheets into disarray. "Was that what took you so long?"

He hung his head. "Painfully so."

She stepped back, the gears in her head turning. This man...whoever he was, he has a leg up the Mayaware's door. It didn't matter if he lost that limb, but he could get her inside that door before it closed forever. This was perfect. Too perfect of a chance. She wouldn't let it slip, so she propped a hand on her hips and leaned her weight on one leg. "Tell you what," she said. "That's why I'm here as well."

"What, poisoning the Mayaware?" He sniped with a pouty frown. "I am certain that plan was originally mine."

She stuck her lip out. "Well, say goodbye to your plan because, with only a few tweaks, it's going to be our plan."

His lips parted. "What are you implying?"

She leaned forward, her hair spilling past her shoulder and dangling between them. He must have had a good look inside her tunic, and she let him. It was fun watching him try to find the shelves interesting. "You know everything in Berheqt, so you can tell me when and what the next trial will be," she said. "Work with me, and I can retrieve what you want the most."

"And that is?"

She didn't fight the grin creeping out. "The Mayaware royals."

A silent understanding passed between them, and in the darkness and stillness of the night, it couldn't have been more insane. Dangerous, maybe, as trusting a stranger wasn't the best plan to have. But it was insane.

He chuckled, slapping his knee lightly. "You drive a hard bargain." He stared up at her. "Miss...?"

"Call me Hesi." She thrust an open hand in his direction. "If we're going to work together, tell me your name."

He smiled, a direct opposite of the scowl he gave her earlier. He took her hand and shook it the way humans would to seal deals and declare allegiance. "Kharta," he said. "My name is Kharta."

She returned his expression, ignoring the embers rising from the contact points of their skin. It was brighter and hotter compared to when he caught her sneaking. So much could change in one night, and perhaps, the reign of demons would end at the hands of two humans meeting once by accident and in secret for the nights to follow.

She tightened her hold on his hand as though giving him a taste of his potion. "Nice to meet you." She raised her eyes to him, only to realize he had a rarer shade of brown she saw little in Ser-Djare. "What is the next trial?"

"The arts."

That wasn't good, but she didn't show it in her face. "When will it be?"

Kharta's expression dimmed. "Two weeks."

Her smile widened. "Let's get to work, then."