If a celebration was this muted, Hesi would have attended a Mayaware rave after a successful raid. She sat cross-legged on the edge of her cot, eyeing the basket of scarlet citrus near Uzare's foot. It was part of the feast Festophis prepared for his slate when all six went through.

The brides lounged in the largest room of the bridal palace. Even though enough rooms for everyone existed, the Mayaware insisted on keeping the humans in one place. Maybe it was for safety reasons or something as stupid as thinking of them as sheep to rear. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her thoughts.

"How did you know our tasks disrupted each other's?" Semret, the youngest of them all, shifted from her cot and faced Rehema, who sat with one leg up. On the older woman's hand sat an opened but uneaten fruit.

Hesi's stomach growled. She hasn't eaten since midday, and the ceremony lasted into the afternoon. After that, they shoved her into this room. Hesi eavesdropped on the brides' conversations since a woman gathered enough courage to speak, and she found out Semret was the other one in Iserphis' slate. She accompanied Taskhari, so with the latter gone, the pressure for Semret to win it for the Mayaware general was stronger.

Petra, the woman with dark ocher hair, and Barteset, a woman who looked old enough to be Semret's mother, were in Khetaphis' slate. As the head of the Iron Pillar, the largest trading post in Iren-Washep, his slate received burden as well. Rehema entered the trials as Nephdaphis' sole bet, as was Khono, who competed under Heruphis' flag.

Festophis must have thought it was the lottery and entered six—Mensa, Tagara, Uzare, Isueri, Otraqte, and, of course, Hesi.

"It's not me," Rehema answered with a sigh. She jerked her head in Hesi's direction. "She's the one who pointed it out."

"And then what?" Asrate demanded. The braids on either side of her head swung with her movement. The sheared scalp behind her ears distracted Hesi for a full minute. "You simply followed her?"

Hesi glanced at the woman. Despite the straightened spine and the squared shoulders, she could tell Asrate faked it. Out of everyone who saw what happened to Taskhari, Asrate took it the hardest. The woman's hands haven't stopped shaking, and Hesi lost count of how many times Asrate rubbed her palms against her gossamer skirt.

"It made sense," Uzare interjected. Hesi frowned. Why was she defending Hesi? "These demons weren't concerned with our lives. They just want to find the prince's wife, for reasons I never could fathom."

Hesi crawled to the woman's side, using it as an excuse to swipe a fruit from the top of the basket. They would rot if no one ate them. "Whatever it is, I'd still want to offer you the same proposition I did to Rehema," she said. Her nails dug into the fruit's crown, the sickly sweet juice staining her nail beds red. She pulled. The rind's crunch rang against the force. "Their plan was to pit us against each other, so we're going to turn it on their heads. We're going to work together."

Silence. Hesi met their gazes with a brief nod. "No competition," she continued. "We will give the demons what they want for show, but we won't fight to harm. We will survive. All of us. What do you say?"

A beat passed. Two. One by one, the women bobbed their heads. The deal was sealed.

"Which brings us to the issue." Rehema's eyes never wavered from Hesi, even as Hesi plucked a segment from the citrus, skinned it, and popped it into her mouth. "You never told us your name."

Hesi smirked. "Would you believe me when I say I don't have one?" she quipped.

"What is the story behind that?" Mensa tucked her red hair behind her ear, one peppered with piercings from the helix to the lobe. Now that they were inside the royal capital, gold rings and dangling tassels filled the holes. "You are interesting."

"I'd rather hear Asrate's story." Hesi jerked her chin in the woman's direction. Heads turned to the bride in question, and the woman's mouth parted. She put a hand on her chest as a response to the attention.

Hesi racked her head for any memory or snippet of conversation where Asrate talked. Nothing came up. If she was to learn about her environment, it included the people who could and would betray her at some point. So she inclined her head to one side and grinned. "How did you end up here?" she asked.

If Asrate saw Hesi's motive, her features and gestures didn't betray it. "I was born inside Berheqt," she said. "My parents were captured during the Great Shadow when Ser-Djare fell."

Hesi ran through the years in her mind. Not long after, Ser-Tehra would have fallen, and Hesi's parents would have escaped and met in the harsh lands. That made Asrate a year older than Hesi, but younger than Barteset. "I don't remember them growing up," Asrate continued, wrestling Hesi's attention back. "Took me a long time to realize the Mayaware maids weren't my parents, and that I departed from them after I was born."

"And did you do their work once you were old enough?" Tagara asked. Her piercings spilled more gold and copper than skin.

Asrate shook her head. "I did something worse," she replied. "I was trained in the Mayaware arts for this exact reason. Unlike all of you, I've been doing the tests all my life."

Hesi's eyebrows fell together, the clues clicking in her mind. "Which makes you..."

"The candidate of Azophis," Asrate finished for her. "The Mayaware King and the Heart of Iren-Washep."

Only the wind blowing through the blades of palms outside filled the room for a minute.

Hesi's only answer was peeling off the fibers off the side of the fruit's last segment and shoving it into her mouth. When she chewed, the saccharine juice from the pulps coated her mouth. It was a taste that surprised her repeatedly, and she could never get used to it. Kind of like the sight of humans falling under the ferocity of the Mayaware.

Barteset, with her long hair up in meticulous braids around her head, smiled at the girls. The oldest woman might have thought them as daughters. Has she been a mother once?

"I was captured from Kuhre's neighboring oasis." Barteset shattered the silence with her gentle voice. She didn't sound as though she could wield a dagger, much less plunge it deep into an onyx-hide monster. "This is the last place I wish to be, but now, I'm here. I can only accept it and make the most out of it. If it's not for this encounter, I wouldn't have met all you beautiful ladies."

The other women giggled, the sound of tittering a painful stab into Hesi's ears. "You are too kind, Barteset." Otraqte, the woman with thin, chestnut hair tied rigidly, bumped shoulders with the older woman with a wink. "If you are chosen, what's the first thing you would do?"

Barteset's face flattened into a passive stare. "Bear the prince's offspring?" She rolled her shoulders. "I'll think about the future when it comes."

Nods followed the sentiment. Hesi resisted rolling her eyes. What a motivation. The other girls drank it all in because Barteset looked as though she saw too much and was a reliable source of wisdom. Well, if Rassa Renen were here, she would slap these women upside the head and scold them about not having a plan.

Always think of the future before taking a step. Rassa's voice—at least what Hesi remembered her mother's voice to sound like—floated to her mind's surface. She tamped it down to the dark recesses of her gut.

Her mother had a point, though. Every step, no matter how small, insane, or dangerous, would get her to where she needed to go. In this world where one misstep would get one killed, Hesi has to always be ten miles ahead. Survival rules paid homage to the last piece of advice her mother left. Do not step towards the unknown, but when you do, make sure you won't put anyone in danger.

Hesi studied the women who changed into all kinds of gossamer dresses, leaving her to be the only one who hasn't shed her dark sleeveless tunic and matching trousers. These women...it was as though they didn't want to survive, as though they already signed off their will to live, to have human families of their own, to see their grandchildren healthy and, most of all, free. All in exchange for something as uncertain and foolish as becoming the Mayaware prince's wife.

She licked her lips in frustration. Perhaps it was their benefactors' sentiments influencing their thinking. If she wasn't careful, Festophis' words might worm their way into her mind, telling her to make him proud and win this competition in the dirtiest way possible.

She almost understood their refusal to think about what would happen if they didn't win. Or what would happen if they won and couldn't provide what the Mayaware royals asked of them later. They would probably end up as broth in a noble's soup or something more disgraceful. None of them thought like her. No one thought that the Mayaware royals could end at the sharp end of the blade, and the empire could crumble from the top.

She wasn't sure how, though, but she was getting there. One step at a time.

"I was captured as well," Khono said. She was probably the only girl whom Hesi respected out of everyone in this room. She ran a hand down her long, silky auburn hair running down to her thigh. "My hometown was beautiful. During the summer, when the desert is at its hottest, the sun would line up in the sky in such a way that its rays would hit the lake, and out would come colors shining on the water."

A chorus of gasps rang from the brides. Even Hesi was drawn into Khono's description of her land. It sounded like a beautiful place, if not paradise. "During shearing season, we would line up the rams and spend the entire week doing nothing but that." Khono gave out an amused laugh, though Hesi didn't fail to note the melancholy laced with it. "Imagine that—all the villagers outside of their tents, shearing sheep with blunt blades. It was our communal activity, our small holiday."

Khono continued, describing her town in great detail. Each sentence brought more sadness in her tone. Then, as though holding back a torrent, she broke down in a fit of sobs. Her shoulders shook, and tears ran down her cheeks.

By the time Khono calmed down and could talk in full sentences, the other brides turned to Hesi. "You didn't answer Rehema's question," Tagara noted, blinking her doe eyes. "How did you end up here?"

"Oh." Hesi coughed into her fist and brushed her hair with her hand. The tangles got in the way with the motion and only snagged between her fingers. "I'm captured as well. There's really nothing more to it. Got beaten a lot. All those things."

"I'm sorry." Uzare reached out and gave Hesi's hand a squeeze. "Was it a beautiful town?"

"Not as pretty as Khono's," Hesi replied, swallowing the lump of guilt building at the base of her throat. No matter how unfair it was to them having told their truths, she had to lie if she wanted to keep her head longer. Announcing her motives would be suicide. Didn't matter if they were human. Didn't matter if they could help. If word reached unwanted ears, it would spell her doom.

She gave Uzare's hand a faint squeeze back. "I do not miss it. I've learned how the desert takes and gives as it wants." She glanced at the women around her. "What matters is that we're here. Now."

Her gut clenched. The world dealt them a bad roll. Nobody deserved to experience what they went through. It took every ounce of control to bottle the frustrated scream of roiling in her lungs. It was a storm—a hurricane at that. What would happen if she let it out and started seeing the world in red? Would rivers run the same tinge if she willed it?

She blew a breath and gathered the broken rinds and torn fibers on one hand. "Call me Hesi," she said. "That is my name. Hesi Renen."

It was all they had to know about her, the one truth she would allow past her lips. She wouldn't gamble with her chances or with the sticks she must play.

The brides dispersed to their own cots, claiming to need some shut-eye. Another trial might come at dawn. Hesi joined them and plopped sideways on her cot. The woven strands dug against her skin. She missed the comfort of cold sand, even though the sediments drowned her senses throughout the night.

She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, feeling movements dwindle in the air. Someone snuffed the lantern's light, plunging them into the darkness she hoped for. A breath in. Out. She waited for what seemed like hours. Then she rose to her knees.

Within seconds, she was out of the room.