Zeke released a huff of air and turned to my father. "Well, there it is. Just as I was warning you, Your Majesty—we are not safe here."

"Hmm," my father said into his mug.

Rastofa's beady eyes pierced Zeke even as she addressed my father. "Your Majesty, whoever attacked on the road surely would not dare try anything here." The bouncing lilt of Kalasiki made her sound like a tittering bird. "Rakim no longer has great wealth, but it has plenty of power to protect you from any further attacks. And besides, much of Kalasiki's army is also here to join the Challenge Day and Day of Truth festivities."

"Not to mention that we brought most of the Royal Guard here with us," said Pog of Busk. Like Lox, he had the pale skin typical of the mountainous states, along with washed-out hair and eyes. "And a few of our best soldiers from Busk have also come."

Wahano of Kulas snorted. "Oh, a few soldiers from a state of colorless Lesser God worshippers accompanied us? Now everyone will feel safe."

Lox puffed out his broad chest. "Busk and Bund have done far more for the nation in recent years than Kulas. And at least we don't keep slaves. The Blessed Pair always says—"

"The Blessed Pair is down to one lonely, irrelevant lunatic," said Wahano.

My father's cup clunked down on the table. "Gentlemen, please. Let's remain respectful."

Lox deflated and leaned back in his chair.

Zeke was less easily assuaged.

"You want to talk about respect? After everything Rakim has done to my tribe, Kalasiki still continues to support them." He shot a pointed look at Rastofa. 

Remembering Copper and the other Claimed from Zarku at the Serving Ceremony, I could not fault Zeke for his anger. Still, he was not helping Najila or Zarku by refusing to compromise. A headache throbbed at my temples. As a child, I had not wanted to be king. Time and understanding had only sharpened that resolve.

A quiet voice spoke from over my shoulder.

"Whether or not we approve of what Rakim has done, we must offer them a seat on the Royal Council. It is the only way forward."

I turned to see Yuri approaching the table. He carried a chair, which he set down next to Zeke. His loose tunic concealed the bandages over his gut, his long black hair was tied back neatly, and his gait and voice were even. The only sign he had recently been stabbed was the way he gripped the edge of the table as he lowered himself onto the seat.

Zeke furrowed his eyebrows. "Yuri, you are supporting Rastofa over me on this?"

"I am not supporting Rastofa or you," said Yuri. "I am supporting Najila. We know Rakim wants more power. We need to give them that power before they find other means to take it."

Niako's words from so long ago resonated in my mind. I give your father five years until someone takes his head and his throne.

Were we living on borrowed time?

My father reached for the bottle of prak and poured himself some more.

Wahano set his elbows on the table, pressing his ample gut up against the table's edge. "Rakim will be busy organizing the festivities for Challenge Day and the Day of Truth over the next couple days. Perhaps we still have time to feel out the sentiment of the people here before we come to a decision together."

Rastofa's fingers fluttered against the tabletop. "If we are going to make this offer to Rakim, it needs to be decided as soon as possible."

"For once, we agree," said Zeke. "If we are going to make this offer to Rakim, I would rather not spend another minute in this land."

Lox leaned past Pog to see my father better. "What do you say, Your Majesty?"

The Royal Council waited as the King of Najila took two big gulps from the mug. After a stately pause, he belched. "What was the question, again?"

I pushed to my feet, toppling the chair, and stormed toward the tent's entrance.

"Toom, where are you going?" my father called.

"Out." I shoved back the flap of the tent and burst forth into the open air.

I knew my father would order a guard—or several—to follow me, so I ducked into the Royal Tent just long enough to strap my sword to my hip and then headed toward the servants' quarters. A few stablehands glanced my way, but no one stopped me. I snatched up a hooded poncho and pulled it over my head, coarse fibers scratching my nose.

Shifting the hood to cover most of my face, I strode out of the servants' quarters, past the on-duty members of the Royal Guard, and into the dark capital city of Rakim.

I didn't know where I was going, but I moved deliberately, feet slapping against the ground in quick, sharp movements. My mind poured over a collage of disturbing images. Blood spilling over the ground from the men I had killed. Finny's fist as she talked about the boy calling our father a Loser King. My father's limp body after a night of drinking so much I thought he would never wake up. 

And Niako's superior smirk.

Your father is afraid of mine—just like you are afraid of me.

I walked faster.

By the time I stopped to observe my surroundings, I was in an area I did not recognize. Though not quite as wretched as the tented communities we had passed, the improvement was unremarkable. Lopsided houses with dirty windows lined a gravel road with potholes big enough to break a wagon wheel. Small critters scuttled around an overflowing bin of trash. The wind carried boisterous voices and crude laughter from down the road.

I followed the sound of voices to a small building with a crooked sign posted above the door, declaring it the Sleepy Eye Tavern. I hesitated. To enter would be reckless at best. But if we wanted to feel out Rakim's sentiments, here was one place I might hear them unfiltered.

I tugged my hood down over my forehead and pushed the door open.

The pungent smell of prak invaded my nostrils, and I resisted the urge to sneeze. Luckily, the tavern's patrons seemed too involved in their conversations to pay me any attention, and even the portly woman who greeted me barely looked in my direction.

"Come on in and have a seat, sweetheart," she said as she swiped a dirty rag over an even dirtier table. "I'll be with you in just a minute."

I found an empty table at the back of the tavern.

"They arrived tonight," a boisterous voice proclaimed at an adjacent table. "The King, the Prince, the Princess, the Royal Guard, the Royal Council, the whole shibootle!"

Good. This was what I wanted to hear.

"Do you think the Prince will fight in tomorrow's Challenge Day competitions? I heard he has a nice swing. And a nice ass."

Wait, what?

"Imagine watching him fight Niako," said the third man. "Now that would be a spectacle!"

A hand touched my arm. "Can I get you some prak, sweetheart? Three coppers a mug."

I started, almost forgetting to keep my head down. I made my voice low and gruff to hide my accent. "Yes, thank you."

As she waddled away, the first man said, "Who would you favor?"

"For the swordfight?"

"No, to fuck."

The men all laughed, the sound harsh and painfully loud. Face burning, I lowered my head further.

"Well, I don't know about the Prince, but everything I have heard from the Coupling says Niako is the one who does the fucking."

"I don't know why everyone is lining up to get fucked by him when he always leaves them rock hard and busting a nut."

A mug of prak hit the table in front of me, and I jumped an inch from my seat.

"Thanks," I grunted, and I lifted the mug and pretended to take a sip.

"Have you seen him naked, though?" said the first man. "Crackling hellfire, that boy is fine."

"Finer than Goddess Rashika," the second agreed. "Even men who prefer women get hard looking at him."

"Get hard and stay hard," said the third man. "I hear he barely even lets anyone touch him. Minimum contact. Gets himself off and leaves."

"Sounds like the rest of the family, then." The first man's voice dropped low enough that I could barely hear his next words. "Selfish assholes, the lot of them. While the rest of us struggle to get by, they build more gold statues and drink prak pure enough to knock a man off his feet with a single sip."

The group leaned closer together, clutching their mugs.

"Not Trebalda, though," the second said. "The one gem of the family."

"Trebalda! Forgot about her. Didn't your sister go with her when she was exiled?"

"That's right. I'd have done it, too, if I'd known how Rakim would become. Meanwhile, I hear the Tribe of Trebalda is doing just great."

"Wait, quiet. Who is that?"

The voices stopped, and my spine prickled.

"Hey, you."

I balled my hands on the table, not daring to look up.

"I don't remember seeing you here before. You from Kalasiki?"

I grunted an affirmative reply and pulled three coppers from my pocket, dropping them on the table beside my mug. All three sets of eyes followed me as I made my way to the door.

The cool night air felt refreshing on my still-burning cheeks. I had certainly heard unfiltered thoughts in the tavern, but they were not the sort I had ever wanted to hear. 

Was this how men always were in taverns? I clearly did not go out enough.

I had just started back toward the Royal Tent when a voice froze me in place.

"Toom?"

My name was drawn out in the Rakim accent, but the voice was familiar. And I knew only one man from Rakim who would forgo the honorific and call me simply Toom. 

"Hello, Niako."

It was a good thing I spoke before turning because my breath soon froze in my lungs. In the flickering light of the streetlamp overhead, his dark skin and hair created fascinating long lines, and the white of his eyes, his teeth, and his tunic glowed. His gaze dragged from my head to foot and back up as though uncovering a fascinating new discovery.

Our eyes locked, and he raised a sharp brow. "You look... different."

Even in the dim lamplight, certain changes would be obvious. I had grown to over six feet—a couple inches taller than him, by the looks of it—and years of hard training had covered my broad shoulders and arms in solid muscle mass. Sun-streaked blonde hair and bronzed skin highlighted my blue-green eyes. I had been told many women and men in Fooja found me attractive, but Niako's gaze felt more speculative than admiring, like a physician contemplating unforeseen changes in a patient.

"And you look exactly the same."

It wasn't quite true, though. His long-lashed gaze still oozed arrogance, and he remained tall and slim. However, lean muscle now stretched across his long limbs in perfect proportion, and where his tunic hung open at the top, a few curly black chest hairs caught the light. He looked... good Goddess, he looked stunning. Too perfect to be real.

I tamped down that thought immediately. No good would come from thinking like that. Not here in Rakim lands.

And especially not about Niako.

"What are you doing here at night?" I said, a bit too abruptly. "We are nowhere near the palace."

"This is where I live." He leaned back against the light post, and the light played in his hair, creating the illusion of golden brown at the tips of his glossy dark curls. "I moved out of the palace years ago. But why are you here? We must be a thirty minute walk from the Royal Tent."

Niako lived in this run-down slum?

"I needed fresh air," I said.

"Hmm." He squinted past me. "Unless Stro has become significantly stealthier, I would say you are not even guarded. Quite a risk for fresh air, isn't it? Not everyone in Rakim is fond of you, you know. Some might want to take advantage of this situation."

Was that a threat? I swung a glance around us, reaching toward the hilt of my sword, but only shadows lurked in the shifting light of the lamp. 

Shadows, and the dangerous man before me.

He tipped his head back against the lamppost and crossed his feet at the ankle, studying me out of the corner of his eye. Apprehension hummed through me, but something else tangled with it—something even less welcome. In the meager lighting, his eyelashes appeared even longer and thicker than I remembered, and the angle of his head exposed an elegant column of neck above sharp collarbones. I swallowed, and his lips tilted up at the corners. 

Goddess damn it. This bastard knew what he was doing to me.

"No one would harm the prince," I said, trying—and failing—to appear unaffected.

A beat of silence. Then he said slowly, "You might be surprised."

My hand tightened over the hilt of my sword. "Oh?"

He pulled up one sharp shoulder. "Some people around here are desperate. You never know what a group of unaffiliated ruffians might attempt."

My breath caught in my chest. A group of unaffiliated ruffians? Did he know what had happened on our way here? Perhaps someone had been listening in on the Royal Council's meeting. Perhaps Rastofa was giving Rakim information.

Or perhaps Rakim had planned the attack.

He twisted his arms out to either side in a stretch. "Will you attend the Challenge Day competitions in the morning?"

I blinked, struggling to follow the topic change. "I don't know," I said, even though I knew Finny would throw a fit if I didn't agree to take her. "Will you?"

He laughed, and the white of his teeth stirred something in my belly. "I better—I'm fighting in one of them."

Imagine watching him fight Niako, one man had said.

My stomach clenched at the thought of watching Niako fight. Even at fourteen, he had been surprisingly fast and strong with impeccable control. How would those movements look on his new sleek, muscular frame?

"Then you had better go get some sleep," I said, forcing my voice to remain dull.

He lifted his head and peeled himself away from the lamppost with the lethargy of a waking cat. "Perhaps you would like me to walk you home first? I wouldn't want the High Prince to get lost in these dark, dangerous streets."

His voice was mocking, but the dark eyes pinning me looked almost serious.

I shook my head at him, huffing a quiet laugh. "I'm not twelve anymore. I know the way back. And I can defend myself."

"Yes... so I've heard."

Again, my uneasiness flared, and my fingers spasmed over the grip of my sword. He could have been referring to the sword fighting tournaments I had won in Fooja, but my mind jumped to the attack I had fought off on our journey here.

Niako watched my hand on the sword and then drew his gaze up to my face. I felt sure he could read my thoughts as easily as a page in one of his books even as he concealed everything he was thinking.

From the tavern down the road, someone hollered, and glass shattered.

Niako tensed minutely, his gaze flicking past me toward the noise. "Go home, Toom. I'll find you after the competitions tomorrow morning."

Before I could reply, Niako slipped away into the darkness.