Morning came softly to Sarri’s estate.

  Before dawn had fully broken, the kitchens had already begun to stir. The first cookfire crackled to life, casting warm gold over stone walls blackened by years of smoke. Someone kneaded dough in the far corner. Another servant hauled a sack of grain across the floor with a weary grunt. The air smelled of yeast, wood ash, herbs crushed beneath hurried feet, and the faint sweetness of ripening figs.

  A??u loved this hour.

  The estate still felt half-asleep, the world caught between dream and waking, and for once the kitchens belonged more to servants than masters. No shouting nobles. No impatient officers. No messengers barging in for wine and bread and impossible demands.

  Just work.

  Good work.

  And this morning, he had a task he cared about.

  Lena’s breakfast.

  He grinned to himself as he gathered flatbread still warm from the oven, soft white cheese, dates, sliced pears, and honey in a small clay bowl. He was determined to make it perfect. She had looked so sad the night before, standing by the window like a ghost who had forgotten how to belong to the world. He wanted—somehow, in his very small servant way—to make this morning easier for her.

  Maybe if breakfast was nice, she’d smile again.

  He turned toward the shelves where the wine jugs were stored and stopped.

  One, two, three, four, five—

  Six?

  A??u blinked.

  He counted again.

  Six jugs sat lined neatly against the wall, their rounded clay bellies catching the flicker of firelight. That was wrong. Deliveries to Sarri’s household were always exact. Five jugs of common table wine every third day. Never four. Never six.

  He frowned and glanced around the kitchen.

  “Did someone miscount?”

  An older servant looked up from gutting herbs near the fire. “What?”

  A??u pointed. “The wine.”

  The woman squinted. “What about it?”

  “There are six jugs.”

  She shrugged. “One came in late last night. A gift, they said.”

  “A gift from who?”

  Another shrug. “No one told me.”

  A??u stepped closer. The sixth jug stood slightly apart from the others, its clay surface darker, smoother somehow, the wax seal untouched. It didn’t bear any merchant mark he recognized. He rested his hand on it, expecting the cool weight of ordinary clay.

  It felt colder than it should have.

  He jerked his hand back.

  “Special wine?” he guessed aloud.

  The herb woman snorted. “If it is, it won’t be for servants.”

  A??u brightened immediately.

  “Then I should give it to Lena.”

  The older woman shot him a look. “You should do no such thing until someone tells you what it is.”

  But A??u was already smiling again, imagining the look on Lena’s face if he brought her breakfast with a special gift. She wasn’t really a concubine, no matter what the whole estate whispered, but she was still Sarri’s guest. And guests should be treated well.

  Especially guests who slapped princes.

  A??u lifted the special jug carefully and set it aside near the tray he was preparing.

  “Just a little,” he said. “To make the morning nicer.”

  He didn’t see the surface of the sealed wine ripple once beneath the wax.

  ?

  Far away, beneath stone and shadow, a queen knelt before an obsidian basin.

  The chamber was cold enough to make breath mist. Torches hissed weakly against damp walls, their light wavering over the black water. The basin never stilled. Not truly. Even now, in the silence, its surface trembled with hidden life.

  Dannu?epa smiled down into it.

  The water showed her the kitchen.

  The fires. The servants. The jugs.

  And the boy.

  She had watched him since dawn, this bright-eyed child with quick hands and a trusting heart. He moved through Sarri’s household like a bird in a lion’s den—small, lively, beloved by those too tired or too distracted to notice how open he was, how easy to use.

  He loved the girl already. Not with desire, not with jealousy. With innocence.

  That made him perfect.

  The queen’s finger drifted over the surface of the basin. Images bent beneath her touch.

  “So eager,” she murmured. “So foolish.”

  A??u’s face shimmered beneath the water. His grin. His excitement. His clumsy devotion.

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  A perfect puppet.

  She had lost Lena once in the temple. Lost her to Sarri’s arrogance and the king’s carelessness. The humiliation of it still burned like acid in her veins. But humiliation sharpened hunger. And Dannu?epa had never been patient when she was hungry.

  “If I cannot take you by ritual,” she whispered to the water, “I will take you by fear.”

  The basin rippled.

  In Sarri’s kitchen, the sixth jug trembled.

  The queen smiled wider and pressed her fingertip into the black water.

  “Open.”

  ?

  The estate gradually brightened with morning.

  A??u worked until the first rush of orders slowed, then rubbed sleep from his eyes with the heel of his hand. He had barely rested. He’d spent half the night listening to gossip and the other half imagining what Sarri might say when he finally spoke to Lena alone. Maybe he would look grim and heroic. Maybe Lena would slap him again. That thought made A??u snort quietly to himself.

  He arranged bread, fruit, cheese, and honey neatly on the tray. He poured water into one cup and paused beside the special wine jug.

  Just a little.

  A guest gift.

  He reached for it—then hesitated.

  Not now. Maybe later. Maybe at supper.

  He didn’t know why the thought struck him so strongly, only that suddenly he didn’t want to break the seal yet. He set it aside again.

  The kitchen grew warmer. His eyelids sagged.

  Near the back of the room was the tiny side chamber the youngest servants used for snatched moments of sleep—little more than a narrow bed, a stool, and a blanket folded at the foot. A??u glanced at the tray, at the light growing beyond the kitchen door, and calculated.

  Just a short rest.

  Then he would bring Lena her breakfast.

  He carried the tray to the cool shelf, tucked it safely away from greedy hands, and slipped into the side room. The bed creaked softly under his weight. He lay down still half-dressed, one arm over his eyes, smiling to himself.

  Tomorrow, he thought hazily, he’d tell his brother he was important now. Personally assigned to a mysterious girl from nowhere. Practically a royal duty.

  Sleep took him in moments.

  In the kitchen, the wax seal on the sixth jug cracked without a sound.

  A bead of dark wine rose from the mouth of the vessel.

  Then another.

  And another.

  They gathered into a thin stream that slid over the clay lip and dripped soundlessly to the floor. It did not spread like spilled liquid should. It moved with purpose, drawing itself forward like a living thing. Across the stone. Around dropped herb stems and ash and discarded bits of peel. Past the threshold. Into the side room.

  Onto the bed.

  Up the blanket.

  The stream paused at A??u’s throat, quivering.

  Then it leaped.

  A??u’s body jerked violently.

  His eyes flew open.

  For one terrible instant they glowed a deep, unnatural yellow.

  Then he lay still.

  Breathing.

  Watching the ceiling.

  Smiling with someone else’s mouth.

  ?

  Lena had never hated a beautiful room so much.

  Sunlight streamed through the lattice window, laying gold across the floor in neat lines. The furs on the bed looked soft enough to drown in. A servant had left fresh water in a basin, folded linen at the foot of a chest, and arranged flowers in a clay vase as though she were some pampered court lady instead of a terrified woman stranded three thousand years from home.

  She stood by the window anyway.

  Waiting.

  Sarri had said he would return.

  He had not.

  Morning had stretched into noon. Noon had dragged toward afternoon. Every hour that passed tightened the knot beneath her ribs. She imagined Ezra in darkness under the temple, chained, hungry, wondering if she had forgotten him. Wondering if she had chosen safety over him.

  She pressed her forehead against the cool stone beside the window.

  “I didn’t forget you,” she whispered. “I’m trying.”

  But trying was not enough.

  If the queen had almost sacrificed her in front of half the court, what was she doing to Ezra now?

  Lena turned away from the window and paced. Sat. Stood again. Counted her breaths. Failed. Waited longer. Failed harder.

  He isn’t coming.

  Maybe he’d been delayed by court business. Maybe he was gathering soldiers. Maybe he was avoiding her.

  None of it mattered.

  Ezra was running out of time.

  By late afternoon her fear had hardened into decision.

  She couldn’t wait for rescue. She had spent too much of her life waiting—waiting for answers about her parents, waiting for news of Ezra, waiting for grief to lessen, waiting for someone else to tell her what to do.

  No more.

  If Sarri would not come, she would find the temple herself.

  The realization steadied her.

  Lena crossed the room quickly, scanning for anything useful. A wool cloak hung on a peg near the door. She took it. It was too long and smelled faintly of cedar and smoke, but it hid the strange cut of her clothes. She wrapped it around herself and listened.

  Silence beyond the room.

  The household had settled into the slow lull between the midday meal and evening bustle. Footsteps sounded faint and distant somewhere deeper in the estate. A servant laughed in a courtyard below. No one stood immediately outside her door.

  Good.

  She slipped into the corridor.

  The house felt vast in daylight—long stone halls, painted walls, courtyards full of sun and servants too busy carrying linens and baskets to notice one quiet girl hugging the shadows. Lena moved as carefully as she could, heart hammering whenever anyone passed close enough to glance her way.

  No one stopped her.

  Once, she nearly collided with a maid carrying folded cloth, but the woman only dipped her head quickly and hurried on. Lena kept moving.

  Through one courtyard.

  Across a colonnade.

  Down a set of worn steps toward the outer service yard.

  The estate walls loomed ahead—high, warm-colored stone guarded by a broad gate. Two men stood near it speaking lazily with one of the grooms, their spears propped against the wall within easy reach. Lena ducked behind a cart piled with sacks and watched.

  Think.

  A donkey brayed from the far end of the yard. One of the guards turned his head, annoyed. At the same moment a stableboy came running, waving both arms and shouting something about a loose mare.

  Both guards cursed and turned toward the commotion.

  Lena moved.

  She slipped behind the cart, along the wall, through the half-open postern door left ajar for servants and deliveries. The wooden edge scraped her shoulder as she squeezed through.

  And suddenly she was outside.

  Free.

  The road beyond the estate stretched dusty and bright before her. The city shimmered in the distance, all stone and sun and danger.

  A laugh of relief rose in her throat—

  And died there.

  Something whipped around her neck so fast she barely felt it before it tightened.

  Rope.

  Lena made a strangled sound as she was yanked backward off her feet. Pain burst white-hot through her throat. Her hands flew up instinctively, clawing at the cord, but the rope bit deeper the more she struggled.

  The world tilted.

  Her boots kicked helplessly above the ground.

  No breath.

  No sound.

  Only terror.

  Through swimming vision she saw the figure standing several paces away, feet braced, both hands gripping the other end of the rope.

  A??u.

  For one impossible second her mind refused to make sense of it.

  A??u—small, bright, eager A??u—stood with the rope wrapped around his fists, face utterly still.

  Then he lifted his head.

  His eyes burned yellow.

  Cold shock lanced through her panic.

  No.

  That was not A??u.

  Not really.

  His mouth curved into a smile too cruel for his young face.

  “Well, little historian,” he said.

  The voice was his and not his. Boyish and bright, yet layered with something older, darker, delighting in her fear.

  Lena choked, fingers tearing uselessly at the rope.

  “A?—”

  He jerked the rope harder.

  Stars exploded across her vision.

  “I am here to cut your throat,” the voice said softly, “and watch your blood waterfall down your neck.”

  His smile widened.

  “It will be a lovely sacrifice.”

  The queen.

  Lena knew it with a certainty deeper than thought.

  Dannu?epa was looking at her through the boy’s stolen eyes.

  “Wake up,” Lena rasped, though almost no air came with the words. “A??u… wake up!”

  He only laughed.

  A horrible, wrong sound.

  He drew a knife from his belt—a kitchen knife, narrow and sharp, its edge catching the sun. He approached slowly, savoring each step while Lena dangled and choked and kicked.

  “You should have stayed where the prince put you,” he crooned. “But fear makes such obedient prey.”

  Lena’s vision dimmed around the edges.

  No.

  No no no—

  Not by A??u.

  Not like this.

  She forced one hand between the rope and her throat, trying to carve out the smallest space for air.

  “A??u!” she gasped again.

  No answer.

  Only those yellow eyes.

  Only the queen.

  He raised the knife.

  The world narrowed to bright steel.

  Then—

  TWANG.

  An arrow sliced through the rope.

  The cord snapped.

  Lena crashed to the ground in a heap of cloak and dust, pain ricocheting through her body. Air tore back into her lungs all at once, ragged and burning. She rolled onto her side coughing, one hand clamped to her bruised throat.

  Boots thundered toward her.

  Another voice shouted.

  A??u spun, still holding the ruined rope, knife raised wildly now.

  Lena dragged in another breath and looked up through watering eyes.

  Zida stood a short distance away, bow still half-lifted, another arrow already nocked.

  Beside him was Sarri.

  For one stunned instant he didn’t move. His gaze locked on Lena sprawled gasping in the dust, on the dark bruise already rising around her throat, on A??u standing over her with a knife in his hand.

  Shock crossed his face.

  Then fury obliterated it.

  “It’s not him!” Lena choked out. “Sarri—it’s not A??u!”

  Sarri moved.

  He crossed the distance in a blur.

  A??u lunged with the knife, fast and clumsy, like a body trying to obey commands it wasn’t built for. Sarri caught his wrist, twisted hard, and sent the blade spinning into the dirt. The boy screamed—not in anger, but in confusion, as if he were trapped somewhere deep inside himself.

  “Hold him!” Zida shouted.

  Sarri didn’t need the instruction.

  He drove A??u backward and slammed him to the ground. The boy writhed with unnatural strength, yellow eyes flashing, teeth bared.

  “Get off me!” he shrieked in that layered, hideous voice. “She belongs to the queen—”

  Sarri’s expression changed.

  Not fear. Recognition.

  Understanding.

  Without hesitation he drove his knee hard into A??u’s stomach.

  The boy convulsed.

  Again.

  A brutal, precise strike.

  A??u gagged violently.

  Then dark liquid poured from his mouth.

  Not vomit.

  Wine.

  Thick and red-black and moving far too smoothly to be natural, spilling over his lips and down his chin in a writhing stream. Sarri let go of him with one hand and lunged for it, trying to catch the liquid before it touched the ground.

  But the wine hissed.

  Steam curled from it.

  And before Sarri’s fingers could close around it, the stream evaporated into a twisting veil of crimson mist.

  The mist rose between them, thin as breath.

  A laugh drifted through it.

  Soft.

  Female.

  Triumphant.

  Then the wind tore it apart.

  Gone.

  Silence crashed over the road.

  A??u lay limp beneath Sarri, his eyes rolling back to their natural color, his body suddenly boneless with exhaustion.

  Lena pushed herself upright, still shaking.

  Zida lowered the bow slowly, his face grim. Sarri remained half-crouched over the boy, chest rising and falling hard, staring at the place where the mist had vanished.

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  At last Sarri stood.

  There was dust on his hands. A faint stain of red on his fingers where he had almost caught the enchanted wine.

  He watched the last shreds of mist disappear into the afternoon air.

  “If she can reach you through water…” he said quietly.

  Then he looked at Lena.

  “Then nowhere in this kingdom is safe for you.”

  Lena swallowed against the pain in her throat. Fear moved cold and sharp through her chest—but it did not own her.

  She lifted her chin.

  “Then we stop her.”