The palace courtyards were as different from the city as a desert night was from a desert day. A sea of green replaced the sandy stretch that led up to the gates. A row of cacti grew along the base of both sides of the palace walls. Chunks of sanded brick littered the base of the inner side of the wall.
I was told the walls had been beautiful once—carved by hand to mimic the scrolling vines and sagging flowers of the razmin plant that once grew alongside the lagoon. They’d even used dyes to bring the flowers and vines to life. But now the wall looked like it had been drilled into by countless colonies of assassin wasps.
Past the walls, palm trees curled around the natural lagoon the city had been built around, and ornate gardens sculpted out of shrubs with roots long enough to reach the water dotted the area leading to the doors.
Tiled terraces surrounded the lagoon, bright red-and-blue patterns zigzagging across the floor. Each tile had been handcrafted by the best artisans in Achra. But now so many of the tiles lay broken or were missing entirely. Even the snakes carved in loops around the columns across the back of the palace had pieces missing and holes worn through where sandstorms had hit them. The few artisans who’d survived the worst of the drought either didn’t have enough water to craft more or didn’t have enough skill to replicate what the master crafters had done.
Though the drought had started before I was born, I’d always been told stories of how the artisans were the hardest hit at first. They had no extra water to make their tiles and dyes and earthenware. And many of their skills had died with them, leaving Achra to decay as it continued its fight to not succumb to this new, harsher desert we weren’t used to.
Ever resourceful, though, the Achrans had adapted by crafting new tiles by grinding up assassin wasps in place of water. But this made the tiles lumpier and more prone to breaking. Not to mention they didn’t take color as well. And I wondered if the old ways would be lost for good before I could rid the city of the Desert Boys and find a way to get more water.
But I couldn’t dwell on the past. I had to look toward the future first. Toward my final opponent. Right after my father learned what happened at the well.
Leaving my guards at the door, I slipped in through the kitchens. Warm fires greeted me. It was too much heat for the afternoon, but it would be welcome when the sun set in a few hours. Raucous laughter filtered out from the doors to the main hall.
I snuck up a back staircase and into my room. Latia’s small footfalls echoed my own.
I needed a moment before I faced the wrath of my father in front of everyone. I flopped down on the bed, sighing.
New gauzy spider silk curtains that hadn’t yet been weighed down by sand fluttered inward from my balcony, touching the ends of my gold-encrusted bed. Even my sheets were sewn with gold silk thread imported from the eastern kingdoms.
The numerous caravans that once passed through Achra, bringing rich goods like these, had all but stopped when the drought and sandstorms came. Only my father’s royal caravans were given enough water to cross the desert to bring in new supplies. And even then, some of them never made it back because of the sandstorms that had increased each year since the drought started.
A knock at the door roused me. I sat up as Latia shuffled over and opened it.
“The king has requested a private audience with the princess. He’s waiting at the tiger cages.”
I didn’t hear the rest of what was said.
I froze. Alone? Not in front of the great hall?
I swallowed. Between the incident in the arena and what happened at the well, I didn’t know what he had in store.
My arms moved numbly as I pulled off my dress and slid into the new one, hurrying so as to not keep my father waiting.
Latia silently moved forward and yanked any tangles in my hair as she worked quickly to twist my hair into a tight bun.
“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked, eyes downcast.
“No,” I snapped, too dazed to give her credit for her loyalty. It would only be worse with her there.
I made my way through the palace and down into the windowless depths beneath the sands. The tombs, as I’d called them as a child. But it was the only place cool enough in the palace to house the beasts.
I was secretly glad they were kept so far from everything else. I could still recall the events of the annual Tiger Feast a few months before, commemorating the arrival of the tigers. As always, my father had sat in the main hall with the tigers chained at his feet as he recounted how he’d found two tigers lost in the desert a few days after taking the throne. He said the tigers contained the spirit of the desert because their orange-and-black pattern mimicked the golden waves of sand and the darker valleys that hid between the peaks. When the beasts had bowed before him, he brought them back to the palace with the knowledge the desert had gifted these creatures to him, confirming he was not only meant to lead, but that he would be fiercer than any creature—a true king of the desert.
Just as my father finished the story, describing how he’d strengthened the tigers he’d found, servants approached to taunt the tigers with bits of meat to show the crowd their raw power—how my father had taken them from docile beasts to trained monsters. But one of the servants got too close. Claws raked across his thigh. He went down, and there was nothing anyone could do to save him before the tiger pulled him closer and sunk its teeth into the man’s neck with a sickening crunch, staining its fur a shade of red that didn’t exist even when the setting sun hit the sand waves.
I had swallowed down a cry as my father laughed, spreading his arms wide and crying out for everyone to witness the power he controlled.
I hadn’t seen the tigers since that day. But I could still hear the scream of the servant as it gurgled to a stop.
That sound rushed through my ears as my footsteps clicked in hollow echoes, taking me closer and closer to the beasts and my waiting father. The weight of the ceiling pressed down around me. Dim hallways flickered with the weak light cast from torches situated at even intervals. But they were too far apart. Stretches of darkness waited between them. As a child, I’d always thought tigers were hiding in those shadows.
I paused at the door that led to the cage.
The last time I’d been down here was just after my mother had been killed nearly ten years ago. I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t keep the memory from surfacing.
I’d trembled back then as I’d walked behind my father’s large form. I wanted to reach for his hand, but I held back.
Claw marks ran down the long chamber housing the tigers. Each beast had a chain around its neck and was kept just far enough from the other that it couldn’t swipe it with its claws. That didn’t stop them from trying.
The moist room had reeked of feces and wet hair. I could barely stand it.
When the tigers saw my father and my small form walk in all those years ago, they threw themselves at the bars separating their chamber from the narrow walkway in front. Claws screeched down metal. Whiskers were thrown back to release hisses toward us. Sharp teeth longer than my bony fingers gleamed.
Their orange hue was muted with only the light of two torches illuminating them, but it made their eyes come alive. Deep oranges and reds burned when they stalked back and forth just behind the bars. But instead of a reflection of the flames, it appeared their pupils contained fire coming from inside—a rage that burned for anyone who dared keep them caged.
The shadows they cast seemed to grow higher and higher along the wall behind them until I thought they would slip through the bars and drag me closer to them.
I’d plastered myself against the wall. To get my mind off the tigers, to remind myself that my father did control them, I ran my finger along the small keyhole in the wall, to which my father had the only key. Not only did it open the cage, it activated a mechanism that pulled back the chains secured around the tigers’ necks, allowing the handlers to go in and collect them for the arena.
My father stood right in front of the bars. A hair closer and the tigers would be able to tear a slit in his gut. He had stood there so often, he knew exactly how near he could get.
“We caught another of the Desert Boys,” he had said with his back to me. But I knew he was smiling. “Pick one.”
I hadn’t understood what he was talking about. But then he gestured to the two tigers.
He’d always taken joy in selecting the tiger that would be present in the arena when a trial was needed, as if he alone controlled the outcome of what would happen based on his selection.
When I didn’t respond, he turned toward me. “Are you afraid of them?” There was disappointment in his voice. I could tell he’d hoped this would be something we’d share. Something we would do together.
He snapped his fingers and a servant entered through a side door, carrying a platter of raw rat meat. My father picked up the biggest slice and dangled it in front of the cage. He had walked it back and forth, watching the tigers claw at every available surface to get to it. But I couldn’t tell if the tigers wanted to get to the meat or him more.
Eventually he pointed to each tiger. “I want both taken to the arena today.” My father handed over the key from around his neck.
I knew what was coming next, and yet I couldn’t move. I couldn’t flee.
The servant gently moved my shoulder aside and slid the key into the lock. The chains clunked backward, forcing the tigers to go with them. Then he handed the key back to my father.
The servant disappeared into the other room for a moment and reappeared with two men in metal armor thicker than that of any soldier. They had two long poles with ropes on the end. They entered the cage and moved toward the first tiger my father had pointed at. One man would loop his rope around the tiger’s neck and pull so tightly the tiger could barely breathe. Then the other man would remove the chain and loop his own rope around the tiger’s neck so that both men could work to control the beast—choking it anytime it got out of hand.
“Why two?” I’d asked to drown out the roars of the tiger as it fought to escape its restraints. I stared up at my father as a torch cast his long shadow across the room.
He crouched in front of me. “The Desert Boys killed your mother. We can’t let them get away. This is the first one we’ve caught since her death. We must teach our enemies a lesson.” He patted my head.
I’d looked away, sick to my stomach from the smell and his words.
I had wanted to escape, to get away from the stench. But there was no way I was going the way they’d just taken the tiger. There was a small door set into the back wall of the tiger’s cage. I had no idea where it led, but I definitely wasn’t going that way. Without waiting to see the look on my father’s face, I’d fled back the way I’d come.
I took a breath as the memory faded. I steadied myself in front of the door I’d run out of all those years ago. This time I wouldn’t run away. I’d have to face whatever came.
I squared my shoulders and pushed into the room.
My father was standing in the same spot he’d been when I’d come there as a child, a finger’s width from where the tigers’ claws could reach.
“You dishonored me today.” He didn’t turn to look at me as I entered. He had his hands clasped behind his back.
“My apologies.” I lowered my head even though he wouldn’t see. I’d learned a long time ago that the only apology he accepted was one of complete and utter kowtowing.
“It’s not only the fight you should apologize for. I’ve gotten word the Desert Boys attacked, threw you into a well, and escaped.”
“They didn’t throw me into a well,” I countered, but he cut me off before I could go on.
“You didn’t end up in a well?” my father asked, turning to look at me and eyeing my still-damp hair.
“I did, but—”
“No. There are no excuses.” The vein in his temple throbbed as he stared me down. “How do you expect people to believe you qualified to rule when you cannot best a street urchin? He depleted a good portion of the well. We must show the people we are capable of protecting them, providing for them. If they do not look to us, they will look to someone else. Don’t let them look away.”
That was another favorite saying of my father’s when he was training me. He wanted my skills to be so great that no one would be able to look away when I fought. But it always felt like more than that, like it was also his way of training me to be queen, of passing his knowledge down to me so I knew how to rule.
“I understand,” I said, clenching my fists.
The closest tiger pulled at its chains. The other clawed the bars.
“I will do better. I will make you proud.”
“Will you?” His eyes drilled into me.
I moved closer to him, closer to the tigers. “I will win the last fight and prove I am strong enough to be your heir. The desert will choose me.”
“Are you so certain it will?”
I stepped back, mouth agape.
“If your rule is weak,” he continued, “that will negate mine. All history will remember is your weakness.”
I’d always known my strength reflected his, but I’d done everything he’d ever asked to prove I was worthy. I’d practiced every day since my mother died. I’d pricked myself with cacti spines to keep myself awake countless nights so that the Desert Boys wouldn’t catch me sleeping when they attacked again. I’d trained until my feet were blistered from the sand and my scalp burned in the noonday sun.
“If you do not have the strength to lead these people, I must provide them with someone who will.”
“What do you mean?” I said, my voice catching in my throat.
He shook his head. “I see now that Rodric has been right all along.”
“Rodric?”
“He’s said that while you are strong, you could be even more so if you were married to someone yet stronger, someone the desert hasn’t crushed.”
My stomach clenched together. The last person I wanted picking a suitor for me was Rodric.
“I will win the next fight for you, Father.”
My father took a step away from the cage and moved toward the door. “Only if the desert wills it. Come. It’s time to find out who your last suitor will be.”
His words burned through me as I followed him down the hallways and toward the great hall. I had never doubted that he believed I would win. Until now.
He’d invested so much time training me when I was little. This was everything we’d worked toward. Everything we wanted. We were supposed to avenge my mother together.
I’d always had visions of us striding out into the desert together after I was done training, after I’d won my place as the next queen—both of us chosen by the desert and ready to rid it of the plague of Desert Boys. I’d secretly thought the desert hadn’t allowed us to catch the Desert Boys yet because we were meant to do it together.
But as we moved down the hallway, him striding so far ahead of me, it didn’t feel like we were in this together anymore. It felt like there was a gap between us—a set of bars thicker than those on the tiger cages keeping us apart.
The only way to close that gap was to win my last fight, to show my father the desert chose me. It would put everything right. It had to. I fortified myself with that thought as we reached the large white sheets that hung across the entryway to the great hall.
He strode into the room while I waited behind the curtain, the same curtain that would reveal my new opponent later that night.
The crowd quieted.
My father’s voice rang out. “Our champion has arrived.”
The benches lining the tables moved backward in a loud squeak as the men and women rose and lifted their drinks into the air to salute me.
The curtains parted, and I stepped into the room. The grandeur of the space always took me by surprise. Tall columns rose up to the arched ceiling, carved with the same snakes that twisted their way around the columns outside. But unlike the outer pillars, these snakes hadn’t been pounded by the endless sheets of sand. Black-and gold-painted scales winked in the light. Eyes as green as any rumbler cactus stared out above a forked tongue.
Between the columns, sand dancers performed to the even beat of drums, swirling around and around, their feet weaving endless patterns in the sand they danced on. The celebration dance. I looked away. Their presence always reminded me of my mother’s absence, of how there was nothing to celebrate yet.
My father’s eyes held no warmth as I entered. It was a far cry from my first fight, when he’d walked down the aisle with me—showing me off to everyone when I’d won. He’d draped his arm over my shoulder and smiled widely, beaming down at me. I’d felt like I was already queen.
But now he stood stoically. I thought he’d at least smile, at least pretend to be pleased despite what happened.
I managed to throw my shoulders back and keep my head high, but his earlier words still had me on edge. He hadn’t punished me outright, as I had expected; what he’d done was far worse. He’d left me to my own imagination—to wonder who my next opponent would be if he really didn’t think I was the desert’s choice. Every step closer to him suddenly felt like I was walking through Scorpion Hill, waiting for an attack to come.
All the extra bodies packed along the tables formed an aisle leading to the dais where my father waited. The bracelets worn by the married noblewomen clinked together as they cheered my entrance.
I walked down the aisle, stopping at every person who lined the way. All lowered their cup as I approached, and I took one sip from each. It was an old tradition that began when Tamlin made it across the desert and needed water so he could regain enough of his voice to speak with the then king. Nobles had offered him a sip of water from their glass as he made his way down the main hall toward the king’s dais.
It had become a ritual used to reward champions and heroes.
Only what was in the cups now wasn’t water. It was a spicy mead that burned my throat. I pressed my mouth against each rim, letting the liquid barely touch my lips before I moved on.
By the time I reached the dais, my head pounded and my leg throbbed, and they weren’t even courteous enough to do so in unison. I bowed to my father and took my seat next to him.
His throne, shaped like a giant scorpion, loomed large over me as he took his seat. He rested his hands on the scorpion’s claws while the creature’s tail curved behind his back, leaving the stinger to rest above his head as if the desert itself was pointing to him, anointing him its king. The throne had been made for Tamlin and was just another reminder of what I’d yet to accomplish.
Servants carrying platters arrived the moment my father touched his chair. Two servants carried in a platter bearing heaps of three-headed lizards. My father scooped several onto his plate. Even though you could only eat the head with the purple tongue, my father insisted they be served whole. Although I didn’t blame him. More than one unruly noble had died from being served a head with a purple tongue cleverly tacked in where the green or red tongue had once been.
Steam seeped out as my father opened each mouth, searching for the purple tongue. When he found it, he ripped it out and slurped it down. They always tasted like the razmin flowers smelled, and usually I loved eating them.
But in light of the day’s events, everything turned my stomach.
Course after course was brought out. White-tongue teaser snakes, whose own purple tongues mimicked those of the three-headed lizard to lure in prey, entwined on skewers. Dead scorpions posed with their tails aloft rested on platter after platter. Lily pad lizards, still bulbous from floating in the lagoon, steamed inside razmin leaves.
I forced myself to eat a bite of snake as I waited for my father to announce my next opponent. My mother had always served me white-tongue teaser snake when I was sick as a child. She’d said it would settle my stomach. But the snake only ended up reminding me of those stupid rumors about Cion and did nothing for the knot growing in my stomach. Still, I forced myself to swallow.
Several scales that hadn’t gotten scraped off before cooking clung to my father’s lips and shimmered in the firelight as he chomped off the midsection of a snake. He flicked the scales off his lips, and one landed on my lap. I didn’t dare move to brush it away.
Eventually, the sand dancers stopped and the traditional Achran dancers took their place. Men and women in garments the color of sand stood in a circle around one dancer—the sun dancer—dressed in a short yellow garment. A servant with a torch came forward and the sun dancer extended her hands, coated in a thick green substance. The servant lit both her hands and the tops of her feet.
As soon as the servant exited, the outer ring of dancers moved in unison around the sun dancer. They circled her with arms linked over each other’s shoulders—signifying Achrans’ unity in fighting the constant battle the sun waged against us. Then they started kicking sand, trying to be the one who put out the flames the sun dancer held.
Nobles around us were taking bets on either how many loops the dancers would make before putting out the fire or who would be the lucky dancer to put out the last flame and claim victory over the sun.
Only after a short dancer extinguished the last flame and the applause died down did my father rise from his chair.
The room went silent.
“Close the curtain,” he called.
The white sheets swung downward and swished together, blocking the entryway. My father loved this part because the anticipation was like waiting to see what was behind a chosen door in the arena. And I used to love it too.
“My daughter has faced eleven men who would claim my crown for their own,” he said. “She is ready to face her last opponent. Should this suitor be strong enough to be our next leader, he will beat her in single combat if the desert wills it.”
The audience pounded their cups on the table in response.
The clanking made my head throb worse, but that was nothing compared to the pressure pushing tighter against my chest.
My father threw up his arms. The curtain parted.
The figure behind it stepped forward into the light.
It was Rodric.