Kharta gasped as he hefted a vial against the light. "Finally," he breathed.

Hesi peeled off the work table Kharta told her off to earlier and joined the steward near the barricaded windows. "What finally?"

"I got it," his eyes were bright and his smile gleamed when he turned to her, bringing the vial back into the tray he made from weaving sticks and twine together. "This is the perfect formula for the poison I'd been working on."

She crossed her arms. "The one to petrify demons?"

"No, one to put them to sleep forever until we found enough huurshe ores to be able to kill them," Kharta said, bracing his worktable's rim with both hands. He bobbed his head as a realization was coming to him. "This is the perfect way to bury the demons in their own graves. Maybe they'd even sleep so long they would just fade away to oblivion."

"Can you see," he grasped her arms and shook her slightly. "This is the beginning of the Mayaware's end. This is their reckoning. The humans will rise again."

Hesi clicked her tongue and slapped his hands away from her shoulders. "Before you dream up impossible things, genius, let's focus on how we could slip the poison in the Prince's meal," she flicked her gaze at the concoction stored up to about half of the vial. Always half-empty. "And how to produce the poison in large quantities."

Kharta tapped his chin and began muttering to himself. "Yeah," he said, turning back to his work table and jotting down complex formulas in a script Hesi didn't recognize. Did they even have a different script for Birejyet back in Ser-Tehra? That's surely different from the usual Djarean writings she had encountered in temple ruins and other correspondence sent to the villages she has been in.

"I still need to test this to correctly gauge their potency," Kharta was saying as he began pacing. "The time interval, the deepness of the sleep, and the right amount needed to fully submerge them in a never-ending sleep. Yes, yes."

"Does that mean you would need more time?" Hesi scratched the back of her neck. "How are you even going to test if it works?"

Kharta stopped pacing to raise an eyebrow at her. "Did you forget who I was?"

Hesi rolled her eyes. "My bad, Oh Great Steward of the Royal Mayawares," she mocked a bow and threw her hair back when it fell forward with her motion. "Well, is my job here done?"

He passed her a packet. Something crinkled inside when her fingers gripped its base. "What's this?" she asked with knitted eyebrows.

"Maatsek tea."

"Oh, darpeh," she almost threw the packet back at him. "I'm not drinking any more of your horrid tea."

Kharta rolled his shoulders and proceeded to write something on his parchment. "Up to you," he said. "Even if I am the Great Steward of the Royal Mayawares, I can't help you when your guts are waving with the wind by the trading courtyard if you're caught."

Hesi clicked her tongue, forcing the image out of her mind. "Can I give some to the other women, too?"

Kharta's noncommittal shrug was her only indication that she wasn't making a foolish mistake with that suggestion.

The moon was still bright and the sky was still dark when Hesi tramped through the path Kharta instructed her to take to avoid the majority of the patrol routes. It was a long way but she'd take it over playing hide-and-seek with Mayaware guards any time of the day. She passed the gardens, the towering columns, and the burning torches. It was as normal as a day in Hesi's life was after she entered Berheqt.

She had lost count of the months she had spent inside the fortress but deep inside her mind, she didn't forget the one question which had been bothering her ever since she met Kharta. Why hasn't the Prince met any of them until this time? Why hasn't Kharta told her anything if he knew something about it?

Most importantly, would Hesi be able to kill the Prince by the time she was called?

The smooth walls of the bridal palace greeted her and the torches lining them burned brighter than ever. She kept her head level and her back straight when she passed by the two Mayaware sentries posted at the sole entrance of the expansive palace. Her bare feet brushed the stone floor in light steps as she made her way back to the sleeping chambers she shared with the other women. Like all the other nights she sneaked out, she expected them to be sound asleep with the lamps turned off when she got back.

Instead, when she took the familiar turn leading to their chambers, faint amber light shone past the gossamer veils and shadows flitted in and out of the light in dark silhouettes. Cries, both stifled and bawling, rang in soft echoes from inside. Hesi knitted her eyebrows. What's going on?

She burst inside the room to find the women huddled together in a tight circle in the middle of the room, their arms thrown around each other. Their shoulders shook and their eyes were all puffy and red from crying all night long.

"What's going on?" Hesi tramped inside, her footsteps nowhere near silent now.

Mensa broke from the hug and looked up at Hesi with bloodshot eyes. "Asrate," she sniffled and wiped her dripping nose against her dress. "The Prince has called for her."

Hesi didn't hear the rest of Mensa's words nor Barteset's words of caution as she was already out of the room and tearing through the corridor. Her heartbeat thundered in her temples as her soles slapped the stone floor. Not Asrate. Anyone but her.

Couldn't the Prince have taken Mensa or any of the girls wishing for glory? Why Asrate?

The corridors blurred and the gardens lost their wonder in Hesi's periphery. The Royal Palace. That's where she should be headed. When she reached the entrance, the only thing she saw was blood.

Lots of it.