“Never.” Desma grinned, though she sobered quickly. “What has upset you?”
Had she not seen the exchange in the tent, or did it not strike her as out of the ordinary? “Does the king often entertain himself with his wives’ maidservants?”
Realization lit her friend’s eyes. “I should have warned you. Leda overheard the plan while you were praying. Lalasa and Diona are tired and frustrated and have decided to
give your husband their maidservants, so that they might share the burden.”
Burden? She sank to the ground and wrapped her arms around her knees. What she would not give to share that burden again, to take her portion and theirs. “I see.”
“Mistress.” Leda crouched down beside her. “It is his love for you that makes him refuse his desire for you, which has led to this. Be comforted. You still have his
heart.”
She nodded and pulled in a long breath. “Thank you. Please tell him I am not feeling well.”
She would miss hearing the end of the epic tonight, but she would rather wonder about that than watch Xerxes watch Diona’s slave. Besides, if he went through with
sacrifices as planned, she had no desire to be there.
No good could come of it.
*
Xerxes jolted up, the cry still raw in his throat. Already the nightmare sprinted away, too fleet of foot for him to pin down any one image. But the unease lingered—worse,
grew stronger with each beat of blood through his veins. Something was wrong.
The woman beside him whimpered and thrashed, nearly smacking him. He jerked away with a curse. “Wake up, woman. It is only a dream.”
The wench screamed, sobbed. Xerxes grabbed his tunic and pulled it over his head as he stood. More screams pierced the air than what came from Diona’s girl.
“Master?” Zethar’s voice shook as he entered. Xerxes blinked at the influx of torchlight. “You are needed. Everyone—it is as if demons chase them all in their sleep.”
Yes, that was what it had felt like. Some devil bearing down on him, teeth gnashing, talons flashing . . . he gave his head a fierce shake to dislodge the image. “It sounds
like a massacre.”
“It started all at once. Those of us awake looked around for some enemy, but there is none.”
His breath came faster than he would have liked as he strode from the tent. The cries surrounded him, loud as a storm with an undertone of whimpers. It was as though Fear
had taken form and slunk among them.
His other eunuchs staggered over to them. He nodded a greeting. “Wake everyone you can and have them do the same with their neighbors. It is better when out of the clutches
of the nightmare.”
He took off at a run for Kasia’s tent. This did not feel like the god, not exactly. Perhaps the screams sounded like his uncle’s had when he awoke from the dream Ahura
Mazda had sent, but Xerxes had never felt him like this.
Still, what if it were from him? What if, yet again, his wrath focused on Kasia? If he lost her now, after the torture of staying away from her—
Zethar’s breath shuddered beside him. “I fear for my mother, master. What if something like this has struck Persia? She has no one, no one to comfort her.”
“My son!” came a shout from his right. “Spare my son, god!”
Xerxes halted, listened. From every direction came cries of names and relations, occasionally an object. The ones dearest to each heart? The things they most feared for?
He surged forward again, and reached Kasia’s tent within a few strides. Light spilled out when Zethar pulled the flap open for him.
He knew not what he expected. To find her in agony and near death was his worst fear. At the least, she ought to be crying out like everyone else. He admitted the
possibility that she would have already taken to her prayer rug and would be beseeching her God for whatever she thought Jehovah could do.
He did not expect this. Kasia sat in the center of her tent on a mound of pillows, singing to a collection of at least twenty children. His own he spotted immediately. A few
of the others he recognized as belonging to the concubines of his brothers and cousins.
“What in Hades is going on here?”
Theron bowed and stepped near. “They started coming an hour ago, tugging nurses along with them.” He motioned to the servants sleeping against the outer wall. Peacefully.
“Mistress had been praying ever since the sacrifices. She stopped seconds before the first ones entered—your three, master. She welcomed them as if she had been expecting
them and started singing to them. The rest arrived soon after.”
The sacrifices. Of course. Ahura Madza had been displeased, had sent the spirit of fear to show them what they could expect without his blessing.
Yet . . . that did nothing to explain how Kasia managed an oasis of peace.
Twenty-Two
Susa, Persia