The heat in the Great Hall of Susa was a physical thing, a thick, suffocating blanket woven from the scent of roasted lamb, spilled wine, and the sweat of three hundred men who were pretending not to be afraid.
Queen Atossa sat on the dais, her spine pressed against the cool gold leaf of her high-backed chair. She did not move. She did not sweat. She was the daughter of Cyrus the Great, and she had learned long ago that a queen does not display discomfort. To display discomfort was to display weakness, and in the Persian court, weakness was blood in the water.
Beside her, King Cambyses was laughing.
It was a wet, ragged sound that ended in a cough. He slammed his heavy goblet onto the table, splashing dark red Shiraz onto the pristine white linen.
"Look at them!" Cambyses roared, gesturing with a grease-stained hand toward the sea of nobles below. "Look at my loyal dogs! Eating my food. Drinking my wine. And whispering behind their hands that I am mad."
The music—a frantic, high-pitched shrieking of reeds and drums—did not stop, but the conversation in the hall died instantly. Three hundred faces turned toward the dais. Generals with scars from the Egyptian campaigns. Satraps in silk robes who had never held a sword. Eunuchs with soft faces and hard eyes. They all froze, their cups halfway to their lips, waiting to see if the King's mood would swing toward murder or mirth.
Atossa placed a hand on her husband's forearm. His skin was hot, feverish. "My King," she said, her voice low and steady. "They do not whisper. They celebrate your victory. Egypt is yours. The world is yours."
Cambyses turned to her. His eyes were bloodshot, the whites yellowed by liver sickness and too much unwatered wine. For a moment, she saw the brother she had grown up with, the boy who used to race horses with her across the Zagros plains. But that boy was gone, drowned in paranoia and power.
"Is it?" he whispered, leaning in close. His breath smelled of onions and old blood. "Then why do I feel the knives, Atossa? I feel them against my back every time I close my eyes."
"There are no knives here," she lied. "Only subjects."
"Subjects," he spat. He looked past her, toward the shadows standing behind the throne. "Gaumata! Wine! The King is thirsty, and his cup is empty. Or are you plotting against me too, priest?"
From the shadows emerged a figure that seemed to absorb the torchlight rather than reflect it. Gaumata, the Magus, the High Priest of the court. He moved with a silence that unnerved Atossa. He wore the simple white robes of the priesthood, unadorned by gold or jewels, yet he commanded more space in the room than the generals in their armor.
"I exist only to serve the Light of the Aryans," Gaumata said. His voice was smooth, like oil pouring over gravel. He held a golden ewer in both hands.
Atossa watched him closely. She had never liked the Magus. There was a stillness to him that felt reptilian. He did not blink enough. And lately, he had been spending too much time in the archives, whispering with the scribes, reading the old laws of succession.
"Pour," Cambyses commanded.
Gaumata stepped forward. He did not pour from the main krater that the servants were using to fill the guests' cups. He poured from the small, personal ewer he carried.
Atossa frowned. "Why do you not use the royal vintage?" she asked, her voice cutting through the din.
Gaumata paused, the spout hovering over the King's goblet. He turned his dead, obsidian eyes toward her. "The King requested a vintage from the Zagros vineyards, my Queen. To remind him of home. Is that not so, Majesty?"
Cambyses grunted, waving a dismissive hand. "Yes, yes. The sweet stuff. Pour it, damn you."
The dark liquid flowed into the cup. It looked thicker than wine. darker.
Atossa felt a prickle of unease at the base of her neck. It was an instinct, sharp and sudden—the same instinct that warned a gazelle when the wind changed direction.
"Wait," she said.
But Cambyses was already lifting the cup. He drank deeply, greedily, the red liquid running down his beard. He drained it in one long swallow and slammed the cup down again.
"To the Empire!" he shouted, throwing his arms wide.
"To the Empire!" the room echoed, a chorus of three hundred voices relieved that the King was drinking and not killing.
Cambyses grinned, his teeth stained purple. He opened his mouth to speak again, perhaps to boast of his conquest of the Nile, but no sound came out.
His eyes widened.
The grin faltered.
He reached for his throat, his fingers clawing at the gold collar around his neck. A terrible, gurgling sound rose from his chest, like water rushing into a sinking ship.
"Cambyses?" Atossa stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the stone.
The King lurched forward. He knocked the table over, sending platters of roasted meat and silver bowls crashing to the floor. The music stopped. The hall plunged into a terrifying silence, broken only by the sound of the King of Kings fighting for air.
He fell.
He hit the dais hard, convulsing. His back arched, his heels drumming a frantic rhythm against the marble. Foam, pink and frothy, bubbled from his lips.
"He is choking!" someone shouted from the crowd. "Help him!"
"Stand back!" Gaumata's voice rang out, shockingly loud. He stepped between the King and the crowd, raising a hand. "The spirit of the daeva has seized him! Do not touch him, or the curse will spread!"
Atossa ignored the priest. She dropped to her knees beside her husband. She grabbed his shoulders, trying to roll him onto his side. "Cambyses! Look at me!"
His eyes were rolling back into his head, showing only the whites. His skin was turning a violaceous purple. This was not a spirit. This was not a heart seizure.
She looked up at Gaumata. The priest was standing over them, watching. He was not praying. He was not calling for the physicians. He was watching the King die with the clinical detachment of a butcher watching a lamb bleed out.
And then, he smiled.
It was a small thing, a mere twitch of the lips, but Atossa saw it.
"You," she breathed, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. "You did this."
Cambyses gave one last, violent shudder. His hand, which had been gripping Atossa's wrist, went slack. His eyes fixed on the ceiling, seeing nothing.
The King was dead.
The silence in the hall was absolute. Three hundred men held their breath.
Gaumata stepped over the body. He did not check for a pulse. He turned to face the crowd, spreading his arms wide, his white robes stained with the wine that had spilled in the chaos.
"The King is dead!" Gaumata announced. His voice did not tremble with grief. It boomed with authority. "The strain of victory was too much for his heart. The Gods have called him home."
"Liar!"
Atossa stood up. She was shaking, but her voice was steady, ringing off the stone walls. She pointed a trembling finger at the priest. "He was poisoned! I saw you! I saw you pour from your own flask!"
She turned to the crowd, searching for a friendly face. "General Megabyzus! You saw it! Lord Otanes! Seize this man! He has murdered your King!"
But nobody moved.
Megabyzus, the commander of the Immortals, looked down at his boots. Otanes, her father's oldest friend, turned his face away.
The room rippled with a strange, heavy energy. It wasn't confusion. It was compliance.
Atossa felt the floor drop out from under her world. They weren't shocked. They knew.
This wasn't a murder. It was a coup.
Gaumata turned back to her. The mock deference was gone now. In its place was a cold, hard sneer. "The Queen is hysterical with grief," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr. "She sees monsters in the shadows. It is... unbecoming."
"I see a traitor standing in the light," Atossa spat. She reached for the dagger at Cambyses's belt—the ceremonial akinahes he always wore.
Before her fingers could brush the hilt, a hand clamped around her wrist.
It was not Gaumata.
Atossa spun around. "Release me!"
The man holding her was Hystaspes, the captain of her personal guard. A man who had taught her to shoot a bow when she was six years old. A man she had trusted with her life.
"Hystaspes," she gasped, searching his eyes for some sign of the man she knew. "Help me. Arrest him."
Hystaspes's face was a mask of stone. "I am sorry, my Lady. Orders."
"Orders? From whom? I am your Queen!"
"Not anymore," Gaumata said softly.
The priest stepped closer, invading her space. He smelled of incense and rot. He reached out and, with a slow, deliberate movement, plucked the golden tiara from her head.
The insult was so profound, so absolute, that the entire hall seemed to gasp.
"A woman cannot rule the Empire," Gaumata said, turning the crown over in his hands. "And with no King... there is no Queen. There is only the widow of a madman."
He tossed the tiara onto the floor. It rang against the stone, spinning like a coin before settling in a puddle of wine and blood.
"Take her," Gaumata commanded.
Hystaspes twisted her arm behind her back. Another guard grabbed her other shoulder.
"No!" Atossa screamed, the warrior in her finally breaking through the shock. She kicked out, her heel connecting with Hystaspes's shin. He grunted but didn't let go. She thrashed, a wild thing, dragging them a few steps toward the crowd.
"Otanes! Help me! My father gave you your lands! Gobryas! Look at me!"
The nobles of Persia, the brave men who had conquered the world, watched in silence. They were statues. Cowards. They saw the shark in the water, and they were merely grateful they were not the bait.
Good, she thought, a cold, hard rage crystallizing in her chest, replacing the panic. Let them look away. I want them to remember their cowardice when I burn this palace down around their ears.
"Get her out of here," Gaumata snapped, losing patience. "Take her to the Tower of Silence. Let her scream at the vultures."
The guards dragged her backward. Her sandals skid across the blood-slicked tiles.
Atossa stopped struggling. It was undignified. She was not a sheep to be dragged to the slaughter. She was a lioness, even in chains.
She planted her feet. "I will walk," she said, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper.
Hystaspes hesitated, then loosened his grip slightly.
Atossa straightened her tunic. She swept a stray lock of hair from her face. She looked at the dead body of her husband, then at the man who had killed him.
"You think you have won, Magus," she said. The hall was so quiet that her words carried to the back of the room. "But you have made a mistake. You left me alive."
Gaumata laughed. "You are a woman, Atossa. You are nothing."
"I am the daughter of Cyrus," she said. "And I am the storm that is coming for you."
She turned and walked toward the great bronze doors, the guards flanking her like honor attendants rather than jailors. She kept her chin high. She did not look back at the throne. She did not look back at the crown lying in the filth.
As the heavy doors began to close, shutting out the light of the feast, the flutes began to play again. A jaunty, happy tune.
The music of the new regime.
The doors slammed shut with a sound like a tomb sealing. Darkness swallowed her.
The game had begun.