The young woman giggled flirtatiously. It wasn’t a sound Lyre normally opposed, but at this particular moment, it set his teeth on edge.

“I know I’ve mentioned this about ten times already,” he said, unable to keep the growling note from his voice, “but this really isn’t necessary.”

“Shh,” the woman crooned. “Just relax.”

“If you don’t hold still,” the other girl admonished, “I’ll have to start again.”

She brandished her paintbrush and he reluctantly sank back into the cushions of the daybed. Sunlight streamed across the floor, kissing the scented water of the sunken tub.

The griffin maiden reloaded her fine brush with black ink and, with a teasing smile, touched it to his abdomen. He glared at the ceiling, resisting—again—the urge to pull his arm out of the grasp of the other maiden, who was applying a complex pattern to his inner wrist in turquoise and black ink.

“We thought you would enjoy some pampering.” The maiden working on his torso pouted. “Most men don’t complain when we take care of them.”

A dozen suggestive comebacks about how he wasn’t like “most men” ran through his mind, but instead, he muttered, “I was busy when you two burst in and started preening me like a damn rooster.”

It wasn’t like him to be rude to women—especially beautiful women who were, all things considered, treating him very well—but his patience had run out at some point between the scented-water bath and being dressed like a helpless invalid who couldn’t clothe himself.

“We know you were busy,” the girl replied with a pretty roll of her green eyes. “That’s exactly why Prince Miysis sent us to you.”

“He said you didn’t sleep at all last night.” The other girl pointed her brush at his face, almost coloring his nose. “That is no way to take care of yourself.”

“And you should definitely take care of yourself,” the other added with an appreciative look over his bare torso. Not that they hadn’t already seen more when they’d bullied him into the stupid tub. Good thing he wasn’t shy.

“I slept last night,” he protested.

Another threatening wave of the brush. “Don’t lie!”

Damn it. Griffins and their truth-seeing.

“I slept for a few hours,” he corrected. He didn’t like stopping in the middle of his work. And how did Miysis know his sleep habits anyway?

“A few hours isn’t much,” the girl criticized. “It’s past noon. Once we’re finished, you should take a nice afternoon nap. Most of the city rests during the hottest hours.”

“How am I supposed to sleep when I’m painted up like a noble peacock?”

The maiden giggled. “This ink isn’t coming off without a sand-soap scrub.”

Oh, lovely. He never should have let them touch him.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” the other asked. Her fingers slid up his arm and kneaded his bicep. “I could give you a massage to help you fall asleep, if you’d like.”

He chose not to acknowledge the unspoken offer for more than a massage. He didn’t want massages or baths or female attention. He wanted to be left alone.

No incubus in his right mind would turn down that offer, let alone resent beautiful women pampering him with attention. Clearly, Lyre wasn’t in his right mind. There were only two things he could focus on, and they had kept him up all night: weaving and Clio.

His night’s weaving progress was hidden in the box on the bookshelf, out of sight from his visitors, but tools were scattered across the desk—a decent assortment but not as good as the collection he’d lost when he’d fled Asphodel.

As for Clio, she lingered stubbornly in his thoughts, overshadowing everything else. Was she safe? Was she in Irida? Was she looking for him in Brinford? Was she alone and in danger there? Not knowing was driving him insane. The worry kept scraping and scraping at his temper until he was so on edge he couldn’t sleep.

“Relax,” the maiden bending over his stomach commanded. “I’m almost done.”

He snapped out of his internal monologue of anxiety and forced his abs—and his jaw—to relax. The wet brush glided across his skin as she completed the elaborate pattern that ran from his hipbones up to his ribs and around his sides. When she finally dropped the brush back into her paint kit, the other girl rose to her feet and leaned over Lyre.

“Look up,” she instructed.

“Why?”

“I need to paint under your eyes.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.” She thrust out her lower lip. “You don’t want me to get in trouble with the prince, do you?”

Guilt tripping him now? Grumbling, he rolled his eyes upward. The cool brush slid under one eye, then the other. She leaned back and smiled happily. “Perfect! You’re all finished.”

As she packed her supplies, the other girl handed him his tapa—the half-cloak thing griffins wore instead of a full shirt. He swung it into place and clasped it over his right shoulder.

The girls waved at him to stand. “Let’s see! Come on, get up.”

He swung his legs off the daybed and stood, tugging his pants a bit higher so they sat properly around his waist, the tie covering the bottom of the painted design. Suppressing his bad temper, he held his arms out to give them a better view of their hard work—made more difficult by his lack of cooperation.

“Ooh!” She beamed at her companion in a congratulatory way. “We’re good, aren’t we?”

“We are! Though, to be fair, it would be almost impossible to make him look bad.”

“Very true.”

He dropped his arms. “Are you done? Am I free?”

The pride and excitement slid off their faces, and the younger one dropped her gaze. “Are you not pleased?”

Damn it. These girls were just doing their jobs and he was being a miserable prick. He pulled himself together and offered them a smile. “Your patience with me is even more impressive than your skill and talent, which is really saying something. Thank you.”

They brightened, and he kept his smile in place as they suggested repeatedly on their way out that he take a nap. He stood in the center of the room, waiting, until the door closed behind them. The latch clacked and his smile evaporated. Finally.

Shoulders slumping, he stretched his arms out to examine the painted designs. They were exotic and beautiful, the turquoise and black lines contrasting with his tanned skin. Add in his clothes, patterned in black, white, and a deeper shade of turquoise, and the overall effect was something to see. With his face covered, he might be able to catch as many stares as the Ra prince.

With his face uncovered, Lyre wouldn’t have any competition. No man could compete with an incubus when it came to attracting female attention.

“It suits you.”

Lyre started violently, then shot an irritated glower toward the door where Miysis leaned against the frame. Sneaky bastard. How had he gotten the door open without Lyre hearing?

“Why did you sic those beauticians on me?” he complained. “Is this punishment for hanging around your palace too long?”

“This isn’t my palace,” Miysis replied. Turquoise lines, probably matching the ones now painted under Lyre’s eyes, drew attention to his yellow-green irises. “This is Aldrendahar’s citadel, where the city council sits. The Ra palace is significantly more impressive than this, I promise.”

“Hmph.” Lyre dropped onto the edge of the daybed.

“Did you not enjoy yourself? No one has ever complained about my body artists before.”

“I’m surprised you would trust an incubus with two blushing maidens and no chaperone.”

“I warned them.” He shrugged. “They were perfectly willing. I suspect your good manners didn’t live up to their expectations of a notorious sex god from the Underworld.”

“Sex god? I like the sound of that.”

Miysis ambled into the room, long braid swaying against his back between his folded wings, and picked up a pencil stub from the table. “How is your weaving going?”

“Not as well as I’d like.” He’d made progress, but he was stuck on the implementation. He wished he could ask Reed for advice. “Any word from Irida?”

“Still nothing.” The prince leaned against the table and stretched his wings to their full span, feathers spreading wide, before tucking them against his back. “My forces are ready and I can’t delay much longer. Either I hear from the Iridian king today or I go to the queen for orders.”

“Orders?”

“She’ll decide how Ra responds to Irida’s attack in Brinford.” He folded his arms, gold bands around his wrists glinting. “So far, I’ve only given her the briefest overview and asked her to let me investigate. But she’ll only wait so long.”

Lyre straightened. “You’re withholding details from her? Why?”

Miysis rubbed his hand over his mouth, his eyes distant. “It’s easy to send soldiers to war when you don’t know their names.”

With that one statement, the prince revealed a great deal about himself and about his queen. Lyre looked the griffin prince over, seeing how young he was under his titles and confidence. He was Lyre’s age, if that.

Young, idealistic, honorable, and perhaps a bit too trusting. Lyre wondered how the coming years as the prince and general of such a powerful caste would shape Miysis. His caste’s reputation was ferocious enough that Lyre wondered if Miysis’s idealism would last. How long before the ugly realities and tough lessons changed his outlook?

Lyre leaned against the daybed’s backrest, relieved he ruled over his own fate and no one else’s. Life was a hell of a lot simpler that way.

Miysis bounced one foot, betraying his uneasy tension. “What is Chrysalis like? I’ve only heard rumors.”

“It’s …” Lyre closed his eyes for a moment. “Cutthroat. Everyone is in competition with everyone else to be better, faster, smarter, more productive …”

“Sounds a lot like griffin nobility. Just add ‘richer.’”

Lyre snorted in sympathetic amusement. “What’s it like being a Ra prince?”

Miysis shrugged. “Difficult and demanding. Sometimes easy. Sometimes boring. This is a boring period.”

“Interesting that you’d choose the Underworld stranger as your entertainment while bored,” Lyre observed dryly.

The prince smirked. “Aldrendahar is on the outskirts of our territory. It’s dull and backward and plebian. The highest-ranking daemons are minor nobles and city officials who constantly fawn over me, and I can only spend so much time with my soldiers before they get uncomfortable.”

“So I’m the lucky recipient of your company?”

“You don’t seem predisposed to fawning.”

“Not at all.”

“Did you never encounter any daemons of power in the Underworld? Have you ever met Samael Hades?”

Another one of those sneaky questions designed to catch Lyre in a lie. Miysis seemed so laidback and trusting that it was easy to forget he was also a royal practiced in maneuvering—and manipulating—other daemons. Lyre’s mouth quirked down. Was he underestimating the prince?

“Samael Hades inspires cowering more than fawning,” he evaded smoothly. “As does the Head of Chrysalis.”

“What’s he like?”

“Formidable. I don’t know him well.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. Lyre knew more about his father as the Head of Chrysalis than as a person. “What’s the Ra queen like?”

“Formidable is a good word. ‘Ruthless’ also comes to mind.”

That wasn’t encouraging. If the Ra queen was a ruthless ruler, once she stepped in to take over from Miysis on the Irida issue, the chances of avoiding an outright conflict would dwindle significantly.

Rising from the sofa, Lyre brought his arms over his head, arching his back into the stretch. As he relaxed again, he caught Miysis’s gaze flicking back up to his face. Oh? Had the prince been examining the body artists’ work—or checking out his body beneath the art?

“I’d like to stretch my legs. How about I entertain you, sans fawning, while you take me somewhere besides this room?”

Miysis pursed his lips. “I’m not opposed, but I’d rather not showcase your presence.”

“If you wanted to keep me a secret, you probably shouldn’t have exposed me to a pair of gossipy women.”

“Those two are my personal body artists. They won’t gossip to anyone.” Miysis pushed off the wall. “If you cover your face with the hood, I think—”

A sharp rap on the door interrupted him. Miysis flicked a glance at Lyre, and once he had pulled his hood up, the prince called a welcome. The door swung open and a griffin in red livery similar to a soldier’s uniform but without the armor swept inside, his face shining with perspiration. Two guards from the hall followed him.

He dropped to one knee in front of Miysis. “Your Highness, an urgent message.”

“Yes?”

“Twenty miles north, an entourage of nymphs approaches the city, bearing the flag of truce.”

Lyre sucked in a breath, nervous but relieved. Finally. It had taken Rouvin long enough to get his ass in gear and do something. Hopefully, this meant the king had received Clio’s news.

Miysis waved the messenger to his feet. “Excellent. Go straight to Captain Bakari and have him send a troop to escort them the rest of the way. As well, have the captain prepare a formal escort for me. I will meet the nymphs at the north gate.”

The griffin saluted and rushed out again, the pair of guards returning to their posts in the hallway.

When the door closed behind them, Miysis glanced at Lyre. “Well? What do you say to a trip through the city instead? I wouldn’t mind having you around for your insight on the nymphs.”

Lyre’s mouth curved up. “Can’t promise I’ll be useful, but if it means getting outside for a bit, I’ll take it.”

And he wasn’t going to complain about the chance to hear firsthand what message King Rouvin had sent.

* * *

The bazaar was more crowded than it had seemed from Lyre’s elevated suite—or perhaps the people of the city were flocking to intercept the prince’s escort.

Following a cluster of officials, Lyre ambled between a pair of soldiers—Miysis’s personal guards, assigned to keep anyone from getting close enough to recognize him as an incubus. Miysis walked near the front of the procession. He may not have intended to start a parade, but that’s what it had turned into.

First in line were the six soldiers clearing a path. Miysis came next, walking alone and flanked not by soldiers but a pair of opinaris. Rushi, the white one, and a tan one prowled alongside him, their heads and chests protected by glimmering golden armor.

Another six soldiers followed, then the babbling cluster of city officials. Lyre trailed after them, and even outside the group, he could see why the daemons annoyed Miysis. They would not shut up.

The procession ended with a troop of soldiers behind Lyre. He was the only one in the entire entourage that lacked wings, but with his face covered, he could pass for a griffin in glamour. An extra tan griffin.

His skin tone wasn’t anywhere near the darkest in the market though. Griffins made up the majority of the population, but Aldrendahar was clearly a trade city. Castes Lyre had never seen or heard of paused to watch the parade march by.

A male with skin a few shades darker than Lyre’s with pointed horns, large animal ears and a thick tail that ended in sharp-looking spines. A female with mocha skin and curved antlers decorated with gold hoops, smoking a long pipe. A trio of younger males with golden skin, jet-black hair, tall jackal ears, and furred tails, shirtless under the blazing suns. A pair of unidentifiable daemons dressed head to toe in draping white fabric, faces covered with sheer silk, and snowy white wings tucked against their backs.

Almost all bustle drew to a halt as the armed escort crossed the bazaar, but the wildlife had no respect for royal comings and goings. Birds swooped across the rooftops, and a gang of strange reptiles—fox-shaped bodies covered in snakeskin with a lizard’s head—lurked in the shadows. An oversized rodent with huge ears and a giant squirrel tail snatched a piece of fruit from a stall while no one was watching.

Lyre didn’t get nearly as much time to study the market as he would have liked before they’d moved past it. They swept through wide streets of sand-dusted flagstone, the surrounding buildings draped in plants. The palm trees offered fleeting shade but the air shimmered from the rising heat. When they passed a canal of clear water, he had to swallow against his dry thirst.

They now approached the outermost wall—a barrier significantly more robust than the wall around the citadel grounds. The massive gates rose thirty feet at the highest point of the arch, and the wall was even higher and topped with an open parapet where winged soldiers stood at attention.

An empty plaza waited in front of the open gates, and the soldiers spread out in formation as Miysis moved to the center. There he stopped, flanked by opinaris, a troop of soldiers arranged across the flagstones behind him.

The griffin officials moved into the shadows of a building and Lyre followed, both eager for shade and unwilling to stand alone where he’d draw too much attention, but before he could make it out of the sunlight, Miysis gestured. Two officials hurriedly took up a spot on the prince’s righthand side.

“You should stand with them,” one of Lyre’s guards murmured.

Obediently, Lyre moved to join the two older officials, standing a long pace back so he wasn’t part of the greeting assembly.

Squinting against the suns, he peered through the gates. The endless dunes stretched toward the shadow of distant mountains, and a few miles out, a cloud of dust revealed the approaching party.

The suns hammered down as they waited in silence. The opinaris swished their tails, the only sign of their impatience. Lyre desperately wished for one of the colorful, handheld sunshades he’d seen daemons in the bazaar carrying, but Miysis didn’t seem to notice the heat as he stared northward.

The minutes ticked by and the back of Lyre’s neck prickled. Keeping the movement casual, he glanced around.

Miysis’s escort through the city had been modest, but the prince wasn’t taking chances. More soldiers had quietly filed in and now lined the plaza. The guards patrolling the parapet had doubled, and more warriors lurked on nearby rooftops. Apparently, Miysis wasn’t as trusting as he’d led Lyre to believe. If this went badly, the Iridian entourage wouldn’t leave alive.

The approaching party drew close enough that shapes appeared in the dust. First came the griffin escort—soldiers mounted on opinaris. Then came the nymphs, riding mounts of their own—heavy-bodied antelope-like creatures with tan- and black-patterned coats, flowing ebony manes, and a single horn arching up from their foreheads.

The opinari-mounted griffins swept over the wall and landed on nearby rooftops. Unescorted, the nymphs slowed their mounts to a loping trot. The thud of hooves on packed sand turned to a loud clatter as they passed through the gate and transitioned onto the flagstones. Of the seven nymphs, six wore green uniforms Lyre recognized from the palace guards in Irida, partly covered by lightweight cloaks and scarves to protect against the sand.

The seventh nymph wore something completely different, but it too was a familiar outfit.

They rode into the middle of the plaza and stopped. The lead nymph swung down, white fabric swirling, and handed the antelope’s reins to a nymph soldier before walking forward.

The elaborate regalia fluttered with each step—white skirts with under layers of blue and green revealed by the long slit in the front. A wide band of green fabric wrapped around a slim waist, belted with a bejeweled chain. A short cloak had been added as protection from the suns, but beneath it was a high-collared shirt and draping sleeves bound in place around the nymph’s upper arms.

A deep hood completed the costume, and a featureless white mask covered the upper half of the nymph’s face. A jeweled tiara was fitted on the top, and long ribbons hung off the back, fluttering like streamers in the breeze.

Lyre had seen that clothing before, but even if he hadn’t, he would have known. The way she held her arms, the sway of her hips, the stubborn lift to her familiar chin, the way those luscious lips were pressed nervously together—the messenger from Irida was Clio.

She walked unflinchingly toward Miysis, her face fixed on him and never turning toward Lyre or the officials. As she halted in front of the prince, Lyre became even more rigidly aware of the gathered soldiers and the watchful opinaris so close to her. Suddenly, he didn’t trust a word Miysis had ever uttered.

Clio dropped into a smooth, deep curtsy, and the prince nodded in acknowledgment. She murmured something, then slipped her hand into her fabric belt. Withdrawing a sealed letter, she extended it toward Miysis.

As the Ra prince took the paper and broke the seal, Lyre mentally prepared himself. Depending on what that letter said, either Clio would be safe—or Lyre would die with her under the scorching Overworld suns.