Maya's POV
"Three assassins. In the palace. Right now."
Khalid's words hang in the air like a death sentence.
I grip the practice sword with shaking hands. "You're lying. Trying to scare me into training harder."
"Am I?" Khalid's eyes flick to something behind me. "Then explain why Lieutenant Zara just signaled that intruders breached the east wall."
I spin around. Zara stands at the edge of the training yard, her hand raised in what must be some kind of military signal. Her face is grim.
"They got past the outer guards," Zara calls out. "Three men. Armed with curved blades and wearing masks."
My heart starts pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
"How did they get in so fast?" I ask. "I've only been here one day!"
"Because someone inside the palace told them exactly when and where to strike." Khalid's jaw tightens. "Someone wants you dead badly enough to risk treason."
He barks orders at his soldiers in rapid-fire commands I barely follow. Half of them sprint toward the palace. The others form a protective circle around me.
"Stay in the center," Khalid orders me. "Don't move unless I tell you to."
"What are you going to do?"
"My job." He draws his real sword—the metal gleams in the sunlight. "Zara, you're with me. Everyone else, if anyone gets within ten feet of the Star-Marked Woman, kill them."
The soldiers nod, their faces hard and ready.
Khalid and Zara run toward the palace. I'm left standing in a circle of armed warriors, clutching a wooden practice sword that suddenly feels like a toy.
"This can't be happening," I whisper.
"It's happening," one of the soldiers says. He's young, maybe twenty. "Welcome to palace life. Assassination attempts are pretty normal around here."
"Normal?"
"You get used to it."
I don't want to get used to it. I want to wake up in my apartment in New York and discover this whole nightmare was just a stress dream from working too hard.
But the sword in my hand is real. The soldiers around me are real. The fear crawling up my spine is definitely real.
Minutes pass like hours. I hear shouting from inside the palace. The clash of metal on metal. Then a scream—high and sharp and cut off too quickly.
"Should we help them?" I ask.
"Our orders are to protect you," the young soldier says. "We stay here."
More shouting. More fighting sounds. I can't see what's happening, but my imagination fills in the details. Khalid fighting three armed men. Zara at his side. Blood on the marble floors.
People dying because of me.
Then—silence.
The kind of silence that feels wrong. Too complete.
The soldiers around me tense. Hands go to weapons.
"Something's not right," one mutters.
That's when I see him.
A man in a mask drops from the palace roof onto the training yard wall. He's dressed all in black, and there's a curved blade in each hand.
"Assassin!" the young soldier yells.
But the masked man isn't alone. Two more drop down from different directions, landing with barely a sound.
They've circled around. While Khalid and Zara were fighting inside, these three came from behind.
"Formation!" the young soldier commands. "Protect the—"
One of the assassins throws something. A small glass sphere that shatters on the ground between us.
Smoke explodes outward—thick and choking. I can't see. Can't breathe. My eyes water and burn.
Through the smoke, I hear fighting. Steel clashing. Men grunting and cursing. The soldiers trying to protect me.
A hand grabs my arm.
I swing the practice sword blindly. It connects with something solid. I hear a grunt of pain.
"Nice try," a voice hisses in my ear. Different from the soldiers. Colder.
The assassin.
He twists my arm behind my back. Pain shoots up to my shoulder. The practice sword falls from my fingers.
"Stop struggling," he says. "My orders are to bring you alive. But alive doesn't have to mean undamaged."
I drive my elbow back as hard as I can, the way my self-defense instructor taught me in college. It catches him in the ribs.
He laughs. "That the best you can do?"
The smoke is starting to clear. I can see the soldiers now—two of them are down, unconscious or worse. The young one is fighting one assassin. Another soldier is engaged with the second.
Nobody's coming to save me.
I have to save myself.
I remember what Khalid said during training: Use whatever you have. Fight dirty. Survival doesn't care about honor.
I stomp down hard on the assassin's foot, then throw my head back into his face. I feel his nose crunch. His grip loosens for just a second.
I rip free and run.
"Get back here!" he roars.
I don't look back. I run toward the palace, screaming for help.
The assassin catches me before I make it ten steps. He tackles me to the ground. My chin hits the dirt. I taste blood.
He flips me over, his masked face inches from mine. There's blood dripping from his broken nose onto his mask.
"You're going to regret that," he growls.
He raises his blade.
This is it. This is how I die. Not in my own time, but three thousand years in the past, killed by an assassin I can't even see properly.
I close my eyes and wait for the blade to fall.
It doesn't.
Instead, I hear a sound like a sword cutting through air. The assassin's weight suddenly lifts off me.
I open my eyes.
Khalid stands over me, his sword dripping blood. The assassin lies a few feet away, not moving.
"Are you injured?" Khalid asks. His voice is calm, but his eyes are blazing with fury.
"I—I don't think so."
He grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. "The other two?"
"Zara got one," a soldier reports, limping over. "The third escaped over the north wall."
Khalid curses under his breath. "Seal the palace. No one in or out without my personal clearance." He turns to me. "You fought back."
"You said to fight dirty."
"I did." Something that might be approval flashes across his face. "You broke his nose. Slowed him down enough for me to get here."
"I still almost died."
"But you didn't." He sheathes his sword. "That's what matters."
Zara runs up, breathing hard. There's blood on her sword and a cut on her cheek. "The one who escaped—I tagged him with a tracking marker. We'll know where he goes."
"Good." Khalid looks around at his injured soldiers. "Get the wounded to the healers. Double the guard on all entrances." His eyes return to me. "And you—back to your chambers. Now."
"I can't stay locked in a room forever!"
"You can and you will until I figure out who sent these assassins." His voice drops to something dangerous. "Someone inside the palace helped them get in. Someone close to the Pharaoh. Until I know who, you're not safe anywhere."
He starts to walk away, but I grab his arm. He freezes.
"Thank you," I say quietly. "For saving my life."
Khalid looks at my hand on his arm, then at my face. For just a second, his hard expression softens.
"Don't thank me yet. This was just the first attempt." He pulls free from my grip. "There will be others. Many others. And next time, I might not get there in time."
"Then teach me to save myself. Really teach me. No more treating me like I'm breakable."
He studies me for a long moment. "You want real training? The kind I give my elite soldiers?"
"Yes."
"It will hurt. You'll hate me for it."
"I already don't like you very much."
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost.
"Tomorrow. Dawn. Be ready." He starts to leave again, then pauses. "And Maya? What you did today—fighting back even though you were terrified—that took courage. Real courage." He doesn't look at me when he says it. "Don't lose that."
Then he's gone, barking orders at his soldiers.
Zara escorts me back to my chambers. My hands won't stop shaking. Adrenaline is wearing off, leaving me feeling hollowed out and fragile.
"You did good today," Zara says as she locks me in. "Better than most would've done their first time facing death."
"It won't be my last time, will it?"
"Probably not." She smiles grimly. "But hey—at least you're still breathing. That's more than those assassins can say."
After she leaves, I collapse onto the bed. My whole body hurts. My mind won't stop replaying the moment that blade was about to fall.
I could've died today.
I probably will die soon if I don't get better at defending myself.
But what terrifies me most isn't the assassination attempt.
It's what the assassin said: My orders are to bring you alive.
Someone wants me alive. Someone powerful enough to send killers into the palace.
But why? For the prophecy? For power?
Or for something worse?
I'm still trying to process everything when I hear a soft scratching at my window.
I freeze.
The window is three stories up. Nothing should be able to reach it.
The scratching comes again. More insistent.
I grab a candlestick from the table—the closest thing to a weapon I have—and approach the window slowly.
A shadow moves outside.
My heart hammers as I open the window just a crack.
A small bird sits on the windowsill. Tied to its leg is a piece of paper.
I untie the paper with trembling fingers. The bird flies away immediately.
I unfold the note. The handwriting is elegant and unfamiliar:
The assassins were a distraction. The real danger comes from inside the palace. Trust no one—not the Pharaoh, not the High Priestess, and especially not Commander Khalid. He's hiding something that could destroy you both. Meet me at the Temple of Stars at midnight if you want to know the truth about why you're really here.
—A Friend
I stare at the note, my blood running cold.
Someone knows I'm here. Someone who can get messages past all the palace guards.
Someone who says Khalid is hiding something dangerous.
Do I trust this mysterious "friend"? Or is this another trap?
The clock on the wall shows it's almost sunset. Midnight is only six hours away.
Six hours to decide if I'm brave enough—or stupid enough—to find out the truth.