Ever resourceful, though, the Achrans had adapted by crafting new tiles by grinding up assassin wasps in place of water. But this made the tiles lumpier and more prone to breaking. Not to mention they didn’t take color as well. And I wondered if the old ways would be lost for good before I could rid the city of the Desert Boys and find a way to get more water.

But I couldn’t dwell on the past. I had to look toward the future first. Toward my final opponent. Right after my father learned what happened at the well.

Leaving my guards at the door, I slipped in through the kitchens. Warm fires greeted me. It was too much heat for the afternoon, but it would be welcome when the sun set in a few hours. Raucous laughter filtered out from the doors to the main hall.

I snuck up a back staircase and into my room. Latia’s small footfalls echoed my own.

I needed a moment before I faced the wrath of my father in front of everyone. I flopped down on the bed, sighing.

New gauzy spider silk curtains that hadn’t yet been weighed down by sand fluttered inward from my balcony, touching the ends of my gold-encrusted bed. Even my sheets were sewn with gold silk thread imported from the eastern kingdoms.

The numerous caravans that once passed through Achra, bringing rich goods like these, had all but stopped when the drought and sandstorms came. Only my father’s royal caravans were given enough water to cross the desert to bring in new supplies. And even then, some of them never made it back because of the sandstorms that had increased each year since the drought started.

A knock at the door roused me. I sat up as Latia shuffled over and opened it.

“The king has requested a private audience with the princess. He’s waiting at the tiger cages.”

I didn’t hear the rest of what was said.

I froze. Alone? Not in front of the great hall?

I swallowed. Between the incident in the arena and what happened at the well, I didn’t know what he had in store.

My arms moved numbly as I pulled off my dress and slid into the new one, hurrying so as to not keep my father waiting.

Latia silently moved forward and yanked any tangles in my hair as she worked quickly to twist my hair into a tight bun.

“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked, eyes downcast.

“No,” I snapped, too dazed to give her credit for her loyalty. It would only be worse with her there.

I made my way through the palace and down into the windowless depths beneath the sands. The tombs, as I’d called them as a child. But it was the only place cool enough in the palace to house the beasts.

I was secretly glad they were kept so far from everything else. I could still recall the events of the annual Tiger Feast a few months before, commemorating the arrival of the tigers. As always, my father had sat in the main hall with the tigers chained at his feet as he recounted how he’d found two tigers lost in the desert a few days after taking the throne. He said the tigers contained the spirit of the desert because their orange-and-black pattern mimicked the golden waves of sand and the darker valleys that hid between the peaks. When the beasts had bowed before him, he brought them back to the palace with the knowledge the desert had gifted these creatures to him, confirming he was not only meant to lead, but that he would be fiercer than any creature—a true king of the desert.