When he made it through the maze, he lounged on the pillow. I sat next to him with my knees curled up to my chest.

No one spoke.

The boy next to me had eyes as big as moonstones, but his skin had an ashen tone and his lips were peeling. He held his breath when I settled into place.

I looked away.

I’d never spent much time around children; after my mother died I’d spent every moment training. But nothing my father had taught me showed me how to interact with these boys.

Several boys arrived carrying sticks holding lizards with green dots down their backs.

“One for everyone,” Cion said.

A cheer went up.

I looked to Cion, confused.

“Normally we share them,” he said.

“What’s the occasion?”

“You,” he said. He took a skewer that was passed to him and handed it to me.

The lizard had its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth. Its eyes were glassy, and its tiny claws were curled inward. I’d heard once that you should never eat a lizard whose claws weren’t curled in like that. If they were extended, it meant it had died where it stood and poison had time to seep out of its green spots into the rest of the meat.

I’d never actually eaten a green-spotted lizard for that reason. I gingerly held the stick between my fingers, careful not to touch the green spots.

“You won’t die if you touch them now,” Cion said when he saw my hesitation.

He grabbed another skewer, and I noticed he was the last to receive his, which was a far cry from the palace where my father always was served first. Cion pulled out a knife and sawed vertically down the back of the lizard, slicing off its spots, before handing me the knife and motioning for me to do the same.

I ended up hacking off most of the meat because I was so worried about not cutting deep enough. Once all the boys had sawed off the spots, they held their sticks tightly and looked to Cion.

Cion rose to his feet. “We owe this feast to Princess Kateri,” he said. “The desert can tear us apart or force us together. And it has delivered us a powerful ally, one who will help us bring down Rodric.”

I couldn’t help but scan the eager faces of the boys—the same ones I’d planned on using and then turning on after I won my throne. I looked away. How could I have thought that? They were nothing more than children without water. Children doing what they had to do to survive.

Cion continued. “You’ve each been given your own lizard in her honor tonight because I want you to be strong. Our fight is almost over.” He held up his skewer and then bit the lizard’s head clear off.

The other boys didn’t hesitate to dig in after that.

Cion flopped back down.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when he saw I hadn’t taken a bite.