by J A Armitage
He licked his lips and gave me a small nod. Then he kissed the back of my hand. “Goodnight, Gaia.”
“Goodnight,” I replied weakly as he turned and walked away.
25th June
I didn’t sleep much. Thoughts of once again heading out into the streets consumed me, but Badalah wasn’t the place I knew anymore. In only a short week, things had changed. Most people would argue that a princess sneaking out of the palace in the middle of the night was never safe, but for the first time, I felt it wasn’t safe myself. That thought led me to tossing and turning and fretting instead. And above everything else, I couldn’t escape the thoughts of Genie that plagued me nor the kiss from Jamal that still burned on my lips.
The fake fight we’d had in the basement was the only physical thing Genie and I had ever done together. Our bodies hadn’t even touched, and yet our energy had. It was quite the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me, and yet, it was nothing. To him, at least. He was preparing me for war, but my body was distracted by the attraction I’d felt throughout. I wasn’t supposed to feel attracted to him. Empowered maybe. Scared even, but not the burning desire I had felt.
And then there was Jamal. Jamal, who had made it very clear that he liked me. He’d said it right before kissing me as if kissing me wasn’t enough.
I punched my pillow and forced myself to think of something else until sleep finally came.
Breakfast was a similar affair to the day before, with my mother staring blankly at her food. She didn’t even look up or greet me when I entered. Jamal came in just after I did and took his place at the table.
“I’m glad you came down early today,” he whispered in my ear. “I waited until you showed up so your mother wouldn’t try to seduce me over her scrambled eggs.”
I almost spat my coffee across the table at his words. “Idiot!” I whispered back as good-naturedly as I could. It broke the tension. I’d been so nervous about seeing him after last night, but he seemed jovial enough. He gave me a grin and then said ‘Hi’ to my mother.
She finally looked up and spoke, adopting a soppy expression, which I’d most certainly not seen on her before. “Hi, lover.” She gave him a wink and went back to staring at her plate.
This time, I really did lose my coffee.
“See!” Jamal whispered with a shrug.
Freya walked in and gave a small curtsey. She was dressed in her usual palace uniform with her hair tied back. Behind her, strode the Palace’s chief guard. He came to a stop, stomped his foot, and saluted. The blank stare left my mother.
“Your Majesty, I’ve been tasked to let you know that the gates to the city have been breached. The people of Badalah are demanding an audience with you.”
“No!” I said loudly. The guard didn’t flinch, but my mother’s eyes widened at my outburst.
“Gaia! That is no way to speak to our staff.”
“I’m sorry, Mother, but you aren’t well. The people are angry. I’m scared for your safety.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I am the Sultana. The people have a right to request an audience with me. I had planned for this yesterday. I hoped they would give me some time, but as they didn’t...”
She stood up, trailing off her sentence, and swished her dress out behind her.
“Then, please take the guards with you.”
The irony was not lost on me that our roles had reversed. It was usually her telling me to take guards into Kisbu.
She gave me a smile before turning to the chief guard. “Assemble a dozen guards and have a messenger head out into the town and deliver word that I will come out and visit with the people. There is a platform in the central district reserved for theatre and announcements. I’ll be there when the hour is up.”
The guard saluted again, then turned purposefully and left the room.
“I should get ready,” my mother announced and glided out of the room.
“I’m sorry,” Freya said once my mother had left. “I knew this was coming. I saw them coming in when I was on the way back to the palace from visiting my mother. I’d hoped to get here in time to warn you.”
“How bad is it?” Jamal asked.
Freya screwed her face up. “Not good. There are a lot of people. The town is overrun with farmers and country folk.”
I ran to the window and pulled back the curtain slightly. Hundreds of people stood outside, some shouting angrily, some waving pitchforks. As I watched, I felt Jamal come up behind me and put his arm around my waist. I knew he was doing it to comfort me, but my body tensed under his touch. Outside, a messenger ran out and blew a horn, quieting the crowd. I couldn’t hear what he said to them, but I assumed he was directing them to the stage in town that my mother had mentioned since they soon began to drift away.
“I can’t let her go alone,” I said, turning around. I found myself eye to eye with Jamal, still in the confines of his arms. He gave me a small smile, making his beautiful eyes crinkle up slightly at the corner. He lifted a hand and moved a lock of my hair behind my ear. It was such an intimate move.
“I’ll go along too. I have a feeling she’ll need all the help she can get.”
I knew he was trying to make me feel better.
“Thank you,” I said, pushing him slightly to get out of his grip. I didn’t see the look of disappointment in his eyes, but I knew it was there.
Less than ten minutes later, Jamal, Freya, my mother, myself, and the guards were heading through town. On formal occasions, my parents used a palanquin or a carriage to move through the streets. Now, however, we walked, surrounded by much more than the requested dozen guards.
In the town square, Freya led us toward the back of the stage through a walkway reserved for actors. It meant we could get to the stage itself without having to push through the angry crowd.
“Excuse me, good sir,” Freya said, leaning into a middle-aged man standing square in front of the steps to the back of the platform.
She whispered something into his ear and no sooner had she finished speaking, than he was looking over Freya’s shoulder toward my mother. He looked around and signaled another man who joined us.
“Sultana Jawahir. What an honor to meet you.” The arriving man said. “Thank you for coming here. I am the curator of the stage. My name is Malik.” He gave a small bow and raised the hat from his head.
My mother stepped forward with conviction. “Thank you, Malik. I’m here to speak to everyone. Would you kindly get their attention so I may address the crowds?”
“Of course,” the man replied, motioning to the other to get everyone’s attention. He then took the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention.” He paused, waiting for the onlookers to focus quietly on him. “We have the honor to welcome our leader, Sultana Jawahir. Please, I ask that we all give her respect, and engage accordingly.”
Murmurings spread across the people as my mother took the stage alongside Malik. The angry rumbles I’d heard among them had subsided a little. Maybe they genuinely wanted to hear what she had to say. I watched on from the back of the stage.
Jamal took my hand in his. It was so natural that we could have been dating, but we weren’t...or were we? I’d never been on a date in my life. I had no clue what we were doing. I certainly had no clue as to how I felt about what we were doing. I hazarded a quick glance his way. He was watching my mother with something I could only describe as pride. He caught me looking and gave me hand a quick squeeze.
“My loyal subjects,” my mother began. “I come to you today in hopes of gathering a better understanding of what is happening among Badalah’s communities that would have you traveling here. Please, speak one by one, so I may hear you and address each as best as possible.”
She spoke with such eloquence, yet there was an authority in her voice that could not be mistaken. She was the Sultana, ruler of Badalah, and one of the most powerful individuals throughout the land. This was the woman I knew as my mother, not the dazed woman who winked a
t Jamal over breakfast. The ebbs and flows of this strange magical condition were more heartbreaking than if I’d lost her for good. It was at times like this that I remembered exactly who she was and, at the same time, had the crushing fear that she’d drift back into what she was becoming.
“Your Royal Highness, Sultana Jawahir, we are starving. Your trade bans have made it impossible for us to do our jobs. If we can’t do our jobs, how do you expect us to buy the things we need?”
“Trade bans?” My mother asked.
My stomach lurched. She was not prepared for this. How could she be? She’d forgotten everything she’d put in place only last week.
“And the taxes are ridiculous,” someone else shouted. The crowd nodded and jeered.
My mother suddenly looked scared. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“Let me pass!” I shouted to Malik.
Jamal caught my arm. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t leave her up there. You can see what’s happening. They are going to storm the stage!”
He licked his lips. “You can’t go up. The people remember Jawahir. Half of them don’t remember you. You’ll only add to the confusion.”
“But...”
“What do you think is going to happen when you go up? They’ll wonder who you are. When you tell them you are the Sultana’s daughter, most won’t believe you. Do you trust me?”
He relaxed his grip on my arm and looked right into my eyes.
“Do you trust me, Gaia?” he repeated.
I nodded my head. Seconds later, he’d pushed past Malik and joined my mother on the stage.
“My name is Jamal. I’m an advisor to the Sultana. I know you are all hungry and scared. We are going through unprecedented times. The Sultana has been working tirelessly to get us through these past few weeks despite not feeling well herself.”
A white lie. My mother had barely done anything these past weeks, and the things she had done had caused this mess in the first place.
“The tax raise and the trade restrictions were a mistake,” Jamal continued. “I had proposed it for consideration for the future, but somehow the memo got leaked. It was never meant for public eyes. The tax raises, if they should happen, will only come when things are better in Badalah, and they will be nowhere near the amount on the memo. As for trade, the ban is lifted from immediate effect.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. He’d gone up there and lied to the people. And they were cheering him. He’d even said that taxes would be raised at some point. The man was a genius.
“He’s great at this, isn’t he?” Freya said, grabbing my arm.
I flicked my eyes to my mother to see how she was taking this. The blank stare I’d come to recognize was still on her face. Jamal took her hand in his, and she seemed to snap out of it.
“But we’re still hungry,” someone shouted. “We’ve not been able to sell our wares for two weeks.”
“I couldn’t collect a shipment from Draconis last week!” another said.
“My children are starving!” yet another said. “Our crops are failing.”
In a loud, determined voice, my mother stepped forward and spoke.
"I've heard enough. At my direction, the people of the palace will be setting up food banks for each of you to take what you need and bring it back to your homes to tide you over. In the meantime, you are all welcome into the palace where I’ll make sure food is laid out for all of you.”
I almost laughed. This is what we did all the time before the curse hit Kisbu. She’d just forgotten.
I felt hope that maybe she was starting to get better, starting to remember.
Back in the palace, we all set to work, organizing the kitchens, and getting everything ready for the people. My heart was full as I did what I loved best, helping the staff to prepare for one of the Palace Parties, as they were known.
Maybe, just maybe if my mother was beginning to remember, maybe my father would too, and this weird...whatever it was would go as quickly as it had come.
Jamal buttered slices of bread, tossing them to me with a grin, which I then filled with meat and passed to Freya to add salad.
It wasn’t the same without my father, nor without Genie, but it was a step in the right direction.
Genie! He used to love this. “I need to tell Genie,” I said, breaking off.
“Really?” Jamal said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be bothered with something as menial as this.”
“Actually, he always helped before. I think he should know what is happening.”
Jamal nodded curtly then kissed my cheek. “If you must.” He turned to Freya. “It looks like it’s just you and me on sandwich duty.”
My heart felt light as I skipped down the corridor to Genie’s room.
"Genie! There you are. I've got some good news." I enthused, opening the outer door. When I saw him, I stopped. Something was wrong. He was sitting, gazing out of the window in much the same way my father had done at the beginning of his illness.
My throat constricted. As my mother was getting better, was Genie getting worse?
He turned to me with a weird expression. His eyes were red and held a pained expression
"What's the matter?" I whispered.
Genie lifted his arms, and over his wrists were two bronze cuffs.
"Genie..." I whispered, rushing to his side. The veins in his strong hands looked as if they were about to pop. I reached for one of his hands and carefully touched the cuff.
"It's happening again," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the magic. The wish. It is all fading away.”
The reality of what he was saying hit me like a punch to the gut. He was a free man because of my father. My father had saved him from a life of slavery by using a wish to do so. A wish that belonged to my father, one of three.
“What does that mean?” I asked my voice barely more than a choked sob.
“I don’t know for sure, but these cuffs are the mark of a genie. If they are back, it must mean the lamp is back.”
“It can’t be! My father threw it out into the desert. It hasn’t been seen for over eighteen years.”
I remembered what Freya’s mother had told me when I’d first met her. She said it was unlikely that The Vizier was still in it. Maybe when he escaped, it paved the way for Genie to turn back to what he once was. It kind of made sense. My father’s other two wishes were also disappearing. He’d wished to be the sultan, and he’d wished for my mother to fall in love with him. Genie couldn’t produce love, so he’d produced a magical night with flowers and music and moonlight. My mother had fallen in love with my father all on her own. Now, my father was living on the streets, and my mother had forgotten he existed. His last wish of three was to free Genie.
He looked at me through watery eyes.
“Neither had these,” he replied sadly, holding his wrists up.
"No! I will not allow that. Do you hear me? I won't allow you to go back to being someone's slave. There must be something I can do. What about the wishes? If you are a genie again, you owe wishes, right? You gave my father three? Well, I wish..."
Genie stopped me with a finger to my lips. "Don’t do it.”
He held his hand out to mine. The coldness of the metal on his wrists grazed my fingertips.
“Owning wishes is not for people like you. Only the greedy covet the riches I can bring them. Even those who don’t start greedy turn that way when they find out what they can do. If you make the first wish, I will be bound to you for three wishes. I will become your slave.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “Finding out you are a genie again is one thing. Finding out that’s what you think of me is another entirely.” I looked directly at him. “Is that really what you think of me? That I’ll use the wishes for my own gain. Don’t you know me at all?”
“I’m sorry, Gaia. I barely know myself anymore. There are gaps in my memory. And there are things
I remember that I don’t even know if they really happened.”
I’d never seen him look so helpless. In fact, I’d never seen him look helpless at all before now. I leaned forward and touched my lips to his. He didn’t flinch or pull away. He closed his eyes as I pulled back.
“Do you remember that?” I whispered. “Do you remember me now?”
“Gaia,” he said his voice soft and warm.
“I will use my first wish to free you as my father did,” I said, holding his wrists and running my thumb over the metal. That’s all I want. I don’t care about anything else.”
His lips tightened, and I could see he was trying to hold his emotions back.
“What about your father? The curse spreading through our kingdom. You’ve talked about nothing but the strange magic for weeks. What about that?”
He remembered my father again. Just like with my mother, the magic came and went. “Can you cure it?”
“Even with these on my wrists, I don’t understand the magic. I feel it, but my wishes are not powerful enough to stop it.”
“You were the most powerful in all the kingdom.”
Genie dropped his head. “In the kingdom, yes. In most of the kingdoms, but there were others that were more powerful than me. The gods...”
“Gods? I don’t believe in gods.”
“Hmm.”
I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. All I could think about was the taste of his lips on mine, but I had to concentrate on more pressing matters. The kingdom was depending on me, even if they didn’t know it.
I thought of all the things I could ask for. For my father to be home, for him to remember me, for the people to have enough food. There were so many things that battled for prominence in my mind.
In the end, the solution was clear. The million things I could ask for I already had a couple of weeks ago. I wanted everything to go back to normal.
“Can you send me back in time? Maybe if I go back a few weeks, I can stop this. Then you won’t become a genie again.”