Wishes, She Roars

by Angela Kulig

  He couldn't seem to decide what to do with his hands. He couldn't seem to close his mouth, either. Disbelief hung on him like a noose.

  I knew this would happen. I didn't know what I'd been thinking.

  Before I could work out what to do with Aladdin, a man stepped in front of me. One of the preening peacocks from this morning.

  It was Alasheed, the prince who had no care for his people. I sighed internally but schooled my face into a pleasant expression—for my grandfather.

  “Princess. “He bowed before me, wearing his stately uniform of gold and green with a scabbard hanging from his waist. I searched for Aladdin over his head while Alasheed wasn’t looking but didn’t see him. I quickly averted my gaze as he rose. “You look lovely this evening. I do hope you will save me a dance. I was promised at least another audience with you.”

  It felt as though he was attempting to peer into my soul with his deep green gaze. And not in a good way. Chill bumps skated across the surface of my skin. I needed to get away.

  “Is that so?” I rose a dark brow in question. “This is the first I’ve heard of it; however, I’ve only just arrived. But if I do decide to dance, I may,” I nearly choked on my next words, “save you a dance. If you’ll excuse me. I see my grandfather and need to speak to him. Enjoy the ball.”

  I skirted around him before he could stop me. That had been close. I glanced around the lovely room and spotted Abbas. He was safe. I would stand near his side until my grandfather was free to speak. As I began walking toward him, I was stopped yet again by another of the princes. This was not turning out how I’d planned when I first stepped foot into this room.

  I clasped my hands in front of me as Hanais smiled and grasped my elbow. I peered down at his hand, and then into his eyes with every bit of fire I felt building inside my gut. He was not allowed to touch me. Without taking my eyes off of him, I not-so-politely jerked my arm away and took a step back.

  “Princess, I wanted to ask you to dance.” He appeared a bit taken aback by my hardened expression, and I couldn’t begin to care. “I was hoping—”

  I refused to allow him to speak to me, even for my grandfather. “If you want to ask me to dance, you are to do so with words, not with your hands. Ever.” This man was despicable. Not only had he undressed me with his eyes earlier on, but he had the audacity to touch me. No.

  “But that is absurd. You are but a woman. You have no say in—”

  I felt my tiger growling inside me, waiting to be unleashed. “You, Prince, dare speak to me in such a manner? We are done here. You are dismissed and are never to speak to me again. Are we clear? I am the princess of this kingdom. You have no say here. Now leave.” My voice was every bit a growl, and it echoed throughout the ballroom.

  The soft music stopped, and all eyes turned toward me. I smiled and waved, picked up my dress, and brushed past Hanais without a backward glance.

  My grandfather smiled at me from across the room, and Abbas shook his head. Though, I could see him hiding a smile. I refused to be treated as chattel, and that prince had another thing coming if he thought for a moment he could speak to me or touch me in any way that suited him. My metaphorical claws would certainly come out.

  After I had effectively caused a scene, the music began playing once more, and couples strode to the dancefloor. However, I did hear their not-so-soft whispers about how I should have been raised with proper etiquette and manners. I was raised properly and with the best of instruction, perhaps not to their taste, not that I cared.

  I took a turn about the ballroom, greeting other guests and making small talk. I was determined to make the best of this night and find Aladdin if at all possible. It seemed as though he had disappeared. But I wouldn’t allow that to deter me. The night was still young, and I wanted to enjoy myself, enjoy the party Grandfather had planned just for me. When I thought of what he’d done for me, even the terrible princes couldn’t ruin my night.

  Well, perhaps I may have been wrong. This time, I did roll my eyes, and all sense of self-control I had left within me was nearly gone.

  Galifar.

  Could my luck have gotten any worse? This prince expected me to be all right with him taking other women as mistresses or even other wives. I honestly had no idea, and I didn’t care enough to allow him to elaborate further on the matter. He was a swine.

  I turned my back as I saw him swaggering toward me, bright smile and dressed in a manner fit for a king. His colors matched mine, and I felt I could vomit. He even wore a jewel-encrusted crown atop his head.

  He caught my wrist just as I was walking away, and this time, I did make quite a loud scene. “Do not touch me.” I yanked out of his tight grip. “No one is allowed to touch me, Prince, least of all, you.” I could feel the heat of my anger rising within me and coloring my face.

  He sneered. “Ah, but, Princess, you forget your place. You were promised to me by the Grand Vizier. We made a deal, and I shall become Sultan upon our marriage. I’m afraid you have no say in the matter.”

  He went to clutch my shoulder, and I punched him in the gut. “Oof.” Galifar doubled over before he righted himself.

  I stood firmly with my hands fisted at my sides. “What did you just say to me? The Grand Vizier promised me to you?”

  He was red-faced as he spoke. “Not only me, but one of the three who would wed you. I am the only suitable candidate, as you’ve dismissed the others.”

  I smiled evilly. “Well, then. Let me help you out with that. You are now dismissed as well, and you are never to show your face in my palace again.”

  He straightened. “Again, Princess, that is not up to you. A promise was made, and I have no intention of leaving until it is fulfilled.”

  Suddenly, the walls were closing in around me. The air was too thin. And all fight had left me in that moment. I needed to get some air, to think about what I was going to do. I needed to be anywhere but here in front of this… this… He was not a man, but a beast!

  "Excuse me," I said in a voice that wasn't my own, in a world that I suddenly understood all too well. I wasn't going to run, and I wasn’t going to shift in front of everyone. Although, that was absolutely one way I'd be able to turn off any would-be suitors. My eyes scanned the room for Abbas, but when I found him, he was talking to none other than Aladdin.

  Having no idea what to do or what to say, I pretended not to feel a room full of eyes on me as I left the party.

  Chapter 7

  “It could have been worse,” Imani said, as she plucked the pins from my head.

  I supposed my dress could have caught fire, and I could have fallen into the koi pond. I supposed Aladdin could have revealed that he’d caught me in the rain in the middle of the night and unescorted, at that.

  Small thuds and tiny plinks joined the faraway sound of thunder, as my long black hair was eventually freed.

  They’d be shutting the doors to the ballroom now, and the party would end with the smell of rain.

  It seemed we were in for another monsoon, but sometimes the howl of thunder and wind could be misleading.

  I'd forgotten all about the gold, but I'd been right—it had been for a nefarious purpose. It had been to find a warm-blooded prince for a husband. Preferably one with a dull mind. Easier for the Grand Vizier to manipulate, I had no doubt.

  "Imani." I pushed my fingers through my dark hair. "Draw me a bath."

  Imani dropped the pile of pins she had been collecting. "Another bath? You're really going to... oh." She nodded. "I see. You won't be taking it at all."

  Smart girl. I was confident Imani had hoped my love to shift and run would be reduced by the ability to see the city during the day, but doubted I'd ever want to give it up. The power of the shift was in my blood. It was part of who I was, amulet or no, I felt I'd been meant to have it all along.

  The storm at the end of the world was magic. Though it was dark, and night had fallen, I could see it all plainly, even without the almost constant lightning strikes. The
clouds were purple: the shade of ink in water. Not quite black, even though the night sky should be. It blotted out the stars just like ink, too. One by one, they winked out of existence as the storm grew closer to me, and I to it.

  I hadn't felt the shift tonight—it had been as effortless as the wind, and I ran.

  The sand was already wet and stuck to my haunches and paws, but I didn’t care. The smell of rain moved over the world, and I welcomed it. When eventually there was so much grit stuck to my tiger form, I shifted again. This time, into a great hawk, with wings powerful enough to fly through any storm, even this one, and it was so incredibly strange that it didn’t seem real. Even the air smelled off—different.

  I couldn't place it, but I was so unnerved by everything else, the feeling couldn't touch that knot deep inside me.

  One raindrop fell, and then another. I flew through, and when I was too wet to fly, I shifted into a sleek black horse. A horse that was made of nothing but the darkness of night.

  Abbas was standing at the edge of the courtyard, arms above his head, stretched up to meet the wrath of the angry sky—welcoming it even.

  It was such an odd sight, I slowed, still a black horse, on the last rise of sand before the temple.

  With his arms still raised, Abbas eyed me strangely. Lightning made the whites of his eyes glow like wicked starlight, but in a moment, it was gone.

  "Cyra?" He peered into the night, as if he wasn’t quite sure it was me.

  It was the first time I'd ever taken a form like this. I felt wild—alive.

  And I wondered if it was possible to always be like this, if I could just be a beast and not a girl at all.

  But I shifted back, because he'd have questions, and I'd be guilted into answering them.

  So, I pulled myself in, feeling every bit of the transformation as it knotted in and around my body, until I was back to being me.

  "Can you feel the power, Cyra?" Abbas’s arms fell to his sides, even as his knees looked as though they were about to give out.

  Racing on two feet, I moved to steady him. He appeared raged by the roar of the storm, and as wild as it was, but there was an edge to him that I hadn't recalled seeing before. But what had sharpened it?

  I wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "I can feel it."

  It was in the wind, it was in the rain and sky, and somehow, it was in me, too.

  We stood together at the end of the temple, wet enough to swim, staring into the storm for quite some time before Abbas spoke again.

  "Cyra, don't look so grim, because tonight your fortune changes."

  I hadn't asked what he meant; I wasn't even sure I wanted to know.

  I shifted again just to race the storm back, and I beat it to the palace as a muddy tiger. Up and over the wall I went, just as the storm struck. It was like it was the cat, and I the mouse.

  Imani was waiting for me just inside my room.

  "You'll have to take a cold bath, Cyra." She ushered me inside. "I had to draw your decoy, and it would raise too much suspicion to do another so soon."

  I shifted back, a wave of exhaustion with it unlike any I could recall.

  When I was young, and the shift had been a new thing, I thought I understood what tired meant. I was wrong.

  Imani nearly had to drag me to the bath, but as she half-dropped me into the frigid water, I was awake only a moment. It hadn't been the jolt I needed to stay awake. The bite of the cold water only kept me alert long enough not to drown, and as soon as the mud was gone, I was alone in bed, and in a dream just as wild as the storm.

  I was in the ballroom.

  The doors where tossed wide open, even as the storm raged.

  Aladdin was there, out in the woods on the other side of the far door, but they weren't the trees I was used to seeing from any of the many balconies. They were older, ancient, and made of magic like the storm. There was something unnerving about their presence.

  Aladdin was speaking to someone, not me, but then he turned to me and asked me a question: If I could have anything, what would it be?

  I told myself not to dream, not to wish for things that I could never have, but somehow, that had never stopped me from truly wishing.

  Yet, I couldn’t answer the question because there was too much.

  I wished for everything, because I could have nothing at all.

  When I rolled over the dream was gone, replaced by the dark of the night as it shook itself free of the monsoon.

  Chapter 8

  Morning dawned in white and gold, and the only sign of the storm was tree branches strewn about the courtyard. Regardless of how terrible other monsoon seasons had been, I couldn’t remember seeing any of those determined trees splintered off.

  It was sad in a way, but it made the world seem small.

  Imani had already pulled the curtains back, and she hummed lightly until she noticed I was awake and watching.

  "You had a bath last night, so I let you sleep in but..."

  I took a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm my nerves. "But our Sultan requires my presence at the morning meal," I repeated her words from yesterday.

  If I had been in a better place last night, I would have worried about him coming to find me after the disaster at the party. I wasn't certain if a bath would be enough of an excuse to keep Grandfather away while he was in a foul mood. He'd probably expect Mara to drag me out by my hair.

  Imani had selected my most girlish dress. It was such a pale rose pink, that in the early morning light, it hovered near white. It made me wonder if she knew something I didn't, but there was no use hiding from my fate in my chamber.

  When the knock came at my door again, I was only mildly surprised to see a guard wearing the red sash of the Grand Vizier. There had been more and more of them as of late, and they seemed to relish doing all manner of dirty work.

  Again, I was led down the hall, but this time, we weren't led into breakfast as I'd been yesterday. I hoped that meant the princes were well and truly gone. I wasn't certain how I'd behave if I had to see their faces again, but I knew Grandfather wouldn't like it.

  Honestly, neither would I.

  Instead I was escorted to my grandfather's office, and that was when I knew I was in for a scolding. I'd hoped that after yesterday... but I supposed being given some freedom wasn't an excuse to act like a heathen.

  My grandfather sat behind his ivory desk, staring at me as if he hadn't seen me in years, and was trying to rationalize the face of the little girl he knew with the one I wore now. As if they didn't quite match.

  The Grand Vizier loomed over his shoulder, his normal location for wrongdoing.

  I knew Grandfather was tired, and I knew that it was my fault, but I was so angry then, angry that my family let the evils of that man anywhere near our Kingdom.

  Anger bubbled extremely near the surface, but still my grandfather didn’t speak.

  It was as if they wanted me to speak first, although I didn't know what they wanted me to say. I never did.

  "Cyra." My grandfather said my name like a hollow half a breath.

  "You know why you're here, Princess," The Grand Vizier finished for him.

  Truthfully, I didn’t know why I was here. To be lectured about my treatment of foreign Princes I had no interest in? So, I said as much.

  "Suitors. You think this is about suitors?" And when the Vizier hissed like that, he seemed every bit of a snake than he usually was.

  "What else would it be about?" I wanted to pace the room, in this form or any other, but I doubted that would help my case. Instead I crossed my arms against my chest, creating a cage of my own. It, of course, brought me no comfort.

  "Your insolence is astounding, Princess." The Grand Vizier sneered and did my pacing for me.

  "It is still only your word against hers," my grandfather said.

  I unwrapped myself as shock shot through me like lightning struck at the clouds of a storm. Lighting me up, burning me out.

  "My word on what?" I too
k a step forward. "I have no idea what you're talking about!” Why keep the anger under my skin when it wanted so badly to rage and roar?

  "Don't you?” There was triumph in the Grand Vizier’s voice when he hadn't even revealed the game. "Were you or were you not in my office last night?"

  I'd revealed something in my face before I risked it with words. "How did you—" I began but thought better of it.

  "See, she's guilty!" His tone was strange, happy even.

  My grandfather only seemed distraught.

  "I went into your office to find out what you were up to, and you had an entire map of marriageable sons, and bribes you could offer them if they could only wed me." That part was true, and he needn’t know that I’d seen the bags of gold. That I'd seen the bribe long before I'd known what it was.

  "It's no secret that you've nearly run out of Kingdoms to seek a husband. What is a secret, however, is what you stole from me." His eyes seemed to be lit up by a strange and frightening inner light.

  "I didn't steal anything; you're making this up to draw attention to whatever you're scheming now!"

  My grandfather dropped a book on his desk, but the Vizier would not be stopped.

  "What I am scheming is none of your concern, girl." He smirked. "Give me back the lamp, and we will forget this happened. It's difficult enough to find suitors for a loud shrew such as you. It won't do any good if they know you're a thief, too."

  I swore I could hear my bones crack, and it took everything in me to rein in my shift, to keep my tiger from ripping out this bastard’s throat.

  "You think I took a lamp from you? Who cares about a lamp? I didn't take a thing from your office, except the knowledge of what a scheming rat you were, but I already knew that!"

  Before I could blink, the Grand Vizier had his hands wrapped around my throat.

  My grandfather was shouting for guards who wouldn’t come, because they had been replaced with the Vizier's own men instead. Just in case this exact situation occurred, no doubt.