by Lucy Tempest
A sword whizzed above my head and I launched myself to the ground, the scimitar flying from my hand on impact. I reached a desperate hand for it and the ring on my finger flashed.
Could it function again, now I was desperate enough?
I had no time to wonder, no other option but to try.
Rolling away from a descending blow, I raised the ring to my lips, pressed my panicked whisper to the stone. “I wish those guards go away.”
They immediately stopped, turned and walked away, leaving their fallen comrades and weapons on the ground. Cyrus started to chase after them, before he realized what had happened. He ran back to me, but before he could pull me up another trio of guards rushed at us from a different direction.
I immediately wished for them to go away, too, but the stone had gone dark.
I’d made the wrong wish. I’d said “those” not “the.” Now it wasn’t responding again.
Cyrus didn’t wait for the guards to reach us, charged them with a frightening roar, knocked the sword out of one’s hand and kicking him in the face in the same movement, bringing him down like a broken barrel of mead. He blocked the two others’ attack by spinning, catching a descending blade with his first scimitar and bringing the butt of the second down on the back of the guard’s head, instantly knocking him out.
The remaining guard picked his blade up and charged. Cyrus dropped both his scimitars, making me clutch my face in mortified disbelief. Before the scream for him to pick up his weapons left my throat, he stepped aside in time to catch the man by his raised arm, kick his legs out from under him to flip him in the air in a wide arc and slam him to the ground, finishing up by kicking him in the head.
As soon as the guard stopped moving, Cyrus rounded up the weapons strewn about the alleyway, hung some on his belt and the others on his back then sprinted back to me.
He pulled me up, slamming me into his body, and the heat of battle radiating from him was almost enough to singe me.
He stuck his face down into mine and hissed, “Why didn’t you run?”
“I told you,” I choked. “I’ll never run. Not without you!”
It was only then I realized we had dozens of spectators. But no one was making any move against us. I doubted anyone would dare, after Cyrus’s awe-striking demonstration. I could also see recognition in many eyes. And in those eyes, I could see Cyrus changing from their distant and almost unknown Crown Prince to a folk hero.
Before he could berate me again, I reached up, replaced his hood over his head, then grabbed his hand and ran us out of the marketplace. No more guards intercepted us. For now. Still, guarding against another ambush, I took the long way home through the narrowest alleys.
Back when I’d thought we were the same thing, two thieves trapped in a palace, I’d thought we’d end up like this, running from the authorities, our loot in my bag and in his pockets, having nothing permanent but each other until we made it back to Ericura.
But our current situation could not to be romanticized. My luck seemed to have run out, and I’d nearly died, again, and he’d risked his life, again, to save me. Now we’d have a whole army hounding us, and an evil witch obsessed with Cyrus and his family, and a genie she could bring out anytime to spread even more devastation.
“How did you survive this long on stealing?” Cyrus asked when we finally slowed down.
For panicked seconds, I thought he meant the years I’d been living on my thieving. Then I realized he meant how I got by in the past two months.
“There were less guards,” I answered as I struggled to order my breathing. “They’ve multiplied the patrols since you escaped by the looks of it. They also weren’t this vigilant, or violent.”
As he digested this, I threw my head against his arm and sighed. It was amazing, that among all this bleakness and after such danger, I could feel serene, content, just being with him.
As we neared our hideaway, I asked, “I never asked how you learned to fight like that.”
“How did you?”
I huffed. “You call that fighting? I basically rolled around on the ground.” I poked my elbow affectionately in his side. “And I asked first.”
“Well, supposedly a future king must be well-versed in the art of combat, so he could lead an army into battle. No general or soldier would obey a man beneath him in skill and experience. I received extensive military training since the age of seven.” Another thing Nariman had been responsible for, according to Loujaïne. He suddenly exhaled heavily. “But it was Ayman who taught me the real lethal techniques, what no weapons-master could have imparted.”
My heart squeezed itself dry at his distress over his best friend. But we couldn’t afford for him to lose his morale now, so I sidestepped Ayman’s issue. “So, you could lead a coup against her?”
“Even if I found soldiers who aren’t under her thrall, what would a human army do against a witch that powerful?”
“What if you had other means of vanquishing her?” I knew only getting the lamp back would work, but I wanted to know how far he’d go to stop her.
His gaze darkened as it traveled to the palace. “As a prince, my duty would be to my people, to my kingdom. But as a man, I’d be—conflicted. I would never want to hurt her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s my mother!”
His anguished declaration boomed in my chest, making me stumble.
I clung to his arm, choking, “No, she isn’t.”
But even as the denial ripped from me, I remembered I’d already feared she was the only mother figure he had. I’d hoped his feelings for her wouldn’t withstand what she’d one. They not only had, but this was worse than my worst fears. A mother-figure was one thing, a literal mother was another. And that was what he considered her.
“She is the only mother I know,” he insisted, hectic color staining his paleness. “She handled everything that involved me since I was a baby, arranged every part of my education, took constant interest in my life and progression, cared about my interests and nurtured my talents. She knew me far better than my own preoccupied father did and championed my causes with him. Everything that I am right now, it’s because of her.” His grip tightened on my hand, as if he needed to convince me, to make me see it his way. “But most of all, she arranged the Bride Search that brought you to me. If nothing else, I owe her for you.”
If only he knew how she brought me to him.
But I couldn’t condemn her without condemning myself.
Yet his impassioned words quieted the flames of frustration to a flicker, a subdued light in a deep, uncharted darkness. At least I now understood his conflict. Nariman was a dictator who’d warped his kingdom, taken it hostage and turned Ayman to stone. But because he was noble and benevolent, that didn’t snuff out the good she’d done in twenty years of life.
“Do you think she considers you a son, too?”
“If she doesn’t, then why put so much effort and attention into my upbringing? Why offer to make me her heir? When my existence alone is a threat to her reign.”
Another explanation was that she needed him for legitimacy with the rest of the Folkshore. But by now I knew he wouldn’t suspect her of such an ulterior motive.
So I only pointed out, “Not when she has magic, you aren’t.”
“And thanks to my father and his father before him, I haven’t learned any magic so I could face her, or try to undo her curse, and your defective ring certainly can’t rival her staff. There’s no solution to any of this.” He stopped, frowned, as if an idea had hit him. “Unless…”
Something in his tone made me look up at him with bated breath. “Yes?”
“Unless I sneak back inside the palace and somehow separate her from her staff. Maybe if I break it, everything will go back to what it once was.”
I’d thought of doing that a million times in the past two months, only to get the lamp. But every plan I formulated fell through at the planning stage. The only way into the warded and
constantly guarded palace was through a tunnel, like the one Ayman had led Cora and I out of, what Cyrus had escaped through. But even if I’d made it all the way up the mountain without being caught or killed, I wouldn’t find it, as nothing looked recognizable anymore, not to me.
Even with all the changes, Cyrus knew the palace and tunnels like the back of his hand. If he managed to get us into the palace, he might be able to distract Nariman, while I separated her from the lamp. I’d have to let him think we’d be after the staff, but once I got the lamp, and reversed her curse, I’d tell him everything.
He nodded to himself as he faced me. “That’s exactly what I must do to save this land.”
I clung to his arm, a shiver of anxious excitement running through me. “Then we need to start planning.”
He blinked down in surprise. “You want to come with me?”
“Which part of I’m never letting you out of my sight didn’t you get? And then you said you needed your bride to be your partner, right?”
“But this is going to be extremely risky…” He stopped, no doubt realizing that argument would lead nowhere with me. Then slowly, that unfettered grin of his spread over his face, blinding me to the whole world, carving out his dimples and crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You’re a godsend, you know that?”
I almost winced at yet another undeserved compliment. But I would do anything to deserve it, and everything else he felt for me. If this worked, and Nariman’s curse was lifted, it would be the best time to confess everything. His rightful anger at what I’d done would be ameliorated by the fact that it had been undone.
At least I hoped so.
Chapter Seven
Cora snatched the satchel with its treasure of melted steaks the second I stepped through the door. I wondered if she’d smelled them from afar like a hound. I wouldn’t put it past her.
We’d managed to steal more bread and vegetables from a smaller market closer to home, but after inspecting our bounty she grumbled that if we’d taken her with us, she would have covered for me while I got spices, nuts and fruits, what my prince hadn’t thought of doing. And we wouldn’t have sustained those new injuries.
She also declared that she was done playing it my way and staying home while I went on my perilous errands. If I was attracting that much attention anyway, there was no point in her staying hidden. And in between our outings, since no one would employ her, she’d start a protection business.
Cyrus wiggled his eyebrows at me as he went to wash off his epic battle with the guards, and I collapsed laughing on my usual chair. The screaming tension of almost getting killed twice in one day made my laughter verge on hysteria. That, and Cora would make an excellent thug.
It actually made sense for the girl who’d killed a ghoul with her bare hands then had its head embalmed to sell her strength and intimidation to the highest bidder. If I didn’t fear that would bring yet more guards queuing on our tails, I would have blessed such an enterprise.
I hoped we could find another outlet for her. After leading such a strenuous, vital life running parts of her farmland, this inertia must be worse than prison to her.
A shout from Cora ordering Cherine to hurry up chopping onions pulled me out of my head. She was milking the situation for every opportunity to boss Cherine around the kitchen, teaching her how to cook. Surprisingly, Cherine followed all her orders, without complaint and with a level of efficiency I would have never expected. The whole time she worked she cast glances where Ayman’s stone form stood contorted in eternal silent rage.
As a talkative attention-seeker, Cherine had never been one to keep her thoughts to herself, so her lapses into silence were a bit concerning. And her dogged avoidance of me. It seemed being confined to her quarters in a palace reeking of dark magic, away from us, even thinking she’d lost us, had changed something profound in her. It was almost as if she was growing up.
The last time I’d seen her, I’d set up a meeting between her and Ayman. I’d wanted to give her the man she constantly dreamed about, show him that the object of his attraction liked him back, and also convince him to help me without telling Cyrus. Like all of my decisions and plans of late, it had ended in disaster. At the sight of him, Cherine, being the flighty, sheltered creature she’d been, had screamed ghoul and run off. It had broken Ayman’s heart.
He’d still helped me, which had further broken mine. Then this had happened to him. He’d been confined all his life in the white skin people believed a curse or the harbinger of doom. Now he was trapped in the ultimate prison. At least I hoped he was.
I also hoped that now I had Cyrus back, we might finally be able to restore him.
My gaze followed Cherine’s again. Was that—longing in her eyes? Regret? Was it possible after her first hysterical reaction she’d calmed down and realized Ayman was neither the ghoul of her nightmares nor the silver prince of her dreams, but a flesh and blood man who—unfortunately for him—liked her for exactly who she was? And that he was definitely human, and a guardian who’d paid this terrible price while trying to bring down the witch who’d turned all our lives inside out?
I guessed it didn’t matter what she thought now. Until I could get my hand on that lamp and Cyrus could destroy the snake staff, Ayman was going to remain a statue.
Though destroying her main power-source might damn him to an eternity of immobility. We must take that possibility into account. We had to find a way to force her to restore him before we made such an irreversible step.
Cyrus now hovered in the sitting area, lost in thought. Still in his hooded coat, he stood tall, hands clasped behind his back, a characteristic pose of his. Yet another thing I’d painfully missed about him.
My eyes filled with the poignancy of seeing him before me as thoughts of his upbringing swirled in my head. They spawned theories about his mannerisms, like this posture.
Was his usual stance a preference, giving him something to do with his hands? Or was it a dictated behavior that had now become a subconscious habit?
If it were the latter, it would explain why he was so eager to be affectionate with me, as he’d been restrained for so long. As someone who craved intimacy myself, I hoped he never stopped being so generous with his demonstrations.
Finally feeling steady enough, I got up to make myself useful. I still found it hard to believe Cyrus and Cherine were here, and we’d have a sit-down meal. It was nothing like the lavish ones we’d regularly had in the palace during the competition, with us in a half-ruined hole, with a miserably limited menu of stolen food. But this felt far more real, precious even.
After I set the table, I glided to him, pulled one of his hands from the other’s grasp to hug his arm and rest my head on his shoulder.
Resting his head on top of mine, he let out a contented sigh that made my stuttering heartbeat slow down to a easy flow, like the lazy waves of a calm sea.
“Figured out a plan yet?” I asked him.
“I have.”
My heartbeats spiked. “And?”
“We’ll go to the far end of the city to the foot of the mountain, where there’s a tunnel leading up to the palace—if it hasn’t vanished during the distortion. Inside one of the chambers, there’s a ceiling duct that leads to a tunnel into my father’s…” He paused, before continuing his voice dipping deeper, darker. “…Lady Rostam’s quarters.”
So he did know of a way into the king’s quarters. I’d been about to ask him to take me there to get the lamp the night the Final Five had been announced. Then he’d revealed he was the prince and my plans had crumbled. I could only hope Nariman hadn’t found and sealed it.
But he assumed Nariman would be occupying the king’s quarters. A logical assumption, but what if she wasn’t? Since there was no way to be certain of that, or anything else, we’d just have to cross bridges when we came to them.
Cyrus inhaled, as if to rouse himself from disturbing thoughts. “We’d time it so we arrive in the dead of night. The only time she’d be ap
art from her staff is when she’s asleep.”
“I doubt she’d be apart from it even then,” I said, assuming only the worst this time. She’d be keeping both staff and lamp at her fingertips wherever she went, at all times.
He nodded. “That’s where fine-tuning our plan comes. But working together, we’ll get this done.”
“Yes, we will.” I was nowhere as confident as I tried to sound, but negative thinking could be our worst enemy now. I clung to him tighter, stroking down his back. “Feeling better?”
“I do, thanks to you.” He turned his head and kissed my forehead lingeringly.
Nuzzling into his kiss, I couldn’t help the smile that conquered my apprehension. “Let’s eat first, then we plan.”
The sitdown meal, consisting of one dish of meat and vegetable stew, had been the best thing I’d ever eaten in my life. We’d discussed our plan as we’d wolfed down Cora’s and Cherine’s effort, and then again this morning over breakfast. It was now after a late lunch and we were ready to head out to execute…make that carry it out.
Cora was not pleased with the plan. Especially when it assigned her the task of “holding down the fort.”
“We need you here taking care of the others,” Cyrus told her again, sharpening his scimitars against one another. The hiss of blade upon blade only ratcheted my anxiety. “We won’t be long, anyway. We can’t. Apart from the time it will take to get there and back, we have to strike lightning fast to separate her from her staff. The elements of surprise and distraction are our main weapons against her.”
“If you think those are weapons, maybe you should tell me now what you want written on your tombstones.” Cora’s drawl dripped with sarcasm, her antagonism towards him unabated. She’d taken me aside a few minutes ago to ask if I’d told him about the lamp, and I’d begged her not to mention it. She’d said we were both daft and had gone to munch on a carrot. Now she looked Cyrus then me up and down and shook her head. “All you have is a malfunctioning wishing ring and wishful thinking and you’re going back into enemy territory to face off with a witch who could petrify you on sight like our dear ghoul over there? Good luck with that.”