Queen of Cahraman: A Retelling of Aladdin (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 3)

by Lucy Tempest

  As Cyrus patiently argued that our plan wasn’t as moronic as she made it sound, Cherine suddenly scurried towards me and dragged me behind her with the determination of a guide dog. Surprised that she wasn’t ignoring me anymore, I let her steer me to the sitting area.

  The moment I reached our lone couch she rounded on me and hissed, “How could you have done this to me?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  Cherine flung her hand towards Ayman. “You didn’t tell me this man was Cyaxares’s personal guard before you sprung him on me.”

  Irritation flared to clash with hers. “Last I remember this man was the ‘ghoul’ who had you bolting and locking yourself in your room.”

  She narrowed hazel eyes at me, their color intensified by the new dark circles beneath them. Weeks of captivity could have softened or broken anyone, especially small, shallow girls like her, but if anything she seemed firmer, angrier. Now that anger was directed at me.

  “You let me believe he was the fair, foreign man I’d been searching for!” I’d done no such thing. She’d reached her own conclusions and assumed they were facts. But there was no use arguing the point. “Then you brought him to me, with no explanation, in a darkened hallway, I might add. What I saw the second he removed that helmet was no different from the waking nightmare that had hovered over my bed since our first night in the palace!”

  “If I’d brought him to you in broad daylight you would have reacted the same way.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have!” she stomped, arms rigid at her sides, fists clenched. “Not if you explained everything to me first, told me who he was, what he’s been doing in our room, what he looked like, or how you knew him. If I’d been prepared, I wouldn’t have been so scared of him.”

  “Cherine, you saw what actual ghouls look like, courtesy of that head Cora had embalmed in her room!” My exasperation rose. I couldn’t afford to embark on this life-or-death mission with a head full of her now-irrelevant didn’t-did toos. It made me feel as sullen and petty as she’d once been as I said defensively, “And why would I prepare you for a surprise?”

  Another stomp. “That wasn’t a surprise, that was an ambush. You knew I was scared of him.”

  I really didn’t need to be reminded I had botched up their meeting in my anxiety and rush, that because of my thoughtlessness, he’d been petrified thinking he’d never have a chance at happiness with the girl of his affections.

  My shoulders sagged, weighed down with more guilt than I could handle right now. “I didn’t mean to scare you, wasn’t playing a cruel trick on you. You have to know I wasn’t.”

  Her small, upturned features softened, the redness of full-bodied fury fading from her freckled face as she rolled her shoulder sheepishly. “I-I knew that—eventually. Once that witch took over, and I was confined to my quarters, I had nothing to do but think of everything we’d been through since the Bride Search began. I discovered that I know almost nothing about you, that you never told me one shred of fact about who you are or where you come from, but I still knew one thing. That you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met, and that was before you risked your life to save me. I knew you’d never be cruel to me. Even now you will never marry my brother, you’re the sister I always wished to have.”

  Warmth tinged with sadness spread through me as I reached out for her. She flew into my arms, gripping me tight, sobbing in my chest. “I felt so lost without you, Ada!”

  I hugged her harder. “You’re with us again, Cherine. We’ll keep you safe.”

  It was a promise I had no idea if I could keep. But I was going to do everything to make it come true.

  She sniffled loudly as she looked up at me, nodding, trust open on her face.

  Then she winced as she looked back at Ayman, hiccupped. “I also realized he was just a man, one who admired me. And I screamed in his face. Now I can’t tell him I’m sorry.”

  I attempted a smile that came out a grimace. “Maybe he can hear you.”

  Her eyes flew open to full circles. “You think he can?”

  I had no idea. But it would only help her if she thought so. And if he could hear her, it would help him, too. “I think so, yes. I hope so. So why don’t you tell him whatever you wish?”

  She nodded vigorously, looking back at him with wide-eyed wonder. “He was the silver knight I thought him to be, right? He was brave and this is why he’s like that now?”

  “He’s that and more, Cherine. He’s the most loyal, selfless person I know. He tried to stop the witch, even knowing how powerful she is.”

  She pulled back slightly, fearful hope entering her eyes. “Is there a way to turn him back?”

  “Cyrus thinks the staff she used to petrify him might revert his state.”

  “Cora once told me of a woman with snakes for hair whose gaze turned men to stone,” Cherine said, her earnestness, coming from her, unnerving. “She was defeated by a hero on a winged horse.”

  “Did the hero save the snake-woman’s victims?” I asked.

  Cherine shook her head.

  That was exactly what I dreaded. That even if we vanquished Nariman, it would do nothing to help Ayman, and Cahraman would remain distorted and decaying forever.

  I had no business making promises, but I couldn’t stand the forlorn look on her face.

  I hugged her tighter. “We’ll save him, Cherine.”

  Cherine nodded, stepping out of my arms. “Tell me about him.”

  “His name is Ayman and he’s from Almaskham. He’s Cyrus’s best friend and guardian, and together they’re unstoppable and saved us from the ghouls in the mountain. He hates the sun because it burns his skin and eyes, but he still came on the train ride to the marketplace with us, so he can be near you. He doesn’t talk much, but likes to listen, and said he knew a simurgh.” I choked up as I listed off some of the things I knew about him. I knew way more. Like stories from his and Cyrus’s boyhood. And how his family had thrown him in the desert to die.

  Eyes softening, their dark depths gleaming with unshed tears, Cherine rushed to Ayman, rose up on tiptoes and began taking the laundry off him.

  “It’s still wet.”

  “I know that!” she snapped, wiggling with offense. “It shouldn’t be on him in the first place. It took till now for it to sink in, since I couldn’t credit that you two have been disrespecting him like this. He’s a guardian, not a clothes’ rack!”

  “The only thing he can guard now is a cornfield,” Cora called out from the kitchen.

  I rushed to explain, to mitigate Cherine’s fury and my guilt. “We tried to line our clothes outside, and what the sandstorms didn’t blow away came in dirtier and harder to clean than before. We laid them flat on surfaces or hung them on furniture, but there seems to be a rot running through everything now, and the clothes remained wet and reeked of mildew. Then one day Cora hung her dress on him and it dried perfectly.”

  “Still no reason to insult a noble warrior like that,” Cherine huffed as she gathered the laundry and marched off, no doubt to put my story to the test.

  Cyrus walked from the kitchen, stony-faced as he headed to Loujaïne’s room.

  Cherine whipped around to wag her finger at him as he passed her. “You’re telling me all about him when you get back, you hear! And you won’t leave anything out!”

  His response carried back as he pushed open the door to Loujaïne’s self-imposed exile. “If everything goes well, he’ll tell you himself.”

  In a minute, a volley of clipped and heated tones rose until it was broken by a cracking sob that plucked at my heartstrings.

  Cyrus emerged with his aunt clutching his arm, not to lean on him, but to hold him back.

  This woman inspired a bonfire’s worth of fury within me, but the sight of her, messy-haired, red-eyed and wet-faced, with wrenching gasps punctuating her sobs felt like a splash of ice-cold water. Smoke trails of irritation were what remained of my anger as curiosity and concern collided together. And that was before I made out wha
t she was saying over and over.

  Loujaïne’s half-coherent cries were, “I won’t let you risk yourself!”

  There was no way this was an act. And if this was real, then this woman did have a heart. Just like Nariman sometimes seemed to have one. It was even worse that Cyrus appeared to be the object of both their affection. For how could I truly hate anyone who loved him?

  Loujaïne weeping rose, an awful sound of dread. “He risked everything to save me, fearing what she intended for me. He shouldn’t have. Now that I’m beyond her reach, she’ll take it out on our staff, our guests, your father—on him—she might kill him!” A harsh hiccup seemed to tear through her. “I—I don’t deserve his sacrifice—never deserved him…”

  Any other time, I would have blurted out, “You sure don’t.” But now, with this evidence of her fear for Cyrus and Farouk, and even the others in Nariman’s clutches…

  Why didn’t villains remain cut and dried and black? Why did they have to confound me with all those shades of grey, what we were all made of?

  Cyrus stopped by Ayman and took her by the shoulders. Lips trembling, silver eyes drowning in unending tears, her face was wide open for me to read, feelings rushing across it like the windblown pages of a book, fear, grief, and shame and a dozen other distressing emotions.

  My words must have sunk in, that she was no one’s princess anymore. Loujaïne Shamash had plummeted from a princess to a commoner, even less, someone helpless and worthless and pathetic. And she finally knew what that felt like.

  It was much like Fairuza’s breakdown, what had been fueled by hopelessness for her own limited lifespan. But this wasn’t a woman who’d just lost hope. She’d lost it all, believed she’d caused the loss, and was becoming acquainted with the searing agony of humility and guilt for the first time.

  As she stood with Cyrus whispering to her, trying to soothe her, I saw her and Ayman for the first time in the same frame, and the resemblance between them became unmistakable. They had the same high cheekbones, wide forehead and short earlobes. Their differences were either by virtue of him being a man or they were features inherited from his father.

  But this comparison dragged my mind to another one, and to a cascade of realizations.

  My mother had told me she’d come from the North in Ericura, where she’d met Bonnie’s mother, Belaina Fairborn, when they’d both been pregnant. I’d thought she’d married someone from there, but he’d died, or his family hadn’t approved of her, and that was why she’d traveled South, where we’d lived until she died.

  Then I’d come here and pieced together that she’d been from Almaskham. I’d then understood why, out of anyone I’d ever met, those who resembled me most were Nariman and Ayman, both with Almaskhami blood.

  But if my mother had traveled to the North of Ericura through a portal like Nariman, then she could have been pregnant with me when she’d fled Almaskham. And now I knew Loujaïne hated my mother, not just for being a witch, but for taking her place with Prince Azal, according to the timeline I could fathom from her story, there was one most probable conclusion—that Azal was my father!

  And if he was, and Ayman was his son from Loujaïne then…

  Ayman was my brother!

  My chest caved in under the possibility, until it felt like a breath would rip the skin and bone and expose my clenching heart to the burning air. Everything else slotted in place like a butcher’s cleaver, over and over, until my whole life was a minced mess.

  I didn’t know what kept me on my feet when all I wanted was to sink to the floor, grab Ayman’s legs and weep, for days, years.

  I could be wrong—but I just knew I wasn’t. There were too many interconnecting facts that led to this conclusion. And then there’d always been this—affinity I’d felt towards Ayman from the first time I’d gotten a good look at him, when I’d found him amazing to look at, more than human instead of less. There had also been the way he, who talked to no one but Cyrus, not only found it easy to talk to me, but to confide in me. Then there’d been the way he’d defended me, trusted me, helped me…

  The possibility solidified into a certainty from one heartbeat to the next.

  Ayman was my brother.

  The knowledge was life-altering—to have a sibling of my blood, and to know it when he might already be lost to me.

  The one thing this knowledge didn’t change was the necessity of restoring him. I would have given anything to restore him as my friend, now I’d do the same for him as my brother.

  Another loud sob jerked me out of the stupor I’d fallen into, dragged my glazed eyes back to Loujaïne.

  Now I knew whose daughter I was, it was no wonder she’d taken an instant dislike to me. I’d reminded her of the two people she hated most in the world. And the more she’d watched me, the more the resemblances disturbed her. Had she also reached my same conclusions, or did my Ada of Rose Isle persona still throw her off the truth?

  “We have to go,” Cyrus said, gently trying to remove her clawing hand from his arm.

  She only clung harder to him, wailed, “I can’t lose you, too…please!”

  Cyrus awkwardly gathered her to his chest, kissed the top of her head. “You won’t lose me. Or him.”

  He then disentangled from her, strode towards me, put a hand on my back, his eyes uncertain yet determined. Feeling like I’d been whacked over the head with a hammer, I let him steer me to the door.

  As he opened it, I turned to the others, found Cora glowering her displeasure at being left behind again, and Cherine fussing over Ayman, drying and polishing.

  Before it swung shut behind us, I caught a glimpse of Loujaïne’s tear-flooded face as she looked up at him.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time we approached the marketplace, violet twilight was attacking the orange swathes of sundown as temple towers rang their bells for curfew. Shopkeepers rushed to slam iron shutters on their goods, and people scattered to hide in their dwellings like packs of dogs escaping a posse of catchers. The only ones unbothered by the clanging bells were the patrolmen, predators marching through the streets with feral eyes and pent-up violence.

  My insides wobbled as they passed the alley we hid in. I pressed deeper into the shadow and against Cyrus, whispered, “They’ve doubled the guards per patrol, and tripled the weapons. That must be on your account.”

  “It might only be the compulsion intensifying their vigilance. They must think any escapee would be halfway to Gül by now.”

  “But you’re not any escapee.”

  “They probably think I’m a spoiled royal who’d only think of my safety and flee as far away from Sunstone as possible.”

  “Lady Rostam wouldn’t think that of you. And after the trouncing you gave them, neither would they.” His answer was a noncommittal sound. So I added, “Speaking of Gül, have you heard what the other cities in Cahraman are like? What about Zhadugar?” The wrinkled, red-eyed face of Marzeya—the Matriarch of the witch city flashed across my mind, making me shudder. “Why haven’t the witches there tried to overthrow her?”

  I felt him shrug, heard it in his voice. “I assume they enjoy the idea of having a witch as queen. As you remember they’re not on the best of terms with my family.”

  I turned to face him. “But maybe we should go to Zhadugar instead, to negotiate with Marzeya?” I was growing desperate for alternative solutions that didn’t include facing Nariman. “She’s ancient, and if there’s anyone stronger than Lady Rostam in the Folkshore, it’s her.”

  Cyrus scowled at the memory of the witch. “Did you forget what happened the last time you tried negotiating with her?”

  As if I could ever forget the ordeal Marzeya had put Fairuza and I through. She’d flung us through a portal and we’d ended up trapped in a cave under Mount Alborz with a horde of ravenous ghouls. We’d almost been eaten, then I’d almost drowned retrieving Queen Zafira’s necklace, what Marzeya had demanded I find in return for freeing us. I shuddered again.

  Bu
t dealing with her sounded good to me now, especially since she could overpower Nariman. “I actually did succeed in negotiating with her. What happened was due to Fairuza’s unrelenting provocation. Maybe—”

  He shot down my attempt. “No maybes. Zhadugar is too far and the land between us too treacherous. Without the trains, if we go by carriage alone we’d die in the wastelands. Even if we didn’t, it would take long enough for my aunt and the ladies to starve—or for Miss Greenshoot to start a war. Anyway, I heard Lady Rostam has not only left Zhadugar and its matriarch alone, she offered them whatever privileges they desire, so they have no reason to attack her.”

  I stared at him, the loss of our only shot at ending this without some massive price making me slump inside and out.

  He stroked my shoulder, gaze heavy with apology, before he turned his focus to the activity on the street.

  The second the patrolmen were out of sight, Cyrus gripped my hand and pulled me out behind him.

  We wove through alleyways so fast I barely caught glimpses of the warped buildings, their lit windows blurring past, all sound muted by the chafing of my panting and the drum of my feet in my ears. We had to stop many times along the way for me to catch my breath. I felt like a weakling compared to him, but then no one should be able to run for miles at this pace!

  Almost falling flat on my face forced our latest stop.

  “Careful.” Cyrus caught me at the last second. He was only panting as he steadied me on burning legs when I was suffocating. “Any accidents can wait. Preferably forever.”

  Feeling as if my lungs were filled with glass shards, I bent over, wheezing. “Sorry…I’m nowhere…as fit…as you.”

  “You’re joking, right? You’re amazingly fit, especially after two months of barely eating. It always amazed me how strong and capable you are, when fitness and stamina are never a part of a noble lady’s upbringing.”