by Lucy Tempest
Cyrus put his spoon down, frowning. “Your opinion will be more valid if you hear the whole thing first. I know you’re not that worried about your family…”
Cherine banged her own spoon on the table. “How dare you think that?”
Cyrus pursed his lips. “I dare because you constantly talked about getting away from them in your correspondences.”
“That was before the possibility of never seeing them again became too real!” Her shrill yell made me flinch and almost choke on my food. “And because your plan, whatever it is, will not work, like it didn’t last time. Nothing short of a miracle will defeat of that witch. And that fat eagle cat that keeps circling outside and that pretty carpet not to mention that creepy old man are not miracles.”
Cyrus sighed. “Unless the Great Mother of a Thousand Young herself wakes from the earth and raises an army of giants for me to command, they are all we have.”
Cherine squinted a glare at him and resumed eating.
Feeling too drained to interfere, I continued to eat, too, my stomach only growing louder, biting me harder. During our ordeal, I’d been too stressed to be hungry, now it was making up for it with a vengeance.
But at least I didn’t feel I would drop dead at any moment anymore. Or that I needed to sleep a few months myself. I’d asked Esfandiar to lift our exhaustion and heal our widespread bruises and lacerations. It was one of the ways his magic worked, easing difficulties.
But there was nothing he could do about our emotional and mental fatigue.
Cora didn’t seem to suffer from any anymore, now she had enough to eat. She’d been eating nonstop since we sat down, now paused her chewing only to point at Cyrus and spin her finger near her temple. She wasn’t a big fan of his, like Esfandiar, who seemed to consider no one good enough for his Mistress, not even Zafira’s blood.
Ayman suddenly spoke up, “Why would Lady Rostam take all the men now?” Cyrus explained his theories, and Ayman persisted. “Yes, but why now? Why not in the first weeks during the massive resistance to her rule?”
On cue, Cherine, Loujaïne and Cora turned their faces away from Ayman and Cyrus and busied themselves with the most inane things.
This had suspicion squirming within me. “There’s something you left out, isn’t there?”
Cherine pretended not to hear me. Loujaïne dropped her head over folded arms on the table. Cora faced us, cheeks full, wincing.
“Well?” I pressed, gripping the edge of the table.
Cora swallowed her mouthful. “A few days ago, the city organized an ultimatum to Nariman, claiming no one would accept her as queen while the king still lived.”
The food I’d just eaten tried to make its way back out. Didn’t these people know you didn’t give a witch an ultimatum? Especially one who’d turned your whole kingdom inside out?
Though foolish and misguided, it had been a brave move. I guessed the people hadn’t surrendered to the new status quo like I’d thought. And they’d paid for their resistance.
Cora continued. “The city’s high priests joined in the movement, sent envoys insisting that everyone was ready to accept the changes to the kingdom, but to accept her, she had to marry the king, become his queen consort, and step aside to let him rule again.”
“And?” I hurried her.
Cora toyed with her ladle, looking everywhere but at Cyrus. “Next day she issued a response claiming that the king won’t marry her, and since she can’t rule with him alive, she is going to have him publicly executed by the end of the week.”
Cyrus remained unmoving, vacant eyes fixed on Cora.
She continued in a rush, “With Cyrus presumed dead, Loujaïne and Cherine missing, Fairuza and her siblings and mother considered foreign royalty, and Cherine’s father and brother prisoners she could execute at any time, there would be no one left of the royal bloodline to contest her rule.”
Cyrus only lowered his eyes, seemed to get lost in thought.
That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I expected him to become livid, demand more information and that we attack immediately. I at least expected him to chew them out for keeping such crucial news from him for half a day. But he didn’t. He just sat there, expressionless, and that worried me far more than any heated outburst could have.
I reached across the table, carefully touching his hand. He didn’t look at me.
The silence dragged on, only interrupted by breathing sounds.
I could only imagine what Cyrus was feeling. His worst fears were coming true. The woman he considered his mother was going to execute his father.
When he finally moved, everyone jerked back, anticipating the worst.
He only turned to Cora, unnaturally calm. “When will the execution take place?”
“Erm, in three days,” said Cora. “On the seventh day at noon.”
He nodded, pushing off the table, slipping his hand from underneath mine. “Now, the plan.” I could feel everyone bating their breath like me. But he only said, “There is no plan.”
“Cyrus…?” I whispered, deeply concerned and confused.
He continued smoothly, “Lady Rostam is doing all this because we all thwarted, rejected or betrayed her. And now there’s nothing that could stop her….”
I had to interrupt him. “The plan you put together would.”
He interrupted me back, in the same calm finality. “…not without the possibility of even more massive damages and losses. I owe it to my people not to make them pay an even worse price if I fail again.”
I threw my hands in the air. “What could be worse than this?”
“As I told you, there’s always worse. I predict far worse from this new Lady Rostam. But while there is no plan to stop her, there is a solution to all this.”
Trapped air expanded my lungs, dreading his next words.
“I’ll turn myself in to her.”
I exploded to my feet. “You’ll do no such thing! I thought we agreed on that!”
He looked at me in such neutrality it felt as if he was retreating, cutting our ties in preparation for leaving me forever. “Things changed. It’s the only option.”
“It’s not!” I only felt him withdrawing further into his decision. “But things did change, so how do you know she still wants you? That she won’t execute you, too? Till a minute ago, I was certain she’d never really hurt your father. Now she’ll execute him. This means if anyone, even you, threatens her reign, she has no qualms about chopping their heads off!”
He shook his head, eyes downcast. “I’m the only one she won’t hurt.”
Desperation bubbled in my gut as I felt his resolve hardening. “Even if she doesn’t physically hurt you, what about every other way? What if she puts a chain around your neck for the rest of your life?”
“I choose to do this. It will keep the rest of you safe.” I opened my mouth, another tirade ready to spill out, but he raised a hand. “Once I have her trust, I’ll find a way to smuggle you out of Cahraman and back to your lands.”
“And what?” I cried out. “We’re supposed to go lead our lives and forget about you?”
“It’s the only way.”
“It’s not. Not while I have breath left in me.” Ayman rose, towering and daunting, a man who’d pledged his life to guarding his prince. “You will never face that witch or anything else alone.”
A spark of emotion flickered in Cyrus’s eyes as he turned to the lifelong friend he’d almost lost. “I won’t face her. She wants my compliance, so I will give it to her. She wants me to be her heir, so I will be. Once I am, it will give her the legitimacy of the House Shamash and the people will accept her and the compromise. She will have no reason to kill my father then. Or keep any of you here.”
“So you will let her win?” I gritted.
He shrugged. “She’s already won.”
I wanted to scream but frustration muted me, tore me apart. He knew she’d probably compel him like she’d started to do when she’d caught us in the pala
ce, that she’d make him her thrall. He couldn’t just surrender like that…
It hit me so hard that Cora had to catch me before I fell.
He was going to bide his time, not only to free us, but also to bring her down.
My voice shook as I forced him to face me. “You can’t accept the risk or losses of an attack from outside, or that it might not be in time to save your father, so you’re going to play the long game, going to try to beat her from within, aren’t you? When she decided to execute her father, you became certain there is no better way, didn’t you?”
The flash of frustration with me for understanding him too well, mixed with love and regret. But he said nothing, started to turn away.
I pounced on him. “I’m never leaving you again, Cyrus, do you hear me? Never. Wherever you go, I go, no matter the consequences.”
My mother stood up. “I go with Adelaide wherever her heart leads her. And you’re her heart. So I’m with you, till the end.”
Ayman moved to stand in line beside her. “Same here. You’re not taking one more step without me.” He stopped, huffed. “I mean, until this is over, not in general.”
Loujaïne rose to unsteady feet. “You’re going nowhere without me, either. I will not sit here and cower again while you surrender your freedom and maybe even your life. All the time I hated Nariman and blamed her for never being able to come closer to you, or to Darius, only one thing stopped me from wishing for her life to end, and that was my belief that she did love you, and also Darius. But if she can sacrifice Darirus for power, then this is my fight, too.”
“It’s mine, too!” Cherine squeaked as she jumped to her feet. “She has my family, and she petrified Ayman. If you hadn’t come back from her banishment with a maybe-jann, he would have remained this way forever. And this I will never forgive!”
Cora joined our line before Cyrus, as intimidating as Ayman. “You bet it’s my fight, too! Apart from going wherever Ada and Cherine go, this witch has kept me from going home. And she’s made me starve for months!”
Cyrus stood staring at the solid line of resistance we formed before him, conflict storming over his beloved face.
He still shook his head. “My plan is risky, and it might fail, and…”
“I know and I don’t care. Risk and failure can happen either way, but I will accept them if I go down fighting. With you.” Before he could object, I added, “And then it might succeed. It will get us near her again, and with all of us together, we have a chance of bringing her down. Anything is better than surrendering. Or surrendering you. Anything.”
Everyone corroborated my sentiments, my fire catching in their eyes and voices.
Cyrus looked at his wits’ end as he rumbled, “You’re all crazy, and you have no idea what you’re letting yourselves in for.”
Our voices rose again in a collective of determination and Cyrus closed his eyes as if with pain.
When he opened them, they were full of too many emotions for my heart to handle. I loved him so much it was agony and ecstasy wrapped in one.
He finally exhaled. “Fine. We do this together.”
I jumped up and hugged him, then whispered against his cheek, “Together.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
As an option, the simurgh was out.
We’d first asked her if we could wish for everyone’s release, using my remaining feather. She’d said she’d give us a dozen more to burn if that was possible. Her miracles only involved saving people from accidental trouble and natural calamities.
So we’d proceeded to Cyrus’s plan, but adjusted it so it would include everyone.
Ayman would take everyone but Cyrus and I on Carpet to a hidden tunnel outside the palace. He’d direct Cora and Cherine to the quarters where Cherine’s mother was. They would take her and round up the rest of the family and the hostages, lead them back to the tunnels where Carpet would smuggle them out of Sunstone.
Ayman would take Loujaïne through another route to the staff quarters, before going to the dungeons. He’d release everyone so they’d swarm out to overwhelm the guards. If he found the king, he’d lead him to the others so he could escape with the rest.
Loujaïne would instruct the heads of departments to lead their underlings in a rebellion, creating the diversion we needed. If Master Farouk still lived, he would take control of the situation for her.
My mother had prepared charmed objects to undo locks and distract guards for everyone. Once there, she’d go with whomever they judged needed her magical assistance most. Esfandiar would transport between them all, “easing” the difficulties they met. Cora and Ayman would deal with anyone magic didn’t or couldn’t.
Cyrus and I would arrive last on the simurgh. The spectacle alone should capture anyone’s full attention, hopefully Nariman’s, distracting her from everyone else.
My mother had wanted to go with us. She’d never been Nariman match, even when she’d had one-hundredth of her current powers, but she’d thought the very sight of her, the old friend she believed dead, would give Nariman pause.
We’d opted for her helping the others, who needed her more. I also couldn’t worry about her while we faced Nariman.
Cyrus remained our greatest distraction. So his role remained the same. My role was to buy him the precious seconds he needed to separate her from the lamp. My advantage this time was the element of surprise of commanding both sides of Esfandiar.
It was a sound plan. For all intents and purposes, this was a heist. We were going in, each team in a direction, to provide distractions, escapes and divide the attention of our target long enough to free her hostages and rob her of her weapons.
Yes, it was unpredictable, depended on so many variables, and I’d gone from worrying about my own actions and fate to those of six others. But this time, we were all in on the plan. And we had magic.
The stakes were also immeasurable. We could get caught and be at the non-existent mercy of a Nariman whose instability had escalated from wanting to marry Darius, to wanting to punish him, to deciding to execute him.
But we’d all agreed our only certainty if we didn’t act now was a life of abject squalor, with the king dead, and who knew whom else after him.
So act we would.
Everyone was getting ready to set off before dawn’s first rays touched Sunstone. I didn’t intend to say goodbye. I couldn’t risk the fates listening and misinterpreting my words.
It would take them an hour to reach the palace by Carpet, then another through the tunnels before they began their phase of the plan. We would time our arrival at the same time.
I approached my mother, who was warming up her magic spells after prolonged disuse with the stone remains of Ayman’s curse. Sparks burst between her fingers, fizzling out faster than they appeared. Undeterred, she persisted in her attempts.
Finally, a ball of pale blue light hit the shards and reassembled them into a shield.
She sighed and cracked her knuckles. “Feels good after years of using magic only to fix household items.”
“You did magic around the house? When?”
She looked up at me with an apologetic smile. “Usually, when you were sleeping, sometimes during schooling hours. I used it a lot when you were a baby, to cook mostly. But once you grew old enough to remember things, I had to be more careful.”
“I wish you taught me something, anything. You didn’t have to tell me the whole story, just that you were from some coven in the North and I would have believed you.”
She reached up and gently stroked my hair. “I wanted to, I really did. But I knew if I answered one question, you’d want the rest and I wouldn’t keep my lies straight. I thought it best not to say anything and hope you’d have a normal life.”
“Look how well that turned out.” Her face scrunched in agitation and I waved. “I’m just on edge—naturally. I just wish I learned magic so I could defend myself and others, or fight off mind control—or anything, really.” A beat. Then I asked, “Can I d
o magic?”
“You could if you learned, but that would take years.”
“Why? Shouldn’t I be a witch as well?”
“You probably have latent power, and that was why you could control the ring,” she admitted. “But like any talent you still need to work for it. Very few are born with great power, and those are typically descended from a great witch like Lady Marzeya—like Nariman is. But even she had to grow her powers over decades.”
I shuddered at the memory of Marzeya’s red eyes. She’d claimed that after dealing with her, anything else would be easy in comparison. But things hadn’t become easier, I just recovered faster now. In a way, that might be considered the same thing and…
“Wait, what? Nariman is descended from Marzeya?” At my mother’s nod, I slapped my forehead. “That’s another reason why no witch would stand against her.”
Shoulders slumping, I again remembered the last sentence in Marzeya’s predictions.
Only through appeasing your foe will you know peace.”
How and why would I appease Nariman and how would that bring me peace?
I only needed to disarm her, and undo her damage. And I wanted to do that with all of us alive and free. Cyrus may have been ready to sacrifice himself for her defeat, but I was not.
I couldn’t stop the admission that trembled on my lips. “Mama, I’m scared.”
She cupped my face. “I know I should say it will all be fine, but I can’t promise you that.” I whimpered, pressed my cheeks harder into her hands. “What I can promise you is that we’ll all do our best.”
Cora entered the room, dressed like a patrolman, scimitars hanging from her sash belt and daggers in her leather boots. Her eyes lit up when she saw the shield. “Tell me this is for me!”
My mother grinned at her enthusiasm. “Please, take it. It’s enchanted, so it won’t shatter.”
Cora heaved it up as if it weighed nothing, before looking at her. “Ready?”
“Give us a minute.” My mother reached up to smooth my hair. “Are you ready?”
For her to go, she meant. I wanted to say, “No, I don’t want you to ever leave my sight again.” But I couldn’t do that to her, or anyone else.