by Lucy Tempest
Darius finally came back, gave Cyrus the lamp back and said, “It’s done.”
Cyrus nodded, gave the lamp to Ayman. Then he looked down at her. “I wonder how long before she…”
Nariman woke with a gasp, cutting off his words.
She looked up at Cyrus and Darius in bewilderment. “Cyrus, Darius…?” Her eyes rounded and her hand shot out to Darius’s face…only to tremble over the gash on his cheek. “Who did this to you?”
Chapter Forty-Three
I could feel everyone around me freeze with my same shock.
There was no way this was an act.
Nariman didn’t remember that she had done that.
“What happened, Darius?”
He shook his head, his trembling hand closing around hers. “Nothing, nothing. I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.”
She shook her head then frowned. “What am I doing on the ground?” She swept a half-glazed glance around. “What’s Loujaïne…? Dorreya!” She jackknifed up, eyes huge. “How are you here? You disappeared! Or—did you?” Her dazed eyes fell on me. “You brought your daughter here? Are you no longer afraid of me?”
That settled it. She didn’t remember anything. At least not the past few months.
Cyrus looked accusingly at his father, and Darius only widened his eyes emphatically.
So this wasn’t his doing.
My mind tripped over its own tangling thoughts.
What the genie had done to her had been horrific, far worse than any near-death experience. So had it burned her most traumatic memories right off? How far back?
It was clear she remembered my mother, and their confrontation in Ericura, and she remembered me as I was now, and this could only be from her surveillance of me in Aubenaire.
From her reaction to Cyrus, and especially Darius, she didn’t remember her banishment. This left a very small window of time between when she’d seen me in Aubenaire and that event. This meant her memories now stopped around the time Cyrus had come of age.
But if she didn’t remember kidnapping us then…
She couldn’t tell me where the Fairborns were!
I was struggling with this realization when I exchanged a look with my mother, then Cyrus and his father. And in that look I had no doubt we all agreed to not impose the memory of what she’d done on her, if she’d already lost it.
My mother finally choked, “It’s a long story, old friend.”
“Old friend? Really, Dorreya? After all these years? After the way you ran?”
I rushed to redirect the brunt of her older turmoil. “I can explain everything.”
“Can you?” Nariman let Darius help her to her feet with an exquisite smile, before turning to scrutinize me. I scrutinized her back.
She looked like she did when I’d first seen her, beige skin smooth, amber eyes clear, and henna-stained black hair glossy. But she had none of the nervous energy, none of the anger and bitterness roiling beneath the perfect surface. It was like looking at a different version of the same person, even if, mentally, only around two seasons had passed between this Nariman and the one we’d just battled.
She came closer. “You do look like your grandmothers. If more like Adila Berlanti.”
“And now she’s Cyrus’s betrothed,” Darius said, clearly both shaken and elated at the idea that, to Nariman, the past months hadn’t happened.
Nariman gawked at Darius. “Betrothed? Since when do you make jokes, Darius?”
“I’m not joking, I assure you,” Darius said.
“Of course, you are.” Nariman looked afraid something was wrong with his mind. “You were resistant to even the idea of holding a Bride Search for Cyrus to test his options beyond Zomoroda’s daughter. You certainly wouldn’t accept anyone lesser, and overnight, too.”
Darius looked at Cyrus and I for help, clearly at a total loss how to answer. He was clearly unused to fabrications.
As the one who used to lie for a living, I jumped to his rescue. “Actually, we did hold a Bride Search, but I’m afraid you missed it.” I’d tell her what we now had the Folkshore believing, but with more details we hadn’t needed for the genie’s wish, borrowing from my story and many others. “An Avestan sorceress infiltrated the palace through the Bride Search, but to stop you from exposing her, she put you in a magical coma.”
“Coma?” Nariman yelled, flabbergasted. “How long was I under that spell? What has happened since?”
“Ada won the competition,” Cyrus said proudly. “It’s a shame you weren’t around to oversee it. You would have loved what she did with our tests.”
“You must tell me every last detail!” Nariman’s eyes filled with fondness, before her lips thinned. “But what about that Avestan sorceress? Was she another agent of the royal family?”
It would have been a good story, but why create enmity in her heart towards them? We all knew it wasn’t good to make her an enemy.
I shook my head, took from her story. “She was working for herself.”
“So how did you stop her?”
“We didn’t, at first,” I said. “After I won, the sorceress took over the whole of Cahraman. She turned Sunstone into a nightmare.”
Nariman gaped at me. “How did she manage that?”
Cyrus gestured at Ayman who gave him the lamp. “With this.”
“Jumana’s lamp!” Nariman exclaimed. “I thought it was lost somewhere in the palace.”
“It was. And she entered the competition for the sole purpose of searching for it.” Now it was Cyrus who was borrowing from my story, then hers. “We also vanquished her using the lamp. Ada tricked her into making a forbidden wish and the genie…” He swallowed, no doubt remembering the terrible moments when Nariman had burned. “…set her aflame.”
Nariman eyes grew so wide I could see the lamp reflected in them. As far as she remembered, she’d spent years searching for me so I could find it for her. Now both of us were inexplicably here.
“I see.” She frowned as she tried to put our story together, already making her own deductions. “I must have awoken the moment she was gone. So this just happened.” Cyrus nodded and agitation filled her eyes. “Did you manage to restore Sunstone?”
Cyrus soothed her. “Yes, I used my first wish to undo her damage. Everything is back to what it was.”
She nodded slowly, before looking at my mother and I. “What did bring you back, after all these years of avoiding me, Dorreya?”
My mother looked conflicted. She no longer knew if her decision to escape to Ericura had been right, if Nariman would have taken me away from her and exploited me, as she’d once firmly believed. But then she had seen how dangerous and vengeful Nariman was capable of being. Yet, with everything else she’d learned, nothing was black and white anymore.
She finally said, “I—I realized I might have overreacted, but also that I was depriving her of everything, her identity, her heritage, her family and the future she could have. It’s why I came back. She ended up competing in the Bride Search by complete accident, when one of the fifty girls declined at the last moment. And she won!”
That was an as good lie as any of my own. But then again, my mother had had a lifetime of practice. My lifetime.
Nariman regarded her, clearly unconvinced still. Then she shook her head and her mouth twitched into a faint smile. “And since she won, I suppose we have a wedding to plan.”
“Or three,” said Darius.
She jerked her head towards him, undoing her hair. “Three?”
“Yes, Cahraman is going to have a lineup of historic unions this year,” Darius told her, grey eyes tender, taking a shallow breath between every few words as if he was overwhelmed. “Farouk has just asked for my sister’s hand.”
Her eyes became enormous. “And you agreed?”
The king nodded. “He might not be even a minor noble, but I now believe he’s the only one for her. And after what we’ve been through in that attack, after I almost lost my son, my kingdom….” He
touched her cheek, prompting a soft gasp from her. “…and almost lost you, that made me realize I can’t postpone my promises to you anymore. We will be married in a joint ceremony.”
She only stared at him. I was starting to fear she’d been petrified, too, when the first real smile I’d seen her wear, a beautiful, elated expression, dawned on her face.
“Do you really mean it? We will be married now?”
“As soon as possible. We still have a few good years left in us to deal with children.”
“Children!” she exclaimed, gripping Cyrus’s arm, as if seeking his support, his approval.
He only gave an enthusiastic nod and gentle shove at his father. “Accept already!”
Facing Darius with wet eyes, trembling, breath hitching, Nariman hugged him. “Yes, Darius. The answer was always yes.”
Everyone but Aurelia, who clearly didn’t find this little happy ending endearing, and Fairuza, who seemed even more dejected at it, congratulated the prospective happy couples, and did their best to keep the story we’d just made up consistent.
But it wasn’t just Nariman who’d undergone an experience that had changed her radically, at least rerouted her life drastically. Almost everyone here had, more than once for some.
Darius had gone from unyielding and stagnant in his beliefs to not just accepting his role in the problem, but accepting Farouk and I as choices for his family, and trying to rectify his mistakes. Loujaïne had gone from being hardened by her past and hating all associated with it, to looking forward to her future with Farouk and Ayman, and hopefully having my mother and I as in-laws. Ayman and I had finally discovered who we were and had found each other and our mothers. We would have to face our father soon, and I still didn’t know how to feel about that yet. I was at least thankful our baby-killer of a grandfather was dead.
Farouk had finally seized the opportunity to stand up for himself, for the woman he loved, and to forge a future for both of them undictated by expectations and stations in life.
Cora would go home to her mother ten times the girl who’d left it. The laid back, bored girl who’d reluctantly come to the Bride Search would return a warrior, already worthy of being The Granary’s next Mistress and way more.
As for Cyrus, judging by the unabashed joy on his face, with all these people around him, planning their futures together, reassembling his fractured family then doubling its numbers, this was what he’d always wanted.
It was what I wanted for him. I would give anything to keep that smile on his face.
Even Cherine had grown, had learned to see the worth in what she’d always taken for granted, to appreciate the real things in life and see beneath the surface. And instead of waiting for a prince or nobleman to offer for her and go live a preordained life in his mansion, she’d snagged her Silver Prince herself and would fight for the unique life they’d have together.
She even got another thing, if not in the way she expected: me as a sister.
She’d been mid-babble when she’d nudged me to point that out. “The Fates really do work in curious ways. I wanted you to marry my brother to become my sister, but now I’m marrying your brother to become your sister. Isn’t this amazing?”
And it was. Amazing. This must be what Marzeya had meant about knowing peace once I appeased my foe.
By getting Nariman to wish for what she wanted most, it seemed I ended up burning all the rage and betrayal and anguish inside her, appeasing her at last. With that, I’d become the catalyst for the peace everyone now enjoyed.
All but Fairuza!
I rushed towards her where she was near the door, flanked by her peculiar handmaidens.
Before I could say anything she turned to me, the picture of ruffled, exhausted poise, managing to make a wrinkled nightgown and uneven updo look regal. “It seems I can’t take you up on your offer, Ada. Agnë and Meira assure me the genie will not be able to help me. A curse like mine is unfortunately very specific, tricky even. The perk of it being cast by a fairy rather than a witch, it seems.”
At a loss, I hastily released Esfandiar from the ring.
He materialized before me with a massive grin. “That was splendid, Mistress.”
“Yes, thanks, later. Now I wish you focus on Fairuza.”
Esfandiar’s yellow eyes scanned her. “Oh, dear, the magical energy surrounding her is quite complex, nothing like your brother’s stone cage.”
Hearing Ayman referred to as my brother was going to take some getting used to.
“I fear there is no getting around the letter of this kind of curse, Mistress. She has to fulfill its requirement, or it would run its course.”
“Then I wish for the one who would break her curse to be brought to her!”
Esfandiar tapped the ring on my finger. “Mistress, you know I cannot transfer anyone or anything.”
“At least I wish to know who he is, or where we can find him.”
“Mistress, I’m neither a psychic nor do I see the future.”
“It’s alright, Ada,” Fairuza said softly. “You’ve done all that you could for us all.”
“It’s not fair,” I cried out. “We’re all getting the fresh starts we deserve, why aren’t you?”
Melancholy settled in the depths of her turquoise eyes. “Perhaps I don’t deserve it yet.”
Breaking away from the group, Cyrus came to us, green eyes sparkling with eagerness as he waved the lamp. “Let’s come up with the right phrasing to break this curse of yours, Fairuza!”
“Your Highness, I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” said Esfandiar. “This curse can’t be broken by a genie. Most curses can’t be, anyway.”
Cyrus’s high spirits were doused at once. “But we can’t leave it up to fate. She doesn’t have time for that kind of risk.”
“Which is why I need to return home now,” Fairuza said. “The trip back to Arbore will take weeks. I need some time with my family in case the fates don’t spare me.”
My frustration was mirrored in Cyrus’s eyes. We so desperately wanted to help her, but there was no solution in sight. It wasn’t fair that Nariman, Loujaïne and Darius had all gotten chances to start new chapters in their lives while Fairuza’s story ended abruptly.
Feeling like I’d just banged my head against a brick wall, I mumbled, “You don’t have to waste any time. My mother can open portals that bridge vast distances, so we can transport you home in an instant right now.”
“Really? If so, I would appreciate it if she did so as soon as the ceremonies are over. I’d hate to miss the festivities. Also, I need as much good cheer as possible since once I’m home I’ll be greeted with infuriating resistance when I demand to visit Leander.” Her eyes suddenly regained some of their former brightness. “Perhaps you can open that portal to the castle in Rosemead, so I can see him first?”
A castle in Rosemead?
Was it possible—could her brother be the—
Cora slapped me on the back, making me cough out my train of thought. “Could you move up the coronation? I have to attend it since my mother would never forgive me if I didn’t, but I need to leave as soon as possible. Cherine is bound on setting me up with her brother. And this little menace is unstoppable.”
“Are you sure we can’t convince you to stay for good?” Cyrus said, trying to pull us out of the quiet desperation we’d all fallen into. “If not Dustan, my other cousin Miraz seems quite taken with you.”
Cora leveled him with a flat stare.
Undeterred, he persisted, “You’d certainly be a successor Aurelia would approve of.”
Cora blasted his hair back with an exasperated, “No!”
Cyrus cracked a wry smile that brought back our very first meeting. “Is it that bad here?”
“I am from the most fertile region of the Folkshore, and I’ve had enough of this barren wasteland!”
Cyrus put a hand over his heart, feigning offense. “It’s not barren, we grow many great things here.”
“Figs, dates a
nd prickly pears, what a dazzling variety,” Cora deadpanned. “You have one river. One. That’s how miserable this hot, dry, dusty nation is.”
Miraz popped up behind her. “It snows in Almaskham.”
Her “NO!” sent him scurrying back, making even Fairuza smile.
As every group ebbed and flowed, with Cyrus always in the middle of the current, I took a moment and stepped back to the balcony where I’d entered this room what felt like a lifetime ago—when this had literally been another world.
I looked at everyone again and marveled.
This wasn’t the ending I’d expected for any of us.
This wasn’t how stories like ours went. With the kingdom saved by the thief, with the evil witch absolved, and with the star-crossed pairings of royals and lower-borns claiming their happy ending.
Out of all the fantastical things that had happened since leaving Ericura, the terrible and the incredible, I’d gotten the fairytale I’d always wanted, if not in a way I could have ever expected.
But this wasn’t the happy ending for Cyrus and I. This was the great continuation of our extraordinary story. The story of the thief and her prince of Cahraman.
I couldn’t wait to write the next chapter.
Epilogue
“I remember.”
I turned from the mirror at the soft murmur, heart in my throat.
Nariman’s projection was at the door. This time she was all in gold, her hands covered in intricate henna tattoos, and she was covered in dazzling masterpieces of jewelry.
She looked the most magnificent I’d ever seen her. And someone I’d always fear on a gut level like nothing else.
My heart refused to return to my chest even now I realized it was really her, and not a projection like when she’d been the evil witch who’d kidnapped me. But what she’d said had sounded ominous.
It was ominous.
It was what I’d been dreading this past week since our showdown.
She remembered.
She walked in and closed the door behind her and I found myself walking back. She approached me slowly and my heartbeats escalated until they were shaking my whole body.