The words he'd told me rang in my head again. Like they had on repeat ever since he’d uttered them.
It was him who'd offered me the throne. Aladdin had gone along with it, but Cassian had been the one to show that faith in me first. That defining moment of my life hadn't come from the man I'd thought. And that changed things. But it had also scared the hell out of me when he'd said it. Because it meant I had to tell him how I felt. How that night on the balcony had been the moment I'd fallen for Aladdin. But maybe it hadn't been him I'd fallen for at all...
“I'll get some cloth to bind these,” Cassian said, moving to stand.
I caught his wrist and he looked down at me in surprise.
“Wait,” I breathed and he did, shifting back into his place beside me. “What Aladdin said…” I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to ask him what I desperately wanted to know. Which seemed so silly after everything we’d faced up until now.
Is there any truth to it, Cassian?
“I wouldn’t listen to his nonsense, he was just trying to embarrass me.” Cassian finally met my gaze and I nodded, seeing nothing but my own reflection cast back at me in his irises. A deep chasm of emotion opened up inside me, threatening to suck me in.
“Right, of course,” I said, forcing some happiness into my tone, but I didn’t feel any of it.
Cassian gave me a lingering look then rose to his feet. For a moment, he smiled at me and the sun seemed to shine from his eyes. “You were brilliant out there, my Queen.”
He stepped away from me and headed out of the room. As the door clicked shut, my heart fluttered down into the pit of my stomach like a feather twirling toward the ground.
I'm his Queen. His faith in me is infallible.
But I'll only ever be his Queen.
I led Kyra down the long corridor lined with bunks and chambers belonging to other members of The Forty. Her eyes never stopped moving, drinking in everything she saw with a hunger for knowledge which kept bringing a smile to my face. She wasn’t horrified by this place, she was enthralled by it. Captivated by learning about the unknown and I found myself caught up in the excitement she’d found here too.
“You’ve lived so much more than me,” Kyra breathed as we made it to the staircase which led up to Egos’s private chambers above.
“You’ve lived for hundreds of years with magical powers,” I scoffed. “My life has been one long fight for survival among the dregs of society. I think I know which one of us has lived more and it isn’t me.”
“That’s not true,” Kyra denied fiercely. “The trials you’ve survived have made you stronger than any man I’ve ever known. And the things I’ve experienced aren't even really mine. I lost my memory and my mind to my magic. And I’ve never had any real control over my power either. It consumed me, it didn’t infuse me with life.”
I held my tongue as we reached Egos’s floor. He’d taken himself back to his quarters after the fight and I didn’t want him overhearing us. Instead of heading towards his door, I turned right at the top of the stairs and moved a few paces before reaching up into a shadowy corner above me.
My hand found the worn rope and I tugged it softly, revealing the wooden hatch as it swung down to admit us.
There was a bar hung above the entrance it had created but I glanced at Kyra doubtfully as I prepared to leap up for it. She was short enough to be eye to eye with my chest. I was sure she wouldn’t be able to make the leap to the bar and it wasn’t worth the risk of her using her powers in case she was seen.
“I’ll give you a boost,” I whispered, moving forward to lift her up.
A little thrill danced through me as she nodded her consent and I quickly lifted her by her waist. Every time I made any kind of move towards her, I expected her to go running for the hills and each time she didn’t, my pulse hammered a little faster.
Kyra caught the bar and pulled herself into the hidden space. I followed quickly, pulling the hatch closed behind us before snagging her hand in the darkness and drawing her into the narrow passageway.
It didn’t take long to make it to the metal grate which concealed the exit and I drew Kyra out after me onto the roof of the building which housed the den.
I wasn’t supposed to know this exit was here but I was sure that Egos knew I used it.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one of The Forty to know about it because as we straightened in the light of the rising sun, a figure hoisted himself onto the far side of the roof.
Kyra gasped as she spotted Balthazar and his gaze snagged on her for a moment before he looked to me instead.
“I really thought you were dead when you didn’t return,” he said as he prowled towards us.
I offered him a cocky smirk, shrugging one shoulder like surviving that cursed treasure had been no big deal.
“You know better than anyone that I’m not that easy to kill,” I replied.
Balthazar stopped before me, his gaze trailing over me uneasily like he wasn’t sure what to say.
“I’m glad,” he admitted finally and I raised a brow in unconcealed surprise.
“You wanna watch out there, mate, it actually sounds like you might give a shit about me,” I warned.
Balthazar rolled his eyes. “Don’t go getting all up yourself over it,” he said dismissively. “I just enjoying beating you at everything. And I might have realised that I prefer your endless bragging to the company of a lot of the other thieves. Do you know Atlas collects rat skulls? ‘Cause I’ve seen them.” He grimaced and I barked a laugh.
“Well just so long as you’re not looking for a kiss,” I said.
“I haven’t missed your pretty face that much,” he replied. “But the kid has.”
“Pip?” I asked. “I haven’t spoken to him since I came back. Is he alright?” I tried to sound like I didn’t much care either way but that kid had burrowed his way into my affections like a damn termite and I’d thought about him more often than I’d have liked to admit while I was at the palace.
“Yeah. Your number one fan. He doesn’t stop harping on about you and he was damn near devastated when we thought you were dead. Egos has him trailing a mark in the East Quarter but he almost exploded with excitement when he saw you were back.”
I couldn’t contain my smile at that news, I’d been wondering why Pip hadn’t been around during the fight and I wasn’t that surprised that Egos had come up with a way to keep him away from me. Why the king of thieves was so worried about one kid hero worshiping me was beyond me but that was the way it was.
“Are you two going to hug?” Kyra asked excitedly. “I feel it coming.”
Balthazar raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her. “Not even slightly,” he replied and I barked a laugh.
“But you love each other,” she protested.
I looked at Balthazar a little uncomfortably and he cleared his throat.
“I’ll leave you and your latest plaything to it,” he said, deciding to ignore Kyra’s statement as thoroughly as I was.
“See you later, mate,” I said with a nod, not bothering to correct his assumptions about Kyra. I didn’t want anyone in the den to know what she meant to me either way so he could think what he liked about her relationship with me so long as he left her alone.
Kyra looked up at me as Balthazar headed back into the den and I shrugged dismissively. “Don’t mind him, he’s just perpetually in a bad mood and scowling. It’s his standard setting.”
“I don’t understand,” she said with a frown. “I could feel the bond between the two of you dancing on the air but you both pretended like it meant nothing.”
I parted my lips to reply then closed them again. I might have had to hide my true feelings to The Forty but I didn’t want to lie to her.
“That’s just the way we are,” I said soothingly. “Don’t worry about it.”
Kyra bit back the protests I could see swimming in her eyes and I moved away. We couldn't let anyone know about Kyra’s magic so we needed to stay out of the den f
or a few hours before we returned with food for the others. There was no point in us really thieving anything though as she could just conjure it for us so I decided to take her to my favourite spot to kill some time instead.
On the far side of the roof, a wooden beam lay innocuously beneath the light of the rising sun and I moved towards it on swift feet.
I placed the beam over the gap which divided this roof from the next building to create a bridge before hurrying across.
I turned back, my lips parted to encourage Kyra to follow me and maybe use this excuse to hold her hand but my jaw dropped wide as I spotted her, slap bang in the middle of the beam with her legs in the air as she performed a handstand.
A huge smile tugged at my lips and I was helpless to resist it as was left grinning like a fool at her display. Kyra finally flipped herself upright and pranced the rest of the way after me.
I led her from rooftop to rooftop until we scaled a building which was taller than the rest, the roof of it fenced in and decorated with swarms of potted flowers which had been left to grow wild after whoever had planted them had stopped coming back to tend them.
It was like a little hidden slice of the world which I’d found a few years ago and taken for my own. From the streets surrounding this building, the spot was concealed and the only way to find it was from the rooftops. I’d been lucky and either none of the other thieves had ever come across it, or more likely they’d just never cared about it.
The only thing up here was silence and solitude and there had been more than a few times when I’d found myself in need of both. And with the colourful flowers blossoming all around us, you couldn’t even smell the stench of the slums in here.
I led Kyra into the space and moved to sit on the wooden pallet which took up position to the right of the rooftop. I reached beneath it, shifting aside a carefully placed plank of wood and drew out a hessian blanket which I’d hidden there.
I’d spent plenty of nights up here beneath the stars, preferring the open air to the oppressive heat within the den. I’d never shown it to anyone else though.
I tossed the blanket over the pallet and took a seat.
Kyra stood in the centre of the space, staring around at the flowers and trellises with wide eyes and a smile capturing her lips. The midday sun drew my attention to the delicate lines of her features and the arch of her high cheekbones.
“I was thinking about what you said about not living your own life,” I said eventually.
Kyra turned her green eyes on me and I found myself pinned in her gaze.
“Sometimes I think my life ended when I was cursed to live a life in the lamp,” she admitted, her voice wavering a little. “I lost so much of myself. I even lost control of my own fate. But since you found me, I can’t help but wonder if I might be starting to live again.”
“You have control of your mind and body,” I said slowly. “If you gained control of your magic then you’d be in charge of your own destiny again.”
Kyra shook her head sadly, the movement making her long, black hair shimmer as it danced across her back. “I can never wield my magic for myself. I will always be bound to the will of my master.”
A frown tugged at my brow and I pulled the golden lamp from my pocket. Kyra stilled as she looked upon it, a breath snagging in her lungs.
“You’re a slave to this,” I said, turning it over in my hands. The sides of it were ridged with whorls and decorations which stood out along the cool metal.
Kyra nodded and her eyes glimmered with fear. She was terrified of this thing. Of being bound to it and the possibility that she might end up stuck in it again one day. I brushed my thumb over the markings which spelled out her name and she arched her back just a little like a cat being stroked.
“What if I wished you free of it?” I asked, pulling my gaze from the lamp and looking up at her instead.
Kyra’s lips parted and her eyes widened with hope for an eternal moment before she shook her head.
“You need me to help you defeat Gothel. You need my magic and my protection. If anything were to happen to you because you couldn’t wield my power anymore-”
“But if you were free, wouldn’t your magic be your own?” I asked.
“I... I don’t know. I feel like I should know, but the memory just isn’t there. Maybe my magic would just be gone without the lamp.”
I looked at her, slowly turning the lamp in my hands again. What would Kyra be like without her magic? It was such an intrinsic part of her that I found it hard to imagine. But at the same time, I felt like her power was the cause of so much hurt and pain for her. It had overwhelmed her, stolen parts of who she was and drowned her alone in the darkness of the lamp. And although her power was part of what made her incredible, it wasn’t what made her her. She was so much more than the product of her magic. And maybe without it, the pain that haunted her would set her free too.
“I don’t want you to be under my control,” I breathed. “I want you to own your own fate.”
“But I need a master,” she objected, the fear in her gaze turning to terror. “If you get rid of my lamp then I’ll be alone, or worse, someone else will find me who won’t care about me at all and will only want-”
“I’m not talking about getting rid of you, Kyra. I don’t think I’d ever want that.”
“Then what...”
I rose to my feet, moving towards her and she tipped her head to look up at me.
I reached for her with the hand which wasn’t holding the lamp and tucked a loose strand of her long hair behind her ear.
“Kyra,” I breathed, coming to a decision. I hoped that once I wasn’t her master she’d still look at me the way she was in that moment. I hoped that doing this would only give her more of herself and that in turn she’d still want to offer that to me. But whatever repercussions this would have for me, I needed to do it. For her. “I wish that you were free.”
Kyra’s eyes widened, her magic brimming to the surface of her skin and lighting her up despite the fact that she was shaking her head.
“But, you need me, you can’t-” She cut herself off with a gasp as the magic forced its way free of her flesh. She couldn’t refuse my wishes, I was her master and I’d made my command clear.
A flood of magic burst from her in a wave, the force of it brushing through my hair and knocking me back a step.
The lamp grew hot in my hand until it burned and I dropped it with a curse as I staggered back again.
Kyra cried out as she fell to her knees and the curling letter K on my wrist tingled with a strange energy that seemed to dance through my veins.
As suddenly as the flood of power had come, it disappeared again. I felt like I’d been tossed from the heart of a storm into a moment of unnatural calm and for a second I fought to catch my breath.
Kyra’s head was tilted forward, her face concealed beneath a curtain of her black hair as she took a shuddering breath.
I glanced down at my wrist. The black K was still there, though the skin around it felt tender and inflamed.
“Kyra?” I asked hesitantly, unsure what I was going to find when she looked up at me. I hoped that her freedom wouldn’t change anything between us. I wanted her to own her destiny but I still wanted her to need me in it.
She didn’t respond but she wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself tightly.
I moved forward cautiously, dropping down to kneel before her, an inch of space dividing our knees.
“Did it work?” I asked.
Slowly, she raised her head to look at me, her hair parting over her face so that I could see the tears sliding down her cheeks.
Her green eyes burned and shimmered with specks of silver light.
“I’m still bound to the lamp,” she murmured, her gaze capturing me in an iron fist and refusing to let go. “You’re still my master.”
“But-”
“You can’t wish me free,” she breathed. “I remember now. The words of my curse: Only rig
hting your wrong will free you from the lamp. You took an Emperor’s life. To be free, you have to save an Emperor from death.”
I shook my head, refusing to accept that. How could she ever have been expected to achieve such a thing; her actions weren’t even hers to make. It was beyond cruel. The sorcerer who’d placed her in that lamp had meant to trap her there for all eternity.
“Then that’s what you’ll do,” I growled. “If I have to march into that palace and stab the Emperor myself just so that I can wish for you to save him then I’ll do it.”
Kyra stared back at me like I’d just walked through fire for her and I fought against the urge to look away. I didn’t deserve that look from her, I wasn’t offering to do anything she didn’t deserve. This wasn’t about me trying to pretend I was a better man than I’d always known I was. It was about her. And she deserved to be free.
She reached for me and I held still as she brushed her fingertips along the stubble which lined my jaw.
“You’re a good man, Aladdin. The best I’ve ever known.”
I began to shake my head in denial but her grip tightened on my face, halting the movement.
“You try to hide it,” she insisted. “But I’ve seen you.” Her hand slid from my face to lay over my heart which was pounding beneath my skin.
“One day you’ll realise you’re wrong about me and go running for the hills,” I replied, though it didn’t come off teasing like I’d intended.
“No. One day you’ll realise you’re wrong about yourself,” she countered. “And you’ll see that you deserve to have happiness and friendship and people who love you.”
“Love?” I frowned at her. My own mother hadn’t loved me when I was a day old and I was more than aware that no one else ever had either.
“Yes,” Kyra said firmly, pushing herself up onto her knees so that her lips were achingly close to mine.
The air between us charged with energy which wasn’t to do with her magic. I wanted her like I’d never wanted any other woman before and I knew it was about so much more than desire for her body. “One day I’ll make you see it for yourself.”
Forbidden Fairytales- The Complete Series Page 61