by Lucy Tempest
And for the first time, I began to wonder if it had been out of fear, that like me now, she’d been trying to remain inconspicuous, in an effort to avoid exposure. But though I couldn’t imagine exposure to what, that was still no explanation for why and how she’d left me. One night, she’d disappeared without saying a word to me, leaving me wracked with worry until a sheriff had knocked on my door to deliver the life-destroying news that she had died, miles and miles away from our town.
The vividness of the memory, exacerbated by Cora grooming me like my mother used to, had my tears pricking my eyes and surging to fill them.
“I don’t believe we’re sired by gods, though,” Cora said quietly, noticing my filling eyes but making no comment. “I believe it’s just an excuse all the women in my family used, because had they gotten married to men who did sire us, then the ownership of our lands would have transferred to the husbands. This is the only way they could keep their trade, lands and names along with having daughters who can inherit them. You can’t dispute the will of the gods.”
“I don’t know,” I mused. “We just had a ghoul in our room. Why not a god in yours in a couple of years?”
She blushed furiously, ducking her head as she refocused on finishing up my makeup.
A clap like the crack of a whip made me start and whirl around.
Loujaïne was standing at our door, looking as regal and as impatient as she always did. “Girls, time to go.”
Fairuza, Meira and Agnë beat us out of the room. Belinda followed them to meet with Princess Ariane outside, who we’d learned turned out to be her cousin. Cherine hooked her arm through mine, leaning half her weight on me. Cora linked hers with my other arm just in time for us to be dragged out by Cherine.
Once in the corridor, I withdrew myself from the two girls and ran up to Princess Loujaïne. “Your Highness, can I please head down to the vaults to retrieve my things? I need just the earrings for now.”
Loujaïne shook her elegant head. “There is no time for that now. But we will return all your jewelry and we will be moving safes into all of your rooms while you’re out today.”
My heart sank to my guts with a painful thud.
There went my one chance to get back to the vault.
But I had to say something, after I’d made such a fuss over the lack of safes in our rooms.
“Oh! That’s great.” My voice cracked over the fake relief. “Thank you for that, Your Highness. Really puts my mind at ease.”
She scowled at me for a moment then said, “About ease…what was this I heard about your group waking up so early and making such noise you disturbed your neighbors?”
“Cherine rolled out of her bed and woke us all up,” I lied immediately. “She screamed so loudly we were afraid she broke something.”
“That sounds like her.” Loujaïne sighed, speeding up her pace to be ahead of the group.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cherine called after her. Getting no answer, she turned to me. “Why didn’t you tell her about the ghoul?”
“We’re about to go get evaluated. Fairuza says ghouls aren’t real, I figured Loujaïne might not think they’re real either. If you keep insisting there was one in our room today they’ll think you’re crazy. If you’re crazy, you get disqualified. I think.”
“Oh!” She breathed in wide-eyed realization, before she grumbled, “But I’m not crazy.”
“Not saying you are, just telling you what it might look like.”
“You do remember that we are competition, right?”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said, scrambling for a new plan that led back to the vault now that Loujaïne had crushed the one I’d banked on. “Believe me, I can’t wait to get home.”
The test was taking place in a vast room with paneled walls, a soaring ceiling, minimalist décor and a wide set of windows at its far end.
Silhouetted before the windows was a long table with our ten judges in heavy cloaks, the men in moss green, the women in pale pink. Each examiner had a stool set in front of them across the table, and a set of articles on it which included a book, three metal containers of gold, silver and lead, a cane, an hourglass, a crystal tea set and a bronze kettle.
Lines of five were organized in front of each examiner, with all servants, handmaidens and handlers hanging back.
In my line, Belinda went first. With me at the back of the line, I only heard incomprehensible snippets of her exchange with our examiner, but Cora blocked most of my view. I settled for watching the lines on both sides to get a clearer idea of what was going on. They didn’t prove any help either, and my eyes strayed to the rest of the room and—
I did a double-take, my jaw going slack, my heart nearly firing out of my ribs.
Him. It was him! The thief from the vault!
He was standing by one of the doors, as if sticking close to the exit in case he needed to make a run for it.
And if I had found him pretty in the dark, I found him stunning in broad daylight.
I didn’t know where that adjective came from. Where men were concerned, I never thought in terms stronger than “handsome.” But stunning was the first word that struck me as I examined him, the only one to do him justice.
His jaw-length, wavy hair that parted at the middle was a rich, chestnut brown that accentuated his golden skin tone. His face was centered by a sharp nose and ended with a strong, square jaw. His mouth was an archer’s bow, the lower lip plumper than the top. It curved into a smirk that could be construed in so many ways as he crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned on the wall, watching the whole spectacle.
I couldn’t help but wonder what a real smile from him would be like. Going by the rest of him, his smile could probably melt iron. But the crown jewels of his face were his eyes.
Under a prominent brow and thick, arched eyebrows were deep-set eyes the icy-green color of northern lights.
Nobody else seemed to notice him. And he didn’t seem to notice me, which was a relief considering how hard I was staring. But I couldn’t believe he was really here, just like that, after I’d given up hope of finding him.
Now I had to find a way to approach him…
A movement ahead roused me from my trance. I swung around and found Belinda leaving and the line moving.
Fairuza tossed back her curled hair as she moved ahead to take Belinda’s place, hitting Cora in the nose with it. I tossed the thief a conflicted glance before I rolled up on my toes to peek over Cora’s shoulder. It was my chance to see and hear something now I was closer.
Our examiner was a trim and handsome mustachioed man with intense, slanted, dark eyes and close-cropped silky black hair. He wore a fez and a coppery brooch of a chimera—a creature with the head, front claws, wings and tail of a hawk and the body of a lion.
“Good morning, Your Highness,” he said, offering her his hand, his dark gaze leaving her to focus where Loujaïne sat two judges from him, then back to her, as if he was comparing the two. “I am Master Farouk, Minister of Treasury and Commerce here in Cahraman.”
Fairuza curtsied lightly, not taking his hand as she sat down. “Shall we begin?”
His friendly smile twitched. He retracted his hand and flipped his hourglass, starting the countdown of her allotted time. “Introduce yourself.”
“Fairuza of House Silverthorn, Princess of Arbore, Duchess of Eglantine, second-born and eldest daughter of the former princess of Cahraman, Queen Zomoroda, and King Florent of Arbore.”
That was quite the list. No wonder she was always on the verge of exploding with pride.
“And why are you here?”
“To become the queen I am meant to be.”
Farouk nodded as he took down notes with his fountain pen. “Which is?”
“The best queen this kingdom has seen since Queen Amanita the Gentle.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
“By recreating her effect on court and society, reviving her causes, building up thei
r importance and implementing new, protective laws, while enriching social prosperity by attending to emergent needs with charity projects and functions.”
She continued to hit each question Master Farouk asked with a practiced and confident response. If I hadn’t felt dismally unprepared before, I sure did now.
The questions moved on to requests. He handed her the book, asked her if she had read it, to which she replied “Yes,” then he asked her to demonstrate its use to her. Fairuza set it on her head, circled us and returned to her spot without the book having moved a hairbreadth off her glossy hair. I snatched another look back at the thief, wanting to see his reaction to Fairuza, my mind crowding with a hundred theories why and how he was in here. I couldn’t come up with a logical reason. His smirk remained the same.
Master Farouk received the book with a congratulatory “Good job” as Fairuza resumed her seat in front of him.
“Pour the tea,” he instructed, gesturing to the small bronze kettle on her left. It rested on a burner with hot coals spitting out fiery sparks.
He watched her closely, hand still held out over the glass teapot and the short, vase-shaped glasses.
She shook her head calmly, crossing her ankles, straightening her back and setting her folded hands on her lap. “After you, my lord.”
He gave her a curt nod and scribbled something on his notepad.
“What was that about?” I whispered in Cora’s ear.
“High-born ladies don’t serve people they outrank, but are served by them, or both are served by a servant.”
During that moment, I missed what he asked her to do with the cane. They were now having a weird discussion, one that sounded rehearsed as well. With more focus, I realized that they weren’t having a real discussion, but quoting one.
There was something I should have memorized?
I was doomed.
Barely keeping an anxiety attack at bay, I stole another glance at the man by the door.
He was gone!
I frantically searched the room for him and noticed the guards scattered around for the first time. Speaking of guards, I’d discovered they stood outside and below our quarters whether we were inside or not. So how did Cherine’s ghoul keep getting past them?
Then I spotted him again. He had moved to the window closest to Master Farouk, half-concealed by the curtain’s shadow and holding a tray of opaque orange and translucent burgundy drinks.
Unobtrusive, he stood there, subtly turning his head as if to catch as much as he could of the conversations. His gorgeous face was very hard to read, not because it displayed no emotion, but because of the quick succession of reactions flashing across it.
Just as a girl in the adjacent line asked loudly enough to be heard across the room, “What does this have to do with being queen?” he grimaced as if something heavy had been dropped on his foot. When another shrieked and dropped the kettle he seemed to be suppressing his laughter.
He found this amusing?
Come to think about it, if this weren’t a matter of life and death to me, I’d probably see the funny side in all this too.
I resumed watching him as Fairuza left the judge and Cherine took her place, noticing more details about him now I wasn’t just staring at his face. He was tall. Taller than Cora. A knee-length, white kaftan overlaid with a light pattern of green vines and leaves hugged his strong shoulders and chest, displaying their breadth and power, and a reflective, pewter sash wound around his trim waist. He had solid white pants underneath and his tan shoes were not polished like the guards’, with a layer of dust on them. From this angle, I could see inside the sleeve of the arm holding up the tray. A thin gold bracelet peeked out of it.
So he had made it out of the vault with loot.
He was my one ticket back there. I needed to catch him.
I kept running scenarios in my mind of how I’d do that until Cherine left the judge and Cora took her spot, playing nervously with her hands.
Master Farouk asked her the same questions and made the same requests. I didn’t pay enough attention to her responses but I could hear the lack of investment in her tone. The one thing I was invested in was watching the eavesdropping servant, feverishly thinking up ways to approach him.
“Introduce yourself.”
I jumped around at the loud demand, stumbling. “Sorry, what?”
“Introduce yourself,” Master Farouk repeated, his gaze mildly annoyed. “It’s your turn.”
I swallowed the jagged lump in my throat.
My turn. To be exposed for the fraud I was.
Chapter Eleven
I bowed before I remembered Cherine’s mini-lesson and curtsied. My sweaty, slippery feet twisted in my high-heeled shoes, turning the attempt into a clumsy stagger.
I barely caught myself and mumbled, “I’m Ada. Of Rose Isle.”
“Is that it?” Farouk asked, sounding bored. I would be, too, after repeating the same tedious questions over and over and getting a variety of rehearsed answers.
I shrugged. “So far it is.”
He raised a thick eyebrow as he set down his fountain pen, folding his arms on the table to give me his full attention. “Why are you here?”
“Opportunity.”
He raised both brows now. “Which opportunity?”
Since I couldn’t tell him the one I was here for involved the palace vault, I decided to say as much truth as I could to make my answer somewhat plausible. “Anything to better my situation and through that, the situation of a friend and her father.”
“What about the reason you’re all here, isn’t that the real opportunity?”
“It’s a one-in-fifty chance and I’m not one to put all my eggs in one basket unless I absolutely need to, or I’m sure it’s going to work,” I rambled on. “Might as well have plans for if and when I get eliminated.”
“What plans?”
I should shut up. I couldn’t. I had to respond. And I couldn’t include any truths anymore. Back to on-the-fly lies. “Uh…leaving with new information, experience and helpful connections? Or anything else really that I might be able to use to my advantage in the future.”
He nodded, sneaking a glance to the side, likely at Loujaïne. “Sounds like you’ve given much thought to the many paths your future can take. But what if it leads to becoming the princess and future queen, how do you see that opportunity?”
As hypothetical questions went, this was a difficult one. But I figured that the best way was to approach it as a real one. What did a princess and future queen do?
What would I do if I were one?
I cleared my throat. “I’d need about a year of research and schooling on what it really means to be in such a position. I’d need to learn everything about this kingdom, and how this palace works. I’d want to explore this city for myself, to see the people and the society in action and to learn the history and social norms before I could start fulfilling my duties. In the meantime, I’d do things that don’t need too much information, but just power.”
He leaned in, eyes intent on my face. “Like?”
I gulped. I kept backing myself into a corner.
But why was I even stressing it? I had no hope of passing this test. Might as well speak from experience, from the heart, say what I believed in, what I’d do if I were to have power.
“I’d start with building orphanages and staffing them with the best caretakers and teachers. I’d have a special brigade supervising the treatment of orphans and foster children. I’d make sure they’re not taken advantage of and, when the time comes, are helped in transitioning into independence. I’d do something about the unemployed, maybe have the palace commissioning more from locals instead of relying on imports or court-approved suppliers, to make more jobs. And I’d send children and youths to apprenticeships. I’d also build more public housing so no one has to live on the streets. Actually, on the way through the city, I think I saw many abandoned houses. Those should not be left unused and deteriorating. I’d h
ave those fixed up and given to people who need places to live.”
A long moment after I’d fallen silent, he said, “Interesting answers.”
Interesting as in good, or as in weird?
Before I could decide from his expression, he sat up. “Now, we shall move to the next part of our exam.” He shoved the book toward me. “Here, show me what you can do with this.”
I took the book and ran my hands over the tough, embellished cover. I compared it to the dusty tomes I had seen in libraries, the time-worn volumes of my schoolmistresses, and the variety Bonnie displayed in her room, from the first book her father had gotten her, to the book I’d stolen for her, starting this snowballing disaster.
With a meticulously made dark-green, leather cover and gold engravings in Cahraman’s traditional script, twisted around in fancy calligraphy, this book was in a league of its own.
The first page declared it as The Anthology of Dunes.
I skimmed through the first story called The Silent City of Alabasta. It was about a desert civilization that thrived thousands of years ago, before half of its land fell into the Silent Ocean and its people vanished. Nothing was left behind in the remaining land but monuments, and idols of nameless deities with the heads of animals, most of a cat or a lioness goddess.
The story was told from the perspective of a man called Esfandiar of Gypsum, who was sent by a Queen Zafira to explore the silent city. He managed to decipher the language written on the walls and at the feet of idols. Once he vocalized a few words, a magical barrier rose around Alabasta. A statue of a bird-like creature came to life, blocked the gates and demanded an answer to riddles in exchange for admittance. In Esfandiar’s case, he needed to be let out.
I examined the illustration of the creature. It was the same as the pin on Master Farouk’s chest. Esfandiar called it a simurgh.
It asked him three riddles, decreeing that if he failed to answer any, it would eat him. If he answered them all, it would let him go.