Thief of Cahraman: A Retelling of Aladdin (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 1)

by Lucy Tempest

  “In you go,” Mistress Asena ushered us into the next room. I could tell which of her girls were going home by how she avoided them.

  I rose, my hands held out behind me. Cherine grabbed the left and Cora grasped the right and we made our way in, avoiding eye contact with Loujaïne. Master Farouk gave me a curt nod of acknowledgment as I passed him. We took our seats closer to him in the middle row.

  “Fifteen of you will go home today,” Loujaïne announced, looking as if she was focusing on something beyond our rows.

  Discreetly, I checked the room for Cyrus. Having him here would have made this easier. I could request him to escort me to the chambers and “help with the luggage.” If we managed to be alone, we could slip through the trapdoor again, check every possible direction the tunnels took, check the shrines in the palace and city.

  I also wanted more time with him. I wanted a last chance to brand his face in my mind. Enough to last me the rest of my life. He would be another fixed point in my timeline, a base of what-ifs I could touch on whenever I needed a mental escape.

  But what I truly wanted was to ask him to pack up all his loot and come with me.

  He wasn’t in the room. And I had missed the first three names called during my search for him. The girls stood and left, one with upturned eyes who looked about sixteen, another who resembled Ariane with knee-length red hair, and a third with dark, shiny skin and silvery tattoos.

  The next four were from the same region, all in pretty much the same type of colorful outfit that must be what passed as fancy there. The next three that left made Asena cover her eyes in shame. The last of her girls, apart from Princess Ariane, it seemed.

  That left five. I squeezed Cherine’s hand one last time and let go, readying myself to get up and leave quietly. The less of a reaction I exhibited, the less noticeable I became. Hopefully, it would make escaping punishment for Fairuza’s black eye more likely.

  “Lady Isgerda of Avongart. Miss Merlisa of Cöll,” Loujaïne continued. “Duchess Ethelstine of Wisterna.”

  Fairuza turned, baring her teeth at me in a grim cross between a snarl and a smile.

  The finality misplaced my heartbeat, sending it up to my throat then between my ears, making Loujaïne’s voice hard to hear as she read out the last two names.

  “Lady Ad—” I inhaled and squeezed my eyes shut. “—ina of Lorthos and Lady Raena of Galantis,”

  Then Loujaïne was finished and wrapping up her scroll.

  Cora slouched forwards, gawking ahead.

  Cherine let out a squeal of delight and hugged me frantically again.

  I almost fainted with shock and the violent drain of tension.

  Fairuza jumped up and pointed at me, her voice shrill. “Why is she still here?”

  Good question.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I felt like I was watching the scene before me unfold from underwater.

  Everything was muffled, dimmed, blurred in the tears frozen in my eyes. Yet I could see and hear everything, my thoughts rushing in almost painful speed and clarity. One thing reverberated over everything else.

  I wasn’t going home.

  I had more time to find the lamp, to save Bonnie and Mr. Fairborn.

  I had more time with Cyrus.

  “I assume you know how these competitions work, Princess,” Master Farouk said calmly, readjusting his fez. “You are given a task in your test, you pass it and you move on to the next.”

  “But she failed!” Fairuza yelled. “She failed the worst out of everyone! She has no skill, no talent, no hint of culture or artistry in her—”

  “Who said it was a talent show?” Loujaïne glared at her, mouth tight with displeasure.

  Fairuza dropped her accusing finger, blinking in stunned silence before getting riled up again. “What else could ‘quality’ mean?”

  “Your quality as a person is the value you can have in other people’s lives,” Farouk said, smoothing the flared sleeves of his patterned robe. “It has nothing to do with mastering a demanding aria or reciting complex archaic poetry. As for your question about why Lady Ada remains among you, despite displaying no artistic talent…”

  Loujaïne cut him off, livid. “You almost killed your own cousin over a petty argument.”

  Fairuza had the nerve to look shocked. “What are you talking about?”

  “You pushed me over the wall!” Cherine screamed, getting to her feet, for once towering over half the room. “The real question is what are you still doing here, you murderous hag!”

  Fairuza turned on her, shock evaporating, fury replacing it on her spectacular face. “Because I gave, by far, the best performance, you subpar, forgettable runt!”

  “Then why did you try to murder me if you didn’t feel threatened by me!”

  The argument escalated into an incoherent frenzy. Traumatized, shaking rage from Cherine, scandalized, restrained rumbles from Loujaïne and defensive, tearful screeching from Fairuza.

  I only wished I could slip away without anyone noticing and use the time they would waste at each other’s throats to find Cyrus and resume my search.

  All I could do was remain glued to my seat with my shocking reprieve and watch members of the royal family shriek fancy insults at each other.

  Who knew there were so many tasteful alternatives to “bitch”?

  Suddenly, an ear-splitting whistle cut through the noise.

  Master Farouk was now at the podium, fingers still poised near his mouth, his thick brows flat over his dark eyes, accentuating his ire. “Your Highness, forgive me, but we aren’t finished here. You can resume this family matter on your own time later.”

  Color rose to Loujaïne’s cheeks as she held Farouk’s reprimanding gaze for a moment too long. Then clearing her throat, she turned to us. “To you who remain, congratulations. You are moving to the penultimate round. Within the next ten days you will have more chances to prove, not just your general worth, but how you can conduct yourself in various situations in and out of the palace.”

  “You will meet the prince in the final round,” Farouk reminded us. “So, keep that in mind and think critically about your task.”

  “Which is?” Fairuza growled, a very uncouth, unladylike noise. “You didn’t even explain what it was last time, or how that would lead to these two…” She pointed at Cora and me, “…somehow winning another round of the competition.”

  Farouk suddenly looked exhausted. I could see the color fleeing his face as Fairuza attempted to drag him back into an argument. “It’s not the judges’ fault that you couldn’t tell the difference between a rehearsed skill and someone’s worth as a person.”

  I swear I felt the anger radiating off her in waves all the way across the room. She crowded him, delicate, manicured fingers curling into claws as she continued to point at me. “And what exactly is her worth, especially after she proved herself vulgar and hostile?”

  I thought it wasn’t disappointment that dropped his shoulders and hollowed out his gaze, it was something worse. Disgust. “If you think blackening your eye is on par with attempted murder, Princess, then I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “What do you all keep talking about?” Fairuza exclaimed. “I did no such thing. There were so many girls crowding a narrow path when that commotion started, and as she tried to jump up to attack me, she was pushed by the collective and fell off the wall. That’s what anyone but her delusional self and her ugly, useless, low-class friends will tell you.”

  “It was you who pushed me,” Cherine screeched. “We all know you pushed me.”

  The frenzied gleam of a trapped animal entered Fairuza’s eyes. “You’re still here, aren’t you? If I had pushed you, I’d have only done you a favor. It made you the center of attention for a few hours, something you could never achieve on your own.”

  I finally found my voice. “So, you admit it?”

  The bitterness in Fairuza’s tone was so strong I could taste it in the air as she turned to me. “Sha
me it wasn’t you. A few might have mourned little Cherine for her family’s sake, but you would have just been dumped over yet another wall into the river with the rest of the trash on the garbage barge.”

  I jumped up and crossed to the first row, fist poised. “How about I make your eyes match?”

  Loujaïne stepped between us, glowering down at her niece. “You’re dismissed.”

  “You can’t dismiss me, this isn’t tutoring hours,” Fairuza cried out.

  Loujaïne split her aggravation between us. “Yes, I can. You can all go now.”

  Cherine at once hooked her arm through mine and dragged me out.

  Cora followed us, shuffling her feet as she groaned mournfully, “I want to go home.”

  Cherine stared back at her. “I really can’t understand why you do!”

  “Because it’s agony for me here,” Cora complained. “The weather is too hot and dry even up here, and we don’t do anything all day. I’m bored. When I’m home, I get a dozen things done each day. My knees are starting to creak like a crone’s from sitting around!”

  I couldn’t fight the upward curve of my mouth. “You miss doing chores?”

  Cora slouched forwards, swaying on ambling feet. “I miss being able to do what I want, wherever I want, in work and between working hours. I miss my farm, which is mine, where I follow my own rules. I don’t have to be trapped in rooms all day in a land where little grows.”

  Halfway to the dining hall, I spotted a flash of white hair. Ayman!

  In a few steps I could see his red-purple eyes watching us from the shadowy curve of a tower stairwell. Following his line of sight, I realized he was watching Cherine, not me, with a mix of fascination and longing.

  My heart resumed its thunderous pounding, hoping Cyrus wasn’t far behind.

  He wasn’t. Cyrus appeared behind him, hastily tying a sash around his waist. They must have been up all night, sneaking and stealing.

  Even looking disheveled and tired, Cyrus was still mesmerizing. He was the kind of attractive that would look good covered in mud and wearing a potato sack.

  From across the room, his face lit up with that slow, teasing spread of his lips as his gaze fell on me, a careful and steady exposure as to not blind anyone with his smile. The light, bright green of his eyes were the closest to the sea this city would ever come.

  “I need to go to the bathroom.” I unhooked Cherine’s arm from mine. “I’ll meet you later.”

  “Ada, not now,” Cherine whined.

  “Yes now. Nature calls.” I slipped past her and Cora and rushed away in the direction of the public bathrooms. I made sure I was out of sight before ducking into a detour to meet Cyrus and Ayman by the staircase.

  “You’re still here,” he greeted, his bewitching eyes twinkling with a mixture of relief and elation.

  I could feel how glad he was to see me, how relieved that I was still here.

  “Can’t get rid of me that easily,” I said in what should have been a cocky rejoinder, accompanied by a confident wink, but my weak throat betrayed me, cracking my voice.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he whispered, taking a step closer.

  Ayman rolled his eyes and stepped between us. “We think we may know where your lamp is.”

  I jerked with a brutal surge of hope. “Where?”

  “It’s not precisely one place but a few interconnected spots,” Cyrus explained. “Knowing a minor goddess sent you here to retrieve it got us thinking. According to legend, this very mountain is the heart of an earth goddess and her veins spread through the city, the holiest spots holding temples. Where there are temples, there are shrines. And where there are shrines—”

  “There are lamps!” I finished for him.

  If Nariman’s lamp were such a thing, then naturally the king would have taken it to offer to his patron god or goddess.

  I turned my eyes up to Cyrus, my heart trembling with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation, and the thrill of being near him again. “Where do we start? I have nine days till the next test. So how can I sneak out every night into the city to search the shrines, and come back by morning? Can I use the tunnels? Do you have a map for them?”

  He grinned at me, those jewel-like eyes gleaming in the shadows. “They didn’t tell you about the schedule for those nine days, did they?”

  I blinked. “No. Why?”

  He grinned. “Because you’re going everywhere now, to every major spot in the city, including the shrines.”

  After a moment of digesting this, I slowly said, “A kind of a pilgrimage?”

  He shook his head. “More of an investigation. What do you do when you want to find out what someone is truly like? You throw them in an unfamiliar and trying situation and watch how they behave and what they do with their new surroundings and circumstances.”

  And that summed up my situation in a nutshell since Nariman had dragged me into this world.

  I didn’t know what the trials and adversity were revealing of my true self. I only had to make sure whatever they unearthed didn’t crack under the pressure. Not before I fulfilled my mission.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The descent down the mountain reminded me of the first time I rode a horse. Full of expectant worry and a heavy feeling weighing down my lower gut, making my organs vibrate and squeeze against my spine.

  Once again, the girls and I were in our own compartment. From time to time I could see Cyrus passing through the hallway, acting as security. He always caught my eyes through the door’s window, instilling a much-needed ease within me.

  I still hadn’t asked him to run away with me to Arbore. The thought was becoming less stupid and more plausible the longer I stayed in Sunstone Palace.

  “Cherine,” Cora lisped her name around the wand of licorice she was gnawing on. “What does the prince look like?”

  Cherine, staring blankly out the window, hummed but said nothing.

  “The prince,” Cora persisted. “We haven’t seen any paintings of him, let alone one of the king. What do they look like?”

  Still looking lost in thought, Cherine said, “King Darius resembles the portrait of King Xerxes we pass on the second-floor staircase. But I believe his eyes are grey.”

  The portrait of King Xerxes was of a man in his late-forties, with thick, jaw-length, dark hair and greying temples. I remembered he had a prominent brow, deep-set green eyes, and a short, pointed nose and high, square cheekbones like Loujaïne and possibly Fairuza. I envisioned Darius to be the same, but with his sister’s eyes.

  “And the prince?” I nudged her. “The same as his old man?”

  She shrugged as we entered the tunnel behind the waterfall. “I said I haven’t seen him since I was five. I was born at court before Xerxes died and Darius ascended as king. Cyaxares must have been about eight or nine at the time, the age where princes and sons of lords are passed around to squire for other royals and nobles. Even before that he didn’t live at the palace.”

  “So you saw him when?” I asked.

  “During the time between Xerxes death and Darius’s coronation. I haven’t been back to Sunstone since,” she said, running her hand over her diamond-studded citrine rings. “I’ve kept in touch with letters through the years, like I do with all of my royal or noble relatives. But I haven’t seen him since he officially returned to Cahraman as crown prince.”

  “Where was he before?”

  “A nearby principality, can’t remember which.”

  Without missing a beat, Cora said, “He’s hideous, isn’t he?”

  Cherine spun away from the window, jangling the chains and coins in her bronze necklace loudly. “No, he is not! Why would you say that?”

  “Why else would he be hiding? That’s why we can’t see him until there are too few of us and it’s too late to turn back.”

  “I didn’t think milkmaids had room to be judgmental, or even picky,” Cherine sniped.

  Cora glowered. “I’m not a milkmaid.”

 
“You’re not a noblewoman, either, so where do you get the gall to call him ugly?”

  “Gee, I didn’t know you had to be of a certain rank to have eyes.” Cora imitated her in a vapid, high-pitched voice, fluttering her lashes in hilarious wide-eyed wonder.

  Cherine harrumphed at her and turned her attention back outside the window.

  In spite of all the tension and uncertainty storming inside me, I found my lips twitching.

  Seven more days with these idiots. I was so going to miss them and every bit of their antics. But at least their swipes at each other never posed an actual danger, unlike Fairuza’s.

  Speaking of her, after Elimination Day, Fairuza had put her foot down and insisted on getting her own suite. Princess privilege—what had saved her from being eliminated based on the rule against “dishonorable activities”—had pulled those strings, leaving the three of us alone in the Blue Opal chambers, with no risk of Meira shredding our belongings or Agnë cutting off our hair as we slept.

  It figured that the only people who could stand to be around her would be paid to do so. Annoying as Cherine could be, and despite her being the sort to make ambitious connections rather than friendships, I knew she liked me for me. And I actually liked her, more every day, for everything that made her her.

  Cyrus passed our compartment again, pushing a trolley. He winked at me before he moved on, singing quietly.

  “What are you smiling at?” Cora asked, leafy-green eyes contemplating me.

  I forced a neutral expression onto my face. “Nothing?”

  Her gaze intensified, making me feel scrutinized.

  “What?” I couldn’t help sounding defensive. “Can’t I smile when I feel like it? Lots of people are just smiley.”

  “But you’re not. You hardly ever smile.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “Because I’m—”

  “Bored. Yes. We know,” Cherine finished for her, crabbily.