by Lucy Tempest
“You don’t do you this often, do you?” I asked. “Go on errands for the palace?”
He sighed. “No, I was never allowed to go out much. My father thought I had better things to do indoors. Seeing nothing but those walls and those people all the time is suffocating.”
My heart clenched at the melancholy in his voice. He felt trapped. The idea of begging him to escape with me became an almost unstoppable compulsion.
If he came back with me to Ericura, he could achieve his freedom and shirk all that bound him to this place. And he’d be with me. I wouldn’t be so focused on Bonnie as I was before, wouldn’t risk suffocating her if I split my love and attention between them. Together we could set up a new life completely detached from our old ones, where we wouldn’t have to be thieves, and I would never fear being alone in the world again.
But I couldn’t ask him now. Not yet. All I could do was try to lift him out of his slump.
To do that, I had to draw on my experience with homelessness, relive the anxiety and sometimes terror of not knowing what the next moment would bring.
This time I put my hand on his, felt the currents that flowed between us getting stronger. “But at least it’s safe and clean, not to mention constant. You know where you’ll sleep, where you’ll wake up, how you’ll get your next meal. And knowing who’s around all the time is far better than repeatedly starting over with people you don’t know. There’s no worry or risk in your future when you know where you’re going, right?”
“But what if you don’t like where you are going and the people you’re with?” He sounded and looked forlorn as he reached up to pick me a bottle of vinegar off the shelf. “What if you have no choice because there are no other places or people that you’ve experienced?”
“Then I would go look around, but still come home, not keep moving around forever. It’s exhausting.” I avoided the questions in his eyes by checking out a jar of pickled pearl onions.
He exhaled. “So is being limited and held back, especially after you realize that there are other ways to go about everything. What if you want to see what your other options are in the world rather than succumb to the fates and take what you’re given?”
“What if you find out there are no possibilities but the ones you already see?”
“Then I would have at least gotten that answer.”
He wanted to leave. He wanted to see new places and people and have choice and adventure. I so wanted to give him everything he wanted.
Without even intending to, I blurted out, “You can come with me.”
He stopped weighing the potatoes. “What do you mean?”
“You want to leave, and I’m going to be sent off next week.”
“Why are you so sure about that?” He slammed the vegetables in the cart he pushed around the stacks.
“Because I’ve survived this long only because others fared worse than me. The ones who remain are better than I am in just about everything.”
“They’re certainly no such thing!”
He actually sounded offended. On my behalf. That felt…good. The best thing I remembered feeling in a long, long time.
Fighting the urge to hug him for it, I shrugged. “Whatever, I’ll end up leaving. But if you come with me, you can explore your other options, like you said, and achieve the peace of knowing what’s out there and what you want for certain. The prince himself got us all here because he wanted the peace of mind of seeing if he had options beyond the obvious ones.” His gaze grew more intense until I rushed to lighten the mood. “Not that the brat even came to see said options for himself. He sent his auntie to sort them out for him.”
His face suddenly grew emotionless, his tone flattening. “Right.”
I sighed. “Wish I had some of that peace as well.”
He turned me to him, looking earnest. “You will. As you saw in the temple, it is always best to appease the goddess first before moving forwards, and I’m going to help you do that.”
If only Nariman were a goddess to be appeased as easily as Anaïta was.
“Think you can appease Anaïta with me?”
He almost slammed the cart into the people ahead of us.
Realizing I had said that out loud, the blood drained out of my face and shot straight towards my bubbling stomach.
“Joking!” I tried to laugh it off, but my giggle came out a bit hysterical as I pushed him along to the checkout station.
“So, you don’t want to propose to me?” he teased, letting me herd him.
“Uh…sorry, no. Don’t have a ring for you today.”
“What if I had one for you?”
It was my turn to halt and slam into the one behind me.
As the man grumbled, Cyrus laughed. It was a clear, joyous sound that turned my knees to jelly, threatening to buckle my legs out from under me.
Unaware of my messy state, Cyrus pushed our cart ahead when the customers ahead vacated their spot.
The vendor checked our purchases calmly. “That will be thirteen oksokos.”
Fingers buzzing like a thousand ants were marching through them, I took the pouch out of my bra and peeked at the silver and bronze coins. Even if I had I known what each was worth, in this moment when I was in danger of forgetting my own name, I wouldn’t have remembered.
“Er…which ones are those osk—oks—?”
“May I?” Cyrus took the pouch from my numb fingers, making sure to brush my fingertips. Then still grinning widely, he picked out thirteen hexagonal bronze coins and handed them over.
“Foreign wife, huh?” The vendor gave him a knowing nod. “I have one of those, from The Granary. Took her ages to understand our money. They still mostly barter over there.”
I spluttered, words breaking apart on my tongue.
Cyrus took our bags and nudged me ahead without correcting the vendor. “She’s only been here three weeks, so we’ll see how she adapts. She’s doing great so far.”
We left the shop with me clutching the smaller bag as if it would stop me from flying away.
“You were saying?” he asked innocently as he reopened the parasol.
I shook my head dazedly. “I forgot.”
“I didn’t.” His gaze on my upturned face felt like a caress. “You can have whichever ring you want from the vault.”
“How about the one you said grants wishes?” I choked. “I could really use some wishes coming true right now.”
“To find that lamp?”
And everything else I wanted to come true, including a peaceful life with him. “Among other things.”
For endless moments, I felt as if the marketplace disappeared around us as our eyes locked. There was nothing left in the world but his eyes and my thundering heartbeat. Then he finally nodded, as if deciding something.
Before I could even think what that could mean, he offered me his arm again. “Where to now, my lady?”
I vaguely remembered what we were doing there, and what I needed to do next. Dessert. I needed to go where I could pick what I needed for the dessert.
Back on Ericura, there hadn’t been places that had trusted me to make more than simple dishes and portion and serve already-made pies and cakes. But my mother had been a good baker, so I was bound to remember a few things.
I took his arm, no longer pretending he was my escort, clinging to him for the sheer pleasure of it. “To wherever they sell nuts and flour. I’m making a walnut-raisin cake.”
“To the fruit section we go, then,” he said jovially, steering me down another road.
We eventually found ourselves behind a group of the potential future queens. They were rushing in a loud, lost hurry. I caught the loudest of their complaints.
“What is the point of this stupid trip?”
“We have chefs and cooks and bakers and such, why in the world would we need to make our own food?”
“I can’t believe I have come here to be treated like a common maid!”
“How is this meant to be a te
st? They should be assessing if we’re to be good hostesses, not errand boys!”
“The nerve of those people, dragging us down here and leaving us to fend for ourselves. I was raised better than that!”
I knew being dragged around the market in this heat was tiring and inconvenient but, by the level of disgust, you’d think they had been asked to dig up a grave for a necromancy ritual.
“What giant children.” Cyrus huffed. “They expect to help rule a kingdom when they can’t manage to get their own food?”
“They’re rich girls. They don’t need to do anything, things are done for them. It’s all in one’s expectations.”
He didn’t comment.
We reached our next stop. As I was sampling raisins from different barrels, I spotted a woman digging through her bag at checkout. Holding onto her skirt was a little girl, staring at the floor guiltily, a bitten apple in her hand.
“You bite it you buy it,” the vendor told the woman crankily. “No excuses for anyone, including children.”
“But we’ve done our shopping and our budget is used up. I came to this part of the market by mistake. I wouldn’t have risked it if I knew the products were imports.”
The begging mother was still young, a little younger than my own mother when I’d last seen her. But her exhaustion made her look ten years older, with dark circles under her eyes and hair sticking out of her bun, adding to her dishevelment. Her impoverished state seemed to be new. She wasn’t used to her daily grind yet.
She must be a widow. Young and with a girl who couldn’t be more than five, and they were about to get shaken down, all for one lousy apple.
“Then return something and pay for the apple,” the vendor insisted.
“But I need everything. My family—we can’t—” the woman spluttered, desperate.
“Then you should have thought about that before you brought one of them with you.”
I left Cyrus, who was busy checking walnuts for me, and headed toward them, shaking the coin pouch. “Hey, how much is a bag of these apples?”
The vendor immediately put on a friendlier face for me, bowing and presenting a box of pink apples. “These go for twenty-two oksokos a pack.”
A dozen apples for almost double the price as all the spices, herbs and vegetables I got? This was why I had never been able to afford the finer things. It had been either the good chocolate or dozens of potatoes I could live on for days.
“They’ll take one,” I said.
The woman stopped digging in her bag, unsure if she’d heard me right.
The man got a sack, filled it with the pink apples and handed it to me. I took out one apple and tossed it to him. “To replace the one that means so much to you.”
I then knelt by the girl and offered her the sack. “Think you can carry this for your mommy? My mother always made me carry the bags if I embarrassed her in the market. It made her less mad at me later.”
Hesitant at first, the girl cracked a wide smile and took the sack, almost dropping it at first, before raising it stoically.
The mother just watched, mouth open as I started counting the hexagonal coins.
“The—the round ones count as thirty of those,” the woman said, her voice shaking like she was about to cry. “He can give you change for it.”
“Oh, there it is.” I fished out one round bronze coin and gave it to the man. “We good?”
When he gave me back eight pieces, I eyed my remaining coins. I probably wouldn’t have enough to buy the rest of the stuff I needed. But no matter, what was important was that I—
Before I could finish that thought, the woman tackled me with a hug. It was more shock rather than the impact of the hug itself that almost sent me tipping over.
“Thank you,” she sobbed, sounding like her heart was breaking with relief.
Sharp sadness tightened my throat. I wrapped my arms around her shoulder, resisting the nostalgic urge to set my head there and pretend she was my mother.
“You’re welcome,” I choked.
Giving me one last squeeze, she stepped back and took her daughter’s hand, leading her away. The girl slipped her hand out of her mother’s grip to reposition the sack and wave at me happily.
I waved back, fighting back the tears that threatened to pop out of my eyes.
On my way back to Cyrus, I swiped two apples from the stack and stuck one in my mouth. A trade-off for the vendor being an uncompromising jerk. There was no way he could sell all those apples before they spoiled. He could have given the girl one before it did, at least let it slide when she took one herself. But he hadn’t.
As I stepped back under the parasol, biting my apple, I handed Cyrus the other apple and he stared at me blankly.
I let my apple fall out of my mouth into my hand. “What’s the matter?”
“Why did you do that?”
I slowed my chewing. “Hey, you steal priceless objects, so don’t get holier-than-thou with me about a couple of apples.”
“I’m not talking about the apples you stole, but the ones you bought for that woman.”
“What kind of question is that?” I crunched another huge bite, talking with my mouth full. Cherine would be so disappointed. “That man was giving her a hard time just because her daughter wanted to try one. She needed help and I could offer it, so I did. It’s something I wished happened to me when I was younger. Maybe they’ll pay it forward someday.”
He suddenly dragged me towards him, bent and pressed a lingering kiss on my cheek, before whispering against it, “You just have to keep surprising me, don’t you?”
I would have answered him, but I was too busy trying not to choke on my apple and my heart—or to spontaneously combust.
I’d finally understood what the phrase “walking on air” meant.
I’d barely felt the ground beneath my feet as we’d continued our shopping and our hunt for the lamp.
Purchases-wise, I’d gotten everything—well, almost everything. I’d budgeted the money to cover it all with Cyrus’s help, but there hadn’t been enough left to buy any of those extravagant, sparkly lilies. He’d wanted to get them for me, but I’d declined, suspecting they wouldn’t last till the end of the week anyway. No wedding bouquet for me. Not that I’d cared as I’d treaded the clouds of bliss with him by my side.
But by the time Master Farouk blew the whistle that ended the shopping field trip, I’d landed back to the ground of grim reality with a thud.
Cyrus and I had checked every nearby temple’s altar and every closet in their priests’ quarters, and it seemed there was no such thing as a golden lamp.
Lamps were oily, smelly objects that were expected to crack after a few years of use or at least oxidize and turn an irreversible black with soot. While a gold one would be more durable, it was still something only the obscenely wealthy would commission. Which brought the question of why King Darius would take Nariman’s lamp rather than make his own? He had mountains of gold in his own vault, lying untouched for decades.
None of this made sense. There had to be something very special about that one specific lamp. The problem was, I couldn’t begin to guess what it could be. And I was nearing my wit’s end with this dead-end quest I was on.
Everyone had regrouped at the starting point, chattering up a storm as they checked each others’ acquisitions. Fairuza, having lots of money and seeming unaware of her missing sack, had Agnë and Meira carrying more flowers than produce. Cherine mostly had flowers, too, and said she’d ordered sweets to be delivered to the palace. Cora had only a satchel with corn ears sticking out of it.
We returned to the train and Cyrus slinked back to the service area before I could talk to him again. And I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to do nothing but talk to him. Even when I knew I’d sound like a giddy girl. I was a giddy girl.
He’d kissed me.
On the cheek, sure, but he’d still kissed me.
I kept trying to catch any glimpse of him as our purchases were taken fr
om us to be inspected and, somehow, graded. I had no luck again during the trip up the mountain. It was even more pensive and quieter than the one down, for which I was thankful. I couldn’t get my mind off Cyrus enough to talk about anything else.
The one thing that pulled me out of my thoughts was when I saw Ayman’s eyes watching us through the clear spaces in the compartment window. Going outside would have been painful for him, so why had he tagged along if it meant he’d stay on the train?
By the third time he passed, I became certain it was only Cherine he had eyes for.
His fixation with her was making me feel worse for him. She considered him a monster.
But—she also believed her memories of him to be such intensely romantic dreams. Maybe if she officially met him, talked to him, something could work out.
I turned to her, aiming to find out what his chances were. “Cherine, what would you do if you lost the competition?”
She started from admiring her magnificent bouquet. “Blacken Fairuza’s other eye.”
I sat forward. “I’m being serious. Do you have any plans for what you’d do if you lose?”
She set the bouquet down, toying with a few petals, looking more crestfallen than I’d ever seen her. “Probably marry some other member of the family.”
“What if you met someone you fell in love with and wanted to marry him?”
Cherine’s eyes rounded as if she’d never considered the possibility of marrying for love.
Before the answer trembling on her lips left them, Cora broke the moment, deviously suggesting, “You could get shipped off to marry Fairuza’s brother. Then you’d be sisters.”
Cherine shuddered, sticking her tongue out and crossing her eyes in disgust. “If she’s the one chosen, I’ll tip her out the tower and marry the prince myself.”
“Will you be hauled off to princess jail before or after the wedding?” Cora wiggled her eyebrows. “And who knows? Arbore could even go to war with Cahraman over it.”
Cherine sat back, sighing wistfully. “Imagine a war breaking out, just over you.”
Cora’s eyes bulged with disbelief.
With the moment to probe Cherine’s feelings gone, my companions resumed their squabbling. I sat back, my mind paused at their blithe mention of war, especially Cherine’s glamorous view of it.