The Princess

by Andrea Ring

  Kai sighs heavily. “Is it awful to say that this is partly a relief? Mother was suffering, and now she’s at peace.”

  The king sits beside him and pats his knee. “That’s exactly it. I never wanted to be a widower, but this is for the best. Our prayers have finally been answered.”

  A tear slips down my cheek.

  “I’m going to announce that she’s gravely ill, but that she wishes to see her son married. That will take care of any question as to why she’s not in attendance.”

  “What of her body?” Kai asks. “We cannot transport it, or someone might see.”

  “Wadee is going to handle it himself.”

  “Should I call for some tea?” I ask. “Or something stronger?”

  The king smiles sadly. “There will be plenty of time to mourn her. You two have wedding things to attend to. Do not worry about me. I’ve mourned her for fifteen cycles.”

  “We have time,” Kai says. “If you wish for us to stay, we will.”

  “No. Silvia’s wish would be for you to continue to live. Go. Do not disappoint your mother.”

  ***

  Out in the hall, I take Kai’s hand. “Would you like to return to your rooms? Rest for a bit?”

  He shakes his head. “Let’s visit Manoj. I’d like to let him know, and then we can see how we feel.”

  We walk hand in hand to Manoj’s rooms. He is sitting at his desk, writing industriously.

  “Morning,” he says, kissing my cheek. Then he looks closer at the both of us. “What’s wrong?”

  “My mother passed away,” Kai says, and Manoj closes his eyes.

  “I’m so sorry. She loved you so very much, Kai.”

  They share a hug, and Manoj calls for some tea while we all sit.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. Father is not announcing it until after the wedding. He doesn’t want to interrupt our plans. But I wanted you to know.”

  “It makes sense,” Manoj says. “You don’t have long to be married or you must abdicate your claim to the throne, and there’ve been too many things disrupting this marriage as it is. It’s a wise choice.”

  A servant brings tea, and we all sip.

  “It doesn’t seem real,” Kai says. “I haven’t seen her, and it just doesn’t seem real.”

  “Do you want to see her?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “No. When I saw before I set out to find you…that was horrific enough. I want no more bad memories. At least Father was there. That is enough.”

  We lapse into silence.

  “We got your message,” Kai says. “Anything important?”

  Manoj sets down his cup and rummages through the papers on his desk. “Perhaps. You received a message the day you questioned Mita, but it came at the same time as the Westend letter, and I forgot all about it.”

  “Who from?”

  “The high priest. It’s a bit of a puzzle. I need you to read it.”

  He finally finds it and hands it to Kai, who reads aloud:

  “Your Highness Prince Kai ben-Jagir,

  The untouchable who lives like a queen in our village has disappeared. Her father is most distraught. I fear it has something to do with the goings-on about which we spoke. I found a shrine to her in a hut in the mountains yesterday. What this portends, I cannot guess. Please advise.”

  Kai looks at me. “Who lives like a queen in Dabani?”

  “It has to be Lili,” I say. “Shiva’s mistress and Saphala’s sister. Shiva keeps them in high style. No one, not even the merchants, lives so well.”

  “She’s probably off with Shiva,” Kai says. “They spend a lot of time together.”

  “But the letter says her father is upset,” I say. “Lili always tells her father when she leaves. He and Shiva came to an understanding about it. Even most of the village knows when she leaves, and they help Fadi while she’s gone.”

  “Could she have gone looking for Saphala?” Manoj asks. “If Lili and her father knew Saphala was supposed to show up, and she didn’t, maybe she was worried.”

  “Lili would have told her father if she went on such a quest,” I say. “On the other hand, if Lili is truly missing, Shiva would be in an uproar. Have we heard from him?”

  “Did someone call my name?”

  Shiva appears beside us, a bouquet of lilies in his hands. He holds them out to Kai with a bow.

  “I just heard. I am so sorry for the loss of your mother. Silvia was a kind and gentle woman.”

  Kai takes the flowers and bows in return. “Thank you, Shiva. That means a great deal.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I will bless her right now. I’ve been a bit busy.”

  “Shiva,” Kai says. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  Kai bows his head. “We’ve just learned that Lili is missing.”

  “What?”

  “And someone set up a shrine to her in the mountains. She is being worshipped, but by who and why, we don’t know.”

  Shiva’s hand shoots out and wraps around Kai’s neck. He lifts Kai from the ground. “How do you know this?”

  “Shiva!” I scream.

  “How!”

  “The high priest,” Kai grits out. “He…sent me a message.”

  I stand. “Shiva, put him down this instant! Kai had nothing to do with it. He’s only the messenger.”

  Shiva drops Kai and faces me. “What else do you know?”

  “That’s all,” I say. “Except that Fadi is worried. He doesn’t know where she is.”

  And Shiva pops out.

  “Guess that answers that question,” Manoj says. “Shiva’s clueless.”

  I kneel next to Kai and rub his bruised neck. “Are you alright?”

  “Fine,” he says, getting to his feet. “But whoever took her won’t be.”

  “You think she’s been kidnapped?” Manoj says.

  “Yes. Lili is Shiva’s. She does very little without his knowledge and consent. I want to know what Shiva’s been doing that he’s been away from her for so long. That’s not normal for them.”

  “Maybe he’s been with his wife,” I suggest.

  Kai laughs mirthlessly. “You’ve never met her, have you? Shiva’s spent more cycles running away from her than he’s spent breathing.”

  ***

  Manoj agrees to inform Faaris about the queen, and Kai and I head to Chaya’s rooms to see to the wedding details.

  I am getting married. For real. Not because I’m saving someone, not because I’m sacrificing myself, and not because the gods have decreed it. I am choosing to marry a man I love.

  I thought this fact would change my view of the ceremony itself, perhaps boost my interest in the minutiae.

  But it doesn’t.

  I cannot get around the fact that I will be on display. I cannot muster a care for these linens or those flowers. It almost galls me, the amount of coin being spent on something that will last for a few hours. I could feed thousands if I did but forgo the finest wines from Asmar and settle for a local vintage.

  Kai wouldn’t care if I chose a cheaper wine. But I can hear his voice in my head: It’s one day, Nili. One day you get to feel special. There’s nothing selfish about taking one day for yourself.

  No matter what Kai would whisper to me, I choose not for myself. I am a village girl from Dabani, and my choices have no place here.

  I choose for Kai. I choose for Silvia.

  Kai was born and raised a prince. If Silvia were here, she would be choosing as a queen chooses for her only son.

  I never got the chance to know her. I will never have that chance.

  I give her the only gift I can.

  A wedding for royalty.

  XLVII. MANOJ

  I need a master list of everyone residing in the palace, and what rooms we still have available. The dock master handed me a list three hundred people long, of those who will soon be docking and wish lodging in the palace. This is not only a logistical nightmare,
but a security nightmare as well. Steward Dilip should have this information at hand, or heads will roll.

  Dilip is nowhere to be found. I wander out to the courtyard and over to the south entrance gate, hoping to locate him.

  “Have you seen Steward Dilip?” I ask the guard.

  He points outside. “He’s handling some new arrivals at the stables.”

  I sigh. Dilip has gotten so used to a half-full palace during the docking ban that he’s still insisting on doing everything himself. He needs to conscript twenty more people to help him, or visitors are going to start camping in the mud.

  I exit the gate and walk to the stables.

  No Dilip.

  As I’m rounding the corner to return to the palace, two horses coming rushing in from the market. The riders are wrapped in furs, and the one in front gives a shout. “Manoj!”

  I look closer at the rider. “Tanaya?” I cry.

  She slows her horse, and I run over to meet her. “Where have you been?”

  “Oh, Manoj,” she says, leaning down to me. She slides off her horse and holds me tight. “It’s so good to see you.”

  I pull back. “Have you been traveling? Where is your escort?”

  She nods. “It’s a long story. Anjali! Help her off her horse. She’s exhausted and she took a fall.”

  “Your parents must be frantic,” I say. “They’ll be so relieved to see you. I’ll have a servant alert them.”

  She clutches my arm as I get Anjali to her feet. “No! They mustn’t know! Please, can we stay in your rooms?”

  “Yes, but my parents are probably there. Why mustn’t they know?”

  She bites her lip. “I need more time. Please. Where else can we go?”

  “If you’ll just tell me why, I can help you. I’m sure your father—”

  “Manoj, please! Stop being your logical, irritating little self and help me! I’m asking as a friend. Please just hide us, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  Of all the ridiculous…and she wants me to help but then insults me?

  I open my mouth to reply and stop. Tanaya’s eyes are full of tears, and she looks like she’s hanging on the edge of her sanity by a thread.

  I have never seen Tanaya cry.

  I yell for a servant to have the prince meet us at Nili’s rooms, and I escort the girls inside.

  ***

  The door is open when we arrive, and Kai and Nili are chatting by the window.

  “Help me, Kai,” I say. “Anjali needs to lie down.”

  Kai rushes over and takes Anjali by the waist. He guides her to Nili’s bed while I get Tanaya seated on a cushion.

  “What’s wrong?” Nili asks. “Do they need a healer?”

  “Tanaya?” I ask, seating myself beside her. “A healer?”

  “Food would be better,” she says. “And wine. Not the honey crap. I want to get shit-faced.”

  “Shit-faced? Is that how you speak in front of Kai and Lady Nilaruna? Have some manners!”

  Tanaya points over her shoulder. “Manoj, go over there, as far away from me as possible, before I beat you to a bloody pulp.”

  “I don’t care what you’ve been through,” I say. “I will not allow you to be rude!”

  “You can go fu—”

  “Manoj?” Nili says. She comes over to us and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Please send Zara to get some food and wine. And ask for some clean clothes to be sent up, too.”

  I bow my head. “Fine.”

  XLVIII. TANAYA

  “Thank you,” I say. “You must be Nilaruna.”

  She nods. “And you are?”

  “Tanaya, Chief Barun’s daughter, and this is my sister, Anjali. We’ve had…it’s been tough. A tough couple of days.”

  “Manoj is just worried about you,” she says, taking a cushion beside me. “I hope you know that. You’ve obviously been through a great ordeal, and when he’s anxious, he gets all uppity.”

  I laugh. “You’re tactful. Kai, you’ve chosen quite the diplomat.”

  Kai pads over to us and plops down. “I can’t wait for you to get to know her, Tani. I think Anjali fell asleep.”

  “Good,” I say, nodding. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances. I’m in trouble, Kai.”

  “So what’s new?” he says with a smile.

  I shake my head. “I’m serious. Father will…I don’t know what Father will do.”

  Manoj comes back in and leans against the wall, glaring in my direction.

  I sigh. “I’m sorry if I was rude when I came in. I’m a bit outspoken. In no way was it directed at you, Lady Nilaruna.”

  She takes my hand and squeezes. “Call me Nili. And I understand. I’ve shocked Manoj a time or two as well.”

  I raise an eyebrow at Manoj, and he rolls his eyes at me.

  “So what happened?” Kai says. “What’s with the furs?”

  I tell them my tale. Manoj doesn’t interrupt me once.

  “I need to speak with Maja,” Kai says. “Most likely he’s already been to the dragons since you gave him your information, but I want to confer with him anyway. And I need to talk with my father.”

  “I’m dead,” I say, hanging my head. “I’ve ruined everything, caused the deaths of good men, and I’ve lost our only weapon. I might as well be named traitor.”

  “You couldn’t predict how the dragons would react,” Nili says. “And you couldn’t have known how powerful they were. I’m furious with your father. He put you in a very dangerous situation!”

  “But I told him I could handle it,” I say. “I practically begged for the assignment. I thought nothing of the consequences and only of myself.”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Kai says. “You and Anjali will stay here. We’ll tell your father and mine that you barely escaped with your lives and that you’re recovering. We’ll play on their sympathy for now. Once I find out the situation from Maja, we’ll deal with the rest.”

  “You don’t have to cover for me, Kai,” I say. “I can face it. I should face it.”

  “We don’t even know what you’re facing yet,” he says. “Take a breather, rest, and then we’ll figure it out.”

  “There is one more thing,” I say. “Could I speak to Nili alone?”

  Before Manoj can speak, Kai bounds up and takes his arm. “We’ll be right outside.”

  Nili looks a question at me.

  I point to her bath chambers, and we both get up and go in quietly so as not to wake Anjali.

  “Working with the dragons, well, you can imagine, they’re not delicate creatures.”

  Nili’s forehead wrinkles, but she nods.

  “Let me just say it. I got burned.”

  “Do you need a healer?”

  “I don’t want a healer,” I say. “Wadee will tell my father, and then my mother, and then my sisters will know, and then the entire palace will be whispering about my…about it.”

  “I understand,” she says. “May I see?”

  I take a deep breath and lift my tunic. Nili helps unwrap the dressing, which has practically fused to my body.

  Every bit of my skin from my belly button to my chest is a raw seeping wound. Even my breasts.

  “How bad is it?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the ceiling.

  “Truth?”

  I nod.

  “It will scar. You have some infection, and that is keeping the wound from healing. Two places — on the top of your left breast, and around the nipple on the right — are still bleeding, Tanaya. The burn went deep. We might have to cut some of it away.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Is this something you can help me do, or do I need to go to Wadee?”

  “I can do it,” she says. “You must be in terrible pain.”

  “I will not complain,” I say. “Especially not in front of you.”

  “You can,” she says. “I understand better than most. I can’t believe you’re on your feet.”

  “Now you know why I need to get shit-faced.”

>   Nili laughs. “You deserve to. The food has arrived. I’ll pour.”

  She turns to go back, but I stop her with a hand on her arm. “Are you going to tell Kai?”

  “I have to,” she says. “I will need his help to heal you. Unless there’s someone else you can think of who can help. I cannot do it alone.”

  “I just don’t want Manoj to know,” I say.

  “He’ll find out eventually, Tanaya.”

  “No, he won’t,” I say. “Not unless you tell him.”

  “What about when you are alone?”

  “What makes you think Manoj and I will ever be alone?” I ask.

  Nili smiles. “Maybe I’m overstepping my bounds, but you still love him. I know he loves you.”

  “He spoke about me?”

  She nods.

  “I can’t,” I say. “Especially now, I just can’t.”

  “If I could do it, you can too,” she says.

  “Your wounds are as bad as this?”

  “Mine are much, much worse.”

  Nili pulls her veil off, and she lifts her tunic.

  A sob catches in my throat.

  I burst into tears.

  Nili wraps her arms around my neck, careful of my wounds, and even though I’ve been rude and insulting, she gives me her friendship.

  All I can do is cry.

  XLIX. AALIYAH

  Maja readies the horses and loads our packs. He has instructed me to be ready to leave in a few minutes.

  Besides that, he hasn’t spoken a word since my confession.

  I kneel before his altar and whisper a prayer one of the whores taught me years ago:

  Alone I am, alone I shall be, alone is my plight for that which I have done and cannot undo. Strength to live, strength to go on, strength to accept that which I have done and cannot undo. Karma come, karma heal, karma balance the scales for that which I have done and cannot undo.

  I chant. “Karma come, karma come, karma come.”

  Maja’s strangled voice cuts through my prayers. “Aaliyah.”

  I turn to him.

  “I have not the power to right your wrongs,” he says. “That is not my gift.”

  I push to my feet, head bowed. “I understand.”

  “I have only the gift of forgiveness.”

  My head comes up. “Forgiveness?” I whisper.