by Lucy Tempest
The worst thing wasn’t that his charade was potentially dangerous for me. It was that he’d given me hope. Hope that I’d found someone like me, someone who yearned for a better life and could build that life with me. That hope that had filled my lungs like air now ate at me the same way the fire I’d started had eaten through that ballroom, turning everything to ashes.
He lowered his head until his eyes were inches from mine. “If I came up to you in all my primped and perfumed glory and introduced myself as Crown Prince Cyaxares of Cahraman, the one who sent for you and forty-nine others, would you have shown me that side of you?”
“Would you?”
He blinked as he unfolded upright. More hair fell over his forehead, casting shadowy tendrils over his brow and more contrast to his stunning eyes.
What felt like a lifetime ago, that ring I’d pawned had held a gem their same color. That lime-green that hid so many shades within its facets and shone brightest in daylight. My mother had called it an emerald her entire life, said it had been her aunt’s. But the pawnbroker had said it was peridot, its less valuable counterpart.
It was the opposite with him. He’d turned out to be the prince, not the pauper.
Yet, looking deep into his hypnotic eyes, I could still see so many possibilities, ones I had already abandoned. For no matter how hard he might laugh at the girls who’d messed up their chance with him, how cocky he became now he was back in his born and bred status, his eyes had never been anything but kind.
Perhaps this wasn’t a game to him.
He finally exhaled, a heavy, weary breath. “No. I believe I wouldn’t have felt free to. Last night was supposed to be the first time any of you put a face to the name.”
“Ruined my own surprise when I cornered you during that first test, didn’t I?”
“‘Cornered’? You mean when you grabbed me by the collar and hassled me for information,” he teased. “Though, most would say that gave you an advantage over the rest.”
“Why? Because I got you to carry my groceries for me?” I batted my eyelashes at him in exaggerated innocence.
“Because you got to like me without the crown.” He paused, hesitating. “At least, I hope you do.”
If he was looking for assurance that, yes, I had liked him, too much, as he’d been with me, not as he presented himself now, then he was out of luck. The confession stuck in my throat among a jumble of emotions. And then, for him to be asking for reassurance, when I was the one who needed it, was as rich as he was.
As silence dragged past my usual response-time, he asked again, his voice a subdued rumble, “Do you?”
“Do I what?” I uncrossed my arms, sliding my silver bracelets down with a soft jingle.
Worry seemed to seep beneath his skin, tensing his form and twisting his features, making him a completely different person from his usual easygoing self.
He really cared what I thought about him?
“Why am I still here, Cyrus?”
He relaxed a bit, some humor resurfacing. “Still Cyrus, is it?”
“Would you prefer Your Majesty?” I injected as much pretentious air as possible into a stretched out Your Majesty, lifting one layer of my skirt in a pretend-curtsey.
“Highness,” he corrected solemnly. “Call me Your Highness. Your Majesty is my father.”
Alright. That was funny. I’d give him that.
His eyes crinkled adorably as he cocked his head at me. “Ah, got you to smile. Guess you’re not too mad at me anymore.”
“Don’t push your luck, Your Highness.” It came out angrier than I meant it to.
The smile fell off his face as he stepped back, hands raised in lighthearted surrender. “I believe that’s my cue to leave.”
I instantly felt bad. I reached out to him, fingers curled in uncertainty. “Cyrus…”
He only bowed his head. “I’ll see you at lunch, my lady.”
Before I could say anything more, he pivoted away smoothly, headed down the hall, hands clasped behind him, face turned up as if in distracted admiration of the ceiling art.
I watched him leave, feeling as if my heart was being dragged in his wake.
This hadn’t gone well.
And I could only expect things to go downhill from here.
Chapter Four
The moment I closed my new room’s door, I slumped against it, the tension holding me up deflating.
Sighing raggedly, I took in the spacious room and its curved walls and double-frame arched windows took on a light coral hue. The luxury items and polished wood furniture upholstery became matching deep pinkish-red. The closest thing to me was a short wicker table with a silver tea set and crystal bowls full of sweets, and even those became a variety of golds, pinks and reds. But my gaze snagged on the lone queen-sized four-poster bed as its satin bedspread outlined with gold thread and dotted with sequins and crystal beads became pomegranate-red.
Only the beds had changed color to suit our clothes in our old dorm, but now I was alone here, everything changed to suit my red dress.
But instead of being thrilled by this show of magic, I only felt worse. It would be another adjustment, being alone in this incredible room. If the girls were here, Cherine would be pouring us tea and scolding Cora for stuffing her cheeks with sweets like a squirrel…
Cora. Shrewd, watchful Cora who had long joined the list of people I wouldn’t want to upset, not just because she could swing me across the room, but because, unlike Farouk and Loujaïne, she didn’t suspect I was lying—she knew.
Strange thing was, she’d kept it to herself and had been feeding me ways out of tight spots since the day we’d first met. The questions of why would have to wait.
My trunk was at the foot of the bed, my dresses already in the hand-cut mahogany wardrobe across from it. No one ever commented on the preset kind of magic working around the palace, everyone so used to it that they didn’t seem to notice it.
How did that magic work? Who worked it? Were people like Nariman born with it or did they learn it? All the old stories never clarified if witches were people who practiced witchcraft, or if they were an entirely different set of beings.
Was there a way to stop them beyond burning them at the stake?
Exhaling again, I straightened, and commenced a thorough search for ways out of the room. This time I started under the bed, but there was no hidden trapdoor this time. And there were no false walls or any other exit that led to the bowels of this endless palace. There was no way for me to slip out of my room without tipping off the guards and in turn, Loujaïne.
The only other way out was the window. After my descent down the palace border wall to rescue Cherine, I certainly wasn’t in a hurry to risk my neck like that again. Especially when I didn’t have anyone to hold me up like Cyrus and Cora had that time—
“Aren’t you a sad sight.”
A calm, sardonic voice slithered through the silence, making me almost jump out of my skin with a strangled shout.
In the darkest corner, away from the downpour of daylight swathing half the room, was the flickering projection of Nariman.
Dark hair braided, with an ornamental snake tying its ends, and dark dress washed out to grey, she hovered by the cabinet, alive in its shadow, a waking nightmare with burning eyes.
“What’s the matter?
Trembling with the aftershock of her arrival, my voice shook, breaking the furious façade I needed to reinforce my sarcasm. “You’re the matter. You’re the reason I’m in this mess.”
“You wouldn’t be in this mess if the king hadn’t both robbed and banished me.”
“You could have taken it out on his sister, not me,” I blurted out the frustrated response.
Nariman chuckled, humorless, bitter. “Oh, I tried.”
My eyebrows shot up, practically bumping into my hairline.
She reached out a blurry hand, fingers twitching. Her entire form distorted as the curtains unfolded heavily from their hooks, blocking the sunlight
.
At once appearing more solid in the dimness, she floated towards me.
While I knew she wasn’t physically here, her clearer image flooded me with unreasoning fear, forcing me to stumble back raising an arm, ready to block any attacks from her staff.
Unconcerned by my state, Nariman’s projection floated to the table, stared down at its mirrored surface as if something was written there. She wasn’t reflected in it.
Moving out of cornered-animal mode, I swallowed the jagged lump in my throat. “What do you mean you tried?”
“Strange,” she said calmly, still gazing down at the blank mirror. “After all that trouble to get me banished, I expected gossip about me to still be floating around the palace.”
“Why? What did you do?” I asked, emboldened by the intensity of my curiosity.
The corner of her mouth twitched in a cross between a smirk and a wobble. “In all your little talks, our dear prince has never mentioned me?”
“Why would he?”
She flashed her teeth in an unsettling smile. “Because I practically raised him.”
Like a broken marionette, my jaw clattered open.
This was the last response I ever expected.
Nariman couldn’t be older than thirty, probably less than ten years older than Cyrus, making her claim impossible.
Unless she was far older than she appeared to be.
I managed one trembling word, “H—How?”
“King Darius was too busy to do it himself.” Her voice was loaded with venomous distaste.
“W-what happened to the queen? No one talks about her.”
Her eyes rose to mine, raising my every hair on end. “There was no queen.”
“How?”
Her brow furrowed as she raised her fist to cover her mouth, as if to hide a flare of emotion. “Cyrus’s mother was the last princess consort. She killed herself before Darius succeeded his father as king.”
I gaped at her.
That—that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Mothers died fighting fatal diseases or lost their lives to difficult births, or they died because of someone else’s cruelty or thoughtlessness. What kind of suffering could drive a mother to end her own life and leave her child?
I now remembered the pained look on Cyrus’s face when he’d said his mother was dead. It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d never gotten the chance to know her, to have her impact his life like mine had.
Suddenly, I almost doubled over as a horrific new thought swamped me.
I’d always believed my mother’s death had been a tragic, senseless accident. I’d taken solace believing that if given a choice, she would have stayed with me, to spared me the last few years of my life. But—what if her sudden disappearance and death had been of her own choosing? Could she have been suffering an unbearable anguish that had driven her beyond endurance, beyond even considering me, and her one way to end it had been to end her life?
Though this possibility shook me to my soul, I couldn’t consider it now. Whatever the reason she’d died, she had. And she’d left me. Like Cyrus’s mother had left him. And it seemed his father had barely been there for him. Now, in choosing his bride, he wanted someone who wouldn’t leave him.
I could be that someone. I wanted to be that one person for him. But I couldn’t. I had to leave. Because of her!
Nariman now faced me, daring to look moved, throat bobbing with a swallow. “Darius’s wife was a…deeply troubled girl. It was hard, watching her go from a happy, healthy girl to the miserable, mindless thing she became at the end.”
“You knew her?”
“Darling, I was her oldest friend.”
This time I couldn’t keep upright, sank where I stood by the tea table.
Nariman continued, “I, along with two others, accompanied her to Cahraman as her ladies-in-waiting when she came to marry the crown prince.”
That revelation was almost as jarring as the two she’d already shared. But now suspicion was trickling among the shock, staining everything she said with disbelief.
Or—was it possible she wasn’t lying, that she hadn’t always been this evil?
I couldn’t be certain either way. I needed to know more. If not about Cyrus then about her, so I could get a clear idea on what kind of person she was and how she thought. And with that, a possible way to reason with her, maybe even manipulate her into releasing the Fairborns.
I had to keep her talking. Anything I learned about her would help. Knowledge was my one weapon in this mess. And she always seemed willing to share information about herself when prompted. I hoped she’d continue to be forthcoming.
I sagged forward on the table. “Where did you come from?”
Nariman settled across from me, still faded and translucent but her voice disconcertingly clear. “The Princedom of Almaskham beyond the gulf of the Silver Sea. A beautiful land that will be a bastion of legend someday. I sent Cyrus there when he was younger, to be among his mother’s family and to get an education he couldn’t get here.”
Cyrus had told me he’d lived elsewhere. Now every word he’d ever said to me took on new meaning, felt like pieces of a puzzle falling into place.
“Do people learn magic there?” I asked, almost vibrating with urgency. Hopefully, she’d let another secret slip. Like when she’d intimated the lamp housed—something she needed.
“Yes, but you have to have the talent for it to begin with.”
“Did his mother?”
“No, but the other ladies-in-waiting did, though none close to my own power. That’s why she developed such a dependence on potions. I never thought giving her a few drops of soother silk in her wine would escalate to that, but she wanted to be numb all the time…”
“Why did she hate it here so much?” I prodded, unable to contain my impatience.
Her expression grew grim, her hand closing around her serpent staff tightly. “Imagine being ripped from your home at your age to be sent to marry a man you’ve never met, all so both your fathers could sign trade deals and your husband can use you to incubate his heirs. We were packed up and sent here so she’d become the princess and myself and the other two to be married off to noblemen.”
“Then what happened?”
“She married Darius. Hessa was engaged to a minister, but neither I nor our third married.”
“Why?”
“Dorreya was the mistress of a prince in Almaskham, taken as a replacement after the prince’s wife proved infertile.”
I inhaled sharply. Dorreya. My mother’s name.
I remembered when I’d first encountered Nariman in Ericura, how foreign she and her name had appeared, how she’d been the closest to my mother and myself I’d ever seen. How I’d thought we might even be related.
But that had been when I’d thought Nariman was from Ericura. That Ericura was the whole world.
But now I knew it wasn’t, my mother’s name was no longer an oddity. Dorreya was probably a common name around here, like Bree and Elenei were in the North and South of Ericura respectively. Nariman’s Dorreya couldn’t be my mother—that would be too much for me to bear. But that name still pointed to my mother, or at least her bloodline, originating from this side of the Folkshore.
There was also the fact that my namesake, the goddess ‘Adalat,’ was nowhere to be found on Ericura.
If anyone had answers to any of this, it was Nariman, but I couldn’t risk derailing the topic we were currently on.
“No one outside the three of us knew about Dorreya and her prince,” Nariman continued soundlessly tapping long nails on the serpent head of her cane. “But the old king still ruined our prospects for good marriages.”
“Why?” I asked again, pushing away the intrusive thought of Loujaïne, who also seemed to have known a Dorreya.
“King Xerxes was convinced that one of us was tampering with his heir’s attempts to conceive with his new wife. That we put abortifacients in her tea, because he knew at least one of us was a witch and
heard women from our land practiced petty magic on each other.”
I swallowed, a heavy lump in my throat. “Do they?”
“They do, but we had no reason to. She was our princess, both here and in Almaskham, and more importantly, she was our friend. But Xerxes didn’t see it that way.”
I had a hard time imagining Nariman with friends. I couldn’t see beyond the ruthless side of her.
“But they did conceive,” I said.
“Yes. When the king had Hessa beheaded.”
I choked on thin air and almost coughed my lungs out.
When I could finally breathe again, I croaked, “Why Hessa?”
“Xerxes only started with her, promised Dorreya and I we were next if Hessa proved not to be the culprit.”
“Did she?” I asked in a small, strained voice.
Narimane shook her head in a “who-knows” gesture.
I couldn’t help asking about the third witch, like I’d formed an attachment to her based only on her name. “What about Dorreya?”
“She eventually left, claiming that the prince who’d taken her as his mistress summoned her back to Almaskham. But since Cyrus was conceived after one witch’s execution and his birth was followed by another’s escape, Xerxes assumed that his plan had worked and let me live.”
“Who do you think was the cause?”
Her amber eyes narrowed in contemplation. “It’s hard to say. Witches tend to travel in threes, each with her expertise and level of power. Hessa was the weakest and youngest, specializing in small spells, while Dorreya was more practical, having a potion for every issue.”
That wasn’t an answer. It was as if she wanted me to reach my own conclusion based on the evidence. I only knew I couldn’t blame the third witch for returning to that prince’s bed. It was better than being at the mercy of a paranoid king or staying alongside Nariman.
Feeling a bit bolder, I pushed her for a better response. “Was it Hessa or not?”
“I don’t want to consider it, but the coincidence was too suspect.”