by Lucy Tempest
“But why would she do it?”
“She might have been asked to. Divorces are permitted if a marriage isn’t fruitful. At least that was the case in Almaskham, as Dorreya’s prince had his wife sent back to her land after she failed to give him children.”
I processed this information to help flesh out this world for me, the ugliness of its reality making it feel less like an endless dream. “You think the princess asked her to stop her from getting pregnant?”
“I can think all I want, but I can never get an answer now they’re all gone.”
I couldn’t imagine having to move to a new place with only three familiar faces then have two torn from my life while the third left me stuck there.
Wait. I didn’t need to imagine. I was exactly in this situation. The two torn from me had their lives put at risk by the third who’d left me stuck here. The one currently worsening my wretchedness with her awful stories.
“You lost your best friends yet you hold mine hostage and threaten to kill her,” I hissed, nails scraping the mirror, wishing it was her face. “You were basically a hostage yourself. How could you do to me what someone else did to you?”
She looked away. “Because I have no other choice.”
“Yes, you do! You could have asked someone who works here to bring you the lamp!”
Her gaze returned to mine, lips curling in a vicious sneer. “Someone who works here and believes all the slander about me being an evil witch and would still risk stealing from his king you mean?”
“And when did someone’s reluctance stop…” I stopped when I remembered. “Your magic doesn’t work here since your banishment. That’s why you couldn’t get anyone from here to work for you.”
“Darius had the heads of magical regulation place wards so only wizards who are native to Cahraman, or are invited in, can cross the kingdom walls or practice magic within them. I’m a banished foreigner. It’s why I’m here, actually. The wards have been strengthened, I won’t be able to project myself anymore. This will be our last contact—until you bring me the lamp.”
“Thanks so much for the visit,” I grumbled. Then I realized I hadn’t asked the most important question. “Why were you banished?”
Her eyes flared with that terrifying glow I’d first seen watching me in the Hornswoods, before she’d kidnapped and separated us. “I told you.”
I shook my head, trying to hide how much she scared me. “No, not really.”
Just like that, my attempt to glean something I could use, even leverage against her backfired.
Without another glance, she stood and floated towards the wall. “You have one week, remember?”
My insides tightened into a knot as I scrambled to save the situation, lure her back into a talkative state. But every shaky word out my mouth only made things worse. “Why do you need that lamp so badly now? What’s the rush?”
“The rush is that at the end of this week you will be sent home, and my last chance to retrieve something that is mine, that is priceless, will be gone.”
“At least tell me why the king took it from you.”
She stopped, facing the wall. “You should ask him when you meet him.”
“Why do you say that when you know I have no chance of winning!”
“You don’t?” she hummed in mock-intrigue. “To me, it looks like you have quite an edge over your rivals”
“I am completely out of my depth! I am cracking under the stress you’ve put me under and there is no way I’ll make it to the end of this week intact or on top!” I rambled in a heated rush, muscles tightening, arms trembling. “If you really wanted me to win, you would have actually helped me, given me ways to cheat, rather than send me in blind.”
“This competition is cheat-proof. I would know because I enchanted it to be so,” she said matter-of-factly, twirling her staff. “Any tricks I could have armed you with would have caused your elimination or backfired as a hex. Besides, you’re doing a lot better than I dared hope, and you will continue on that path.”
That not-so-subtle threat only added to my climbing rage. None of my questions had gotten proper answers. She deflected the same way I did when someone interrogated me. You couldn’t lie to a liar, not for long. Which meant she was hiding things. Things I could use against her if I found them out.
So what was she scared of? Could there be something that could scare her?
In my nerve-burning frustration, I tried again, forcing casual sweetness into my voice. “At least tell me what’s in it?”
Nariman looked back at me over her shoulder. “In what?”
“The lamp.” I grinned, my facial muscles wobbling out of control, no doubt turning my attempted smile into a manic grimace. “You said there was something in it.”
“A week, Adelaide,” she shouted abruptly. “You know what will happen if you don’t come through.”
She walked through the wall before my stampeding heart could stumble on its next beat.
Defeated, feeling even more trapped than before, I dropped my arms on the table and my head between them, thumping my hot, throbbing forehead onto the cool glass.
Another wasted opportunity. I just couldn’t do anything right, could I?
Any shortcuts I tried only looped back to the same path—the long, treacherous one.
The previous king had beheaded a woman for suspecting she’d been tampering with his daughter-in-law’s fertility. What would the current one do if he caught me red-handed?
My stiff hand went to my neck where I could almost feel the slice of the executioner’s blade.
Chapter Five
After Nariman left, I didn’t know how long I sat crumpled on the ground.
My mind replayed every word she and Cyrus had ever told me, matching them, cross-referencing them, and trying to come up with explanations for all that was left unanswered.
If she was even partially truthful about raising Cyrus, had she had anything to do with him setting up the Bride Search?
Had she told him how his parents had married and why his mother had killed herself and he had wanted to avoid the same fate? Had he decided to choose his wife rather than have her be part of an arrangement that led to a life of misery that could include a premature death?
If that was the case, then maybe Fairuza wasn’t such a shoe-in for Princess of Cahraman. At least, I hoped not. If he ended up with one of the other three girls it wouldn’t hurt as much.
But I couldn’t afford to dwell on anything beyond next week, and what I’d do to get into the king’s quarters, when I no longer had the luxury of being an insignificant.
Now I was one of five, and I had new things to worry about. Among those, one idea insistently tapped me on the shoulder, whispering: What if you have a real chance?
If I did, what would I do with it? Could I use winning his love to my advantage, manipulate him into giving me the lamp without telling him who I really was and why I was here from the start?
Even the fleeting consideration made me hunch over with gut-twisting shame. I couldn’t do that to him. I guess Ididn’t have the self-serving soul most bluebloods and criminals appeared to share.
Bony knuckles rapped the door in quick succession, followed by Cherine’s muffled voice. “Come out already! I’m not walking there alone!”
Cora’s drawl was equally muffled, infinitely bored. “What am I? A house plant?”
A chuckle burst on my lips at their exchange. Though I wanted nothing more than to curl up and wallow in self-pity, time with the girls, in whatever situation, never failed to lift my spirits.
I rose to my feet, but my blood didn’t follow up as fast. I swayed for a moment, taking in deep breaths. Once steady, I smoothed my skirt and headed out.
I found Cherine and Cora blocking my door, squabbling about animals.
“Little dogs are not part fox,” Cora stressed. “Foxes aren’t even related to dogs.”
“They’re the cousins of the dogs,” Cherine argued, making me wonder whe
re her mansion-dwelling self could have seen a fox. “Just like wolves are.”
“Maybe foxes are to dogs what cats are to lions?” I joined in, glad for the bit of distracting nonsense.
“No,” Cora said firmly. “Also cats and big cats are like tree monkeys and apes, similar but not close enough to crossbreed, but definitely not like dogs and foxes.”
Cherine waved a hand in Cora’s face, regaining her attention. “What about dogs, wolves and desert wolves?”
“Isn’t a desert wolf just a wolf?” I asked.
To my surprise, they agreed for once, snapping “No!” in perfect unison.
“Desert wolves are coyotes,” Cora said. “Smaller, more like jackals.”
I turned up my hands. “I don’t know what either of those things are.”
Cora shrugged, continued their argument. “You can crossbreed a wolf and a dog, you can’t crossbreed a fox and a dog. If they can’t bear offspring then they’re too different and can’t be counted in the same species.”
“Wouldn’t that make donkeys the dogs of horses? Since we get mules and wolfdogs?” Cherine babbled, raising her hands to different heights. “Also, if animals have to be closely-related to crossbreed then how do we get hybrids like simurghs and griffins?”
Cora briefly, hilariously, went cross-eyed. “What?”
“They’re half bird and half big cat. How did they come about?”
Cora’s disbelief came out an uncharacteristically uncertain response. “…Magic?”
“You think so?” I said as seriously as I could, before I spluttered.
The girls exchanged a look then burst out laughing, too.
Our laughter was filling the circular hall as the other doors began opening.
Out first was Loujaïne. Without looking at any of us, she came to stand in the middle of the hall, seemingly caught in a staring contest with the bust of Morgana of Almaskham.
Though I hated to draw Loujaïne’s attention, I needed information probably only she could provide. I also needed to try to endear myself to her.
Approaching her with caution, chest still bobbing with lingering laughter that had more than a touch of hysteria, I asked, “What happened to all these women?”
A startled inhalation rattled the clear aqua beads overlaying her grey, gossamer shawl as she turned to face me. Composing herself, she smoothed imaginary stray hairs. “Simple. One of them became queen and the rest went home.”
“But which one became queen?”
“I can’t tell you that now,” she said. “Each girl’s choice of room is supposed to reflect the luck of the first girl who slept in it.”
“Is that magic or superstition?”
Instead of an answer, she jabbed me with a question of her own, with the same unnerving scrutiny Nariman had subjected me to. “Tell me, Lady Ada, do you have any Almaskhami blood in your family?”
That threw me off.
After my first few lies to set up my false identity—with Cora’s invaluable help—I hadn’t thought I’d be asked for more details. Everyone liked to fill in the gaps for themselves with assumptions, ones I went along with. But this was a more specific question than the usual, one I couldn’t give a vague answer to.
I went with the safest option. “I don’t know.”
But now that she’d asked, I wondered how the people of Almaskham differed from Cahraman. Though she was much fairer than Loujaïne, Fairuza’s features seemed to favor her Cahramani side. Could I pass myself as being the same?
No, I would have already mentioned that. No backtracking on established lies, unless I got caught in one.
“Why?” I asked, trying to smother my nervousness in a smile.
“You remind me of someone from their extended royal family.” She wagged a manicured finger at my face. The proximity of her hand and the subtle hostility rolling off her made me think that she would like to gouge out my eyes. “Your face, it’s almost like…”
She trailed off, shaking her head and ending the conversation with a loud clap that made me jerk. “Girls! Time to go.”
Fairuza was the last to exit her room, her shadows Meira and Agnë two steps behind her. Ariane must have taken a long nap as she joined us bleary-eyed and yawning. Cora and Cherine each hooked one of my arms and marched me after Loujaïne.
We left the chamber hall and headed down a wide, carpeted slope leading to the first flight of stairs.
As we walked, I was once again entranced by the sheer extravagance and artistry of this palace. I’d never get tired of admiring the walls and ceiling art with its block printing, mosaic paintings and plaster bas-reliefs of suns, stars, clouds and simurghs. The chiseling on the birds’ chests and outstretched wings, etching three-dimensional feathers that looked as soft as ones, was mind-boggling.
Caught up in the details, I looked straight into the intense brightness of a turnip-shaped chandelier that briefly blinded me and jogged last night’s memories free. Guilt-ridden what-ifs wormed their way into my head, along with grisly images of it falling and crushing us beneath it.
I was blinking them back when the girls tugged me back before I slammed into Loujaïne
She’d stopped before towering double doors painted a rose-red with the handles fashioned like flying simurghs.
The doors opened and two bearded guards in royal blue robes and brown pants bowed us in. The oval dining room was massive with soaring ceilings and an expansive set of arched windows that overlooked the edge of the mountain, with a view of a sparkling city in the distant horizon. From Cherine’s accounts, it must be her city of Anbur.
A rectangular, black-marble table surrounded by twenty seats centered the room. The doorways to its left clearly led to the kitchens, since I could hear faint clunking of pots and pans.
Cyrus was sitting at the end of the table, toying with a fork and speaking to a guard standing next to him in a full suit of armor. Ayman, no doubt.
At our entrance, Cyrus stood and bowed his head. “Ladies, thank you for joining us.”
Fairuza strode ahead and dropped into the seat to Cyrus’s right, shooing her handmaidens out. My face grew warm at the sight of them close together, and I unthinkingly rushed for the seat to Cyrus’ left. Cora took the seat before the biggest empty tray with Cherine between us. That left Ariane stuck debating which side she should sit on. She at last grudgingly sat beside Fairuza, so she wouldn’t be too far from Cyrus.
Loujaïne took the seat to Cyrus’s opposing end, where the king should be. Masters Farouk, Zuhair and Asena joined us, taking the seats close to Loujaïne.
Cyrus picked up a small silver bell but Fairuza gripped his arm, stopping him from ringing it. “Shouldn’t we wait for your father?”
“We have waited for him,” he said firmly. “He hasn’t shown.”
“We should still wait for him,” Fairuza insisted.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “There are ten of us. Why should we wait for one person?”
“Because he’s the king and it’s respectful,” she argued, tapping his hand coaxingly.
“How about we take a vote? Should we order lunch now or once Father arrives?” Cyrus searched each face around the table, giving me a quick wink.
So, he wasn’t upset about earlier?
The elites and Loujaïne had begun to speak when Fairuza cut them off again. “You can’t take a vote, this is a monarchy.”
“Calm down, Fay-Fay. It’s just food, not legislation,” I said, picking up a knife and examining the fine craftsmanship of the gold-lined silver.
She still had her hand on his when she spat, “I didn’t ask you.”
“You didn’t ask any of us.” I flashed her a goading grin.
“Because this isn’t up for debate,” she retorted through stiff lips. “This is the king’s palace and we wait for him.”
I resisted rolling my eyes, twirling the knife as I pondered aloud. “Funny how you’re the one giving the orders when you’re a guest here.”
Her glower heated
. “I’m doing no such thing. But it must be hard for you to recognize that, since you don’t understand courtesy.”
“Wouldn’t it be proper courtesy to not force your opinion on the prince?” I briefly locked eyes with Cyrus, found him watching me intently. A hot flush flew up to my ears, making them burn as I faced Fairuza. “Isn’t he in charge when the king’s absent?”
She shut her mouth so hard I heard her teeth collide.
I felt very smug.
Smiling tightly, Cyrus removed his hand from under hers and rang the bell.
As if they’d been waiting by the door, a queue of servants marched in carrying trays and pushing trolleys. Soon serving plates were set along the table and their lids were removed, flooding us with mouthwatering steam and potent spices.
My stomach rumbled like thunder as a silver serving plate with filigree edges was placed directly in front of me. It was heaped with golden rice topped with masses of raisins, squares of meat and fry-toasted hazelnuts, almonds and pine nuts. Next to it was a glazed roast turkey on a bed of couscous and chickpeas, and behind that a huge soup bowl. Around the main dishes were colorful smaller ones filled with dips, sauces, salads and quarters of flatbread.
We were served the creamy, garlicky lentil soup first. My breath may be awful later but I was going to enjoy it nonetheless.
Cora and I slurped our bowls in record time while Cherine kept pouring more sour cream and Ariane swirled it curiously. Fairuza pushed it aside.
“You’re not going to eat that?” I asked her.
She pretended she didn’t hear me. I reached across the table, took her bowl and held it up to Ayman.
“What are you doing?” Fairuza snapped. “That’s mine!”
“And you don’t want it.”
She fisted her hands on the table. “You can’t give my things to the servants, especially without asking.”
I smirked at her. “Would you have given it to me if I’d asked?”
“No.”
“Point proven then.” I shook the bowl at Ayman and he took it with a nod but made no move to start eating.
With his mouth covered by his ringed fingers, Cyrus cleared his throat. “You’ll have to excuse him for not obliging you, Lady Ada. Guards can’t eat on the job.”