by Lucy Tempest
“I know, but since there’s nothing to guard right now, there’s no use in making him stand around and watch us eat. Especially since one of us isn’t even touching her food.”
“You’re too kind.” The warmth in his eyes intensified as our gazes locked. “You might need to learn when it’s necessary to not be kind.”
“I’m only nice to people who deserve it.”
“What about those who don’t?” he asked.
I wrinkled my nose in distaste. “You’re looking at her right now.”
Fairuza turned as red as Ariane’s hair. “If your family is as crass and classless as you are, then it’s no wonder they lost their money and social standing.”
“Can’t you come up with a cleverer insult?” I countered in a bored tone.
She raised her chin, nose in the air. “It’s not an insult if it’s true.”
I flapped my napkin, making a show of dabbing my mouth clean. “Guess you’ll have no problem with me calling you an unhinged murderer then.”
She slammed her silver goblet on the table, sloshing its sour-smelling burgundy juice onto the tablecloth. “In which loony world you came from is that true?”
If only she knew.
But she made me remember the harrowing minutes when I’d climbed down a knotted curtain to save Cherine. We could have both plummeted to our deaths.
I leaned forwards, narrowing my eyes. “Let’s see. You felt threatened by another girl, thought the best way to eliminate the competition was to push her to her death.”
“I didn’t push her!” Fairuza spluttered frustratedly.
Cherine backed me up, jabbing her finger in her direction angrily. “You did!”
Fairuza rose to set her hands on the table, hissing, “I did not!”
“So I threw myself over the wall?” Cherine asked caustically.
Cyrus rang the bell again, silencing us. “Can you discuss this on your own time?”
“There’s no discussion. She provoked me, argued with me and waited until we were by the edge to push me.” Cherine cried, pushing her chair back, shaking the table. “I almost died, Cyaxares! If not for Ada, I would have. If Fairuza were anyone else she would be on the chopping block. And yet she’s still here!”
“The real wonder is why you’re still here,” Fairuza spat. “Why the three of you are still here. But I suppose the need to follow tradition is important, even if it’s ceremonial. We all know that if he had it his way, Cyaxares would choose between myself and Ariane.”
“Leave me out of this, please,” Ariane begged, busying herself with a plate of oil-drenched eggplant slices.
Cyrus cut in, louder and tenser. “Five of you are here because it’s not only myself that makes the decision.”
“But you’re the one marrying me,” Fairuza exclaimed. “Your decision is the only one that matters.”
“If it were that easy I would have made my choice weeks ago.” He sounded fed up as he pushed aside his bowl.
Ayman set Fairuza’s bowl down as well. He’d inhaled the soup while we weren’t looking.
I tried to catch his eye but he remained looking ahead. Right at Loujaïne, in fact. Was he as wary of her as I was?
“But why the competition at all?” Ariane asked. “Marriage is always an arrangement between two families or kingdoms.”
“Not this time.” Cyrus frowned as he picked up his goblet. “And to win this competition, you need to win over several people, because they’ll eventually be your people.”
He clearly despised arrangements, like the marriage that had been brokered for his parents, what had ended with his miserable mother killing herself.
Even the pettiest part of me wouldn’t wish such an ending on Fairuza.
As servants removed the soup bowls, Cyrus stood and brought the turkey closer, then unsheathed a long carving knife and two-pronged fork. “Call on which part you want.”
“Leg,” Cora answered immediately, the first thing she’d said since we got here.
Cherine cut off Fairuza, announcing, “I’ll have the breast!”
Miffed, Fairuza sat back, crossing her arms, saying nothing.
When everyone had made their choices, I said, “Wings. I need to leave room for the other food.”
“As you wish.” Cyrus offered me the knife and fork with a secretive smile. “Would you like to do the honors?”
A charge sparked between our fingertips as we exchanged the silverware.
It took a lot for me not to stutter, “What do you want?”
He sat down, linking his fingers and setting his chin on them. “Choose for me.”
That request made me giddy. It was an easy sort of trust to hand over, having me serve him what I pleased.
But then again, I’d be serving him, like I’d served strangers as a waitress and barmaid.
Still, it hadn’t been an order. I’d offered and he’d responded. As far as I could see we were on equal footing here. And he was letting me choose for him!
And I was making a sentimental mountain out of a vapid molehill.
After I distributed the requests, I gave him a chunk of breast. He seemed quite pleased with my choice.
Fairuza made a sour face then accepted the leg I offered her. But every time she tried to cut a layer off the bone, the drumstick rolled away.
“Just eat it like this,” Cora mumbled as she tore off another large bite.
Disgust was Fairuza’s only response to that.
Idle chatter reigned until all main course dishes were removed and dessert was served with coffee and tea in long-necked, silver pots. Then Fairuza took it upon herself to return the conversation to its uncomfortable state.
“How are we supposed to win over the public?” Fairuza asked Cyrus as he poured her tea. “And why do we need to?”
He set the pot down abruptly. “Because one of you will one day be their queen.”
He’d poured for her and not for me. Why hadn’t he offered to pour for me?
“You needn’t be so political with your answers,” Fairuza said, blowing steam off her cup, looking at him from beneath the long lashes she batted.
“He does, as do you all,” Loujaïne spoke up from her end of the table. “You will be meeting with elders, leaders and nobles in the coming days. Starting today, in fact.”
“What?” Cora coughed through a mouthful of baklava.
“Today,” Loujaïne repeated. “Your first test is this afternoon, on how you will deal with public issues. After tomorrow is your second, when you will each be charged with hosting a visitor to the palace, and two days after tha, you’ll deal with another faction of our subjects.”
“What do you mean by host exactly?” I asked, already stressed thinking about it. “We show them around? But we don’t know the palace. Also, what’s today’s test?”
I needed to plot how I’d steal the lamp, whether I was or wasn’t invited into the king’s quarters, not to spend most of the time outside the palace and the only day within it babysitting a politician’s wife.
“Oh, I love hosting. I’ve done it many times for my father,” Fairuza fawned giddily. “I’ve been learning how to be a proper hostess since I was five.”
Proper hostess? Was that the rich version of the attendant’s mask, the peppy, accommodating persona we slipped on while serving customers?
I hoped it was. Otherwise, I was doomed.
Chapter Six
I’d always thought I’d only set foot in a courthouse if I were on trial for theft.
Yet here I was, in the capital’s Palace of Justice, not to be sentenced for theft or treason, but to be judged in a bridal competition.
Judged on what, though? That remained to be seen.
By now I knew it was the rule for these tests to be vague and misleading. The palace elites in charge of the Bride Search had a nasty habit of keeping all relevant details to themselves until the very last minute.
Shielding my eyes from the declining sun as I looked up at the entrance.
Compared to the rest of the buildings I’d seen in Sunstone, the courthouse was disappointingly plain. It was a whitewashed rectangular building with its protruding center pouring black marble stairs. Its pointed archway soared between two narrow walls, their facades emblazoned with the iron engravings of a winged woman. In the space above the arch itself was the same woman, now kneeling with her wings spread.
One would expect a bit more decorative effort from something referred to as a palace.
I chuckled inwardly at the thought of my new, heightened standards. Just one month ago I was on an island whose grandest architectural feats were limited to manors the size of Cahramani mausoleums. It wasn’t my fault the majesty of Sunstone and its true palace had spoiled the simpler things for me.
Just like the Cyrus I’d gotten to know had spoiled the prince for me.
Cherine caught up with me, holding up the skirt of her yellow dress, its reflective gossamer layer shimmering brightly in the sun. “Today’s test must involve Cahraman’s legal system.”
“Ooof, I hope not,” Cora huffed, climbing the remaining steps in lunges, her golden hair held up, the stray hairs crowning her hairline sticking to her flushed, sweaty face. “Arguing about laws and amendments is mind-numbing. I’d rather use crocodiles as stepping stones to cross a rushing river than sit in another council meeting.”
That was a funny, if a scary visual. “Oddly specific for a hypothetical preference.”
Cora gave me a small, devilish grin. “Who said it’s hypothetical?”
As I gaped at her, Cherine fanned her face with her little hands, the polished silver of her rings flashing in the sweltering sun. “What were you doing in council meetings?”
Cora turned to her at the top of the stairs. “As the next Mistress of the Granary, I need to be prepared to run the largest farming region in Lower Campania. Aside from knowing how to barter, farm, store and trade everything our earth yields, I need to know how to deal with the political and legal side of things.” Cora checked behind us impatiently. “Are they going to join us or what?”
I followed her gaze, hand angled low to shade my eyes. All three princesses remained at the bottom of the stairs, while Master Farouk and Cyrus talked to three men with dark, curly beards in flat-topped hats and two women in pewter robes with long red-tinted pigtails.
Seeing him as he was now, deep in serious discussion, wearing his royal garb, his hair combed and his expression neutral, I couldn’t help comparing him to the servant who’d accompanied me to the marketplace last week. The one who’d helped me shop, flirted with me, taken solace with me in the fact that we were both insignificant in this great big city, kissed my cheek…
I touched that cheek wistfully as I compared the prince’s solemn face to that of the messy-haired, carefree thief. As much as my heart wanted to, my mind still couldn’t reconcile both versions. I knew Cyrus and Cyaxares were the same person, but it was hard to accept when the difference was far beyond a change of clothes.
Everything from the way he spoke to the way he held himself had noticeably changed. I couldn’t help noticing every little detail and latching onto the small differences, wondering just which part of the Cyrus I’d known had been genuine and which had been an act.
But if I felt this betrayed by his disguise, how would he feel about mine?
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, him playing the part of a servant was nothing compared to my own deception.
My discomfort amplified now I knew the lamp wasn’t just a peculiar heirloom coveted by a wronged woman.
She’d said that something had been lured in it. It couldn’t be a being like the qarin that slept at the bottom of my trunk, since she probably had dozens of magical “underlings” like it. I couldn’t begin to guess what it could be, and this morning’s attempts to gauge what she was up to had fallen flat harder than the chandelier I’d sabotaged last night.
To find out what it was and what she needed it for, I had to ask someone who either knew her personally or knew about witches in general. Loujaïne had taken her place as the king’s right-hand, and the manager of the Bride Search. If anyone knew the details of Nariman’s banishment, she did. But with the way Loujaïne looked at me, like she was itching for me to out myself as a fake so she could have my head, I couldn’t risk validating her suspicions.
The next best person to ask would be Cyrus. But I could no longer ask him like I would have a servant for the gossip that echoed throughout the palace halls. I needed to be smart about how I brought her up. I had to find a way to use whatever today’s test was as a conversation starter.
Hopefully, I could also find out how she’d been banished. Whatever had flung her out of Cahraman could hopefully fling her further away once I had the Fairborns back.
With the same practiced smile he’d given us this morning, Cyrus shook hands with the judges then climbed the stairs with the armored Ayman following him closely.
Fairuza and her handmaidens weren’t far behind. Her complex dress made climbing the broad steps a chore, needing all their hands to be lifted off her feet.
As luxurious and covetable as it was, she had the most impractical wardrobe. Her dresses, all bell-shaped with multilayered skirts, were made for gliding across marble floors rather than going up and down stairs. Along with sleeves, their shiny, heavily embellished materials seemed made to trap heat, must be stifling her now.
Knowing Arbore was right below my island of Ericura, her clothes were made for temperatures that fluctuated more than a cat’s moods, from windy summers to frigid winters.
Maybe a part of her attitude could be blamed on the heat here. But her mother was a Cahramani princess, so she ought to have known better. In fact, most of her attitude might be blamed on her mother, if Queen Zomoroda was anything like her sister Loujaïne.
Once my mind wandered to our eldest princess, I noticed Master Farouk and Loujaïne bringing up the rear. Though their faces were blocked by Ariane’s pink parasol, I saw their arms touching with Loujaïne setting delicate fingers on Farouk’s biceps.
Though I’d noted the clear rivalry between them in the management of this competition, I’d also noticed the instances when they’d displayed subtle interest in each other. But their current peculiar intimacy and the concern they’d shown for one another during the fire, was far from subtle it sent my curiosity surging like a fanned flame. Even more when they separated almost at once and pointedly averted their eyes from one another.
Loujaïne, as far as I knew, was not married. There were no mention of Cyrus’s cousins beyond Fairuza and her siblings and Cherine and her brother. None from Loujaïne.
So why weren’t those two married? If they liked each other, loved each other even, and lived and worked in the same place for years? If they did, Farouk would then be Cyrus’s uncle. Cyrus seemed quite friendly with him, friendlier than he was with his real relatives. I didn’t blame him. I too would want a man like Farouk as my uncle.
If I married Cyrus then that could be a reality.
As the prince turned to face us, the whimsical idea of a string of weddings involving us, Bonnie and Ayman, and Farouk and Loujaïne fled my mind. Looking at him now, in his deep-blue, embroidered with gold thread kaftan, his hands clasped behind his back, his chin tilted up to survey us all, I was reminded of my predicament.
This wasn’t my Cyrus. This was a wholly new version of him that filled me with intrigue and anxiety.
Taking in a deep breath, he loosened his shoulders and smiled. “Ladies, now that you’re finalists, there will be a few changes.” He paused, his eyes searching our faces, their color a bright, clear green, like sunlight through peridot. “Instead of a test every ninth day, you’ll have one every other day until the weekend, when you’ll have audience with the king and we’ll review your results, and decide which of you shall be our future queen.”
Loujaïne had introduced that concept at lunch, but it hadn’t sunk in until now that they weren’t going to be retreads of
the first tests. Whatever leeway had been afforded in the preliminary rounds was no longer part of the deal.
“Today’s test concerns governance,” he continued, his eyes meeting Farouk’s, who nodded encouragingly. “It’s not only important for you to know the law, but how to deal with situations that require both knowledge and wisdom.”
Cora raised her hand. Cyrus’ expression became an endearing cross of amusement and expectation. “Yes, Miss Greenshoot?”
“Are we going to debate on amending certain laws?”
“No, no amendments or debates, or any specific laws.” He shook his head, briefly locking eyes with me. Tension trapped the air in my chest until he looked away. “You are going to pass judgment.”
“We’ll be the jury?” I remembered my mother and Mr. Fairborn being called to local courthouses to make up a jury in civil disputes.
“You will be the judges,” said Loujaïne, moving to stand by Cyrus. I caught her resentful look at Ayman as he made way for her, and my fiery curiosity demanded to be fed. I knew how people here felt about those who looked like Ayman, with his moon-pale skin and purple eyes, but Loujaïne’s reaction to him—and myself—felt…personal.
“You will be given a case to judge.” Cyrus ushered us towards the entrance as the judges passed us. “You in turn will be judged on your decisions and their reasoning.”
“A case?” I asked, just to be sure. “Just the one?”
The familiar twinkle in his eyes took me back to the first test. The first time I’d seen him in broad daylight, eavesdropping and reacting to our responses. “Just the one.”
In my experience with assigned tasks, the lesser they were in number, the harder they were to complete. But I knew this was going to need a bit more concentration than thoroughly plucking a chicken or peeling a sack of potatoes for a tavern dinner.
“Erm, Your Highness?” Ariane followed him first, shutting her parasol. “If you don’t mind me asking, what does this have to do with being your consort?”
He tutted amusedly. “Isn’t it obvious?”