by Lucy Tempest
If I knew anything about either side of him, servant and prince, I knew he was doing the same thing now, if on a higher scale. I needed to treat this test as such, because the goal now wasn’t to avoid elimination but to win.
I needed to read the rest of the room, measure the situation through everyone’s responses. People had patterns of behavior, which meant Cyrus, and the other judges were probably following the pattern of the first test. I had to do what had worked for me then as well.
Judging by how immediate and final their responses were, I knew that Ariane and Cherine had once again chosen the gold box.
Cora went next, scratching her head as an uncertain precursor to her verdict. “I think if one of them won’t stop lying, then maybe we should remove them both from the equation.”
“Meaning?” Cyrus slowly nodded, prodding her.
Cora shrugged. “Like the judge said, the boy should be given to his father’s closest relative. That’s one certain way to know he’ll be raised by family.”
Both women’s shouts of protest were so desperate, I almost jumped out of my chair. Little Armin broke out into frenzied screeching that made my heartbeat stutter. The lesser judges started weighing in on the situation. Cherine and Ariane jumped to reinforce their points.
“That’s such a heartless thing to say!” Ariane protested.
“Yes!” Cherine elbowed Cora’s midriff. “And it doesn’t solve anything. That maintains the conflict between them, while depriving the baby of its mother.”
While Cora had once again picked the silver box, what Cyrus had dubbed the coward’s choice—not presumptuous enough to pick gold yet finding lead too much of a gamble—she did have a point. The baby needed to be removed from this toxic situation for his own good.
I heaved up and my chair scraped across the old marble with a teeth-gnashing groan that silenced all dissent.
“Sit back down!” the head judge ordered.
I ignored her, moving to the center of the courtroom and scooping up Armin from both women’s grips.
Marihan merely stared at me, while Soumaya instantly tried to snatch him back from me.
I retreated out of her reach towards my table, bouncing the baby lightly, shushing him, hoping I could briefly put him at ease.
“Miss…?” the head judge began impatiently.
“Ada,” I answered distractedly, preoccupied with the heavy toddler whose loud cries had thankfully quieted into sad sniffles. I realized belatedly I hadn’t told her to address me as ‘Lady,’ as a real noblewoman would have.
I didn’t care. I was a judge in this case, and by my namesake, I was going to resolve it.
I cooed to Armin, hoping he’d give me a sign who his mother was, maybe reach for her once he saw her from the vantage point of my arms, but no such luck.
Farouk came around the table, asking in a hushed voice, “Lady Ada, what are you doing?”
Since he’d mentioned he hadn’t sent me an invitation to the competition, I’d been avoiding him. But I didn’t feel any ill will or, bizarrely, any suspicion from him. He was looking at me with the same expectant interest as he had in all previous tests. Maybe he’d forgotten?
Unlikely. But I’d worry about that later.
“They were distressing him.” I hopped on the table, resting my strained arms by setting Armin on my lap. “We weren’t getting anywhere until he was out of their literal grasp.”
Farouk gave both widows a disapproving side-glance before offering me an approving nod. “Very well. Have you made your verdict?”
Not yet, but I was still tinkering with my idea. I had chosen the lead box—the child in this situation—once again. But since it was as empty, with him giving me no leads to go on, I had to improvise. I had to do something that would give me an answer.
I had to provoke them, but I didn’t know how yet.
Buying myself time, I shrugged towards my left. “Let Her Highness go first.”
The expected sneer from Fairuza didn’t come. She was busy watching the widows with unwavering concentration, like they were a riddle she was determined to solve.
When she finally moved, it was a startling snap of movement, standing to point at the older widow accusingly. “She said it herself. Her story is suspect because of her history of failing to bear children to term. From my experience, the simplest answer is usually the truest one.”
“Your Highness—” Soumaya began to protest, eyes refilling with tears.
“Besides, the redhead looks healthier and is younger, she could have easily had the boy,” continued Fairuza. “In fact, that she remained his second wife until he died proves she gave him a son, since a lord only marries to have heirs.”
As Soumaya broke down, the room erupted with more dissent from both sides.
I could barely hear most of the arguments, the most I caught was Ariane reinforcing that Marihan didn’t look like the boy with Fairuza snapping back at her, “Red hair is not easily inherited, that’s why it’s rare. You of all people should know that.”
Though I hated to think it, I mostly agreed with Fairuza. And there was something else that bothered me. Soumaya’s tears.
In the first year without my mother I had found myself breaking down regularly. Running out of things to pawn for money ended with me being evicted from the house, then I was too old for an orphanage to take in, yet too young to hire for work. The worsening spiral of my life had only halted when I learned how to steal and pass myself off as an adult.
So I was very familiar with all kinds of crying fits. And the specific nature of Soumaya’s, the heat that permeated her tearful shouting didn’t stem from fear and fragility, but fury and frustration.
By the time the arguing had died down, it was my turn, and my plan was fully formed.
Farouk extended a hand to me, either an invitation to speak or for me to hand over the child, but I kept Armin with me. Safe from being physically fought over.
“I don’t have a verdict as much as I have a solution, an adjustment to Cora’s recommendation,” I addressed them, searching each widow’s face for one last impression. “Since you both want to be his mother so much, so be it. You both get to keep him.”
Chapter Eight
The absurdity of my verdict struck both women silent.
It still warranted a shrill “What?” from Cherine.
Cora raised a finger, a pinch between her blonde brows. “I second that What.”
Farouk took off his fez, smoothing back his black hair as if to diffuse the trapped heat of conflict in this room. “Lady Ada, could you please explain what you mean?”
“I mean they can each move to one of their husband’s properties, and that they can share the boy on an alternating schedule.” I gently stroked his head, his fine hair soft as a cat’s fur beneath my fingertips. “One day, Soumaya has him, and the next she turns him over to Marihan, and so on. That way, everyone is happy, and he still gets to have two parents, especially ones who love him so much they each wants to keep him for herself.”
I waited with bated breath while the women mulled over my words, like a fisherman on a quiet lake, patiently waiting for something to bite his bait.
“I accept,” Soumaya finally said. “As much as I want her out of my life, since I can’t prove my words, this is an efficient solution—”
Marihan’s shout cut her off. “No!”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Soumaya snapped at her, fists clenched, shoulders stiff with hostility. “But you must have forgotten that now you believe yourself my equal. Since I can’t cut you out completely, I am willing to share him—”
“But I’m not,” Marihan cried, finally emoting, eyes filling and voice tremulous. “We can’t share him.”
Eyes now dry, Soumaya’s nostrils flared with impatience. “Why not?”
“Because we can’t keep tossing him back and forth through our doors like a rubber ball. This would be an awful existence for a growing boy, to see one mother one day and a different one th
e next, for no reason other than pettiness.” Marihan rubbed at her eyes, her dry sobs like hiccups. “He deserves love and a stable home.”
Soumaya rounded on her, practically spitting. “I’m not conceding to you. Elyas let you have everything in his life, you’re not getting it in his death, too.”
Marihan dropped her head in defeat, her red curls casting shadows on her face as a single tear trailed down her face and dripped off her chin. “Then you can have him.”
Soumaya shoved her out of the way, arms outstretched as she closed in on me, but I held out a hand, keeping her at bay.
“She conceded that the baby is mine,” Soumaya burst out.
To my surprise, Fairuza pushed Soumaya hard enough to make her stumble a few feet back. “She said no such thing. And mind who you’re talking to.”
“She said I could have him!” Soumaya exclaimed, a manic edge to her eyes and voice.
“Because she doesn’t want him to suffer a life of being torn between two women who hate each other. With you no doubt poisoning him against her and turning his life to a living hell,” I said. “To spare him, she would have given him to you, thinking with her out of the way, you’d love him and give him the stable life she wants for him. That’s being a mother, putting your child first. Something you clearly know nothing about.
“Being a mother means I gave birth to him!” Soumaya cried.
“Concern for your children doesn’t end with their birth,” Fairuza gritted, like she had a personal grievance in this argument. “Being a mother means you cared about them more than about the status and money they came with, or about your vendetta with your rival. A mother would do everything to keep her children safe and stable for as long as she lives.”
Baffled by Fairuza’s stance, I tried hard not to gape at her. I believed my mother had done that for me to the best of her abilities. Even if she’d never told me the truth, or if she’d truly ended her own life. I had to believe she’d had overwhelming reasons for either decision.
I faced Soumaya. “Even if you were the one to bear him, you shouldn’t be the one to raise him since you don’t care at all for his wellbeing.”
The head judge rang that abhorrent bell again. I covered the boy’s ears, hoping to spare his little head from further headache. “Final verdict, from each of you. Who is the real mother?”
“Soumaya,” Cherine sniffed.
“I agree,” said Ariane.
“At this point, I don’t know,” admitted Cora.
Fairuza lifted her chin, draped in confidence, the kind that came from knowing that in most cases her word would be law. “Marihan.”
I slipped off the table, stroking the baby’s small, soft head one last time. “Marihan.”
Farouk checked behind him, silently communicating with the judge and Cyrus.
Cyrus rose from his table, clapping slowly. “Congratulations, Princess Fairuza and Lady Ada. Through different means, you both reached the correct answer.”
Relief flooded me, cooling my worries and redirecting my thoughts down a path of optimistic predictions for the rest of the week. But my gut stalled their flow down that easy route, because I had a feeling it wouldn’t be that simple.
Cyrus strolled towards us, face unreadable. “Though the princess’s verdict mainly came from guesswork, and the lady’s gauging the truth from their responses was clever, their methods still left a lot to be desired.” He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of parchment, opening it along its fold-lines as he swept a glance at all five of us. “None of you asked to see if the child had a birth certificate, which he does. I tracked down the one made by the midwife who delivered him, which names Marihan as his mother.”
The unspent anger at him from earlier rose, fueling my snap. “I stand by what I said.”
Cyrus cocked his head at me. “Pardon?”
“That it doesn’t matter if Soumaya gave birth to him,” I said, watching him as he came closer, feeling the heat of my conflicted feelings flaring under my skin. “Judging by her priorities and behavior, she would have been a terrible mother.”
“But it wouldn’t be just, to give him to the wrong woman, only because she seems like a better choice,” he argued, now close enough to look down at me, mouth curved in a cocky smile.
I was torn between wanting to pull him closer and kick him. “We could think that way, if this was an inheritance they were fighting over, or ownership of an object.”
He inched even nearer, hands in pockets, a familiar ease seeping into his posture, a form of him I wished was reserved for me. “But?”
“But we’re not here to settle their dispute. We’re here for the child. The only one we need to do right by is him.” I tried to emulate Fairuza’s confidence. It was hard, as I wasn’t a princess who’d grown up knowing my word was above all others. I was just someone tired of people like Nariman and Lady Dufreyne and now this Soumaya making other people suffer for their pursuit of selfish ends. “It wouldn’t be just if we gave him to the woman who didn’t put him before everything in the world, starting by herself, birth-mother or not.”
Like a flame behind opaque glass, his eyes had gone from a soft flicker to the brightest thing in the room, ignited not by oil or candlewicks, but by my words and how they affected him.
As ambivalent as I was about the change in his personality since he’d resumed being Cyaxares, about the difference in his tone, carriage and style, his eyes were still the same.
And I never wanted them to look away from me.
Chapter Nine
Upon ruling that Marihan was the child’s mother, she rushed across the floor and hugged me, kissing me once on one cheek and twice on the other as we exchanged Armin. When she moved to do the same to her other unlikely champion, Fairuza froze up against her but nonetheless accepted her kisses of gratitude.
Watching her tolerate this common woman invading her personal space, smiling slightly as she listened to her rambling thanks, I couldn’t help wondering. Why had she made that verdict?
She no doubt believed in seniority, and hated being unseated from her assured spot as Cyrus’s lone candidate for future queen, and having that consideration spread out among girls she saw as inferior. So why had she sided with Marihan—a usurper like all of us—and joined my argument against Soumaya? From the way she’d seemed invested in the boy’s wellbeing, it must have reminded her of a personal issue. Perhaps her relationship with her own mother?
It struck me that I’d never considered what problems someone like Fairuza could have. Aside from the rumors about her brother turning into a monster, she seemed to lead a charmed life. Like Cyrus, she was the product of a royal arranged marriage, like the one she was meant to have, a princess marrying a future king. But if Cyrus had called a Bride Search to escape a similar fate to his parents, then could Fairuza’s aim here be more complex than entitlement and expectations?
Whatever deeper look I wanted into her psyche, it would require either mindreading or a civil conversation between us. I couldn’t tell which was more impossible.
Without exchanging a look, Fairuza and I bid Marihan goodbye. Cyrus was fielding arguments from Soumaya, and questions from Cherine and Ariane about their evaluations.
He escaped them and headed in our direction, cracking an expectant grin. “Think you can maintain your standing in the next test?”
“Depends,” I said. “Whose idea is it?”
Fairuza tapped manicured nails on the stones of her rings, an irritating, chipping noise. “And what’s it about? Does it involve more squabbles over inheritance? I have yet to see what civil disputes have to do with being queen.”
Loujaïne approached, bunching up the side of her deep-green, satin skirt, with Farouk in her wake. “It’s testing how you’d deal with the issues of your people when you become one.”
“Then shouldn’t you be giving us a case on the scale we’re likely to deal with?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, we’re all out of national crises at the mom
ent.” Cyrus quipped, his humor tickling me, compelling the corners of my lips to twitch. “This was the best we could do on short notice.”
Little moments like this reinvigorated me, made me rethink my stance on the prince.
My Cyrus was in there. How much of him, I wasn’t sure, but I needed to find out.
But other answers, namely about Nariman, and when they’d leave us alone so I could plot to retrieve the lamp, took precedence.
The head judge announced the session officially over, thankfully without the jarring knell of her bell.
Cora stretched her arms as she dragged her feet towards me. “Let’s go, Ada. The sooner we’re back in the palace, the sooner I can eat.”
I fell into step with her. “Is that all you think about?”
She huffed. “It’s all I’ve got to look forward to here.”
As we headed to the door, Fairuza met my eyes for the first time today. “It seems that only you and I have proven ourselves capable.”
There was no venom in her comment, just cold observation. From the thoughtful way she was regarding me, it felt like she was rethinking her view of me as well.
I only nodded to her as we and Ayman followed Cyrus and Farouk out, tailed by Loujaïne, Asena and the other girls.
Cherine, walking beside Ayman—unsuspecting he was the one who starred in her dreams and nightmares, as both white knight and ghoul—pursued Cyrus with renewed complaints. “I still don’t understand what the point of this was.”
Ariane, on his other side, readied her parasol. “Yes, you never responded to what this precisely has to do with being your princess?”
“Or why we would ever bother with something this inane,” Fairuza added, passing us with her handmaidens at her heels.
At the entrance, Cyrus rounded on them, a silhouette against the sunset and our glimpse of the city, with an oil-spill of a shadow reaching our feet. “If, after four tests you still can’t understand what the aim of this competition is, then you need to reassess your presence here.”
Fairuza dropped her skirt and entered his shadow, anger rising in her voice. “I am here to be your queen and the mother of your heirs! As the daughter of a king, of a princess of Cahraman, I am the one best suited to fulfill those duties. What else is there to investigate?”