by Lucy Tempest
“Giant crabs exist?” Cherine squawked.
“No, but giant squids do.”
“Then why did you say giant crab?”
Cora paused gnawing on her dried fig to roll her eye towards me in a fed-up stare before closing them with a loud, long-suffering sigh. I tried not to giggle.
The soothing background noise of their chatter was sadly cut short once our train reached our destination. We disembarked to find three carriages waiting for us, each pulled by reddish-brown horses with black manes and tails.
Cora beat us out the door, going straight for the nearest horse and throwing her arms around its neck.
The sound of Cyrus’s laugh made me miss one of the steps off the train.
Before I made a short plummet to the sizzling platform, Cyrus lunged sideways and caught me. My feet remained on the steps but most of my weight impacted him. For a moment, half outside, half in the train, feeling his solid strength making me feel weightless, I forgot where we were as he beamed down at me. All I knew was that I was in his arms.
“It seems you have fallen for me.”
His teasing whisper flashed me back to our first trip in the tunnels beneath the palace. The second time he’d caught me when I stumbled down the stairs he’d joked that I liked being picked up by him. I’d made it worse, babbling that I might actually be falling for him.
Coming back to myself, face blazing, I gripped his arms to balance myself until my feet touched ground. “Falling over you, more like.”
He pouted dismissingly. “Semantics.”
I pretended to dust my dress, trying to avoid his eyes. “Is it?”
He lowered his head to make me meet them, his hair casting ever-shifting shadows on his sculpted features as a breeze blew past us. In the harsh light of midday, sweat made his golden skin glisten and plastered his commoner’s shirt and pants to his body, outlining his physique. Everything about him was captivating, but the flecks of ochre in his eyes, what made them intense green, without a hint of blue or grey, hypnotized me.
I wished I had the upbringing of a noble girl, not just for the safety and luxury, but so I could have an artistic skill or two, like those the contestants had displayed. I wished I could paint, so I could capture all the colors in his hair, eyes and skin, to give lasting form to what would only live in my memory. Even if I won, I would for a goal beyond him. I’d still lose. Lose him.
There was only one way I could see out of this. Magic. If I had it, I would make the fantasy I took solace in a reality. I’d win both him and our freedom and defeat Nariman.
As if my dark thoughts tainted his brightening mood, his eyes dulled to a turbulent jade, and his teasing tone was tinged with dejection. “I take it you’re still upset with me.”
“I don’t know anymore at this point,” I admitted, throat tight.
“What can I do to make it up to you?” He reached to take my hand, but I kept it by my side. I couldn’t risk transferring Loujaïne’s attention from Farouk and Ariane to us. Cyrus exhaled, frustration tainting his tone and expression. “You must know I did not mean to deceive you. I never planned for any of you to see me, to notice me in the role of a servant, but you did.”
I couldn’t argue that. There was no way he could have expected me to practically chase him down and demand his help, for us to become friendly and something a bit more. Something I still didn’t have a name for.
“It’s not that anymore.” I wrapped my arms around myself, looking to where the girls were giggling and shouting as Cora struggled to seat Cherine on a steed.
Cyrus touched my elbow. “Then what is it?”
“It’s the fact that I got to know you first as one thing then discovered you were another. Had I met you when I was supposed to, then there wouldn’t be a problem but…”
“But?”
“I can’t change how I feel—felt about you, no matter how much I want to.”
He shifted closer, shielding me from the sun with his shadow. “And how do you feel about me?”
An overwhelming sensation washed over me, filling my chest and neck like sloshing seawater that burned my insides and threatened to spring from my eyes. “I wanted Cyrus.”
His touch on my elbow became a soft hold on my arms, his thumbs stroking my skin soothingly as he whispered, “I am Cyrus.”
“You are Prince Cyaxares.”
“I can be both. I am both,” he insisted, lowering his head so I had nowhere to look but at him. “You have the advantage of knowing the other side of me.”
“Which part of your servant personality was false?”
“Only the uniform I wore.”
Loujaïne’s loud call to gather round shattered the intense moment.
Cyrus let go of me with an exasperated mutter and returned his hands behind his back. Before he left my side he whispered, “We’ll talk later.”
Frustrated and fearing that ‘later’ might become ‘too late,’ I shuffled in his wake, my shoes scraping against the hot gravel.
Having had their buffoonery interrupted, Cherine ended up climbing down from the horse onto Cora’s back. We reunited halfway to the gathering group.
I could barely hear Loujaïne over the station’s noise. Judging by her straining face, she couldn’t hear herself either as she shouted, “Three days ago you were tested on how you handled the disputes of our people. Today the Matriarch of Zhadugar awaits you. In her possession is a royal heirloom we lost two-hundred years ago.”
Suddenly tired of always trying to avoid or appease her, I met her stare head on. “How did you lose it?”
She might not have heard me, but from the tightening of her expression, it felt like she ignored me. Letting her gaze skim by me, she raised her voice even more. “Today you will demonstrate how you would act on behalf of the Crown, and how you would handle diplomacy, even with subjects you reign over.”
“I was told we were going to barter.” Cora said. “What are we trading here?”
“It is not bartering.” Loujaïne sniffed, sounding offended. “You are going to negotiate the return of Queen Zafira’s necklace. What you offer in return is up to your own ingenuity and that is what you will be judged on.”
Loujaïne hadn’t said anything about this test involving witches, but Cyrus had.
From what I understood, half the population of Cahraman used magic in some shape or form. I hoped Cyrus had been right, so I’d finally meet a witch who wasn’t Nariman.
Whatever the test was, I had to pass it. And if it involved witches, I had to gather information about who Nariman was and the real reason why the king had banished her. Most importantly, how he had.
If I could figure how to do the same myself, and find out what she intended to do with that lamp, then I’d finally have an advantage.
I was tired of being the cowering prey. It was about time I bit back.
Chapter Seventeen
Our carriage finally stopped, but our exit and regrouping with the others did little to end Cora and Cherine’s argument about fruit.
“How do you expect me to believe that pomegranates are harder to pick than dates?” Cherine flung her hands at the slim, towering palm trees that dotted the location. “Do you think climbing these is easy?”
Cora shrugged. “It’s easy for me. And palm trees don’t sit at the mouth of the Netherfield.”
That caught my full attention. “The nether-what?”
Cora stretched her arms above her head as she yawned. “It’s what we call the underworld in Lower Campania.”
“Oh, here it’s Duzakh.” Cherine pronounced the last letters with a rough scratchy sound, a bit like a snort. “Ada, what do you call your underworld in Arbore?”
It had been a while since anyone asked me anything about the land I claimed to be from. Not having an answer, I strode ahead, pretending to be preoccupied by our surroundings and hoped her child-like attention span would set her on a new topic.
The city of Zhadugar was built in and around a partially green v
alley that was dotted with spiraling towers and lantern-shaped houses. Everything was made of shining stone that reflected the sun like polished steel. The city itself left me in no doubt that we’d deal with witches today. It was a magical, silver sibling of manmade, golden Sunstone.
The deeper we descended into Zhadugar, the colder the atmosphere got and the bigger the shining buildings appeared, the tips of their twisted spires scraping the cloudless sky.
It reminded me of the tiny, lead-painted city within Bonnie’s favorite snow-globe that her mother Belaina had made. I’d once asked why she favored the most monochrome one and her answer had been, “Because it looks like a silver city straight out of Fairyland.”
Seemed she’d been right about a seemingly-silver city being magical. I really must learn to paint, so I could depict this and all the breathtaking sights of Cahraman for her.
But if I married Cyrus after saving her, I could give her a royal tour of the land…
That fluffy fantasy ended by a literal tug back to the present.
“Ada?” Cherine roughly linked her arm with mine. “What do you call your afterlife in Arbore? Here we have levels of hell, heaven and the in-between. What about you?”
There was no shaking her off, was there?
The afterlives in northern and southern Ericura were likely similar to those in Arbore and Campania, as the settlers of both ends had probably hailed from these lands respectively. In the South, they said our souls traveled beneath the earth to be led by the Traveller to the Court of the Hidden God, who decided whether we went to one of two paradises or were flung into the void. In the North, they said the dead went through Faerie to be judged by its kings and queens before being given passage to an orchard isle or be given to the Horned God to devour. Neither was a comforting promise.
But I couldn’t tell for sure which of those beliefs were built on Arborean remnants, or venture to give specific names. With Fairuza right behind me, I wouldn’t get away with any inconsistencies.
The best way to distract Cherine was to get her to talk. “What is Duzakh exactly?”
Cherine, always happy to display how much she knew, poured on, “It’s not so much our underworld as it is our hell. It’s this dark, endless, stinking well that you fall through while demons rip you apart bit by bit, forever devouring you, flesh and soul.”
I flinched as the statue of the Horned God at the Hornswoods, where I’d first seen Nariman’s glowing eyes, flashed behind my eyes. “Do any of these demons have horns and masks?”
Cherine shuddered like a duck shaking water off its feathers. “I wouldn’t want to know what’s in there or even in Barzakh.”
“What’s Bar—Baz…” I couldn’t even begin to pronounce that snort-like letter at the end. “What’s that?”
“It’s our in-between state, where the lost souls go.”
“Well, now I know about your underworlds, what are your paradises?” I asked them both, trying to extend the diversion until we reached our destination.
Cora fetched a wand of licorice from her brassiere and began to gnaw on it. Snacking, it seemed, was her version of biting her nails. “In Campania, all souls sail through the underworld but most go to the Land of Eternal Twilight, the Grey Meadows by the Court of Ipsomnus on the foggy River Nesci. The worst are thrown into the Hell-Pit of Erevor, surrounded by a fiery river, and the best enter the Amaranthine Lands and the best of the best go west of the first paradise to the Sparkling Isles.”
“Oooh, that’s a lot. Very structured.” Cherine’s intrigue swayed her attention completely towards Cora. “Did you say court?”
“Yes, there are many courts, subsets of the main one, since the underworld is a realm and Orcus is its king.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as Cherine became wholly invested in knowing about the courts of the Campanian underworld, likely the Orestian one as well. Our line finally slowed by a three-tiered fountain full of ink-blue water with gold coins floating along the surface. My hungry impulse to steal was back, gnawing at my mind, making my fingers twitch with the urge to scoop out all the money.
I bit the inside of my cheek, steeling myself against the urge as we entered the Matriarch’s house, one of the more memorable buildings I’d seen in Cahraman.
A three-floored, octagonal building, each of its sides was smooth and shiny like the facet of a giant, dark crystal. Words in the elegant, cursive Cahramani script were engraved along the lines of the half-moon doorway, probably a spell to ward off malevolent spirits or something even more sinister.
Inside I was hit with a heavy cloud of perfumed fog. The combination of jasmine oil, saffron and a sour-smelling herb I couldn’t name assaulted my senses, ripping a few dry coughs from my throat. My eyes watered, blurring the dimly-lit hallway we waded through.
I could only make out prominent parts of the décor, like the nail-studded frames of calligraphic paintings we passed, and the tasseled, ornate red and grey carpets we treaded. The low-hanging, black-iron chandeliers that lit our way emitted a fuzzy, dusk-like glow, and combined with the perfume and trapped heat of the narrow hall, I felt myself growing drowsy.
I was mid-yawn when Cherine nudged me. “You didn’t tell me what you call your underworld. Also, what does it look like?”
Cherine proved harder to shake than an old habit. I had run out of ways to evade her.
“Arboreans go right into Faerie, right?” Cora answered for me. “They go through there first and are judged by its kings and queens before they can go to the lands beyond the fairy courts. The good sail to the Isle of Apples and the wicked sail off the edge of the world, right, Ada?”
Stunned, all I could do was mumble “Uh-huh”
“Oooh, fairies have courts too? Tell me about them!”
“I would.” Cora pinched her nose, the latter half of her response becoming a nasal drone. “But I can’t.”
Indignant, Cherine demanded, “Why not?”
“Being alive and all, I can’t pop in for a slight bit of tourism,” Cora deadpanned.
Cherine scoffed, elbowing the handmaidens out of her way to loudly ask Fairuza if she knew what the fairy courts were. Fairuza’s only response was wide-eyed horror before her face fell into a sour scowl, as if the mention of fairies gravely offended her.
What experience could have wrung that reaction from her? Had a fairy knight tried to kidnap her, like they always warned us in the north of Ericura?
The hall ended at a collection of room. Two guards, beardless, with pointed ears, greyish skin, ushered us one by one into the brightest room. The smell coming from within, while less pungent, was still overwhelming. Its source was the smoke rising from a rusting incense bowl.
As she stepped in last, Cora whispered, “Next time I might not have an answer for you.”
My yawn turned into a gasped gulp of air. I pretended to cough modestly, hiding half my face until I could contain my shock.
I’d lost count of the times Cora had covered for me. She had more fuel for unsavory accusations than Loujaïne could hope for, but because she’d never called me out, I kept forgetting about it. But if she knew I’d been lying since the day we met, since I claimed to be from a nonexistent island in Arbore, why hadn’t she confronted me about it?
Was she waiting for me to say something?
But unlike Cyrus’s truth, mine came with deadly risk, especially now I knew Nariman had been accused of treason herself. If I was found out to be working for her I wouldn’t be banished or jailed, I’d be ripped apart by lions.
Which brought the question: Could I trust Cora?
I considered her my friend, like I did Cherine. But I’d be stupid to tell Cherine any secrets. Those in a nearby city would hear her reaction. Cora, on the other hand, had kept this lethal information to herself. So far. For some reason.
Even if I didn’t tell her who I was, where I was from and why I was here, I had to at least talk to her about it.
But that was a concern for another time. Right now I trailed a
fter her to the table at the center of the room, and sat by Cherine, rather than between them as I always did. Cyrus escorted the rest of the girls to the seats facing the door while Ayman disappeared into a shadowy corner.
Loujaïne refused to be seated and caught Farouk in a trade of hushed whispers. I tried reading her lips, and unlike with my mother in the nightmare, I discerned enough to get the gist. It was lucky that Loujaïne enunciated as much as she did, or else I wouldn’t have been able to read her saying “It’s not cruel,” and “I hate looking at her.”
Me. She was talking about me. I dreaded to know what she meant by the former, but I felt like I already knew what the latter meant.
I reminded her of someone. Possibly more than one person. That much had been clear since the first night I met her. But what I came up with so far didn’t make sense.
I knew she knew Nariman well, had strongly contributed to her banishment. From Nariman’s own words, there’d been nothing but enmity between them. But even if Nariman’s Dorreya was somehow my mother, and Loujaïne had known her as well, that had been before Cyrus’s birth. I doubted she had reason to remember, let alone hate, the insignificant lady-in-waiting of her brother’s late wife…
The doors swung open and two guards walked in escorting a single woman in a simple, sleeveless, red gown.
Once in the light, the woman lifted her face and my breath caught in my throat.
While Nariman, with her youthful beauty, had reshaped my expectations of what a witch would be like, this woman, with her waist-length white hair, blood-red eyes and sunken face, was the crone of folktales and legends.
Though she had the body and posture of a young woman, her hands were gnarled and tipped with long blackened nails, and the wrinkles that pleated her weathered cheeks and thin mouth weren’t from years of fieldwork or even just age.
I had a feeling her haggard condition was the toll of practicing dark magic.