by Lucy Tempest
Judging by how Cyrus interacted with his aunt, Nariman had won long ago, and Loujaïne must have fiercely resented her for it. Cyrus had said King Darius believed Nariman had only wanted to compel him to marry her, while Loujaïne had believed she wanted to usurp the entire House of Shamash and rule as queen instead. Seeing as Nariman was just banished, rather than executed, and Cyrus missed her, it meant—
Loujaïne. Loujaïne was the source of all my problems.
If her lies had gotten Nariman ousted from her position as a de-facto queen and mother, then she was the root of all this. If she had never been banished, Nariman wouldn’t have kidnapped me and thrown the Fairborns in Rosemead, Cyrus would have had his mother-figure by his side in this competition and…
I would have never met Cyrus.
I could never wish to have never met him, but I wished I had under better circumstances, maybe as a true competitor aiming to win his hand.
Now more theories and beliefs ebbed and flowed in a tide of probable combinations.
From the information I had gathered, Loujaïne, like Fairuza and Ariane, must have been sent to another land to marry into another royal family. Yet here she was, no husband in sight or any children, remaining in her brother’s court, never to be anyone’s queen or mother. Marzeya had also said that her husband had cast her aside for his mistress, Dorreya. Nariman had said as much, and that that Almaskhami prince had replaced his infertile wife with the woman who was most probably my mother.
It would certainly explain why she hated me.
It was also awfully suspicious that all the Almaskhami women had been picked off one after the other. Hessa beheaded, Jumana killing herself, Dorreya disappearing and even Nariman who’d held on the longest, ending up banished.
One good explanation for Nariman finding me was that my mother had told her where she was escaping Loujaïne’s far-reaching wrath. What if Nariman had been looking for my mother when she’d appeared in the Hornswoods? Those hovering eyes had been a searching projection, maybe seeking out an old friend and fellow witch to help with her banishment.
But when she’d failed to find my mother, she’d settled for me. To get her the lamp, to use whatever resided in it to end it and strike back at her banisher.
If this were all true, and it seemed very likely it was, then I hoped Nariman unleashed a dragon on Loujaïne.
Red-faced, Loujaïne squared off with Cyrus. “I am the king’s sister and advisor.”
A curt nod acknowledged her claims. “But in this competition you are only fulfilling the duties my mother would have.”
“We wouldn’t be here,” Loujaïne hissed. “Holding this competition, despite you having a princess to marry, if your mother hadn’t arrived all those years ago with her witches.”
Cyrus gritted his teeth, straightening fully, towering over his aunt. “I believe you are taking this a bit too personally, considering that this test was your idea.”
“Its point was to see how these girls would handle themselves against witches, not to establish a sub-court for them within ours!”
He breathed in, then out, calming himself, sparing her from the fury I so wished he would unleash on her. “Princess Loujaïne, if you don’t mind I would like you to leave the room.”
She gaped at him, scandalized. Then she blurted out, “I will do no such thing. This is my test and—”
“It will go on without you,” Cyrus cut her off, showing me another side of him. The uncompromising prince, who could be intimidating when need be, who knew his almost limitless powers over everyone in this land and how and when to wield it. “Leave, please.”
Farouk finally intervened, gently ushering the protesting Loujaïne out, his quiet murmurs absorbing her heated complaints until Cyrus shut the door behind them.
Cyrus ran a hand over his face and up to smooth his hair. He was distressed as well as angry and struggling not to display either emotion. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with someone like her my entire life, someone who didn’t love me but demanded my love and respect.
With this new insight into their relationship, I wondered if his refusal of Fairuza as his betrothed had to do with her being like Loujaïne—haughty, prejudiced, obsessive and cold?
Fairuza spared no time in proving me right as she rounded on Cyrus. “Are you being contrary for the sake of spiting your family? Is that it?”
Cyrus rested his back against the door, arms crossed. “Why would I do that?”
“That’s all you’ve been doing, with this competition and now in dismissing your own aunt.”
“What kind of a king will I be if I do everything I’m told regardless of common sense and outcome?”
The biting finality in his deceptively calm words silenced her.
Marzeya yawned loudly beside me, shattering the tense moment. “As entertaining as family disputes are, no, I won’t give you the necklace in exchange for a seat at court. That is something I should already have.”
Ariane slumped in her seat, giving up.
I hoped Marzeya didn’t target me next. I needed a few more minutes to put away all thoughts of my mother and Cyrus’s, of Loujaïne and Nariman. The idea of Loujaïne sabotaging the lives of Jumana and her friends was solidifying and I was having fantasies of handing her over with the lamp to Nariman and having her avenge us all.
Not that I would if I could. If there was the slightest chance Nariman did want to unseat the royal family, it would be disastrous for Cyrus as well as the whole kingdom. Her anger might be warranted against Loujaïne but not to the extent that it swallowed everyone else into the chasm split open by her vengeance.
No matter what I’d discovered today, my plan remained the same. I still had to find a way to appease her. Then stop her.
Marzeya thankfully looked past me to Cora. “What about you, Lady Coralia?”
Cora, who’d spent this whole time slouching in her seat, almost dozing off, sat up, for once fully invested. “How do you know who that is?”
“I told you I’m old.” Marzeya laughed, reaching a hand over Cora’s golden hair.
Cora only displayed annoyance with the witch rather than the flat out fear I would have.
“Lady Coralia with flowers in her hair, Greenery and rivers following her everywhere, Mistress of the earth and all that it yields, ‘Til what lies beneath pulls her to nether fields.” Marzeya sang dreamily, inspiring the closest I’d ever seen to shock on Cora’s steady face. “Is that how it goes? I can’t seem to remember.”
“Close,” Cora muttered, watching Marzeya warily, like she was ready to jump and fight her off.
“Now, what’s your argument?”
“I don’t have one.” Cora shrugged, leaning on her elbow and casually away from Marzeya. “I don’t see why an old necklace is important unless it has magical properties. Does it?”
“Not much besides its beauty.”
“Then why do you keep it if you don’t wear it?”
“Because why not?”
Stomping over Cora’s turn, Fairuza set her hands on the table, rattling it. “You won’t trade it for a place at court and you won’t wear it. What would it take to give it to us?”
Marzeya clucked her tongue. “Isn’t it your job to figure that out?”
“I’m not going to waste my time with your inane games, witch. I see through you,” Fairuza spat with far more vitriol than Loujaïne could have mustered.
If Loujaïne’s issue with witches was the men in her life preferring them to her, what fueled Fairuza’s personal anger?
“You don’t see anything, little bluebird,” Marzeya scoffed.
“I do,” Fairuza said in a heated rush. “I know your kind. You ruin people’s lives for the worst reasons. You go around looking for excuses to validate your cruelty to those weaker than you and you are angling to do that now. I am not playing into your trap.”
“There is no trap, dearie.” Marzeya suddenly bared her horrific teeth. “And you are starting to anger me.”
Fairuza eyed Mar
zeya with a mixture of disgust and loathing, “There is always a trap with your kind, and I am not walking into it. I am not begging you for anything just so you can give us a cursed replacement or turn us into beasts. You will give us the necklace as an apology and we won’t prosecute you.”
“Prosecute me for what?”
“Nothing.” Cyrus moved to step in. “She’s just exaggerating.”
“Not you.” Marzeya flicked her hand and Cyrus flew back to slam into the door. My throat closed as he was pinned there by the same invisible force that held Ayman back, fighting thin air. “I am talking to her.” She beckoned Fairuza with her bony, taloned fingers. “What do you hope to prosecute me for?”
Fairuza’s teeth chattered, her mouth wobbling, but I felt it wasn’t with fear like the rest of us, but mindless anger, the kind I now felt at my mother’s lies and omissions, at Loujaïne for getting Nariman banished and at Nariman for extorting me and endangering us all.
I felt the magic radiate off Marzeya, a silent threat, waiting to lash out. “Well, Princess? Answer me.”
“The accusation of tampering with us is enough to land your neck on the chopping block!”
This wasn’t going to end well. I had to step in before the witch lost her temper.
Looking at Cyrus and Ayman, making sure they were just held back but unharmed, I tapped her on the shoulder. “Is it my turn?”
Marzeya turned crimson eyes on me, wrinkled, sunken face still contorted with offense. “What could you have left to say?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “You said you didn’t want a place at court, neither will you trade other jewelry for it or wear it yourself. I take it that you won’t sell it to us either?”
“Not for any currency in your coin pouch or the king’s vaults.”
“Then it’s not power or money you’re after.” Especially since she had us technically at her mercy and wasn’t leveraging the fact for either.
Marzeya shook her head. “I have enough of my own.”
“Then I have to ask. What do you want?”
Marzeya looked me over, her long black nails tapping on the table, each third tap from her longest fingernail making me flinch. “What can you offer me?”
That was a good question. What could I give an ancient, powerful witch?
Witches could get any normal thing themselves, that’s why Nariman’s desire for the gold lamp had seemed so odd, until I realized that within it was something beyond her power.
The only thing a witch could want from me was to perform a task that was risky or impossible for her, because of who she was, but easy for someone like me.
“Not my eternal servitude, that’s for sure,” I said. “But I can offer you a service.”
Marzeya’s laugh broke over me, scratching at my nerves. “Really?”
“Is there something you want us to get for you, something you can’t obtain but need for your magic? I don’t know…maybe glowing grass from the Granary? Luminous fish from the Deep Red Sea? Silver lilies from Arbore?”
“How about a lock of your hair?”
Her suggestion shot through me with a thousand paranoid alarms.
A lock of my hair could be an ingredient to spin a personal curse, or a way to control me.
But all Nariman had needed to control me was her magic snake staff. Marzeya, being far more powerful, wouldn’t need my hair to do that.
Besides, most of this hair wasn’t mine, anyway. It was Nariman’s enchanted effort. I hoped that meant it remained artificial and hadn’t bonded with my own.
I still wanted to refuse her demand, but I couldn’t risk failing this competition or angering Marzeya. I needed to win at any cost so I could save the Fairborns. If in doing so I did something detrimental to myself, then so be it.
Steeling myself, I reached back to unbind my hair.
In a spark of glittering light, a silver knife materialized in Marzeya’s hand.
As she picked out a lock to cut, Fairuza shouted, “You idiot! Did you listen to a word I said? This is a trap and you’re playing right into her hands!”
“Be quiet already.” Marzeya gnashed her teeth, red eyes glowing like hot coals.
Fairuza rushed in front of her. “No, I will not! Your kind always pulls these evil tricks.”
I stood and faced Fairuza, speaking through clenched teeth, “Fairuza, stop it. We’re almost done here.”
Fairuza lunged, grabbed hold of my arms. “You can’t give her a part of you! She’ll use it against you.”
“Since when do you care? It’d be good news for you if I dropped dead tomorrow.”
That strangely seemed to rattle her as she stumbled back, releasing me. “I don’t want you dead! I just want you to go back where you came from.”
I huffed. “That’s one thing we have in common.”
“If you want to make it home safe, don’t give anything to her!” Fairuza insisted.
A part of me couldn’t believe there was no ulterior motive to her fervor. “You’re just trying to get me to fail this test, aren’t you?”
“No, she just has an unhinged hate for all magic.” Marzeya rose to face Fairuza menacingly. “Don’t you, dearie?
“You deserve all my hate,” Fairuza spat, far more courageous than I’d ever given her credit for, refusing to be intimidated. “Things like you wait for someone to come to you in desperation then take parts of them as payment, their hair, their blood, their bones, their souls, all to fuel your demonic rituals and suck that person dry.”
Marzeya threw out her arm in an arc, drawing a sparking circle that matched her glowing eyes in midair, tearing a hole through the wall next to Fairuza, a doorway into bright, spinning depths. “I think it’s time for you to go.”
It was a portal, just like the one Nariman had opened in the Hornswoods to transport me and the Fairborns out of Ericura.
Fairuza stood gaping as the portal reversed its spin, sucking the air and turning off the lights around us. As I felt my feet leave the floor, I knew what would come next. If I didn’t act quickly, Fairuza would be hurled wherever this portal led.
Before I could grab hold of something, and lunge for Fairuza, she grabbed a handful of my dress and pulled me along to be swallowed into another maw of the unknown.
Chapter Twenty
I was spat out onto a cold, craggy ground.
But the impact that would cause me a hundred bruises and knocked the air out of my lungs was Fairuza landing on top of me.
And she had the nerve to groan in pain. If I were Bonnie or Cherine, I’d be crushed right now.
I shoved her off me as I rolled up onto my hands and knees.
Where had we landed?
It was as dim as dusk, with rough-hewn walls and a ceiling that grew wider and higher the further I looked. A shudder spread through me, raising every hair on my body and tightening my guts.
It was a cave.
I hadn’t been inside one since I’d been fourteen and desperate for shelter in the wettest part of Ericura. I hadn’t slept in one since, taking my risks with empty houses in lively neighborhoods or the sheds of occupied homes.
But here I was, in a dry, desert cave who-knows-where, not of my own need or choosing, but because of Fairuza.
This was all her fault. She’d done her best to provoke Marzeya, and she’d taken me with her—wherever this was.
Bile scalded my insides, sloshing upwards as I stood, foot poised to kick her—and torches suddenly burst to life along the cave walls, bathing it in a warm, rusty light.
In the firelight, I could see a small spill of sunlight on the left side of the cave wall. The cave mouth!
My urge to bury my foot in Fairuza’s stomach subsided.
I grabbed her upper arm instead, dragging her up and behind me. “Move.”
She tried prying my fingers off as she stumbled to her feet. “Let go!”
I yanked her forwards with all my strength, almost dislocating my shoulder. “Walk ahead of me then.”
Sh
e didn’t protest, lifted the front of her massive skirt and cautiously led the way.
From the back, the multi-hued gems in the peacock comb atop her updo gleamed bewitchingly. I wanted to rip it out of her head. She didn’t deserve such pretty, priceless things. She was a vile, vindictive brat just like her aunt. Only lucky to be born to royalty, knowing her lineage, reveling in its power. Given everything—riches, security, praise, and beauty— and excused of all transgressions that would get peasants like myself jailed or executed.
It had taken her aggravating a witch-queen to finally get her thrown in a punishment corner. But she’d dragged me with her, along with sabotaging my efforts.
I’d been about to win!
I just hoped it wouldn’t take long to find our way back to Marzeya’s house. With any luck fate owed me, I might still trade a lock of hair for the necklace, and an apology—for accidentally casting me out with Fairuza—for information.
That was if Marzeya hadn’t tossed us too far away. If my mother and Nariman could open doors that bridged the distance between Cahraman and Ericura, then Marzeya could have very well flung us across the Silent Ocean.
Relief extinguished my seething fury and worry once we reached the mouth of the cave. It was still the afternoon and the unique cityscape of Zhadugar was shimmering in the distance. A few hours’ worth of travel on foot, but still within a day’s reach.
Fairuza was trying to beat me to the opening, skirts rustling loudly in her rush. I bunched my skirt to mid-thigh and sprinted, determined to be the first one out. She could follow at whatever pace she could. I wasn’t wasting any daylight.
My foot was barely at the threshold when a thick wall of smooth, reddish sandstone slammed down before me, barely missing my toes, blasting a deafening blow through my bones, before echoing endlessly through the cave.
I stumbled backwards, shock still expanding as scratchy, smug laughter bounced off the walls, coming from no discernable direction.
“Did you think it would be that easy?”
“No…” I rasped, struggling to regain my balance. “No, please.”
“Let us out!” Fairuza screamed. “Let us out now, witch!”