An Aladdin Retelling: The Stolen Kingdom Series, #1

by Bethany Atazadeh

  I stiffened. “Reacted to an unfair advantage where I have no control? Absolutely.”

  “Not everyone is like Prince Dev. I don’t know what he did to you to make you hate him so much, but it wasn’t me!”

  Her voice rose and I held up a hand, reminding her to keep quiet.

  Of course it wasn’t her. She never would’ve done that to my little brother. Part of me understood why she’d kept it secret... but I’d trusted her. And she’d betrayed that trust. “You’re all alike.” I refused to think, to let her overhear anything further, but my voice was unsteady. “You use people.”

  “No,” Arie shook her head. She took a half-step toward me, but stopped when I recoiled. A tear escaped, although she dashed it away before it reached her cheek.

  “You used me.” Quiet opened up like a canyon between us. I cleared my face of expression, pretending a calm I didn’t feel. “You were only with us to find a Jinni. You’re just like all the other Gifted.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “There’s no space for you in my crew,” I interrupted. “Take your things and go. I don’t want to see you when this day is over.” I stormed out of the alcove, but I couldn’t outrun the soft sound of her weeping.

  Chapter 33

  Kadin

  IT WAS NEARING MIDNIGHT. Our deadline. I’d spent the entire day avoiding Arie. “Bosh, can you keep her busy? I need to focus.” He’d been more than happy, and I knew she wouldn’t bring up her Gift around him. But then I’d spent the night feeling rotten for placing him in that position. He didn’t deserve to have his thoughts overheard any more than I did.

  They watched a snake charmer on one side of the room. I kept to the opposite end of the vast hall, listening to the man beside me tell a dull story about farming. In any other situation, I would’ve left. But I forced myself to watch the prince. Watch him laugh. Watch him pick his teeth. Watch him drift off during the storyteller’s fable. Watch, as nothing happened, and all my efforts over the last four years were wasted.

  Naveed dropped into the seat beside me. Is something wrong? he signed. Have we been discovered?

  I shook my head, sighing as I ran a hand through my hair. I couldn’t tell him. It wasn’t my secret. Even the fact that I would consider keeping it made me furious. It’d been hours since we’d spoke, but my anger hadn’t faded.

  Arie had a Gift.

  All this time, I’d thought the secret written across her face was her noble heritage, only to find it was a different heritage altogether: Jinni blood.

  “Let’s focus on framing Prince Dev,” I answered finally. “Any ideas?” When my friend shook his head, I rubbed a hand across my face. “We’re almost out of time.”

  He clapped a hand on my back. What would I do if this failed? I’d lived every waking hour of these last few years focused on finding justice. Everything hinged on this plan succeeding. But there was less than an hour left before Gideon’s time with us ended.

  And Prince Dev was so drunk he’d fallen asleep in his chair.

  I raised my head to check on him. No change. My eyes landed on Arie. Despite my best efforts to ignore her, I couldn’t look away. She was slumped in an extremely un-lady-like posture, staring at a spot on the floor.

  Bosh appeared at my side. “Boss, I’m gonna take Arie back to the inn, okay? She says she’s not feeling good, but she doesn’t know the way back.”

  Shame washed over me. I’d been so angry, I hadn’t even considered that she was stranded here because of me. I nodded and Bosh scurried back to her. When she stood to leave, I tried to catch her eye, but she didn’t look back.

  The Gifted can’t be trusted, I reminded myself. Standing in a huff, I strode to the corner where Gideon still lounged on the gold sofas.

  Prince Dev might be sleeping sitting up, but he was still all the way across the room. I should’ve expected a Jinni to side with his own kind. “You look like you’ve definitely found something,” I goaded him, dropping onto the sofa beside him.

  “I’m beginning to think this is a waste of time,” Gideon replied. “The Prince-ling does not display any signs of misusing his Gift.” Those blue eyes flickered as he added in dangerously soft tone, “Have you ever considered that perhaps the Gift isn’t the problem, but rather, the person who wields it?”

  How dare he judge me? “Whatever the outcome, it’s the agreed upon payment,” I snapped. Taking a deep breath, I added in a calmer tone, “We still have until the end of the day.” Which, of course, ended in a handful of minutes.

  The prince roused enough to call for another drink, leaning into the women around him, whispering in their ears. They giggled and batted their eyes at him.

  A serving woman pushed through the crowds, causing a wave of annoyance as she strode toward the dais and the royals. Her thick, roped hair reached her knees and marked her as a foreigner from Chimigi. When she spoke, the torrent of foreign words confirmed it. She wailed and carried on in a language that meant nothing to me, tears streaking down her face, as she pointed at the prince.

  “I believe this poor woman is requesting you to translate,” the king said to his son in a bored tone. But Prince Dev had shoved the other women off his arms, and while he pretended casual attention, the blush of wine in his pale cheeks seemed to have faded. Was he nervous?

  “Of course,” he said with a grand smile that he cast out to everyone except the woman in distress. When he faced her, his tone turned sharp. We waited, glancing back and forth between them, listening to the babble.

  The king’s foot tapped impatiently after a few moments. “What does she want?” he cut in when the prince didn’t seem inclined to share.

  “Ah, well,” Prince Dev paused their discussion, turning from the woman to his father. I watched his Adam’s apple bob and my suspicions grew. What if this was the moment I needed, finally, but none of us knew it? I clenched my teeth. Glancing over at Gideon, I hoped against hope that he might speak this foreign tongue, but he remained as expressionless as the rest of us, waiting for the translation.

  “She does indeed want me to translate for her,” the prince began slowly. “Apparently some scoundrel has taken advantage of her. She’s now pregnant.”

  Gasps sounded across the room as all eyes turned to the woman, lowering to her stomach. She placed her hands over her belly as only a mother does, all the while glaring murderous daggers at the prince. She lifted a finger, no longer weeping, but pointing directly at him and declaring something no one understood.

  “She, ah,” Prince Dev cleared his throat and raised his voice to speak to the whole room. “She has asked me to help find the father.” He replied to her in her native tongue. His tone sounded dismissive, and the pregnant woman sneered. But when she spoke again, he didn’t bother to translate, calling instead for one of the castle serving women. “Help this poor woman to a spare room so she can rest. We will begin the search in earnest in the morning!” He waved them away. The serving woman obeyed, tugging the arm of the young mother, who called out another string of words, eyes circling the room, begging one of us to understand her, only to meet blank stares. Finally, she followed the other woman out of the room with shoulders hunched in defeat.

  I glanced at Gideon again. He stood, still impassive, staring at the departing prince.

  The day was over.

  Gideon had borne witness, but found nothing. If this last situation wasn’t enough to sway him, nothing would be.

  I felt my own shoulders curve inward in disappointment. All those years of searching for nothing. Justice would never come. Prince Dev would never be forced to face his crimes.

  I opened my mouth to call the others, but Gideon clamped a hand on my shoulder. His sharp blue eyes met mine, and a cold fury burned within them that I hadn’t noticed. “I have borne witness,” he said in an icy tone I’d never heard before. “And I have seen enough.”

  Chapter 34

  Kadin

  THE WORLD FLASHED AROUND me in a dizzying fashion, and my stomac
h revolted. I focused on not throwing up on the scuffed wooden floor. Wood? The castle floors were marble. The room spun as I looked up and my confusion only added to my nausea. We stood in a small, cramped room with one tiny window. The sandstone color of the carved-out walls and ceiling reminded me of the Red Rose. Was this—I glanced around to find the bed on one side, a table and chairs on the other—yes. This was Gideon’s room.

  Groans came from my men where we all hunched over the floor, except Gideon. He must have caught Bosh and Arie before they left the castle; they both crouched in front of me. Bosh held his stomach with one hand and his mouth with the other, while Arie leaned against the wall. Traveling was much worse when you weren’t expecting it.

  My thoughts must’ve given me away. She glanced up and our eyes met. Staring at me, she pursed her lips, not saying anything. I ripped my gaze away.

  That’s when I saw Prince Dev.

  Gideon stood unmoving in front of the prince, who was bent over on his hands and knees, eyes squeezed shut, groaning.

  The others registered our surroundings with wide-eyes, gazing at Gideon with a new reverence. It only grew when Gideon began speaking to Prince Dev in the same harsh language that he and the pregnant woman had spoken.

  I licked my lips, leaning forward on my toes. Across the room, Naveed met my gaze. His eyes glowed with the same fervor as mine.

  But Prince Dev ignored Gideon, standing with a groan as he frowned at us and the strange room. He fell onto the bed. “I have a wicked headache,” he mumbled. He leaned back as if to go to sleep, mumbling to himself, “This is a wild dream. I must’ve had too much to drink...”

  Though Gideon kept a calm front, those cold eyes narrowed. His tone was so soft it was nearly a whisper, “Tie him to a chair.” Every single one of us leapt to obey.

  Ignoring Prince Dev’s protests, we dragged him off the bed and threw him onto the small wooden chair. Daichi produced ropes from our bags. We wrapped and knotted them around the prince’s arms and legs.

  “Remember me?” I whispered in the prince’s ear, yanking the ropes tighter, pulling back so he could see my face. “Remember what you did to my family?”

  Prince Dev paled. “What’re you doing?” he howled, fighting the restraints. “Release me at once!”

  I stepped back to join the men and Gideon. I wanted to smile at the justice finally being meted out, but instead my blood boiled hotter. It wasn’t enough.

  “What right do you think you have to hold me here?” the prince demanded, as haughty as ever. “You’ll pay for this!”

  “You have broken the Jinni code,” Gideon answered with that deceptive calm.

  “I’ve done no such thing,” Prince Dev argued. All of us watched Gideon. Though we knew the Jinn took their code seriously, none of us knew how they punished criminals who broke it.

  “You were the only one who could speak Chimigi with that woman,” Gideon settled onto the edge of the bed across from the prince. “Or so you thought.”

  Prince Dev blinked and swallowed, pulling at his restraints again as if he couldn’t help himself. His face glistened with sweat. Gideon continued, “You used your Gift to keep the truth of that baby from everyone.” A drop of sweat rolled down the prince’s face as Gideon leaned forward. “Would you like to tell them the truth now?”

  Prince Dev shook his head, and his curls stuck against his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But his shirt was drenched and his voice trembled.

  “He is the child’s father,” Gideon announced.

  How had I not guessed? No one said a word, including myself, until Gideon filled the silence. “You stand in judgment. How do you plead?”

  The prince scoffed. “I don’t have to justify myself to any of you. Who do you think you are that you can just drag me from my castle and—” though his mouth moved, his words vanished. Gideon held something small and pink between his thumb and forefinger. Was that a... tongue? The prince’s eyes grew huge. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, making strange gurgling noises.

  “I will ask again,” Gideon said, as if they were carrying on a polite conversation. He released the strange object between his finger and thumb and it disappeared. Lowering his hand, he dusted off the top of his cane before tilting it on its side, gripping the top of the cane and pulling. A sharp sound of metal on metal pierced the room as a wicked sword appeared out of the sheath, revealing the cane to be hollow inside. Gideon set the base of the cane on the bed and ran his finger along the thin, gleaming blade absently. “How do you plead?”

  The prince twitched slightly, rolling his tongue over his teeth and lips before speaking more cautiously. “What I did is nothing compared to King Amir of Sagh.”

  I crossed my arms to keep from punching him. Even his efforts to be respectful came across arrogant and offensive.

  “Oh, haven’t you heard?” He sneered, even as he tested the restraints, which held fast. “He’s sent out a message to all the kingdoms to attend his wedding to the princess of Hodafez over Summer’s Eve, but if you know the right people, you’d know there’s rumors that say the girl is in hiding and he’s holding her father prisoner. He’ll kill the king if she doesn’t return and no one will stop him.”

  Arie gasped. At first, I tried to ignore her. As a sheltered princess, this conversation probably opened her eyes to a whole new world. But something about that name, Hodafez, triggered a memory. When it came to me, I lifted my eyes to Arie, finally letting myself look at her, and it confirmed my suspicions. Pale, she stared at the prince, trembling.

  “According to the rumors, people obey every word King Amir speaks. He could tell King Mahdi to kill himself on the rocks and then declare himself the new ruler and not one person would question it. At least, not while close to him.” Prince Dev settled back, shrugging as much as he could while bound to a chair and continued. “Compared to that, my dalliances are trivial. Like a sneeze, or a misstep.” He raised his brows and smiled.

  My fists clenched, despite my slow, careful breaths. I wanted to knock that smirk off his self-righteous face. I might have if Arie hadn’t stepped forward.

  Chapter 35

  Arie

  MY PULSE POUNDED LIKE I’d been running. Prince Dev had said it so casually.

  “What else did you hear?” I demanded. I barely held back from asking if my father was still alive. When the men frowned at me, I added, “Gideon needs to hear the whole story. Prince Dev is right, he’s not the only one using his Gifts to an unfair advantage! King Amir is misusing the Gift of Persuasion. That seems far more dangerous than languages—maybe Gideon should bear witness to his crimes!”

  I risked a glance at Gideon to see if it had swayed him at all. Instead, my eyes were pulled to Kadin’s like a magnet. His thoughts were somehow inaudible to me—had been ever since he’d discovered my Gift—but I could see him putting the pieces together as his eyes narrowed. Even so, I had to know. I whirled on the prince. “Speak!”

  Dev barely glanced at me before he wrinkled his nose. “Don’t you dare address me that way, woman.”

  Before I could react, Gideon stepped forward. In that soft voice, somehow more menacing than a yell, he leaned over Dev’s seat and said in his ear, “You will tell the lady what you’ve heard.” Like a lion eyeing his prey, he stepped back slightly, still looming over the chair with that razor thin blade.

  “Ah, alright, well...” Dev struggled to keep an air of calm, but his nostrils flared and his fingers twitched. “I told you everything I know. There might be a lovely wedding or there might be a hostile takeover. I for one, have bets on the latter.”

  My throat seized up. Knowing they were watching, I kept my face smooth and turned away. I couldn’t pressure him for any more information without raising suspicion. But when they turned back to Dev, I slipped out of the room.

  Hurrying downstairs, I raced toward the bartender, trying to keep an outward calm. “When is Summer’s Eve again? I’ve... been out of town and lost track of the days
.”

  “You lost track?” He stopped cleaning and stared at me. “Lost track. I’ve never met a young girl who lost track of Summer’s Eve before. All the dancing and ribbons and boys. My own daughter’s been talking of it for nearly two months now.”

  Blushing, I held my ground. “So, it’s in a few days then?”

  He shook his head and snorted at that. “It’s tomorrow. Well, today really, considering the time.”

  My lips parted. Today. We were at least three day’s travel from Hodafez... How was I supposed to get home in time?

  “You gonna order anything?” When I shook my head, he disappeared into the back.

  I could scream with frustration. I had to get home. A half-formed plan budded in my mind. I sprinted back up the stairs.

  King Amir would pay for this. He thought this would get me to marry him? Shaking with rage, I rehearsed what I would say, stopping outside Gideon’s room to stuff my feelings down until I felt numb—burying every stray thought and emotion that might give me away—before I turned the handle.

  Chapter 36

  Kadin

  ARIE SLIPPED BACK INTO the room and I exhaled. Gideon’s interrogation was thorough; the smallest details labored over, actions questioned, memories recalled. The Jinn didn’t take judgment lightly.

  After pacing the room for a while, Gideon had told us to be still or leave. Now my men and I lounged against the walls, chairs, and bed. Illium even snored softly in the corner. I’d perched in a chair near the door without thinking much about it until Arie showed up. As soon as she closed the door, she approached me, eyes on the ground, and whispered, “May I speak with you privately? I only need a moment...”