This Woven Kingdom (21 page)

“
The girl is a Jinn!
” Kamran shouted, hardly able to breathe for the vise clamping around his chest. “She is heir to a kingdom. Never mind the fact that she has preternatural strength and speed and can call upon invisibility at will—she was no doubt trained in self-defense from a young age, much like I was. Would you not expect me to easily defend myself against six ruffians, Your Highness? And yet? What? You thought a queen might be easy to murder?”

King Zaal looked suddenly livid.

“You are the heir apparent to the greatest empire in the known world,” his grandfather cried. “You were raised in a palace with the best tutors and masters in existence. She is an orphaned, uneducated servant girl who has spent the last few years living mostly on the street—”

“You forget, Your Highness,” Kamran said sharply. “You said yourself that she was not an ordinary girl. What's more: I forewarned you. I told you the girl spoke Feshtoon. I shared with you from the first my suspicions of her abilities, her intelligence. I'd watched her dispatch that street child as if he were a twig and not a tree. I've heard her speak; she is sharp and articulate, dangerously so for a girl in a snoda—”

“I say, child, you seem to know a great deal about a young woman you so vehemently deny defending.”

A gust of fury blew through Kamran at that, tore through him with a virulence that stripped him entirely of heat. In its wake, he felt only cold.

Numb.

The prince stared at the floor, tried to breathe. He couldn't believe the conversation he was having; he doubted he'd be able to endure much more of the suspicion in his grandfather's eyes.

A lifetime of loyalty, so easily forgotten.

“You underestimated her,” Kamran said quietly. “You should've sent twenty men. You should've anticipated her resourcefulness.
You
made a mistake, and instead of accepting fault for your own failure, you thought it better to blame your grandson. How easily you condemn me. Am I so
superfluous to you, sire?”

King Zaal made a sound at that, a disbelieving huff. “You think I took pleasure in making the decision? I did what I had to do—what I thought was right given the overwhelming circumstantial indications. Had you assisted the girl tonight you would have become a traitor to your crown, to your empire. I did you the mercy of sentencing you to so gentle a fate as imprisonment, for here, at least, you might be safe. Had news of your treasonous actions been discovered by the public, you'd have been disemboweled by a mob in short order.

“Surely you can understand,” the king said, “that my duty
must
be to my empire first, no matter how agonizing the consequences. Indeed you should know that better than anyone. You go too far, Kamran.” Zaal shook his head. “You cannot believe I enjoyed suspecting your part in this, and I refuse to listen to any more of this dramatic nonsense.”

“Dramatic nonsense?” The prince's eyes widened. “You think me dramatic, Your Highness, for taking umbrage at your readiness to sentence me to
this
”—he gestured toward the dank cage behind him—“without a shred of real evidence?”

“You forget that I first allowed you the opportunity to defend yourself.”

“Indeed, you allowed me first to defend myself against a vicious attack ordered against me by His Majesty himself—”

“
Enough
,” his grandfather said angrily, his voice rising an octave. “You accuse me of things you do not understand, child. The decisions I've had to make during my reign—the
things I've had to do to protect the throne—would be enough to fuel your nightmares for an eternity.”

“My, what joys lie ahead.”

“You dare jest?” the king said darkly. “You astonish me. Never once have I led you to believe that ruling an empire would be easy or, for even a moment, enjoyable. Indeed if it does not kill you first, the crown will do its utmost to claim you, body and soul. This kingdom could never be ruled by the weak of heart. It is up to you alone to find the strength necessary to survive.”

“And is that what you think of me, Your Highness? You think me weak of heart?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” The prince laughed, dragged both hands down his face, through his hair. He was suddenly so tired he wondered whether this was all just a dream, a strange nightmare.

“Kamran.”

What was this, this feeling? This static in his chest, this burning in his throat? Was it the scorch of betrayal? Heartbreak? Why did Kamran feel suddenly as if he might cry?

He would not.

“You think compassion costs nothing,” his grandfather said sharply. “You think sparing an innocent life is easy; that to do otherwise is an indication only of inhumanity. You do not yet realize that you possess the luxury of compassion because I have carried in your stead the weight of every cruelty, of every mercilessness necessary to ensuring the survival of millions.

“I clear away the darkness,” the king said, “so that you might
enjoy the light. I destroy your enemies, so that you might reign supreme. And yet you've decided now, in your ignorance, to hate me for it; to purposely misunderstand my motivations when you know in your soul that everything I have ever done was to secure your livelihood, your happiness, your success.”

“Do you really mean it, Grandfather?” Kamran said quietly. “Is what you say true?”

“You know it is true.”

“How then, pray, do you secure my livelihood and my happiness when you threaten to cut off my head?”

“Kamran—”

“If there is nothing else, Your Majesty.” The prince bowed. “I will now retire to my room. It has been a tediously long night.”

Kamran was already halfway to the exit when the king said—

“Wait.”

The prince hesitated, took an unsteady breath. He didn't look back when he said, “Yes, Your Highness?”

“Spare me a minute more, child. If you truly wish to assure me of your loyalty to the empire—”

Kamran turned sharply, felt his body tense.

“—there is a task of some importance I wish to charge you with now.”

ALIZEH WAS ON BOTH KNEES
in a corner of the grand sitting room, hand frozen on her floor brush; her face was so close to the ground she could almost see her reflection in the glossy stone. She dared not breathe as she listened to the familiar sound of tea filling a teacup, the burbling rip of air as known to her as her own name. Excepting the elixir of water, Alizeh had never much cared for food or drink, but she loved tea as much as anyone in Ardunia. Tea drinking was so entrenched in the culture that it was as common as breathing, even for Jinn, and it sent a little flutter through her chest to be so close to the brew now.

Of course, Alizeh was not supposed to be here.

She'd been sent to scrub this particular corner only after a large bird had flown through the window and promptly defecated all over the marble floor.

She'd not known Duchess Jamilah would be present.

Though it was not as if Alizeh would get in trouble for doing her job; no, the girl's concern was that if anyone saw her in the same room as the mistress of the house, she'd be promptly dismissed and sent to work elsewhere. Servants were not allowed to dawdle for long in rooms where occupants of the house were present. She was to do her job and be gone as quickly as possible—but for the last five minutes,
Alizeh had been scrubbing the same clean spot.

She did not want to go.

Alizeh had never seen Duchess Jamilah before, not up close, and though she could not exactly
see
the woman now, Alizeh's curiosity grew only by the second. From beneath the finely carved legs of the stiff couches, Alizeh was able to observe a horizontal stripe of the woman. Every so often the duchess stood without warning, then sat back down. Then stood up again—and changed seats.

Alizeh was fascinated.

She caught another sliver of the woman's hem then, the peek of her slippers as she moved for the fourth time in as many minutes. Even from this skewed vantage Alizeh could tell that the lady wore a crinoline under her skirts, which at this early hour was not only unusual, but a bit gauche. For ten thirty in the morning, Duchess Jamilah was supremely overdressed with nowhere to go. Doubtless, then, she was expecting company.

It was this last thought that inspired a terrifying flip in Alizeh's stomach.

In the two days since the announcement of the prince's arrival in Setar, Mrs. Amina had worked the servants nearly to death, in accordance with orders issued by the lady of the house herself. Alizeh could not help now but wonder whether the highly anticipated moment had finally arrived—and whether Alizeh herself might see the prince again.

Quickly, she returned her eyes to the floor.

Her heart had begun to pound in her chest at the prospect.
Why?

Alizeh had not allowed herself to think much of the prince in the last couple of days. For some unfathomable reason, the devil had forewarned her of the young man—and every day Alizeh grew only more baffled as to why. Indeed what had, at first, seemed so foreboding had only recently been proven toothless: the prince was neither a monster nor a murderer of children.

Not only had Omid's recent visit dispelled any lingering concerns Alizeh might've had about the young man's motivations toward the boy, but Alizeh herself now carried evidence of the prince's kindness. Apart from sparing her a fight with a shadowy figure, he'd returned her parcels in the midst of a rainstorm—and never mind how he'd known to find her. She'd decided no longer to dwell on that uncertainty, for she didn't see the point.

The devil's warnings had always been convoluted.

Iblees, Alizeh had learned, was consistent only as an omen. His brief, flickering appearances in her life were followed always by misery and upheaval—and this much, at least, had already proven to be true.

The rest, she would not torture herself over.

What's more, Alizeh doubted the prince spared her a single thought; in fact, she would be astonished if he'd not altogether forgotten their fleeting interaction. These days, Alizeh had precious few faces to look upon and recall, but there was no reason the prince of Ardunia should remember that, for a single hour, a poor servant girl had existed in his life.

No, it did not matter who was coming to visit. It shouldn't
matter. What held Alizeh's attention was this: the rustling of Duchess Jamilah's skirts as she positioned herself in the crook of yet another armchair.

The woman crossed, then uncrossed her ankles. She shook out her hem, draping the material to be shown to its best advantage, and then pointed her toes so that the rounded tips of her satin slippers would peek out from under her skirts, calling attention to her narrow, dainty feet.

Alizeh almost smiled.

If Duchess Jamilah was indeed expecting a visit from the prince, the current situation was only more perplexing. The woman was the prince's
aunt
. She was nearly thrice his age. Watching this grand lady reduce herself to these pedestrian displays of nervousness and pretension was both entertaining and surprising; and proved the perfect diversion for Alizeh's boiling, chaotic mind.

She'd had quite enough of her own troubles.

Alizeh placed her floor brush on the polished stone and fought back a sudden wave of emotion. By the time she'd arrived home the evening prior, she'd been left but three hours to sleep before the work bell, and she spent two out of three tossing restlessly on her cot. A low-level anxiety hummed even now within her, not merely a consequence of being almost murdered—nor even the murdering she'd done herself—but of the young man who'd kneeled before her in the night.

Your Majesty.

Her parents had always told her this moment would come, but so many years had passed without word that
Alizeh had long ago ceased waiting. The first year after her mother's death she'd survived the long, bleak days only by holding with both hands to hope; she felt certain she would be shortly found, would be rescued. Surely, if she was so important, someone would be along to protect her?

Day after day, no one had come.

Alizeh was thirteen years old the day her house was reduced to ash; she'd no friends who might offer her shelter. She scavenged the wreckage of her home for its surviving, mutilated bits of gold and silver, and these she sold, at a great loss, for the necessary sewing and weaving supplies she still owned today.

As a precaution against revealing her identity, Alizeh moved from town to town with some frequency; for in that hopeful first year, it would not occur to her to take a position as a snoda. Instead, she pursued work as a seamstress, making her way south—over the course of years—from one hamlet to a village, from a village to a town, from a town to a small city. She took any job, no matter how small, sleeping wherever she found a reliable place to collapse. She comforted herself with the assurance that the unbearable days would soon come to an end, that imminently she would be found.

Five years, and no one had come.

No one had been there to spare her the gallows. No one had arrived to offer her a path to safety upon arrival in each new town; no one had been around to guide her to a gentle river or stream in the unnavigable crush of the city. No one came for her when she'd nearly died of thirst; or later, when she'd taken a desperate drink of sewer water and was
poisoned so badly she'd been briefly paralyzed.

For two weeks Alizeh had lain in a frozen gutter, her body wracked by violent seizures. She had only enough energy to make herself invisible—to spare herself the worst harassment. She was certain back then, as she stared up at the silver moon, her lips chapped with frost and dehydration, that she would die there in the street, and die alone.

Long ago she'd ceased living with the hope of being rescued. Even when she was hunted and besieged by the worst of men and women, she no longer cried out for help—not when her many calls had gone unanswered.

Alizeh had learned, instead, to rely on herself.

Hers had been a lonely, agonizing journey of survival. That someone had finally found her seemed impossible, and she was gripped now by both hope and fear, alternating between the two with such frequency she thought she might go mad.

Was it foolish, she wondered, to allow herself to feel happiness for even a moment?

She shifted, then, felt the nosta move against her chest. She'd hidden the orb in the only safe place she could think of: just inside her corset, the polished glass pressed close to her skin. She felt the nosta glow hot and cold as conversations ebbed and flowed around her, every change in temperature a reminder of what had happened the evening prior. The nosta had turned out to be a gift in many ways, for without it she might've begun to wonder whether her memories of the night before were, in fact, a dream.

Hazan
, he'd said his name was.

Alizeh took a deep breath. It gave her great comfort to
know that he remembered her parents, that he had ever been to her childhood home. It made her past life—and his place in her present—feel suddenly real, affirmed by more than her own imaginings. Still, she was plagued; not only by optimism and apprehension, but another, more shameful concern: she wasn't sure how she felt about being found.

A long time ago, Alizeh had been ready.

From infancy she'd been prepared for the day she'd be called upon to lead, to be a force for change for her own people. To build for them a home, to shepherd them to safety. To peace.

Now Alizeh did not know who she was.

She lifted her bandaged hands, staring at them as if they did not belong to her; as if she'd never seen them before.

What had she become?

She startled, suddenly, at the distant, muffled sounds of voices. Alizeh had been so lost in her own thoughts she'd not noticed the new shift in Duchess Jamilah's position, nor the sudden commotion in the front hall.

Alizeh crouched impossibly closer to the ground and peered through gaps in the furniture. Duchess Jamilah was the picture of affected indifference: the casual way she held her teacup, the sigh she gave as she faux-perused a column in Setar's local newspaper, the
Daftar
. The publication was famous for being printed on dusty green pages and had long been a point of interest for Alizeh, who could rarely spare the coin to purchase a copy. She squinted at it now, trying to read the day's headline upside down. She'd only ever been able to peek at the articles on occasion, but—

Alizeh started violently.

She heard the prince's voice, far away at first, and then all at once sharp and clear, the heels of his boots connecting with marble. She covered her mouth with one hand, doubling over so as not to be seen. With her free hand she clutched the floor brush, wondering now at her own foolishness.

How on earth would she escape unnoticed?

The room was without warning swarmed by servants carrying tea trays and cakes; one was collecting the prince's heavy, moss-colored coat—no cloak today—and a golden mace Alizeh had never before seen him carry. Among the bustling staff was Mrs. Amina, who had no doubt invented an excuse to be present upon the prince's arrival. If Mrs. Amina caught Alizeh here now—in the presence of the prince
—
she'd likely beat the girl just to teach her a lesson.