my idiocy hits me in the face as I make myself continue down the hallway. I could have asked him dozens upon dozens of useful questions, but instead I wasted my chance, and now he’s gone.
What I really want to do is find my room, curl up in a ball, and freak out for a solid hour or two—and eat.
But that won’t get me out of here, and it won’t answer my questions—the questions I failed to ask my sultan while he was with me. Why didn’t I ask why he hadn’t helped that girl who’d fallen in the Golden Hall? Was she dead? Why had she disappeared? Why didn’t he kidnap a foreign princess for his bride, or why doesn’t he just make a harem out of us twelve instead of making us compete? I could have demanded to know why he needs a bride who can survive an avalanche of blue goblins. I could have asked about this palace, that impertinent vine in the bathing chamber, his invisibility, the portal, the strange book room. The instructions to never leave our rooms after dark. The mysterious silence that seems to reign heavier than my sultan over these walls.
My heart won’t stop pounding, and I refuse to look at the doors I’m passing. For a split second, I wonder if perhaps I don’t want to know the answers to my questions.
I haven’t sheathed my knife. I’m not sure I ever will again. It remains clutched tightly in my fist as I march down the hallways, wishing I dared to break into a run. But that would feel too much like fleeing at a time when I’m supposed to be the hunter, the one uncovering the mysteries and scouting the layout of the palace.
What did his last comment mean? Was it a terrible attempt at wooing? I don’t think he’d stoop to wooing when his inclination thus far seems to be brute force.
Suddenly, there’s a break in the hallway of doors. I swallow back a strangled choke of relief to find myself approaching a sprawling polished oak banister to my left, one that matches its twin on the far side of a massive staircase that curves outward when it hits the ground. My gaze drags up those stairs, dizzy at their number, until it twists, and I realize I’m staring up at a spiral staircase. The underside of them blocks their destination from my view.
Should I climb it?
My spine shivers in response. It takes far more strength than it should for me to reach out my hand toward the carved, smoothed edge of that banister.
It’s warm.
Because of the sunlight, of course. Everything is warm. Why should I expect it to be cool to the touch? Gritting my teeth, I take a step closer, sliding my fingers up the railing.
The banister shudders.
That’s the only way I can describe it. It’s almost imperceptible, more of a mental notion than a physical experience, but I just can’t help but know this piece of wood just responded to my touch.
I swallow hard and nearly yank my hand away. Instead, though anxiety shoots through my veins like fire, telling me to not touch, I slip my finger just under the lip of the banister and trail it upward a few inches.
Wood creaks in a groan, and not just the wood beneath my hand, but all around me. This time, I can’t keep my hand still. I draw it back, heart pounding, but my fingers stay poised in the air between my chest and the banister. My grip on my knife in the other hand grows slicker.
Then, to my utter shock, the banister moves. Defies the stiff, unforgiving wood of its make, and bends with a creak into my hand. Warm wood presses against my skin, nudging me with that lip.
Spots flare in my vision. Oh stars above, why must I be a fainter? Why can’t I be literally anything else—a crier, a screamer, a yeller? This is so inconducive to what I need to accomplish!
I draw in a deep breath, fighting the urge to jerk away from the fixture that is currently doing something uncannily like a nuzzle against the back of my hand. I must be practical, reasonable about this. Must stop being surprised when things are magical.
This is normal, I tell myself. Wood that appears to like being pet. Completely rational. Something resembling a laugh catches on a sob in my throat. Am I getting hysterical? Losing my mind? Maybe this is just some wretched dream that I’ve conjured up after my job last night.
Carefully, I take my knuckle and rub it along the lip of the banister. Wood groans in response, and then I’m quite literally scratching it. Fingernails and all. The wood is too smooth to splinter into my nail beds, yet with the way the staircase creaks, apparently it feels very, very good.
I’m laughing before I know it, tears dribbling out of the corners of my eyes as I put both hands to work, finding the best spots that elicit the loudest creaks and groans. It’s like when Eshe would scratch under the chin of a tomcat, its eyes closing in rapturous delight, and I realize half-hysterically that I’m making a pet out of a staircase.
When I finally pull away, there’s an audible popping sound. The leaning of the banister toward me tells me I wasn’t wrong in suspecting that popping was a disapproving whine of sorts.
“I can’t pet you all day,” I say sternly. And nearly choke on another bubble of laughter. “But I’m sure I’ll be back later.”
The railing sinks a bare half-inch.
“None of that sulking! A body can only handle so much guilting, all right? Be glad I petted you instead of being sad it must end. Now straighten up and behave yourself or I won’t come back.”
It straightens to its full height immediately. I let out a sigh, stare at it stupidly, and then reach out and give one last pat. A draft blows in my face, coming from the upper windings of the staircase. Like it’s sighing in response.
I turn my back on the banister, trying to shove away the feeling that I’ve let it down somehow, and face where the staircase opened into. My lips part in surprise.
A pair of wide, arch-like doors open into the glittering sunshine, straight into the flagstone courtyard I’d seen from my window. Blinding rays gleam on the water gurgling out of the marble fountain, lush trees and shrubbery framing behind the perimeter of long stone benches.
I cannot help the ache in my heart at the flash of beauty, the suddenness of my relief. My mental floor plan earns a few more notations, and my knees go wobbly. I’m not lost.
I’m not alone, either.
Perched on the edge of the fountain in robes of soft pink, a gold-edged veil covering her hair and spilling down her back, with golden bangles lining her wrists and her feet shod in woven sandals, is one of the young women from the Golden Hall. She trails her fingers in the water of the fountain, leaning over the edge and smiling serenely into what might be a reflection of her face, or the little shreds of clouds gathering in the otherwise clear sky.
I never would have guessed she was fighting goblins a mere few hours ago. She’s lovely, even from this distance, and there’s an elegant refinement to her movement, testifying to her high birth and education.
She seems every inch the bride-to-be of a sultan. The beautiful trophy for a powerful ruler. I swallow, fidget slightly, and can’t help my self-conscious glance down at my much more practical and dark robes. I’d never wear such a light color as the rosebud pink she wears—bloodstains wouldn’t come out.
Why do I feel suddenly so out of place? I’ve felt out of place since the moment I woke up this morning, but this is a different feeling. That was a sense of waking up in a whole new, strange world that I didn’t understand. This is the sense of being in a world I do understand, but definitely don’t belong in.
A slave in the presence of a lady.
I have the startling and painful urge to bow. But I don’t.
The girl looks up, seems to startle when she sees me. She lifts a dripping finger from the fountain and smiles sweetly, one hand reaching up to draw the bejeweled edge of her veil out of her face.
“Who are you, lurking in the shadows there? Come! It’s so dull here by myself,” she calls in a voice as sweet as her appearance.
My gut twists. I regret not petting the banister longer. Seeing no other choice besides acting suspicious or joining her, I make my limbs work, slip my knife into my sheath, and step between the doors. It’s immediately hotter, the fountain louder, and the green of the shrubbery brighter. I try to betray as little about myself as possible as I approach the pink girl and sit on the bench closest to where she rests on the lip of the fountain’s basin.
She smiles. I realize she asked me a question. For a split second, I consider giving her a false name. If Eshe weren’t here and doubtlessly bound to let my real name slip, I would have done it.
But Eshe is here, so disaster must be expected.
“I am Nadira,” I say with a small returning smile of my own. “And you?”
“Dabria. Dabria bint-Abaas.”
Bint-Abaas. I barely manage to control my flinch. A lord’s daughter indeed, of a man whose eldest brother I assassinated but two years ago. This courtyard is suddenly much, much too bright and hot.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I say, glad the fat whale of my tongue decides to cooperate.
“Likewise! I was beginning to give up hope of ever seeing another human face in all the long stretch of today. What a fortunate thing to find you.”
Not fortunate. Terribly unfortunate.
She shifts her gaze back to the fountain, and I take the opportunity to study her hand as she swirls it in the water. I believe those are calluses. A hand that has held weapons. I wish I’d had more time to study all the contestants earlier today before the first competition. I didn’t have the mental capacity to watch how the other young women fought, and now I very much wish I had.
“What do you make of this place?” she asks me, lifting her head toward the palm trees surrounding us, then the stone archway I’ve just come through, the windows looking out at us.
I turn a few different responses over in my head, wrestling with how much to reveal of my own thoughts and scouting, and how much I dare dodge her question. “There appears to be magic,” I say at last.
She chuckles. “My baba always said our kingdom was special because we were ruled by a sultan of legend, one that sowed our soil with magic and breathed it upon our sea. He told me this when I was a child, and I believe it was something his father told him, and his father before that.” She turns toward me now, a slow smile playing on her dainty features. “Do you think the sultan my great-grandfather spoke of might still rule today?”
A muscle tics sharply in my jaw. I meet her gaze as unease stabs through my lungs. Both from her words, and the way she speaks them. As though we are sitting beneath a brightly colored pavilion drinking qahwa, sipping its bitter blackness until our insides are as hot as our skin beneath the sun. As though we are discussing our sisters’ arrangements for marriage, or a particularly insistent seller in the stalls of a bazaar.
“I do not know,” is all I say. Do I want to know? I’m beginning to doubt that.
“Who do you think the Neverseen King will call for a private supper tonight?”
Her question sends a jolt of surprise through me, and I’m beginning to get the suspicion that she’s doing it on purpose. Trying to get a reaction out of me. It makes me even more uncomfortable than I already am.
I feel dull and stupid saying yet again, “I do not know.” But how could I? She doesn’t know either. I suppose we shall find out at some point this afternoon or evening. Another bout of apprehension rolls through me. What if it’s me? What if the Neverseen King beckons me to join him? What if I haven’t prepared my questions?
I need to leave this conversation.
Yet something inside me shifts, and something like a flash of boldness rushes through my blood, making me lean forward just a hair and ask carefully, “Do you want it to be you?”
Dabria laughs. A light tinkling, pretty sort of laugh. Her eyes spark when they meet mine, glittering almost as brightly as the gold she wears. “I would love to have the honor of dining with my king.”
“Even if he must remain unseen?”
Her smile widens, and she tosses the edge of her veil over her shoulder. “Why, that only adds to the mystery, Nadira. Haven’t you thought of what it would be like to be the one person in all Arbasa to discover the face of our Neverseen King?”
My heart responds before I do, skipping over itself. “Perhaps he hides his face because he is ugly.”
She chuckles. It’s a sound I’m growing more and more uncomfortable with. “I take it that you should prefer not to dine with him tonight?”
Do I? Something warm stirs in my gut. Perhaps I am curious. Or rather, it would give me an opportunity to ask more questions and get the answers I need to escape. But the sun is beginning to decline overhead, and the emptiness of my stomach combined with the heat isn’t helping me think clearly. What if he poisons the woman he brings to dinner tonight? What if I’m unprepared? What if I’m too hungry to think straight?
“I’d rather not be the first,” I say honestly. Probably too honestly. I need to learn conversation skills—that’s Eshe’s strength, not mine. As it happens, one doesn’t need to talk much when they’re slicing open a jugular.
She laughs again, and I fail to understand why she keeps laughing. We’re prisoners here. We were almost overwhelmed by hundreds of tiny blue monsters with strange hammers and the ability to jump unusually high. Dabria gives no sign of being bothered by any of this, and it makes me wonder what sort of father she was raised by. What sort of man would dress his daughter in silks and put a blade in her hand?
I wonder if she loved the uncle I killed. I wonder why someone wanted him dead.
The thought makes me blink rapidly. I ought to move to the shade. Instead, I cross my arm over my torso, trying to subtly put pressure on my hollow stomach. Sands, I need food. I’ll starve before I find an escape.
Dabria flicks her wrist and lets water droplets fly. She twists toward me, revealing that her clothes have been designed to leave a few inches of toned abdomen exposed. The thought of wearing such vulnerable clothing nearly makes me dizzy again.
“Tell me about yourself,” she says.
I blanch. Talk? About myself? To her? What—what in all the forbidden deserts am I supposed to tell her about me? “Well, I’ve been a slave ever since my parents were killed in front of me, my slaver raised me to be an assassin, and now I go around killing people like your uncle.”
I lick my lips, avoid the urge to bite them, and manage what I hope is a convincing shrug. “I am but a commoner.”
“A commoner who wields a blade? A commoner whom the Neverseen King is considering for his bride?” She gives me a knowing smile, as if we’re sharing a private joke, as if she’s urging me that we’re friends and I can tell her anything. “What did you say your surname was?”
I didn’t. “Al-Risya,” I say. My stomach growls.
Dabria pretends she didn’t hear the loud rumble, even though there is no way she didn’t. “Hmm. Nadira Al-Risya. I cannot say I’ve heard your name in my family’s circles, no.”
I try to disguise my sigh of relief as an exhale. Then Jabir was correct—the identity of the Mourner is, indeed, unknown. When I glance at Dabria again, however, her fingers trailing in the water, I’m suddenly unsure.
I let out a deep breath and stand, offering the politest smile I can, and say, “A pleasure, Lady Dabria.” I again resist the urge to bow—after all, aren’t we equals here? But my back prickles as I turn away from her and stride toward a different door than the one I exited, one that I hope will take me to my room.
If I don’t melt or faint on the way there.
to my room, there’s a fresh tray resting on the table in the sitting chamber. It’s made of silver, laden with polished utensils and bowls with intricately designed lids featuring a boar and hyena growling at each other. I step over hesitantly, clamping a hand down on my growling stomach as the smell of cardamon and roasted meat waft into my nostrils. My mouth waters so suddenly it’s painful. I tighten my lips to keep from drooling.
Dare I partake?
There’s a note. Crisp parchment lies folded on the tray, warm yellow against cool metal. Hesitantly, I reach out and pluck up the note.
“My lovely, darling, and very hungry Nadira,” it begins. I blink, startled, and almost turn around for a sign that Eshe has been here, playing some fool joke on me. But no, it’s not written in her hand. I skim the rest of the note quickly.
“Have no fear, I can assure your fragile nerves that the food is not poisoned. If I wanted you dead, Mourner, I’d have killed you already, as I imagine you’ve probably reasoned. Yet something tells me you’re still skeptical, so I thought it necessary to assuage you of your fears before you starve yourself into uselessness. Besides, you should know that I’d never stoop to something as banal as poison. So for heaven’s sake, eat.”
It’s signed with a flourish.
Your Neverseen King.
