my throat as I’m escorted through the palace toward the second competition. Everything is as it was yesterday. No blood spattered on the wall. No sign of struggle. The birds have returned to the fountain, which burbles and flows as if it had never stopped.
It should ease my nerves. Instead, it only serves to worry me more.
Who is gone? Will it be elegant Dabria? Tall and rude Fathuna? Hunched and unimposing Safya? Will it be Raha and her death glare? Itr, who dined with the sultan last night?
I’m surprised when the route we take is familiar to me. I keep expecting us to veer off course, to take a left at the hallway convergence instead of a right. But we continue exactly as we did last night.
My brow bunches when we stand yet again before the doors of the Emerald Hall. The unflinching guards do not even glance at me as they reach, grasp the polished handles, and swing open both doors.
The hall glitters even more in the sunshine. I’m still not sure where the light is coming from, but it dazzles my eye nonetheless. I’d have thought that seeing the beauty of gemstones embedded in the floor and gold-threaded agate archways against the far wall would have numbed me to its effect a second time. But no. I have the urge to crane my neck and take it all in again, just as I wanted to last night.
I don’t.
Because, apparently as is routine, I’m the last one to come. Nine other women are seated before another banquet spread, and my eye catches on an elaborate arrangement of cut pineapple in the center of the table.
Nine women. There are two empty chairs at this table now besides my chair next to Eshe. One for the girl who fell in the first competition, and the one who left her room last night. Will all of us still be here tonight?
My eyes find Eshe’s immediately, and the sight of her lovely face, the smile showcasing her crooked front teeth, is so relieving I almost stop in the doorway instead of continuing to my seat.
The Neverseen King did not lie to me. Eshe lives.
But someone else is gone.
I look over the women, registering their names in my brain. Eshe. Fathuna. Dabria. Itr. Raha. Safya. Gaya. Kanza. Mahja. Who is missing? Who have I forgotten?
That’s when I realize that Eshe’s smile isn’t her typical flashing grin, but a front. I’ve never seen such a forced smile on her face. She must be rattled by the disappearance. That revelation is followed by another: I’ve never seen Eshe scared. Never in my life.
The name of the last girl, the one I overlooked, hits me with the force of a desert storm.
Hulla.
Hulla, the girl who was hyperventilating at dinner last night. The one Eshe comforted. The girl I pitied. She must have panicked and tried to flee last night.
I am sick as I take my seat. Eshe grabs my hand beneath the table. I squeeze it hard.
We’re in this together, I want to say. Whatever this second competition, whatever things we face, we can do it together.
I don’t want to look at any of the women sitting beside and across from me. And then I don’t have to, because the steward enters only a second later. Emin holds himself regally as always, and I marvel at how unfazed he can be by any of this while I’m barely keeping down the snack from earlier this morning.
“The second competition will commence in a moment,” he says.
With those words, the tentative control I had over myself nearly snaps. My own breathing increases, my heart threatening to gallop away from me. I don’t want to kill again. I don’t know why we’re sitting at a table. I don’t know anything.
Will I be the next Hulla? What if this is my last—
Eshe squeezes my hand. I exhale, shut my eyes for a split second. Together. Eshe has my back. She’ll be strong for me. But that means I must be strong for her, too.
“Listen carefully, because the rules will only be given once. One of you has been given the task of killing someone at this table.”
Oh sands, no. My insides drop like a stone to the ground.
“The woman charged thus has been granted two accomplices, whom she knows and who know her. If the killer succeeds and kills one of the women seated at this table, she and her accomplices will be acknowledged as the winners. If, however, the killer is identified before she succeeds, then the one who identified her is the winner.”
Eshe’s hand has gone clammy in mine. I lace my fingers in hers, firming our grip. I breathe deeply into my nose, telling myself over and over again that we can survive this. This is what I’m trained in.
Does the fact that I was issued no prior instructions mean that I am neither killer nor accomplice? Am I relieved by this?
“The prize for winning is dining with the Neverseen King tonight. The competition begins now,” says the steward, and gestures at the meal spread before us. “You may begin eating.”
Across from Eshe, Fathuna bangs her knife down on the tabletop. “Are you saying we’re supposed to eat knowing that someone is trying to kill us? What if it’s poisoned?”
I blink. Is this why the Neverseen King sent me food earlier—because he knew I wouldn’t eat? Did he send food to everyone, or just to me?
“You are to eat, yes,” says the steward. “Prior to the arrival of the first contestant, all the food was tested for poison by the order of the Neverseen King. Everything was safe for consumption. Now, please begin.”
With that, he turns and leaves the hall. But, subtle as it may be, I don’t miss when someone else enters—someone who hangs by the shadows at the apse of the hall.
The Neverseen King has arrived to watch the second competition.
“Who was here first?” demands Fathuna. “When I arrived, Dabria, Raha, Eshe, and Kanza were here.”
“I didn’t poison anything!” says Kanza quickly, eyes wide and glancing around her. She is seated between Fathuna’s scowl and Raha’s black-eyed glare.
I scan the table seating arrangement quickly, trying to watch everything at once while not appearing too alert. The opposite side of the table, from left to right, is seated thus: Mahja, Dabria, Fathuna, Kanza, and Raha. My side of the table, from left to right, is Gaya, myself, Eshe, Itr, and Safya.
“That’s exactly what someone would say who had poisoned something,” says Fathuna, swiveling her suspicious scowl to Kanza, whose eyes widened even more.
“When I arrived,” says Dabria, reaching out and lifting her steaming cup of qahwa, swirling it before taking a bold sip, “Eshe and Raha were here.”
All eyes turn to Eshe and Raha. Except mine. I’m trying to see where everyone’s hands are so I can monitor them. Itr’s, Mahja’s, and Raha’s hands are below the table, while Dabria always keeps both in plain view. I half-wonder if that is on purpose. The rest have one hand visible, and one below the table.
Mine are below the table, I realize. Because I’m still holding Eshe’s hand. I risk a split-second glance down at our hands and see a knot of white knuckles.
“I was here first,” says Eshe after swallowing.
“Did you poison the food?” demands Fathuna, her butter knife gripped in her fist on the table.
All eyes focus on Eshe.
“I thought you were too nice,” says Mahja dryly from the far end of the table.
I bite my tongue sharply to keep from snapping something and drawing all attention to me. But Eshe, despite how tightly she clenches my hand, says with shocking calm, “I didn’t poison anything.”
“If you were here the whole time, then did you see anything suspicious?” asks Fathuna.
Eshe shakes her head.
“You’re a-asking a-a lot of q-questions,” stutters Itr. “M-maybe you’re just t-trying to distract us.”
“Stop trying to turn this on me. I’m neither the killer nor the accomplice. No one talked to me beforehand,” says Fathuna with a scowl. “You dined with the Neverseen King last night. Have you told anyone how it was? Or are you going to keep us in the dark?”
“I-I-I will t-tell you!” Itr cries in apparent frustration. “B-but we’re t-trying not to get k-killed!”
“Stop stressing her out,” Kanza shoots at Fathuna with a glare. “She told me about it. She said he was very nice—just like I told you he would be! He didn’t hurt her. And the food was very good, apparently.”
A sudden loud scraping to my left sends instinct flooding my veins. I release Eshe’s hand, block my side with my forearm, and whip a knife out of my sheath.
Gasps go up around the table, and I think it’s Kanza who lets out a half-scream.
But my eyes lock on Gaya’s gold-and-green eyes next to me as she flies to her feet, backing away from the table. My knife remains poised in the air, and then I process what happened.
Gaya wasn’t coming to attack me. She was shoving back her chair and getting up. I let a sigh of relief escape me, and then I sheathe my knife.
I turn to find eight pairs of eyes fixed on me.
“You’re the killer,” gasps Kanza.
“Nadira isn’t the killer,” says Dabria. She’s wearing bright turquoise robes today, with a gold circlet across her forehead and pearls in her hair. She reaches forward, helps herself to a plate of stuffed figs, and doesn’t brace herself when she takes a bite. “She reacted in self-defense because she was startled. She’s not the killer.”
I’m not sure if I’m grateful or wary.
Fathuna frowns, watching her eat. “You say that so confidently, and you’re eating the food that might be poisoned. You know who the killer is, don’t you?”
Dabria chuckles and dabs her mouth with her napkin. She lifts her gaze, meets mine. “No. I don’t know.”
“She’s definitely an accomplice,” says Mahja. “If not the killer.”
I’m almost inclined to agree with her.
Dabria only smiles. “Then you’d better watch your back. Cheers.” She clinks her own cup of qahwa on Mahja’s, which sits on the table untouched.
“Why are you still standing?” Fathuna asks Gaya, who hasn’t returned to her seat, but stands a few paces away, arms crossed over her chest.
“Because I don’t trust any of you.”
“Or you’re trying to signal to one of your accomplices,” says Fathuna.
Eshe has been extraordinarily quiet, I realize suddenly. I glance at her, find her face deathly pale. Dread plunges into my gut. Is Eshe the killer? Or an accomplice? Is that why her hand is trembling? Oh stars above.
“It’s not me,” says Gaya.
“Whoever it is had better make a move, because I’m getting bored, and we don’t have all day.” Dabria clinks her glass on Fathuna’s this time, tossing another sparkling smile her way.
It’s an effort not to flinch at every movement.
Fathuna’s brow pinches, and though my eyes are scanning every which way, I note how she glances at Eshe, Safya, then Raha. “Safya,” she says, drumming her nails on the table, “I don’t think you’ve spoken a single word since you got here.”
Safya stares at her empty plate, but slowly lifts her attention to Fathuna. “Do you want me to speak to comfort your nerves?”
I barely keep my brows from rising. Fathuna, on the other hand, draws back, clearly affronted.
“I’m trying to figure out who is trying to kill one of us,” says Fathuna. “Which is why—”
“Is it because you want the Neverseen King’s attention for yourself?” asks Kanza. “You’re trying to find out who it is so that you can dine with him.”
“I’m trying not to die.”
Raha, who has also been quiet, snorts. When we all turn to her, she’s smiling faintly. And then she reaches forward with her knife, spears a piece of meat, and brings it to her plate. She begins eating without even a sniff for poison.
Gaya is still standing a ways off, arms folded across her chest. “Someone toss me a bite,” she says.
It’s Mahja who picks up a slice of pomegranate from one of the plates before us and throws it to Gaya. She catches it in one palm, then opens her fingers to inspect its ruby pearls of fruit. She brings it to her nose, sniffs it, and then tosses it to the ground.
“Poison?” asks Kanza, her voice suddenly high-pitched.
“Not that I could tell,” says Gaya.
“Then why’d you throw it away?” asks Fathuna.
“For the same reason I’m not sitting at the table. I don’t trust any of you. Especially not one who would give me food.” This is said with a pointed glance at Mahja.
Eshe still isn’t saying anything. She’s one of them, then. Surely she isn’t thinking about killing me?
No. I won’t think like that. I won’t think so little of my friend.
Your friend has more sense than you give her credit for.
In my bid to carefully watch everything at the table, I’ve forgotten about the Neverseen King. How he studies our every move. I feel the prickling of his eyes on me even now.
If I thought the last competition was brutal, this one is far worse. What sort of sultan would ask this of his potential brides? To kill each other?
Raha slices a piece of her meat with vicious intensity and uses her teeth to bite the chunk off the tip of her knife. Kanza, sitting next to her, stiffens and tries to scoot over—only to glance and find she didn’t want to be any closer to Fathuna either. I can’t help but pity her position. I sit at the safest position on the table, with a friend on one side and Gaya having vacated the chair next to me.
Then Raha speaks, and the sound of her rough voice chills me to the bone. “I don’t care if I was given the assignment of killing or not. If one of you is the Mourner, your days are numbered.”
My thoughts stutter to a complete halt. I barely remember to maintain my blank expression before I reveal the sudden terror pooling in my gut.
But Mahja almost chokes on laughter. “The Mourner? Here? Is this how you start every conversation with a new group of people?”
Kanza looks like she wants to give an uneasy laugh, but wouldn’t dare while sitting right next to Raha.
Apparently this subject sharpens Eshe’s mind enough for her to interject: “But isn’t the Mourner a man?”
Dabria plops a grape into her mouth, chews, swallows, and then says, “Actually, I have it on good authority that the Mourner is a woman. One of the city’s lords—Lord Kishon, who runs the city guard for the Neverseen King—was assassinated the night we were brought here. And it was a woman the guards almost apprehended for execution. So if the Mourner is a woman, it’s quite probable that she would be here.”
Eshe. She’s talking about Eshe, not me. I doubt anything Dabria could have said would have horrified me more. I squeeze Eshe’s hand before she opens her mouth one more time to insist that isn’t possible for some incriminating reason.
My efforts are in vain.
“But isn’t—” Eshe begins.
“Getting slo—” says Mahja at the same time.
They both stop. Glance at each other. And Eshe nods too quickly at Mahja. “You first.”
“I was just going to say the Mourner must be getting sloppy,” Mahja finishes. “How many years has it been? A decade nearly? Not once has he—or she—been seen.”
Quiet falls around the table. I want to melt into my chair and die. All I can hope is that Dabria doesn’t know anything about the so-called Mourner’s appearance. If she was told the woman was short, as Eshe is, that effectively eliminates me as a target and places the bull’s eye on my friend.
My friend, who cannot get a proper grip on her demeanor today.
“What were you going to say?” Fathuna asks Eshe, narrowing her brows.
Raha’s gaze flicks up from her food, and pauses mid-chew to hear my friend’s answer.
This is bad.
“The same thing,” Eshe says with a laugh that nearly makes me wince. “I would just be surprised if it was actually the Mourner who was caught. How do we know it wasn’t an accomplice?”
Death by being impaled on a spike would be infinitely preferred to this.
“So between the Mourner, Raha, the killer, and her two accomplices, you’re telling me that there are potentially five people at this table who would murder me?” Fathuna asks, smacking her knife back down to the table and getting up from her chair. “Oh sands no.”
That’s when it happens.
It’s so slight, so subtle, I almost miss it.
More women have been braving the food on the table, reaching forward and hesitantly eating. Fathuna stands a pace back from her chair like Gaya, arms crossed, while the rest of us say nothing. Eshe draws a deep breath beside me and wraps her fingers around her cup of qahwa.
At the same time, Itr reaches for the tower of pineapple and takes several slices back to her plate. The sleight of hand was so practiced, so proficient, I didn’t even see it happen. I would have missed it, except for the one little bubble appears in Eshe’s qahwa just before she brings it to her lips.
Fast as a snake’s strike, my hand darts out. I grab Eshe’s wrist and slam it down to the table. Qahwa sloshes over the rim, splattering my hand with heat and staining the white tablecloth silty brown.
Eshe gasps, along with everyone else at the table. She looks at me, at my grip on her, but I’m not looking at her. I’m looking at Itr.
“You poisoned Eshe’s drink,” I say.
Kanza lets out a piteous whimper and sets down her own drink that she was about to sip. Raha beside her just keeps eating. Fathuna’s face is a mix of horror and triumph.
“The killer is Itr!” Fathuna cries, putting more distance between herself and the table.
Itr pales and shakes her head vigorously. “I d-didn’t d-do it! I p-promise! I’m n-not the k-k-killer! Nadira is a-accusing m-me to take b-blame off herself!”
Eyes swivel to me, sudden doubt written across their faces. Dabria has only lifted one brow and keeps eating.
“I saw you,” I say to Itr. “You poisoned Eshe’s goblet while you reached for the pineapple.”
“I’m n-not the k-killer!”
“You’re the killer or one of the accomp—”
Something flashes. A flash I know well. I grab Eshe’s arm, yank her toward me as I whip out my own knife.
But the knife doesn’t come for Eshe. It all happens so fast I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t react. All I can do, along with everyone else at the table, is stare at Itr’s shocked, frozen face.
And at the knife protruding from between her shoulder blades.
She falls forward onto the table. Dead. Next to her, Safya stands, her frame not quite so hunched and narrow as I thought before. She places a hand on Itr’s back and yanks the knife out. The flowing blood makes dark spots dance across my vision.
“She’s right,” says Safya. There’s not a scrap of emotion on her pretty, blank face. “She wasn’t the killer.”
Then she turns and marches straight toward the shadow along the far wall. My jaw drops open. She is aware of him too? Like I am?
“What’s over there?” asks Gaya.
Kanza is weeping softly across from Itr’s body, her hands covering her face. I’m so sick I don’t think I can stand. But I watch as Safya boldly approaches the darkest part of the room, shoulders back.
“I shall see Your Highness at dinner tonight, then?” she asks.
To the apparent shock of everyone at the table except for me, the deep voice of our Neverseen King rings out across the hall. “Indeed, I shall see you tonight, Safya bint-Rashid.”
Even Dabria’s lips are parted. This confirms it then; no one can sense his presence. No one knew he was here the whole time. Except me.
And Safya.
