war between my instinct for self-preservation and my curiosity. I want to turn around and march down the stairs, never letting go of my knives for a single second. I want to keep scouting the layout of the palace, to begin constructing a plan of escape.
But apparently as much as I want those things, I also want to know where the legendary Neverseen King is taking me.
What if it’s a trap?
This was part of his plan—to make me so curious I couldn’t resist, and then lure me to my death.
I hate him.
Yet my feet keep taking one step after another. They don’t stop, not until we’ve reached a new floor, then another. I stay several steps below the Neverseen King’s shadow, my palms sweaty around the hilt of my knives. At least this is still productive, right? I am seeing parts of the palace I haven’t seen before.
When I reach the top of the staircase, all is quiet. Neither of us, invisible sultan nor assassin, make a single sound. I refuse to be the one to break the silence. I stay with my hand on the banister, taking this little trickle of comfort from the half-sentient House.
Then the sound of a door handle turning cuts through the air like a blade slicing through flesh; a sound of wood, stone, metal. I barely keep from flinching.
The door swings wide, and I half expect a monster to leap out of the opening and tackle me down the staircase.
Nothing happens.
In front of me is a wall. I had expected to stare down another long hallway, as this palace seems to have them at every turn. But when I mount one more stair hesitantly and peer around the corner, I realize this door does open into a hallway; we just happen to be facing it perpendicularly.
The shadow before me turns, manages to beckon me forward in a way that I can neither see nor hear, yet still understand. I swallow the lump in my throat. I’ve come this far. There’s no use turning back now. No, I need to know what he intends to show me. I need to take advantage of every opportunity to discover any scrap of information that might reveal something about what my sultan hides from me, from my fellow competitors—from all Arbasa.
I need to know if I have any hope of escape.
Gripping my knives tighter in my fists, I follow the sultan up one last creaky step until I stand in the hallway. It stretches out before me, a red carpet unfurling to the far end. I tilt my chin to the side as I take in the rather severe décor of this part of the palace. The stone walls are bare, save for a single row of unlit sconces on either side. The lighting is dim, as though the only light comes from a distant window or two. I had really thought that after seeing the grand and glorious Golden Hall and Emerald Hall, that this would be . . . more, somehow. That every inch of this palace would be magical and regal.
But what am I to say? It’s not my palace. This isn’t my place to have expectations.
I take one more deep breath, as though building up an army of inhalations will somehow prepare me for what is ahead. The Neverseen King regards me wordlessly.
Am I to trust him?
No, I’ll never trust him. No matter what he says, I cannot and will not trust him.
“Will you still not tell me where you are taking me?” I ask.
I’ve almost lost where he is. He’s somewhere to my right, but I cannot quite place him. Then his voice rumbles low and deep, and strangely soft. I’m not sure what is causing that underscoring current.
Every muscle in my body tenses for what he has to say.
“Mourner,” he says, “I wish to show you a room. Do you remember the room you found yesterday? The room with the open door, full of books?”
I nod silently, not willing to give him any other assent.
“I wish to show you another room.”
“Another room?” I ask, baffled. “What does this room have, if not books? Your collection of assorted teacups?”
He gives a wry chuckle, but there isn’t as much humor in it as I thought there should be. As though he hides a secret from me. As though I should be nervous about it.
Well, I am.
He walks ahead of me, darkening into deeper shadow so I can better see where he is. I refuse to walk beside him, because—well, I’m too afraid of him. But I can walk behind him.
Walking behind him gives me the opportunity to wonder if I could stab him right now and not face any consequences.
We reach a door. It’s strangely . . . plain. Nothing like the magical, strange doors I found on the floor below. It’s something completely different—simple wood, decidedly lacking all elegant embellishments or architecture. No fancy keylocks or decorative hinges.
A key seems to come out of nowhere, like he’s pulled it from some invisible pocket. I watch as that key moves forward in the air. I can just make out the shadow of an enormous hand. A hand that’s bigger than my face.
I’m struck again with the realization of just how other he is. And then, before I can stop myself, I blurt, “You’re not a human, are you?”
The key freezes in the lock.
He doesn’t answer for a long moment, and it’s so deathly quiet that my skin crawls and I want to rake my nails across my chest, my arms, my neck. I feel as though I will take one step and fall into the space between us—and promptly sink into the silence.
If he was a human in possession of great magic, he’d have said so by now. But this hesitation, this distinct lack of a response, hollows out my stomach and confirms one of my insistent, niggling fears.
All I can do is wait for his answer. I don’t know why my very soul is hanging as though by a thread to know, to have him say the words himself. But it is.
“Did you think I was human?” he asks finally.
My own answer surprises me. “No. I didn’t.”
That is the truth of it. From the first moment that I sensed his presence back in my cell-room, I knew he wasn’t human. He was something else. Something that terrified me. Something that was made of dreams and nightmares, starlit skies and expansive oceans. Something that was far, far beyond me.
Something very other.
“You’re a djinn,” I say.
The key clicks in the lock, slides out, and returns to be swallowed by the invisible pocket. But the shadow of that great hand stays on the doorknob.
His voice, which has been low and serious for so much of our conversation today, is suddenly light. A chuckle bursts from him, and not a wry sort of chuckle. A truly amused one. One that catches me completely off-guard. I take a step back.
I can almost feel the grin that he swivels my way.
“You think that I am a djinn? A genie in a bottle, one that grants three wishes? You think I’m a character in a child’s fairytale? You think mothers tell stories of me to their misbehaving brood to make them heed their instructions?” He laughs, deep and warm and yet so wholly terrifying that I take another step back from him.
“Are you not?” I demand. “If you’re not a djinn, then what are you?”
He acts as if my guess is utterly absurd when it’s the only thing that makes sense in the situation. He is a being of magic, and unless he is some earthbound demon or a god’s illegitimate son, I don’t know what else he could be besides a djinn.
“Do you really wish to know?” There’s a lilt in his voice that makes me pause.
Do I really want to know? Do I want to know the truth of this Neverseen King, who wishes for me to take a place at his side?
Do I want to know what he truly is?
His hand turns on the doorknob. I watch it turn, my heart climbing higher and higher in my chest, so high that I fear it will fly straight out of my throat and beat in the air between us.
“Tell me,” I say.
“Very well,” he says, “I will tell you what I am. If you come into this room with me.”
A choice. My choice.
I realize quite suddenly that I have never had so many choices set before me in my life than I have here, in this palace. All my life, Jabir decided what I ate, what I wore, what incense I could burn, where my next job was going to be. He decided everything for me.
But now the Neverseen King keeps placing these decisions before me.
I’d be lying if I said I don’t thrill at the power of choice. Quick on the heels of that thrill, however, is a sharp burst of wariness. He’s doing this to make me trust him, isn’t he? He’s enticing me with freedom even as he keeps me bound.
Why?
In terms of immediate self-preservation, walking through that door would be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. It’s a risky gamble. One that I want to walk away from, but just cannot quite make myself do yet.
Maybe I don’t hate danger as much as I’ve always thought I did. Maybe I simply hate being forced into it. Maybe, when the choice is set before me, there’s a part of me that does want to know what is beyond the world of safety and comfort. Maybe that’s why I haven’t fled him already.
Because he promises something else—something more. I don’t want something else or something more, I tell myself. I want escape. Freedom.
If I’m going to decline his offer to enter that room, then I want all the information so I can decline him properly, rather than impulsively.
“What’s in the room?” I ask, lifting my chin.
“Where’s the fun in telling you?” the Neverseen King replies, a smirk in his voice.
“This isn’t about fun. This is me trying to figure out if you’re going to have me killed the moment I walk in that room.”
“If you won’t trust me, you should trust my need of you.”
“Don’t the eight other women here speak to my being disposable? How could I trust your need of me?”
He sighs, and the latch clicks as if he’s leaning against the door. His gaze burns into me, traveling over every inch of my face. Perhaps he’s using magic to sift through my mind, read my thoughts. I don’t move a muscle.
“Let me extend an olive branch to you,” he says at last. His tone has an oddly honest timbre to it.
I say nothing, waiting.
“The first girl didn’t die.”
I blink. My heart kicks up its rhythm several paces. A beat of sweat slides down my temple. My voice comes out scratchy and wary as I ask, “What do you mean?”
I saw her fall in the Golden Hall. If I close my eyes, I can see all that sapphire blood flowing, drenching me, spattering on golden walls. I blink fiercely against the memory, against the burst of black spots that always come at the most inopportune moments.
“I pulled her from the throng before she was killed. She was returned to her home, injuries healed, with no memory of her time here in this House.”
I stagger a step toward the wall and reach out a hand to steady myself. My skin meets with the unforgiving ice of stone. My lungs clench, squeeze, my heart picking up its pounding rhythm. Why does this information strike me so? I should be relieved, should breathe a sigh, smile and move on.
But it doesn’t make me relieved.
It drowns me.
“Nadira?” His deep voice cuts through the blackness closing in on my vision. “Nadira? Can you hear me?”
I can hear him. I just cannot breathe enough to respond. Because I’m trapped. I realize now, more fully now than I’ve understood since the moment I arrived, what my fate is to be.
I will die in these competitions. Or, if by some miracle, the Neverseen King manages to intervene and spare my life—unlike with Itr today—he will return me to Jabir. Back to killing for his greed. To taking lives I have no business nor desire to take. Back to being a slave.
My only other option is to win this competition.
Or escape, if I can manage it. If I dare attempt it after Hulla’s death last night.
One large, warm hand lands gently on my back, between my shoulder blades. I flinch, but my world is so caught up in that one frantic thought—I cannot breathe—that I do nothing to push him away.
Then his thumb is pressed to the hollow of my throat, and he mumbles something under his breath. The relief is so strong a sob catches in my throat.
“Don’t send me back to him,” I gasp, letting my head drop forward against the wall. His warmth seeps into the skin of my back while the cold of the stone chills straight through to my skull. Even though I can breathe, the urgency of my words doesn’t abate. “Please don’t send me back.”
Energy pulses from the shadow beside me, formless but strong. I don’t know if it’s magic or emotion, or a strange combination of the two.
“On the graves of my fathers, I swear I will not send you back to that gravbak.” The last word, spoken in a tongue I don’t recognize, is spat out with more indignation than I expect. Viciousness underscores the low spoken vow.
“Y-you won’t?” I stutter. “Then where will you put me, should I fail but survive one of your tests?”
“Wherever you like.”
He’s still touching me, his hand resting between my shoulder blades. That touch seems to blaze hotter every second it lingers. I swallow, then twist so he’s forced to let go or take my arm instead. He draws away immediately.
“Jabir will find me,” I say. Somehow the bitterness of those words bolsters my composure. Being angry is better than being afraid. “You cannot put me anywhere that he won’t find me.”
“That,” he says, “is categorically false. If you believe that, then you grossly underestimate me.”
“If you dismiss the possibility, then you’ve grossly underestimated him,” I shoot back, drawing up stiffly, away from the wall.
His shadow deepens. Darkens.
“If he comes within a thirty-foot radius of you, I will drive tiny needles into every one of his pores until he dies. And then I will remove his extremities, starting with his fingers and toes, continuing until he’s nothing but a torso.”
It’s a deeply unsettling threat.
The shock of it hits me first, then a shiver of fear. But on its heels is something unexpected: thrill.
I cannot help the dark chuckle that bursts from my throat. I smile up at the Neverseen King. Does he pull back from me slightly? “You’d do that for me? How sweet.”
He growls, and the sound isn’t human at all. I get the impression of him turning away from me, sweeping his invisible cloak around him. In . . . irritation. Have I flustered the Neverseen King? It’s so ridiculous a thought that another chuckle escapes me, this one brighter than the one before.
“Who knew you were so protective of your prospective brides,” I say smoothly, pressing to see if I’m right. “Or is it just me?”
And Safya. The thought hits me like an unwelcome pile of bricks. I shove it away. None of the other women matter right now. What matters is getting information.
“Enough of this nonsense,” he growls. His hand is back on the door handle. “I don’t have all day to waste with you. I am a king, you remember. My hands are full between this kingdom, this competition, this House, and especially—” He cuts himself off abruptly.
My gaze sharpens on him. What did he almost let slip?
He clears his throat. “Come with me into the room or don’t. Your choice.”
Perhaps it was his promise not to return me to Jabir. Or his threat to dismember him if he dared approach me.
Or maybe it was because I finally found something, tiny as it is. He has another responsibility. That is what he wants us for. That’s what he wants me for. I’m certain of it.
“Very well,” I say, and sheathe my blades just long enough to wipe the sweat from my hands before drawing them again. “Open the door.”
