I land on the flagstone pathway. My thoughts are like the chaos of color amid the bursting of clouds and stars in the nebula portal, except they’re not at all beautiful like the world the Neverseen King had shown me. They’re a twisted mass of wretched self-loathing, confusion, and the realization that, as much as I despise gambles, I must choose who to throw my lot in with.
Each step hugging the shadows and chasing after Kolb is a step that makes the Neverseen King’s offer sound better and better. With him, I have protection from Jabir. If I escape my sultan’s palace, I will be on my own against my slaver—and if he found me here, then I’m not sure I can run far enough to be free of him. Ever.
I’d consider assassinating him if I hadn’t already tried that years ago. Several times, actually. It worked about as well as running from him did.
Each step—I’ll never be free of him. Each breath—the Neverseen King will protect me from him. If I let him.
But who will protect me from the Neverseen King?
What about Eshe?
Those are problems for another day. I’ve made two decisions for tonight. First, I’m going to find out how Kolb got in and out of this palace—the artifact only helps with magic, not with armed guards. Second, I’m not going to escape just yet.
On the other side of the courtyard is an arch leading to a covered promenade with a mosaic floor and decorative columns every few paces. Kolb is moving so fast I can barely keep up with him while still trying to be careful and keep track of my whereabouts. He navigates through more walkways, ducking into doorways and sometimes even windows as he scurries like a monkey through a jungle. I lose him a few times, but never for long.
Suddenly, we’re at the gates.
There are no guards that I can see. It’s another courtyard, framed on the east and west by palace walls, three arches to the south leading to the rest of the palace complex, and the gates to the north. Flagstone paves the area, save for along the walls where palm trees and hibiscus bushes grow. I slip behind one of the palm trees, discover that the walls have half-circle recessions every few feet, and hide in one of those as Kolb walks boldly up to the gate.
Is he going to scale the wall? Is some guard going to jump out of hiding and cut him down? The thought makes my fingers flex around the hilt of a knife in my belt. I may be mad at him and feel guilty about his sister, but that doesn’t mean I want him dead.
To my bewilderment and shock, Kolb walks directly to the gate, opens it, and vanishes through it. It closes silently behind him.
I want to throw up my hands and give a huff. I don’t, of course, but I gape. Is the gate unguarded just tonight, or is it like this every night? Could I have just walked out all this time?
Can I walk out? Right now?
Butterflies erupt in my stomach. Is freedom but a few steps away?
I’m not leaving tonight. I’ve already decided that. Not until I know how to handle Jabir. But what if I can leave? What if I can get Eshe out tonight? She isn’t a slave, after all, just a street-smart orphan who has made her way by thieving. She has no Jabir to run from.
I brave one step out of the wall’s recess. Then another, and another. My mouth has gone dry. I cast about each way but see no sign of a living thing. A stifled laugh in my throat, I move faster. Toward freedom.
I’m not leaving tonight . . . but maybe a few steps outside the gate wouldn’t hurt, right? All I want is a taste—one moment, when I can believe that I’m free. With a hand pressed to my chest, I take one more step. I’m halfway there.
Something like rope wraps around my ankle.
It all happens so fast.
I choke on air. There’s no time to breathe before my leg is yanked out from beneath me so fast I barely catch myself with my palms on the ground before my face smashes into flagstone. I try to roll to my back and sit up, but before I can, the rope around my ankle yanks hard, dragging me backward. The fabric of my sirwal rips loudly.
To my horror, whatever has caught my ankle snatches the other one, binding them together. It yanks, not backward, but up.
No, no, no!
Before I know it, I’m strung upside down from my ankles, dangling in midair. I’m too stunned to make any exclamation. I’m too stunned to hardly think a single cohesive thought. The night around me darkens at the edges of my vision.
Then my instincts kicks in, and I’m fighting. I whip a knife out and flex my core hard, pulling my torso up so I can catch hold of my ankle bindings. It’s harder than it should be—apparently I’ve grown lax in my exercises. But in all fairness, when I plan heists and assassinations, I don’t allow for situations where I could possibly end up strung from the ceiling like a butchered lamb.
I try to slice through the bindings holding me—and realize with a jolt that it’s not rope holding me.
Vines.
“Squeee!” says the vine as my knife plunges toward it.
Another living rope whips out and catches my wrist at the last second. It grabs my left wrist as I reach for another knife, holding all my limbs. Panic flares hot and desperate in my blood. My torso and back tingle with vulnerability. Then, to my shock, the vine actually tries to pry my fingers off the knife I’m holding.
“You may not take my knife!” I snap, wriggling and twisting and yanking desperately to free myself. My scarf falls out of my hair, landing on the ground beneath me. It’s too far for me to reach because of how high this stupid vine has me hung. My tunic rides up, exposing a few inches of my torso.
I knew not to trust this vine! It’s going to take my blade from me and run it through my stomach. A horrible way to die. I gasp as I struggle, but it’s to no avail.
“Put her down, you worthless vegetable.”
“Prrrr?” says the vine, freezing.
The sultan is here? My blood runs cold. I was so occupied with the vine that I didn’t feel his approach. But now I’m so desperately vulnerable. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. The vine starts making a chorus of noises that sound like protests, and I hope they’re loud enough to hide the whimper that slips from my lips.
“Yes, I am aware she was trying to leave,” snaps the Neverseen King, “but I have given you an order, Bahd-a. Put her down this instant.”
I fall so suddenly I barely catch myself and roll before I break my neck. My knife blade gets dented in the process—badly enough that I might not be able to fix it. Wretched vine. I scramble hurriedly to my feet, only to discover that the vine still holds onto my left ankle.
“He said—” I start.
“Let. Her. Go.” The Neverseen King’s voice drops in both pitch and volume. Lethally calm.
The vine releases me with a burbling protest, unwinding its tendrils and slinking like a snake into the hibiscus bushes. If I were alone, I’d press a hand to my chest and drag in a few gasping breaths. But I’ve shown enough weakness to my sultan tonight as it is. I scoop up my hair scarf and stand tall, sheathing my knife, and stare wordlessly into the space beneath a palm tree where the starlight doesn’t penetrate. I won’t be the one to break the silence. I won’t explain myself. I’ll give him nothing.
The darkness takes a step toward me. Every movement that brings him closer is like a tide in the ocean, breaking against my ankles, then my knees, my thighs, my waist, until I must decide it’s too deep and make my retreat.
But I don’t want him to know I’m afraid of drowning.
A hand made of night reaches out. My whole body flinches when warm fingers grasp my jaw, tilt my face up toward the sky—toward him. But he’s made of shadow, and I cannot find the gleam of his eyes among the stars above me. My heart thunders in my chest, and I hate that he knows it. I hate that it’s ice washing down my spine instead of fire burning in my gut.
I want to be angry, but my hands won’t stop shaking. What will he do to me?
He tilts my face to one side, and his thumb runs gently across the length of my jaw down to my chin. Along my scars. My stomach somersaults. Another gasp catches in my throat.
“Who did this?”
“What?” I’m breathing much too hard. I’m waiting, bracing myself, for the sharp pierce of spikes to drive into my jaw. Jabir made me look at him like this—often—and it always hurt. But though the skin of the Neverseen King’s fingers is rough, his touch is gentle. For now.
I continue bracing for the moment the pain will begin.
“Nadira, who did this to you?”
His words, more urgent than before, cut through phantom pain and the fog of my mind. I frown. Haven’t I told him the name of my slaver before? Why does he ask as if he does not know?
“J-Jabir,” I manage, swallowing and lowering my gaze.
He speaks his next words gently, but nothing can soften the way they fall heavy like stones. “Then why do you run back to him like a dog to its vomit?”
My eyes shoot upward, and for the span of a firefly’s flickering light, I’m certain our gazes meet. I wrench free of his grip and stumble back two steps.
“I wasn’t going back to him,” I snap. “I would never.”
“You wouldn’t? Then where are you going, little assassin? Back to that boy who steals kisses from you but cannot give you anything in return?”
My eyes widen, my skin going hot. Did the sultan listen to our conversation after all?
“Haven’t you told me yourself that Jabir will hunt you down? Don’t you realize that so long as you stay within the walls of this palace, you are under my protection, and he cannot harm you?”
I know, I know, I know—I know I know I know—
I want to tear my hair out. I want to rip or break something, because then maybe I’ll feel less horribly trapped. Maybe then I won’t feel helpless. Since when does an assassin need protection? Since when does she find it in her kidnapper?
I say the only thing I can think of: “I wasn’t leaving.”
It’s eerily silent. If I left through those gates, would I be assaulted by the bustle of city? Or has the sound of death stretched across all the kingdom too?
Does he believe me?
His question breaks the silence. “Who was that boy and where did he get magic?”
“Magic?” I blurt, then shake my head. “He doesn’t have magic.” It was just an artifact that counteracts magic . . . or is that magic too? I’m suddenly unsure.
“He entered my palace.”
“Because the gates were unguarded,” I say, afraid of what might happen to Kolb if I reveal the truth of how he entered the palace.
A quiet scoff bursts from the darkness a step away. “Unguarded? You think I’d leave my gate to be secured by mortal hands?”
I chew the inside of my lip, suddenly uncertain and confused. “So the gate isn’t open for just anyone to walk through.”
“Correct.”
“So I cannot walk through it.”
“If I said you could, would you?”
Traces of amusement mix with something else in his voice. I cannot tell if he is giving me some riddle, teasing me, or testing me. I clear my throat and stand straighter.
“You were afraid of something today,” I say. “But you seem at ease now.”
“How cunningly observant you are.”
“I do not wish to be mocked.”
“I am not mocking you.”
“Yes, you are,” I snap back, indignant.
He sighs and crosses his arms. At least, I think he crosses them. “Mocking you is not my intention. Rather, I do not feel like being questioned, and since I am king, I can deflect your questions however I like. I’m much more in the mood to question you, since you are the reason for this security breach tonight.”
He closes the distance between us. I step backward, avoiding him. He advances again. I swallow, determined to not continue my retreat. There’s a flash of teeth like he’s giving a rueful grin at my dilemma—stay still and let him come close or keep backing away and show my fear.
“He was in your room. Tell me his name, Nadira. Tell me why he came to visit you. Tell me how he got his magic.”
He asks the questions as if he has all the time in the world. As if his earlier panic today had never happened. I level a glare at him. “No.”
“Nadira.”
I glare more fiercely. He cannot say my name like that and expect me to repent. If he wants to get Kolb’s name out of me, he’s going to have to force me.
Why do you protect Kolb? a small voice in my head wants to know. He doesn’t want to protect you. He doesn’t care about you. No one does, except Eshe, and she cares about everyone. Kolb would give you up in a heartbeat. He already has.
“I’m not telling you.”
So you will remain loyal to him without his loyalty in return? Pathetic.
“He visited you the night I brought you here,” says the Neverseen King.
“If you know that, how is it possible you do not know his name?” I demand.
“Did I say I didn’t know his name?”
“You asked for it.” The moment the words leave my mouth, realization dawns. I shut my eyes against the sudden onslaught of that voice in my head, insisting over and over: Fool, fool, fool. You are a fool, Nadira.
It was a test. He knows Kolb’s name. He wanted to see if I would lie to him. He was—is—testing how much he can trust me. I’m failing that test quite spectacularly.
“I don’t think you have any idea what kind of danger we’re in,” says the Neverseen King, dropping his voice lower and coming yet another step closer. My breath comes faster, hitches when his hand takes hold of my elbow. We’re so close, so close, and the air between us is made of lies and riddles and secrets. He tilts his head down toward mine, and for one wild moment, the warmth emanating from him makes me wonder if he has ever thought of kissing me. “Mourner, do you realize that we all could have been dead by dawn? If I hadn’t been able to—”
“To close a portal?” I ask, lifting my chin as I stare up at him.
I swear he blinks twice at my words. Then he smiles, and it makes the air between us shimmer like light twinkling on dewdrops. But like the dew, that smile vanishes in a moment.
“Bargain with me,” he says, voice low and deep. “An answer for an answer. You tell me why that boy was here and where he received his magic, and I will answer your question about what happened earlier today.”
“No bargain.”
“You’ll put me in an uncomfortable situation if you refuse to tell me why he was here.”
“I don’t see why I should tell you. You must have listened to our conversation.”
Silence.
My eyes widen. He didn’t listen to our conversation. He truly doesn’t know why Kolb was here. So I’m not completely without leverage here. I draw in a deep breath and square my shoulders. My elbow is starting to sweat where he holds me, but I force myself not to move. Not even when his grip tightens, making my lungs squeeze in response.
“If you will not tell me, I will be forced to treat you as I treat those who betray me.”
Something about the way he says those words takes me an extra minute to realize what he’s saying. “You’re threatening me,” I say.
“Unfortunately, I am. And unlike some, I don’t apologize when I kill.”
My head goes light, my vision darkening, my knees buckling. The grip on my arm tightens again, but this time to keep me from falling. I hate myself, my weakness, my need to protect people who won’t protect me. I’m small and weak and—
His hand has slipped beneath my shoulder blades, stabilizing me against him. His warmth becomes my shroud, the one thing that keeps me from blacking out entirely, this feeling that even though he’s just threatened to kill me, there is something about him that I can trust. That I . . . do trust.
I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I tell myself. But I don’t. Not completely.
“I don’t want to threaten you, Nadira,” he whispers above my hairline, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a note of helplessness and earnestness in his voice. “Truly. But I cannot sacrifice everything I’ve spent my life protecting because you cannot decide if you should betray someone who I would bet my right hand has already betrayed you.”
His words are like another blow to my gut. Because he’s right. Kolb did betray me. Doing anything to help Jabir reinstate his hold on me is betrayal. I can’t betray him if he betrayed me first. Even if I don’t blame him for trying to save his sister.
Hadn’t I decided that throwing my lot in with the Neverseen King was becoming more and more appealing?
Anger clears my vision and awareness enough to realize that my head has fallen against his chest, that he has one arm around me, holding me upright against him. I jerk away in revulsion, a sharp bolt of terror breaking through me. But the instant he lets me go, it’s as though a tiny scrap of my composure fragments into dust. I’m unsteady.
I plant my feet wide, bracing myself firmly on the ground and trying not to let my body visibly shiver away the feeling of his touch. I’ll make myself steady.
Maybe I can give the Neverseen King just enough information without hurting Kolb.
“He came to tell me to win,” I spit, and somehow speaking the words makes me angrier. “He said to stop trying to escape.”
“I’m flattered you’re enjoying your stay with me so much.”
I scowl.
“Why does he want you to win?”
“He wants me to become queen and fix all our kingdom’s problems.”
“Ah, yes. The tariffs and trade and all the rest. How human of you to worry about those things.”
No wonder those things were crumbling to pieces. Apparently my sultan thinks they are beneath his notice. How long have you been ruling? I want to ask. Instead, my attention snags on that word human, and I realize he’s never told me what he is.
He seems to realize it too, because he smiles again. “I owe you a small piece of information, do I not, Mourner?”
I open my mouth—but a large hand claps down on it immediately. My eyes widen, my blood spiking in my veins, my hand flying to the hilt of my knife. The Neverseen King grabs my forearm before I can unsheathe my weapon, and I have the impression that he’s glancing over his shoulder. Then, with sudden force, he’s dragging me off the flagstone courtyard, through the hibiscus bush where the vine disappeared, and into one of the recesses in the wall. He steps into the tight space, his form visible like a lump of blackness with a fluttering cloak.
His hand slips around my waist and pulls me backwards against him.
He is not made of shadow. He is undeniably physical.
He mutters something softly, and a sense of enclosure, of hiding, surrounds me—a spell. I suck in a few silent breaths, my heart racing in tandem with his. But I don’t fight him, even when I become aware of his large hand splayed across my stomach, keeping my back flush against his chest. I don’t fight him because even though I didn’t hear the approach, I know exactly what he’s doing. I’ve done it many times myself.
I wish I didn’t now know that the top of my head fits perfectly beneath his chin.
We wait in silence, both breathing too hard but being careful not to make a sound. I’m not sure what his spell has done, only that he’s done something to conceal us. All I know is that he is very, very warm, and there is a horrible, traitorous part of me that wants to know what he would do, think, or feel if I relaxed into him instead of standing so straight and tense.
He ducks his head close to mine, bringing his mouth near my ear. I stiffen.
“I am fae,” he whispers. Then he straightens, and though we are much too close, I feel a measure of relief that at least his face is no longer so near mine. It’s hard enough to think as it is without him whispering in my ear.
His words process belatedly. A fae? What’s a fae? He must mean a djinn. Maybe that’s just my people’s term for a fae, and he doesn’t identify with it. That would explain why he denied it.
Soft footfalls make me go rigid. The sultan’s hand on my stomach presses me closer to him. I stop breathing.
A cloaked form darts between the closest archway, making straight for the gate. My awareness sharpens. It’s definitely a woman, though which one is hard to tell. The color of her sirwal is impossible to distinguish in the darkness, and only her ankles are visible beneath the hem of her cloak. She keeps her hood low so even when she looks back to see if she’s being followed, all I see is her mouth.
She’s not tall enough to be Fathuna, and she’s definitely not Eshe. Her bearing is different from Raha’s, so I rule her out. But that hardly eliminates any.
A silent gasp steals from my lungs as the woman opens the gate, slips through it, and pulls it shut behind her. She disappears into the city beyond.
So we can leave.
But not without the Neverseen King knowing.
His chest expands against my back with a deep breath. He hasn’t released me yet. I turn my head to the side. He obliges my unspoken request and tilts his ear down for me.
“Who was that? And why didn’t the vine string her up too?”
“Dabria.” His voice is a soft yet grim rumble.
Dabria. I bite the inside of my cheek. Either she’s escaping, or she’s communicating with someone. I find the second more likely; she’s always spoken positively about the opportunity to become queen, and while appearances and words may be deceiving . . . my intuition tells me she’s planning something.
I suppose I’ll know tomorrow at breakfast.
“I imagine Bahd-a was afraid I was unaware that you were trying to leave, and thought to intervene.”
Apparently Bahd-a’s intervention was unnecessary and the Neverseen King was well informed of my attempt at stepping through the gates. “I wasn’t leaving,” I grumble.
He lets go of my waist. I scramble away from him as fast as I can and turn so I face him instead of having my back to him.
“I didn’t know you named your plants,” I say, compulsively smoothing down my clothes.
He leans against the corner of the recess, arms crossed. “It’s just the name of their species with a vowel added to the end. They like that.”
“There’s more of them?”
Though I cannot see it, there’s no mistaking the feel of the look he gives me. I’ve run out of clothes to smooth, so I rub my arm instead. Do I just leave now? Turn my back to him, return to my room, and curl up in my bed for another long, sleepless night? And try not to think about what it feels like to have his hand around my waist, holding me against him?
Hate it, hate it, hate it—hate him.
It’s better than staying here with him, standing beneath the moonlight. What kind of wrong signal would that send? He needs to know that I do not trust him—won’t trust him—and if he sees me putting my guard down, he’ll believe that he has sway over me.
All I need from him is protection from Jabir. That is it. I’m not leaving here until I have it.
“Goodnight,” I say abruptly.
“Wait.”
My heart jumps. I stop, look back at him. He pushes off the wall and comes toward me. He seems so much realer, and though there’s always an aura around him of otherness, I can see him. I cannot see his face or make out any of his features, but I can see the hood of his cloak, the broadness of his shoulders, the outline of his boots with each step he takes.
“Nadira . . .” He trails off when he stops, then sighs softly.
I stand still, not moving a muscle.
“I . . . I meant what I said about the man who enslaved you. So long as you live beneath my roof, you will have my protection from him. Should you survive this competition but not win, you will also have my protection. And if he should dare to lift a finger against you, I will make do on my threats.”
My vision blurs. I blink quickly. “Why?” My voice shakes too much.
“Because the things he did to you are despicable.”
Memories flash before my mind’s eye, and each one is like a dagger straight through my lungs. The feeling of blood sliding down my neck as I stared at a crack in the wall of my cell room, the wretched helplessness of using my teeth to tear at each new knot Jabir would use to bind my wrists while he lashed my back, simultaneously punishing me and training me to escape my bindings. He never ran out of new knots to tie, and no matter how hard I tried, no matter how dangerous he made me, he always withheld just enough—enough for him to be more dangerous.
Despicable.
I shake my head, breathing hard. No more memories. No more memories. No more. Can’t—
My vision clears. I’m staring at a stone wall, a thin jurbah rope hanging still as death in front of me. Where am I? Where is the Neverseen King? I glance over my shoulder, find a quiet fountain and the familiar layout of the courtyard beneath my window.
The Neverseen King is not here.
I press a hand to my chest, feel the raging beat of my heart like I’ve just sprinted for my life. I ran from him, didn’t I? I fled . . . without a word.
“Nadira, is that you?” comes a hiss from above me. “What are you doing?”
I look up. Eshe leans out the window, gesturing for me to hurry up. My lungs are still heaving, and though my whole world feels off-balance, I wind the end of that rope around my hand and scale the wall as fast as I can.
