seems endless. I have the sense that, no matter how long I walk in a single direction, I’ll never arrive at a wall. It’s just hallway and more hallway and more hallway. My toes tingle the further I walk.
I curse my stupid knack for falling unconscious at the most inopportune times. If I’d been awake, I’d know exactly where this chamber is in relation to my room and the Golden Hall. As it stands, I’m utterly clueless.
But I won’t panic.
No, I’m scouting. Everything that is to be familiar must first be unfamiliar, and I must learn to operate without detailed floor plans. I will make my own detailed layouts, just like I’ve often done before. The next time I stumble across a servant, I will ask them for parchment and writing supplies. Unless that is too risky? Will they report me to the sultan? Will he have me killed?
I set my jaw and force my steps into a regular rhythm. The tap of my heels on stone makes me look down and realize this hallway is different from the one my room was in. There’s no rug here. I’m not sure if I’m alarmed or somehow placated, knowing these hallways do indeed have an ending point. From my view outside my window this morning, it didn’t look like the palace had no bounds. I find a small servant staircase and hurry down to ground level.
Either the architecture is very clever, or magic is involved. I suspect both.
Most of the doors I walk past are closed, normal doors, rather like the one of my own room. But the further I walk, the more frequently I come across strange doors. One has heavy chains strung from frame to frame, as though a single lock isn’t enough to keep people out.
Or in.
I shiver and move on. The next door looks normal at first glance, until I come close enough to see writing carved into the door itself. Heart thumping in my ears, I step closer, my hand reaching out of its own accord to brush an unfamiliar character. It’s not a language I know.
The characters pulse with light in response to my touch.
I yank my hand away with a gasp. The light fades, and the characters seem to sink deeper into the wood than before.
I don’t like this place, I almost murmur to myself. But I must be careful what I say in a magical palace. This silence is too quiet, and I have the notion that if I utter the softest word, it will ring against stone all the way up to the crystal sky above me.
Where are the other women? Surely I’m not the only one scouting this place. I couldn’t study each of them as carefully as I had wanted to, but only one had been overwhelmed by the goblins. The rest had stood their ground. Even Hulla fought well.
My competitors are worthy. I hope one of them wins and distracts the sultan long enough for me to make my escape.
The door ahead is wide open.
My steps slow as I approach, the outward swinging door blocking any glimpse I have of the room within. Silently, I draw one of the knives at my belt, holding its hilt close to my chest, ready to stab in an instant.
A sound whispers out of that door. It’s the first noise I’ve heard since I left the bathing chamber. It’s like a sigh, of wind or paper. A gentle rustling, one that sends my senses prickling and my focus sharpening.
I reach the door, and with a quick glance behind me to ensure no one is trailing my back, I inhale silently. Then I lean around the door and peer into the room.
There’s no glass ceiling here.
Books.
It’s a large room. One with a domed ceiling that narrows into a small opening at the center, through which pours a meager amount of sunlight for the thousands of books that are piled inside the room. I can’t catch my breath as my eyes trail from the mountain of open books on the floor, a draft fluttering pages softly, up the walls lined with stuffed shelves, to the makeshift staircase of books leading up to a massive tome in the center. It’s bigger than me without question, and I imagine it would take my entire body to turn those heavy pages.
I’m being watched.
I turn, fingers flexing along the hilt of my knife as I step out of the doorway. I don’t touch the door as I move away from the room, disconcerted to have my back to it. All is normal and bright in the hallway, but I know this feeling. I know who is here.
“You need not hide, Sultani,” I say.
My voice rings in the stillness. Slowly, every last dreg of sound ebbs away into nothing, and silence permeates again. It’s so long that, if I doubted my intuition, I’d think that I was alone.
I’m not sure where he is, only that he’s here. My eyes can’t quite land on a shadow deep enough to hide my mysterious sovereign.
“I am the Neverseen King,” a low voice responds from . . . somewhere.
My breath hitches, and even though my eyes dart all around the hallway, I am still as clueless as before about where he is.
If I don’t know where he is, he can kill me.
No, I won’t think like that. Those thoughts only land me in darkness. I must think clearly. Mustn’t make myself more vulnerable than I already am.
“Do not call me Sultan,” he says, and his voice is like wind. Everywhere. Nowhere. “It is too . . .”
I wait.
He says nothing more.
A thousand accusations, and even more questions, flood my mind at once. I should have planned what to ask if I happened upon him! I should have thought through this. But of all the things swirling in my mind, there’s one question that leaps to my lips, and I’m speaking before I realize.
“I thought you vanished during the day.”
There’s a snort. “Do you see me, little assassin?”
Little assassin. How condescending! “I can hear you,” I say. “Typically, when one vanishes, their voice vanishes too.”
There’s an amused sort of silence that follows. Then, quite suddenly, I’m warm. My mind flashes back to last night, in the dark, when I felt the solid closeness of my sultan—ahem, Neverseen King. When he placed his large hand over my face and closed my eyes.
My heart quickens, my teeth clenching. I’m not surprised when his voice is suddenly very, very near my ear. But every inch of muscle in my body is strained with tension. With the need to flee, the will to stay.
“Typical, what a wretched word! I am not typical, now am I? And neither are you, Nadira al-Risya.”
My name on his lips, whispered so near, sends a shiver down my spine. I swallow, trying not to gasp. Trying not to betray myself.
“Why am I here?” I ask.
A chuckle sounds in the air, growing quieter as it shifts away from me. His warmth retreats. So my sultan becomes invisible during the day. No wonder our market trade is crumbling to pieces. If a king can’t manage to stay corporeal long enough to rule, then I suppose one can’t blame the economy for suffering.
The legends are true, I realize. The rumors of my Neverseen King. They aren’t a ruse. Aren’t just fear tactics. And if they aren’t just legends, then what else isn’t a legend? What other secrets does our sultan hide?
“You are here because I want you here,” he says.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Isn’t it?” There’s that wry amusement again.
I think he’s coming closer again. Can I stab him if he’s invisible? Might be worth a shot. Except that if I miss, I’ll have shown him my hand. I cannot risk it just yet.
“You are here, Mourner, because I find myself in want of a bride.”
“Then why are there eleven”—I stop myself, swallow thickly—“ten other women here?”
I can feel his grin. It shimmers in the air, unseen, but no less real.
“Can a king not have his selection from which to choose?”
“Can a woman be courted by a sultan and not fear for her life?”
It seems like a reasonable question to me. But he doesn’t answer. There’s a long silence. Then, very softly, his voice reaches out to me across the empty space. Tugs at my heart like there’s a string fastened to it.
“Do you fear death, little assassin?”
My eyes shutter closed. I draw a deep breath in through my nose, my chest expanding. Then, slowly, I release it through parted lips. I open my eyes.
He stands before me.
I can only make out the edges of his form, barely visible in the sunlight. He’s nothing but an impression. But one that I can catch the slightest glimpse of—one that he has chosen to reveal to me.
He’s tall. Much taller than any man I’ve ever seen, and though I am tall myself, I am dwarfed by this glimmering perception of him. Something inside me lurches. I tell myself it’s fear, and it certainly might be. But if I’m honest . . . it’s not only fear. What else, I’m not certain of.
“We all must die,” says the Neverseen King. “It is better to make peace with it before it happens.”
Something bursts like a laugh from my mouth. I smile, and it’s as cold as the sun above is warm. “Have you made peace with death, my sul—Neverseen King?”
A dark chuckle. “I certainly should have, now shouldn’t I? Bringing vipers into my House. Do you intend to bite me, little assassin? Strike when I’m least expecting it?” His wry laughter is mocking, and I remember what it was like to stab at him and have my blades kiss air.
“Who changed me into that nightgown?” I blurt.
“My servants, of course. Do you think I have time to attend to such tedious tasks as dressing all my potential brides for sleep?”
“You had time to kidnap us all.”
There’s that rumbling chuckle again. Apparently my modesty and I are vastly amusing. But I know enough about fighting to know that one never wins only on the defensive. I lift my chin, high enough to where my eyes pierce where his must be.
“Are you cursed?” I ask.
The silence is abrupt. Startled. The shadowy outline of his form vanishes, and now it truly is fear and only fear that rushes through my veins. Have I stepped too far? Crossed some boundary? Will he strike me dead?
My chest is too tight to breathe. I hate my weakness. I hate myself.
Finally—a dry snort. “You think I’m cursed because I’m invisible? Do you truly think this is against my will? I shall try not to take your lack of confidence in my power to be offensive. But sometimes, I simply cannot help but be offended!”
“I mean no offense,” I say woodenly.
My tone only makes him laugh more. “Aye, aye, you don’t!” There’s another snort, and then a contemplative silence.
Warmth again. I bite my lip and stiffen.
“It’s a good thing I don’t have a heart,” he murmurs, “because if I did, I have a suspicion that you would break it.”
Then, he’s gone. His voice, his warmth, his wry chuckles—it’s like he was never there at all. I gasp in a deep breath, barely keeping a hold on my knife so it doesn’t clatter to the ground and dull its tip. I spare a backwards glance at the strange room with the open door. Except it’s not open anymore; it’s fastened shut, with paper stuffed into the keyhole.
