This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(113)
“The magistrates?” The southern king laughed aloud. “You mean your weak, corrupt officials? Tell me, fine nobles of Ardunia, did you know that your magistrates are paid extra by the crown to collect street children?”
Alizeh felt Omid tense beside her.
“Ah, I can see by the looks in your eyes that you did not. And why would you, really? Who would even miss a surplus of orphaned children?”
“What do you want here?” King Zaal said sharply. He looked different then—angry, yes—but Alizeh thought he looked, for a moment—
Scared.
“Me?” The madman pointed to himself. “What do I want? I want a great deal too much, Your Highness. I’ve been bled dry for too long in repayment for my father’s sins and I’m tired of it; tired of being in debt to so cruel a master. But then, you know what that’s like, don’t you?”
King Zaal drew his sword.
Again, the southern king laughed. “Are you really going to challenge me?”
“Your Majesty, please—” Kamran moved forward as if to enter the fiery ring, and King Zaal held up a hand to stop him.
“No matter what happens tonight,” King Zaal said to him, “you must remember your duty to this empire.”
“Yes, but—”
“That is all, child,” he said thunderously. “Now you must leave me to fight my own battles.”
“As I’ve already told you, Your Highness.” The madman again. “There will be no battle.”
The Tulanian king raised his arm with a flourish and King Zaal’s robes tore open at the shoulders, revealing large swaths of skin that were both scaly and discolored.
The king’s face went slack, stunned as he studied himself, then his southern enemy. “No,” he whispered. “You cannot.”
“Will you not speculate?” the madman shouted into the crowd. “Will you not hazard a guess as to what the magistrates do with the street children they find?”
Alizeh felt suddenly as if she couldn’t breathe.
The sounds of the room seemed to quiet, the lights seemed to dim; she heard only the sound of her own harsh breaths, saw only the horror unfolding before her.
She closed her eyes.
There once was a man
who bore a snake on each shoulder.
If the snakes were well fed
their master ceased growing older.
What they ate no one knew,
even as the children were found
with brains shucked from their skulls,
bodies splayed on the ground.
“It’s true,” Omid whispered, his voice trembling. “I—I’ve seen it, miss. I seen it happen. But no one believes the street kids, miss, everyone thinks we’re lying—and they started threatening us if we said anything, said they’d come for us next—”
Alizeh gasped, clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Omid,” she cried. “Oh, I’m so sorry—”
Two leathery white snakes reared up from the shoulders of the Ardunian king, snapping and hissing hungrily.
King Zaal’s sword fell, with a clatter, to the ground.
Thirty-Nine
KAMRAN FELT HIS HEART SHATTER in his chest even as he refused to believe what his eyes swore to be true.
This was a horror too great.
The prince knew—had heard, of course—that all around the world there had been kings who made deals with the devil; they sold a bit of their souls in exchange for power, or love, or land. The stories said that Iblees presented himself to every sovereign on earth on the day of their coronation.
Never did these stories end well.
For the entirety of Kamran’s life King Zaal had warned him of Iblees, warned him never to accept an offer from the devil. How, then—
“No,” Kamran whispered. “No, it’s not possible—”
“Your dear king should have died years ago,” Cyrus was saying. “But your melancholy prince was too young to lead, was he not? He was still too sad, too scared, too heartbroken over the death of his dear father. So the great, righteous King Zaal made a bargain with the devil to extend his life.” A pause. “Didn’t you, Your Majesty?”
“Enough,” King Zaal said, lowering his eyes. “You need not say more. It would be better for everyone if you simply killed me now.”
Cyrus ignored this. “What he didn’t realize, of course, was that a bargain with the devil was a bloody one. The snakes lengthen his life, yes, but even a serpent needs to eat, does it not?”
Kamran could hardly breathe.
He knew not what to do, knew not what to say. He felt paralyzed by the revelations, confused by the chaos of his own emotions. How could he defend a man so debased? How could he not defend the grandfather he loved? The king had bartered with his soul to spare the young prince, to give Kamran time to live a bit longer as a child—
“Yes, that’s right,” said Cyrus. “They eat the fresh brains of young children.” From nothing he conjured a soggy mass of flesh, which he tossed at the snakes. “Street children, to be more specific. For the wretched and the poor are the most easily expendable, are they not?”
The snakes hissed and snapped at each other, swinging their necks around to catch the morsel, which one triumphant serpent caught in his open, distended maw.