This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(40)

“And we will never discuss this again.”





Fifteen





IN THE SILKY GLIMMER OF a sunlit window, she saw motion, then heard it: a flutter of wings, the sound like blades of grass in the wind, pushing together, then apart. Alizeh was washing the windows of Baz House on this beautiful morning, and when compared to her tasks the day before, the work seemed almost luxurious.

The sound of wings grew suddenly louder then, and a tiny body careened into the window with a soft bop.

Alizeh shooed it away.

The fluttering insect repeated this action twice more. Alizeh checked to make sure she was alone before she held up a single finger to her lips. “You must be quiet,” she whispered. “And remain close to me.”

The firefly did as it was bade, and landed gently on the nape of her neck, where it folded its wings, crawled downward, and ducked its head underneath her collar.

Alizeh dipped her sponge in its bucket, wrung the excess water, and continued scrubbing the smudged glass. She’d reapplied the salve to her hands and throat last night, which had made her pain quite manageable this morning. In fact, in the presence of the sun, all the terrors induced by the events of the evening prior had faded. It was easier for Alizeh to declare her fears dramatic when the skies were so clear, when her hands no longer throbbed in agony.

Today, she swore, would be easier.

She would not fear the condemnations of the apothecarist; nor would she concern herself with the prince, who had only done her a kindness. She would not worry over her missing handkerchief, which would doubtless be found; she would not fear for her health, not now that she had her salves. And the devil, she reasoned, could go to hell.

Things were going to get better.

Tonight, she had an appointment inside the Lojjan ambassador’s estate. She was engaged to design and execute the creation of five gowns, for which she might hope to collect a total of forty coppers, which was nearly half a stone.

Goodness, Alizeh had never even held a stone.

Her mind had already run wild with the possibilities such a sum of coin might provide. Her wildest hope was to secure enough customers to make a regular living, for only then might she be able to leave Baz House. If she was careful and kept to a tight budget, she prayed she’d be able to afford a small room of her own—maybe somewhere sparsely populated on the outskirts of town—somewhere she might never be bothered.

Her heart swelled at the thought.

Somehow, she would manage it. She’d keep her head down and work hard, and one day she’d be free of this place, these people.

She hesitated, her sponge pressed against the glass.

Alizeh could not help but think how strange it was that she worked in service. All her life she’d known she wanted to spend her life in the service of others, though not at all like this.

Life, it seemed, possessed a sense of irony.

Alizeh had been brought up to lead, to unify, to free her people from the half-lives they’d been forced to live.

Once, she’d been meant to revive an entire civilization.

The painful frost growing inside her veins was a primitive phenomenon, one thought lost to her people a millennia ago. Alizeh knew only a little of the abilities she was rumored to possess, for though there was an inherent power in the ice that pulsed through her, it was a power that could not be tapped until she came of age, and even then would not mature without the assistance of an ancient magic buried deep in the Arya mountains, where her ancestors had built their first kingdom.

And then, of course, she would require a kingdom.

The idea struck her as so preposterous it nearly made her laugh, even as it broke her heart.

Still, it had been at least a thousand years since there’d been news of a Jinn born with ice in their blood, which made Alizeh’s mere existence nothing short of miraculous. Nearly two decades ago whispers of Alizeh’s strange, cold eyes had spread among the Jinn the way only a rumor might, expectations building every day upon the slopes of her young shoulders. Her parents, who knew she would not be safe until she came of age at eighteen, had removed their daughter from the noisy, needy world, secreting her away for so long that the whispers, without fuel, were soon reduced to ash.

Alizeh, too, was forgotten shortly thereafter.

All those who knew of her had been killed, and Alizeh, who had no ally, no kingdom, no magic, and no resources, knew her life was best spent simply trying to survive.

She no longer had any ambition beyond a desire to live a quiet, undetected existence. In her more hopeful moments Alizeh dreamed of living somewhere lost in the countryside, tending to a flock of sheep. She’d sheer them every spring, using their wool to weave a rug as long as the world was round. It was a dream at once simple and implausible, but it was an imagining that gave her comfort when her mind required an escape.

She promised herself things wouldn’t always be this hard. She promised herself that the days would get better, bit by bit.

In fact, things were already better.

For the first time in years, Alizeh had company. And as if to remind her, the firefly nudged her neck.

Alizeh shook her head.

The firefly nudged her again.

“Yes, I know, you’ve made it very clear that you’d like me to come outside with you,” she said, scarcely breathing the words. “But as you can plainly see, I’m not allowed to leave this house at will.”