This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(42)

Alizeh’s heart was racing. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Get down here. Now.”

Alizeh’s body felt suddenly heavy. She climbed down the rickety wooden ladder as if in a dream, her heartbeats growing louder as she went. She kept her eyes on the ground as she approached the housekeeper.

“Forgive me,” she said quietly, keeping her head down. “It won’t happen again.”

“I daresay it will not.”

Alizeh braced herself, waiting for what seemed the inevitable strike, when Mrs. Amina suddenly cleared her throat.

“You have a guest,” she said.

Very slowly, Alizeh looked up. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“You may meet him in the kitchen. You will have fifteen minutes.”

“But— Who—”

“And not a minute more, do you understand?”

“Y-yes. Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Amina marched off, leaving Alizeh sagging in place. She couldn’t believe it. A visitor? It had to be the boy, did it not? The Fesht boy.

And yet— How could a street child have been admitted into the home of a duchess? How might he then be granted an audience with the lowest servant in the order?

Oh, her curiosity would not quiet.

Alizeh did not walk, but flew to the kitchens, lifting her sleeve to her mouth as she went. “It looks as if I won’t be tossed into the street after all,” she breathed, hardly daring to move her lips. “That’s good news, isn’t it? And now I’ve got a . . .” She trailed off, slowing down when she realized she could no longer feel the firefly’s legs on her arm, nor its wings against her skin. She peered inside her sleeve.

“Where are you?” she whispered.

The firefly was nowhere to be found.





Sixteen





THE AFTERNOON ROSE BRIGHT AND clear, the sun proud in the sky. The prior evening’s storm had washed clean the city of Setar, leaving in its wake a freshness and clarity its crown prince did not share.

Kamran sighed in the direction of the sun, cursing its shine, its beauty. He’d been swallowed whole by many a dark mood in his eighteen years, but his disposition at this hour was singularly volatile.

Still, the boy was not cruel.

He knew better than to grant such darkness an audience, and had abandoned the palace for Surati Forest, whose towering pink trees were like something out of a dream. It was one of the prince’s favorite places, not only for its beauty but for its seclusion, for it was accessible only by mountain cliff—from which one was required to jump, and often to their death.

Kamran never much minded this risk.

He’d brought with him only a small, patterned red rug, which he’d unfurled upon the snowy forest floor, and upon which he now reclined. He stared impassively at the impressive grove, the fluorescent pink trunks and their fluorescent pink leaves. Fresh snowfall had obscured the miles of green moss blanketing the ground, but the endless white drift lent its own cold beauty to the scene.

Kamran closed his eyes as a breeze skated along his face, mussing the glossy black waves of his hair. He heard the sweet chirp of a pair of songbirds, the buzz of a rare dragonfly. The hawk circling high above might’ve witnessed only a young man in repose, but the humble ant would’ve known better, would’ve felt the violent tremble emanating from his limbs, fracturing across the forest floor.

No, Kamran’s anger could not be contained.

It was no wonder, then, that he remained undisturbed as he lay exposed in the middle of uncharted land. Snake and spider, scarab and snow leopard, insects large and small, bears both white and brown. They all knew to give the young prince a wide berth, for there was no greater repellant than anger, and the woods shook with this warning now.

Today, Kamran had begun to doubt everything.

He had felt only sadness upon leaving his grandfather’s rooms that morning, but as the day wore on and his mind continued to work, his anger had grown over him like ivy. He was experiencing the grief of disillusionment, going over and over again in his mind his every memory of his grandfather; every moment he’d thought the man just and benevolent. All that King Zaal had done for the common good—had it been only in the interest of his own protection?

Even now he heard his grandfather’s voice in his head—

In fact I’d thought for certain I’d once found her

I assumed her dead some years ago

Kamran had not questioned the statement when first spoken by the king, but now, at his leisure, he combed over every word of their earlier conversation, turned it inside out for analysis.

What had his grandfather meant when he’d said he was surprised the girl was alive? Did that mean he’d tried to kill her before?

Some years ago, he’d said.

The girl couldn’t have been a day older than Kamran—of that, he felt certain—so what conclusion was he left to draw? That his grandfather had tried to murder a child?

The prince sat up, dragged his hands down his face.

He knew, intellectually, that these were not ordinary circumstances.

That the girl’s animus had been foretold by the Diviners meant a great deal, for the mouths of the priests and priestesses were touched with binding, brutal magic before they were even allowed to take their vows. They were as a result beings physically incapable of telling lies, and whose prophecies were the fodder of legend.