This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(53)

A shame, for Alizeh had been looking forward to meeting its owner.

The walk from Baz House to Follad Place came to an abrupt and startling finish; Alizeh had been so lost in her own thoughts, she’d not realized how quickly she’d covered the distance. Her spirits lifting at the prospect of imminent warmth and lamplight, she headed eagerly to the servants’ entrance.

Alizeh stamped her feet against the cold before knocking twice at the imposing wooden door. She wondered, distantly, whether she’d be able to use some of her new earnings to buy a bolt of wool for a proper winter coat.

Maybe even a hat.

Alizeh wedged her carpet bag between her legs, crossed her arms tightly against her chest. It was far more painful to remain unmoving in this weather. True, Alizeh was unnaturally cold at all times—but it really was an uncommonly frigid night. She peered up at the staggering reach of Follad Place, its sharp silhouette pressed in relief against the night sky.

Alizeh knew it to be rare for an illegitimate child to be raised in such a noble home, but it was said that the Lojjan ambassador was an unusual man and had cared for Miss Huda alongside his other children in relative equality. Though Alizeh doubted the veracity of this rumor, she did not dwell upon it. She’d never met Miss Huda, and did not think her own uninformed opinions on the matter would make a jot of difference in the facts as they stood now:

Alizeh was lucky to be here.

Miss Huda was as close to high society as her commissions had ever come, and she’d only even been granted the commission via Miss Huda’s lady’s maid, a woman named Bahar, who’d once stopped Alizeh in the square to offer a compliment on the draping of her skirts. Alizeh had seen an opportunity there and had not squandered it; she quickly informed the young woman that she was a seamstress in her spare hours and offered such services at excellent prices. It was not long thereafter that she’d been engaged to fashion the woman a wedding gown, which her mistress, Miss Huda, had then admired at the ceremony.

Alizeh took a deep, steadying breath. It had been a long and circuitous path to this moment, and she would not fritter it away.

She knocked on the door once more, a bit harder this time—and this time, it opened immediately.

“Yes, girl, I heard you the first time,” Mrs. Sana said irritably. “Get inside, then.”

“Good evening, ma’am, I was j— Oh,” Alizeh said, and startled. Something like a pebble had struck her against the cheek. She looked up, searching the clear sky for hail.

“Well? Come on, then,” Mrs. Sana was saying, waving her forward. “It’s cold as death out there and you’re letting all the heat out.”

“Yes, of course. I beg your pardon, ma’am.” Alizeh quickly crossed the threshold, but instinct bade her look back at the last moment, her eyes searching the dark.

She was rewarded.

Before her eyes burned a single, disembodied prick of light. In a flash it moved, striking her again on the cheek.

Oh.

Not hail, then, but a firefly! Was it the same as before? What were the odds that she should be found by two different fireflies in such a short window of time? Very low, she considered.

And there—

Her eyes widened. Just there, in the tall hedge. Was that a flutter of movement?

Alizeh turned to ask the firefly a question and promptly froze, lips parted around the shape of the interrogative.

She could scarcely believe it.

The fickle creature had disappeared for the second time. Frustrated, Alizeh returned her gaze to the shadows, trying again to see through veils of darkness.

This time, she saw nothing.

“If I have to tell you to get inside one more time, girl, I’ll simply push you out the door and be done with it.”

Alizeh started, then scrambled without delay across the threshold, stifling a shudder as a rush of warmth gathered around her frozen body.

“Forgive me, ma’am— I just thought I saw—”

A glowering Mrs. Sana pushed past her and slammed the door shut, nearly snapping off Alizeh’s fingers in the process.

“Yes?” the housekeeper demanded. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” Alizeh said quickly, pulling the carpet bag up into her arms. “Forgive me. Do let us begin.”





Twenty





NIGHT HAD COME TOO QUICKLY.

Kamran lay sprawled across his bed in nothing but a scowl, crimson sheets tangling around his limbs. His eyes were open, staring into the middle distance, his body slack as if submerged in a bath of blood.

He cut a dramatic figure.

The sea of dark red silk that enveloped him served to compliment the bronze tones of his skin. The golden glow of the artfully arranged lamps further sculpted the contours of his body, depicting him more as statue than sentient being. But then Kamran would not have noticed such things even had he cared to try.

He had not chosen these sheets. Nor the lamps.

He’d not chosen the clothes in his wardrobe, or the furnishings in his room. All he owned that were truly his were his swords, which he’d forged himself, and which he carried with him always.

All else in his life was an inheritance.

Every cup, every jewel, every buckle and boot came with a price, an expectation. A legacy. Kamran hadn’t been asked to choose; instead, he’d been ordered to obey, which had never before struck him as particularly cruel, for his was not such a difficult life. He had struggles, certainly, but Kamran owned no proclivity for fairy tales. He wasn’t so deluded as to imagine he might be happier as a peasant, nor did he dream of living a humble life with a woman of common stock and weak intelligence.