This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(65)

She did not want to go.

Alizeh had never seen Duchess Jamilah before, not up close, and though she could not exactly see the woman now, Alizeh’s curiosity grew only by the second. From beneath the finely carved legs of the stiff couches, Alizeh was able to observe a horizontal stripe of the woman. Every so often the duchess stood without warning, then sat back down. Then stood up again—and changed seats.

Alizeh was fascinated.

She caught another sliver of the woman’s hem then, the peek of her slippers as she moved for the fourth time in as many minutes. Even from this skewed vantage Alizeh could tell that the lady wore a crinoline under her skirts, which at this early hour was not only unusual, but a bit gauche. For ten thirty in the morning, Duchess Jamilah was supremely overdressed with nowhere to go. Doubtless, then, she was expecting company.

It was this last thought that inspired a terrifying flip in Alizeh’s stomach.

In the two days since the announcement of the prince’s arrival in Setar, Mrs. Amina had worked the servants nearly to death, in accordance with orders issued by the lady of the house herself. Alizeh could not help now but wonder whether the highly anticipated moment had finally arrived—and whether Alizeh herself might see the prince again.

Quickly, she returned her eyes to the floor.

Her heart had begun to pound in her chest at the prospect. Why?

Alizeh had not allowed herself to think much of the prince in the last couple of days. For some unfathomable reason, the devil had forewarned her of the young man—and every day Alizeh grew only more baffled as to why. Indeed what had, at first, seemed so foreboding had only recently been proven toothless: the prince was neither a monster nor a murderer of children.

Not only had Omid’s recent visit dispelled any lingering concerns Alizeh might’ve had about the young man’s motivations toward the boy, but Alizeh herself now carried evidence of the prince’s kindness. Apart from sparing her a fight with a shadowy figure, he’d returned her parcels in the midst of a rainstorm—and never mind how he’d known to find her. She’d decided no longer to dwell on that uncertainty, for she didn’t see the point.

The devil’s warnings had always been convoluted.

Iblees, Alizeh had learned, was consistent only as an omen. His brief, flickering appearances in her life were followed always by misery and upheaval—and this much, at least, had already proven to be true.

The rest, she would not torture herself over.

What’s more, Alizeh doubted the prince spared her a single thought; in fact, she would be astonished if he’d not altogether forgotten their fleeting interaction. These days, Alizeh had precious few faces to look upon and recall, but there was no reason the prince of Ardunia should remember that, for a single hour, a poor servant girl had existed in his life.

No, it did not matter who was coming to visit. It shouldn’t matter. What held Alizeh’s attention was this: the rustling of Duchess Jamilah’s skirts as she positioned herself in the crook of yet another armchair.

The woman crossed, then uncrossed her ankles. She shook out her hem, draping the material to be shown to its best advantage, and then pointed her toes so that the rounded tips of her satin slippers would peek out from under her skirts, calling attention to her narrow, dainty feet.

Alizeh almost smiled.

If Duchess Jamilah was indeed expecting a visit from the prince, the current situation was only more perplexing. The woman was the prince’s aunt. She was nearly thrice his age. Watching this grand lady reduce herself to these pedestrian displays of nervousness and pretension was both entertaining and surprising; and proved the perfect diversion for Alizeh’s boiling, chaotic mind.

She’d had quite enough of her own troubles.

Alizeh placed her floor brush on the polished stone and fought back a sudden wave of emotion. By the time she’d arrived home the evening prior, she’d been left but three hours to sleep before the work bell, and she spent two out of three tossing restlessly on her cot. A low-level anxiety hummed even now within her, not merely a consequence of being almost murdered—nor even the murdering she’d done herself—but of the young man who’d kneeled before her in the night.

Your Majesty.

Her parents had always told her this moment would come, but so many years had passed without word that Alizeh had long ago ceased waiting. The first year after her mother’s death she’d survived the long, bleak days only by holding with both hands to hope; she felt certain she would be shortly found, would be rescued. Surely, if she was so important, someone would be along to protect her?

Day after day, no one had come.

Alizeh was thirteen years old the day her house was reduced to ash; she’d no friends who might offer her shelter. She scavenged the wreckage of her home for its surviving, mutilated bits of gold and silver, and these she sold, at a great loss, for the necessary sewing and weaving supplies she still owned today.

As a precaution against revealing her identity, Alizeh moved from town to town with some frequency; for in that hopeful first year, it would not occur to her to take a position as a snoda. Instead, she pursued work as a seamstress, making her way south—over the course of years—from one hamlet to a village, from a village to a town, from a town to a small city. She took any job, no matter how small, sleeping wherever she found a reliable place to collapse. She comforted herself with the assurance that the unbearable days would soon come to an end, that imminently she would be found.