This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(82)

Over and over Alizeh had tried to understand why the devil had warned her of the prince—and even now she was uncertain. Was this it, then?

Was it because of a kiss?

Alizeh tensed, took a breath. Even as her heart raced, her mind cooled. What had transpired between her and the prince was a moment of foolishness for a myriad of reasons—not the least of which was that he was heir to an empire whose sovereign sought to destroy her. She’d not yet even begun to unpack the ramifications of such a discovery, nor what explanations it might reveal for the beloved friends and family she’d lost to unexplained acts of violence. Did it mean the king had tried to kill her once before? Had it been he who’d issued the orders to murder her parents?

It troubled her that she could not know for certain.

Kamran might’ve circumvented the orders of his grandfather to help her today, but Alizeh was not a simple girl; she knew that relationships between kin were not so easily severed. The prince might have spared her a moment of kindness, but his allegiance, no doubt, was elsewhere.

Still, Alizeh could not condemn herself too harshly.

Not only had the dalliance been unplanned, it had been an unexpected reprieve—a rare moment of pleasure—from what seemed the interminable darkness of her days. For years she’d wondered whether anyone might ever again touch her with care, or look at her like she mattered.

She did not take lightly such an experience.

Indeed there had been a mercy in it, in its tenderness, which she would now gracefully accept, pocketing the memories before moving forward. Her thoughtless actions would never again be repeated.

Besides, she consoled herself, she and Kamran would never again cross paths, and all the better, though—

A flock of birds at her feet took flight without warning, disquieting Alizeh so thoroughly she gasped and stumbled backward, colliding with a young man who promptly caught sight of her snoda and sneered, elbowing her out of the way. A sharp knock to her ribs and again Alizeh doddered, though this time she caught herself, and hurried forward through the crowd.

She’d known, of course, even as she bade the prince farewell, that there was a chance she’d see him again at the ball that evening. She’d not felt it necessary to inform him of her attendance because she thought meeting him again a bad idea; and now that she knew the ball was in fact meant to facilitate his impending marriage—

No, she would not think of it.

It did not matter. It could not matter. In any case, their spheres had no hope of intersecting at such an event; she would not have cause to see him.

Alizeh did not know the full scope of Hazan’s plan for her escape, but she doubted it’d have much to do with the festivities themselves, and the prince—for whom the ball had been arranged—would no doubt be expected to engage fully in its activities.

No, they would certainly not see each other again.

Alizeh felt a pang at that conclusiveness, a sharp pain she could not decipher; it was either longing or grief, or perhaps the two feelings were identical, split ends of the same sword.

Oh, what did it matter?

She sighed, sidestepping to avoid a trio of girls chasing each other through the crowd, and peered, halfheartedly, through the window against which she was pressed.

A row of children were sitting at a high counter, each devouring sandwiches of pomegranate ice cream, the blush-colored treat pressed between crisp disks of freshly baked waffles. Their grown-ups stood by smiling and scolding, wiping the sticky mouths and tearstained cheeks of the children they could catch, the others tearing wildly about the shop, rummaging through crystal tubs brimming with fruit taffies and colorful marzipan, rock sugar and rose-petal nougat.

Alizeh heard their muted laughter through the glass.

She tightened her grip on her luggage then, tensing as her heart fractured in her chest. Alizeh, too, had once been a child, had once had parents who spoiled her thus. How good it was to be loved, she thought. How very important.

A curious little girl caught her eye then, and waved.

Tentatively, Alizeh waved back.

She was homeless. Jobless. All she owned in the world she carried in a single, worn carpet bag, the sum total of her coin scarcely two coppers altogether. She had nothing and no one to claim but herself, and it would have to be enough.

It would always have to be enough.

Even in her most desperate moments, Alizeh had found the courage to move forward by searching the depths of herself; she’d found hope in the sharpness of her mind, in the capacity of her own capable hands, in the endurance of her unrelenting spirit.

She would be broken by nothing.

She refused.

It was time, then, for her to find escape from the travails of her life. Hazan would help—but she first had to forge a path through her current predicament.

She needed to form a plan.

How might she source the necessary material and notions needed to make herself a gown? She would’ve had more coin to her name except that Miss Huda had yet to pay her an advance against the five gowns she’d requested; instead, the young woman was waiting first to see how Alizeh might transform the taffeta ahead of the ball tonight, which now lay crumpled inside her bag.

Alizeh sighed.

Two coppers were all she had, then, and they would afford her next to nothing from the cloth merchants.

She grimaced and pushed on, her mind working. An elderly man with a wispy beard and white turban shot past her on a bright-blue bicycle, coming to a terrifying halt not twenty feet away. She watched as he unfolded his narrow body from the seat, unpacked a sign from the basket of his transport, and hooked the wooden board onto the front of a nearby cart.