Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(43)

‘What is it?’ I asked. She looked up, startled out of her work, staring at me through the bars of the cage. The words had slipped out without meaning to.

‘An elephant,’ she said quietly.

My heart twisted painfully as I thought of Izz and Maz excitedly explaining elephants to me.

This was what they had seen across our borders. A real live elephant.

‘Come to visit your family?’ The sneering voice behind me was far from welcome. I turned to meet it all the same. It was Ayet, the wife who’d kicked my khalat into the pool my first day in the harem. With her were the two other girls who always seemed to flank her like some sort of personal guard. I’d learned from overheard conversations they were called Mouhna and Uzma.

‘And your families are in the Sultan’s kennels, I suppose.’ I watched the insult dawn across all three of their faces at once. Ayet recovered fast.

‘You seem to think that we are your enemies,’ Ayet said. ‘But we can help you. Do you know where we are?’ She didn’t wait for me to answer. ‘This is the very menagerie where the Sultan’s wife Nadira met the Djinni who gave her a demon child.’ Nadira was Ahmed and Delila’s mother. Everyone knew that story. One day the Sultan’s wife was wandering the gardens of the palace, when she stumbled upon a frog that had accidentally leapt into one of the Sultan’s birdcages and could not find his way out again.

I glanced at the birds in the cage.

The birds kept pecking at him. Nadira took pity on the creature and, opening the cage, reached in with no care for the way the birds pecked at her own hands, turning them bloody and scratched. As soon as she set the frog back down, he transformed into his true form, that of a Djinni.

‘See, here’s the thing.’ Ayet and her girls circled me like a pack of roving animals. ‘Girls who don’t find their right place in the harem don’t tend to last long. The Sultim likes Mirajin girls.’ Ayet’s hand slammed into my chest, surprisingly hard, knocking me back towards the nearest cage. One of the tigers glanced up, curious. ‘But he’s only ever got room for three of us on display. So when someone new comes in, another one has to go. And none of us wants to disappear. Which means you don’t have a purpose here.’

‘I’ve got no interest in your idiot husband.’ I wanted to shove her hand away. But I couldn’t. The Sultan had given me orders. I couldn’t fight back.

Ayet wasn’t convinced. ‘Do you know what else happened here? This is where the Sultan killed Nadira after she gave birth to an abomination.’ She took a step towards me. ‘Because here, nobody can hear screams over the birds.’ Sure enough, the birds in the cages were in chaos now, their voices drowning out the rest of the harem just spitting distance away. ‘Go ahead. Call out for help.’

‘You should leave her alone.’ The voice wasn’t strong. It was barely a squeak among the chorus of wild-feathered birds. But it was loud enough to be heard. It was the girl with the toy elephant. She was watching this all play out from the opposite side of the cage. Her eyes were wide with fear. But she’d spoken up all the same.

Ayet sneered, but a sharp-tongued insult never came. ‘This is our business, Leyla. The Sultan hasn’t taken a new wife in a decade, which means she’s clearly here for our blessed husband the Sultim, not your father.’

‘If you’re so sure of that’ – Leyla got to her feet uncertainly, clutching the clay elephant like a child a dozen years younger – ‘I can just go ask my father.’

Invoking the Sultan was like uttering a magic word. The kind that summoned powerful spirits and opened doors in cliff faces. All Leyla had to do was mention him and it was as if he were here.

Ayet caved first. She rolled her eyes, like she wanted me to think I wasn’t worth her time, and turned away.

‘Consider this a warning.’ She tossed the words over her shoulder as she swanned out. I watched her go, hating her. Hating that I couldn’t break her nose like I wanted to.

Across the menagerie Leyla was winding the mechanism in her hands absently. ‘You’ll get used to them.’ I didn’t plan on having to get used to them. I was getting out of there before I had time to.

*

Since arriving in the harem, I’d stayed in my rooms when I wasn’t looking for a way out. The attendants brought me fresh clothes and a basin to wash in and meals, seeming to anticipate what I needed without me ever needing to speak a word. But that night, no food came.

I couldn’t help but think Ayet might have something to do with that. Just because she couldn’t tear me apart like a wild animal didn’t mean she was done trying to make me suffer for some imagined designs I had on her Sultim. The last thing I needed was another prince in my life. I had a hard enough time with the two I’d already acquired.

I waited until it was dark outside before finally giving in to my growling stomach. Even I wasn’t stubborn enough to starve to death.

Women were dotted all over the garden where the meal was served, sitting in tightly knotted clusters around dishes of food that they shared between them. So tightly knotted that it’d be impossible to untie one long enough to get to the food. I was suddenly back in my first night in the rebel camp, before I’d known everyone’s name. When I’d been an intruder. Except I’d been an intruder with Shazad and Bahi to guide me then.