These infinite threads, p.4
These Infinite Threads, page 4
“And you take me for a fool,” he said angrily, the movement in his throat briefly distracting her. “This story is both odious and familiar, and I already know how it ends; indeed, I have already seen the consequences of your seductions. Just tonight you snapped in half the spine of one sovereign. I will not be the next.”
“What on earth can you mean?” she breathed, panic intensifying. “You sentence me for crimes I wouldn’t even know how to commit—”
He leaned in, so close she could feel his whisper against her lips as he spoke. “Try to weaponize those eyes against me again and I will have them permanently sewn shut.”
The nosta flashed hot against her skin, and Alizeh gasped, horror briefly paralyzing her in place.
Cyrus drew back.
“If you wish to ingest poison after we exchange our vows, I will not stand in your way. But I will marry you,” he said sharply, “for you do not know what I stand to lose if this arrangement goes awry. You cannot even begin to imagine. So spare me your tears. You have confused me for your melancholy king, and you will suffer for the delusion.”
As if in direct violation of his command, tears threatened her vision, blunting the stars beyond his head, blurring the sharp planes of his face. The magnitude of this impending horror was cementing more in every moment, and Alizeh was surprised to discover the depth of her fear. A single tear escaped her then, and she saw Cyrus track its progress down her cheek, toward her mouth, and she swiped at the moisture before the salt of it touched her lips. The abrupt action appeared to startle him.
“I truly hate you,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “With my whole heart, I hate you.”
Cyrus held her gaze for what seemed a brutally long time before he finally tore away. He said nothing.
That Alizeh heard the slight tremor in his breath when he finally exhaled, or that she noticed the unsteadiness with which he touched his fingers to the brim of his hat, did not rate mention.
She would not feel compassion for a fiend.
Then—in the distance—
Alizeh gasped.
“Do prepare yourself,” said Cyrus, his tone softer than she expected. “It can be a little startling when you see it for the first time.”
She sat up straighter, wiping her eyes. “See what?” she asked. “What am I looking at?”
“Tulan.”
Three
THE FIRE HAD EXTINGUISHED UPON Cyrus’s exit, leaving in its wake a charred impression of a circle several feet in diameter, the stain of which no amount of soap or toil would eliminate. Of a certainty, the floor itself would have to be demolished and replaced—but then, this work could not take precedence.
Prior to fixing the floor there were other, more pressing issues in the palace to contend with; there was, for example, a dead king sprawled at Kamran’s feet, a vermeil stain still spreading under his limp figure while, at his shoulders, the flaccid faces of twin snakes rested delicately upon their own unfurled tongues. The hulking crown of this once illustrious sovereign now glinted upside down in a plash of red, the glossy floor sticky with slipshod streaks of blood, evidence of regicide everywhere. Prominent gashes and abrasions could be cataloged around the perimeter of the imposing ballroom where the dragon’s studded tail had whipped through not merely the stonework but glittering sconces, heavy drapery, and priceless artwork—all of which would need to be discarded, their substitutes promptly sourced. Still, the physical destruction most distressing was perhaps also the most obvious.
There was a massive crater in the palace wall.
It was a cavity so large it brought to mind the perpetually shrieking mouth of a newborn babe; it gaped unabashedly open, an eclipse of moths fluttering in and out of its crumbling aperture not unlike a horde of dithering idiots.
The detritus of the evening’s chaos would be a task of its own to manage; debris littered all and sundry, heavy dust powdering the hair and shoulders of scandalized nobles, all of whom stood around now, shock briefly muzzling their aristocratic mouths, hands clasped to cheeks and hearts as their heads swiveled between horrors.
The dead king, the destroyed wall, the ossified heir—
Yes, there was a great deal of work to be done. The wreckage alone would take days to sweep up, and Kamran would have to charge Jamsheed, the palace butler, with the task of contracting stonemasons to repair all else with celerity. There was too much at stake; already there would be a week of mourning before Kamran could be crowned king in an elaborate ceremony, after which he would finally carry out his grandfather’s most impassioned command and choose a damn bride—any bride—and only then, only when that grim business was sorted could he move on to the most important task, which was to officially declare war against Tulan. He would avenge both his father and his grandfather. He would have Cyrus’s head. He would bring Tulan to its knees. And Alizeh—
No. He would not think of her now; not when the very thought of her tore open fresh wounds inside him. He could not reconcile so many horrors at once.
First, he would have to cease being stone.
There were swarms of people drawing near him now, all of them staring, speaking about him like he might be dead—which struck Kamran as a terrible taunt, for death seemed a far more pleasurable fate than this:
“Is it the light, dear, or does he look disfigured to you?”
“By the angels—what a terrifying sight—”
“First the king, now the prince—”
“Who was the girl? Does anyone know?”
“Too soon to tell—”
“The fate of our empire—”
“Will someone touch him? To see if he moves?”
“An ugly business, terribly ill-bred—”
“You cannot simply touch the prince of Ardunia!”
“Anyone understand what she was saying? I only—”
“But—”
“Thought she was helping until she ran off with the dragon—”
“Could be dead, really—”
“Why can’t we do something about the king? This is so distasteful—”
“We could throw a sheet over him!”
“Or move him, you idiot—”
“Dark magic! Oh, dark magic to be sure—”
“He say something about a Jinn queen? To rule the world?”
“I, too, struggled to hear the girl—”
“Are you suggesting I touch those snakes? Are you really suggesting I touch those snakes?”
“Where are the servants?”
“Complete nonsense—Jinn royalty died out ages ago—”
“But you were able to see her, then? Sometimes she really seemed to blur—”
“The servants? They appear to have run away—”
“Look, he’s still bleeding!”
“Ha! It’s more likely you’ve had too much wine—”
“Am I meant to call for my own carriage, then?”
“Appalling, really—simply appalling—”
“What on earth do you think is happening to his face?”
True, there existed no criterion for managing the present situation—Kamran had sympathy enough to understand that—but this stream of insipid, unproductive commentary was punctuated by random shrieks and shouts, all of which so aggressively thrashed his frayed nerves that he wished, with great passion, that the mass of imbeciles might drop dead.
It required every bit of his energy to keep his mind sharp as pain battered his body, electric spasms seizing his chest, his neck—even aspects of his face—so much so that Kamran didn’t know how much more he might withstand. He was well aware his body was bleeding out, his lungs compressing under the ever-increasing weight of this magic.
Still, he dared hope he might not die.
It was Cyrus’s parting words that kept him calm, kept his mind from unraveling; for it seemed clear that if the southern royal had meant to kill him, surely he would have.
But Cyrus had wanted him to live.
The demented king had claimed a desire to see Kamran survive if only to watch him suffer; indeed, Cyrus seemed to look forward to his survival, and to the inevitability of their next skirmish.
How, then, might Kamran be released from this prison?
Without a doubt there were living Diviners capable of undoing such magic, but they were scattered across Ardunia; it would take weeks to collect enough of them to form the necessary quorum at the Diviners Quarters—but with an urgent summons, it was possible to deliver to the palace whichever Diviner was nearest.
Even one might do just fine.
Perhaps if Hazan hadn’t proven an unfaithful bastard, he might’ve already issued such a summons; doubtless Hazan would’ve handled every detail of this horrific night with aplomb, stepping gingerly over pools of blood only to usher home the affronted nobles with a smile. Even Kamran, who intended to kill his former minister, could acknowledge this truth—and experienced at the thought a resulting pang in his chest. Nevertheless, Kamran would not allow himself to dwell on Hazan’s betrayal; there was no point, and there was no time.
If only he could speak, Kamran would direct the masses himself; he would right now be shouting commands into this sea of gaping halfwits, some too busy proving their delicate constitutions by repeatedly fainting into the arms of their escorts, others too accustomed to the softness of peacetime to remember how to react in a crisis.
Kamran would not refute it: he loathed his peers.
He hated their pretensions, their obsessions with frivolity, their quiet competitions to crush each other with displays of imagined superiority. He resented that he belonged to their circles at all, resented that his new role would force him to spend more time in their company, resented his birthright altogether.
It was then—in an extraordinary moment—that the impending king of Ardunia realized he wanted his mother.
She had been here.
He knew she’d been here, for much earlier in the evening he’d seen her sitting in a throne adjacent to his grandfather. Surely she’d not abandoned the party before witnessing the night’s devastations? Surely she still owned a fraction of a heart, a lingering ounce of maternal affection for her only child?
Why, then, had she not come to his aid? Had she not been bothered to watch him suffer?
Would that he might search the room for her, but Kamran could not shift even his eyes. His mother’s ominous last warnings began to pound in his head, reminding him that he’d treated her poorly, startling him to realize how she’d predicted his future just hours ago.
Soon, she’d said, I will be all you have left in this palace.
You will walk the halls, friendless and alone, and you will search for me then. You will want your mother only when all else is lost, and I do not promise to be easily found.
She’d been wrong on one important count—Kamran could not at the moment walk the halls of this castle—but if he survived the night, there might be time yet for that, too.
How easily Kamran had dismissed her warning.
Now his mother was absent, his grandfather was dead, his minister was shackled in the dungeons. Even his aunt—with whom he’d been speaking just seconds before identifying Cyrus in the crush—was conspicuously truant. The truth of his situation bore down on him with a chilling awareness:
He had no one.
There was a sudden moment of shoving before a familiar, greasy figure was revealed in his attempt to part the throng, his forceful actions rippling through the swarm of spectators, the lot of which went abruptly silent upon sighting him. The defense minister—whose name was Zahhak—was a slight, balding man of average height, whose face was more often than not a reflective surface, for it retained always a slick sheen. Tonight his skin seemed to glister more than usual as he pushed forward, the blue-green whirl of his robes representing the colors of the noble House of Ketab. He forged a path through the assemblage with an air of authority so desperately required of the situation that every head turned to track his movements, all awaiting with bated breath a pronouncement that might allow them to finally exit this tragic stage and retire to their beds.
Dread coiled in Kamran’s gut.
Zahhak was a character he heartily detested. Just yesterday, Kamran had unapologetically insulted the aristocrat in a room full of his peers. Hateful as the defense minister was, Kamran’s actions had been foolish—and it was only as the oily figure examined Kamran’s unflinching face now, his beady black eyes gleaming with something like triumph, that Kamran realized the depth of his error. Zahhak was a truculent man, and yet too craven to lift a sword in his own defense; instead he carried into every conversation the poison of passive aggression, the preferred weapon of cowards.
No doubt he would land a ruinous blow now.
“I’m afraid,” Zahhak said calmly, his voice ringing out in the silence, “that we’ve no choice but to declare the prince dead.”
The crowd gasped, then drew back in unison.
So shocking was this pronouncement that Kamran felt it as a physical electrification inside his heart—and then, just as swiftly, this feeling was displaced by shame, for the magnitude of his astonishment struck him only as a reflection of his own stupidity. His grandfather had tried to warn him of such machinations—and Kamran had given the words no weight.
As if conjured from the ether, he heard Zaal’s whisper:
My child, do you not understand how precarious your position is? Those who covet your position would invite any reason to deem you unworthy of the throne—
Kamran had never thought himself naive, and yet—he’d not endured much more than an hour in the absence of his grandfather’s protection and already he’d been filleted open, the infantile contents of his mind exposed, the truth of his sheltered life laid bare. Kamran was the very definition of a fool; he’d anticipated none of the betrayals he’d suffered tonight, so comfortable had he been in his role, so certain had he been of his authority in the world. Now he was a caged animal for the world to gawk at, stripped of all that ever defined him in but a matter of moments.
Never had he felt so powerless.
The murmurs of the crowd had grown only more frantic in the interlude, and Kamran raged within the prison of his body, his blood heating even as his lungs continued to compress.
Zahhak, meanwhile, preened as he faced the people, imitation grief coloring his voice as it carried across the room.
“My dear nobles, this has been a grave night indeed. To have lost both our emperor and our heir in the same hour, and under such ghastly circumstances”—someone sobbed, loudly—“but I stand before you tonight to offer this assurance: Ardunia is too great an empire to be felled even by these great tragedies.
“Even so,” he went on, “the unpalatable particulars that led to the murder of our beloved king will require immense scrutiny. A council of House leaders will be assembled on the morrow, during which time we will decide whether retribution is befitting of the situation—and begin a search to select a worthy inheritor of the throne. Until then, as dictated by Ardunian law, I shall assume temporary ownership of the crown, and forthwith sue for peace with Tulan so that we might, without delay, return our empire to the state of tranquility we’ve come to enjoy—”
A ferocious pain detonated without warning in Kamran’s shoulder, the unmistakable weight of a blade piercing his flesh in a moment that struck him only as surreal. The puncture awoke inside him an unnatural cold, a unique torment that flashed through his veins with such severity he cried out in anguish. He was unaware the sound had escaped his lips until he heard the shattering clang of his sword, steel striking the floor as it fell from his unfrozen hand, his knees knocking stone when his legs gave out, his thawed body trembling with abandon.
By agonizing degrees, Kamran lifted his head.
The din of the room had silenced in an instant, astonishment rendering all mouths immobile for the length of a miraculous moment. Kamran, in his bewilderment, did not hear the bumbling stupefaction of the defense minister, now desperately backpedaling; nor did he bother to parse the whispers of the crowd, now regenerating around him. No, Kamran was too preoccupied by the piece of evidence buried in his muscle:
He had been attacked.
He reached up with one shaking arm to pull free the ruby dagger planted in his left shoulder, the action so excruciating he nearly lost consciousness in the effort. He felt himself begin to convulse even as he examined the decadent weapon, the room appearing to swim before him.
This blade— He knew this blade—
Kamran turned his head with difficulty, his skull swinging with the grace of a pendulum as he searched the room for his assailant. At least the miracle of his release had a clear enough explanation: the glittering scarlet dagger had cut through his enchantment, which meant the weapon had once been fortified by the Diviners, the better to empower its owner against an enemy whose armor might be coated in magical protections.
In and of itself, this was not a notable discovery, for such fortifications were common in the reinforcement of royal weapons; Kamran’s own swords boasted the same benefits. Far more interesting was the near assassination itself; for in his mind there existed but one person alive who would risk killing Kamran in the pursuit of his survival.
The dagger had belonged to his mother.
Unsuccessfully, he scanned the room for her face, increasingly perplexed by her actions. His mother had saved him. Why, then, had she abandoned—
Kamran went deathly still.
It was not magic this time, but fear that paralyzed him anew, for he’d glimpsed his reflection in a bank of shattered mirrors gracing an adjacent wall. Dumbstruck, he lifted an unsteady hand to his chin, his cheek, the delicate lid of one eye.
Earlier, the decorative mirrors had adorned the ballroom at intervals to great effect, enhancing the flicker of crystal and fire and the fractured light of a hundred glimmering chandeliers—elevating, in the process, the ambience of a dignified evening to dizzying heights.
Now the broken glass cast back only monstrous scenes, chief among them a likeness of himself he was not yet ready to fathom into words. He lacked the privilege of time even to process the transformation, for it was but an instant later that Zahhak fell, theatrically, to his knees.
