It had never been for fear of the masses that Alizeh hid her face; it was for fear of a single, careful eye. Exposure to the wrong stranger and she knew her life was forfeit; indeed, her precarious position in that very moment was proof. Somehow, impossibly, Kamran had seen through her guile, had seen through even her snoda.
In all these years, he’d been the only one.
She took a deep breath and cleared her head of him, spared her heart of him. She thought instead, without warning, of her parents, who’d always worried about her eyes, always worried for her life. They’d never given up hope of her taking back the land—and the crown—they believed to be rightfully hers.
Alizeh had been raised from infancy to reclaim it.
What would they think if they saw her now? Jobless, homeless, at the mercy of some miss. Alizeh felt quietly ashamed of herself, of her impotence in that moment.
Without a word, she untied the snoda from around her eyes, and, reluctantly, let the scrap of silk slip through her fingers. When Alizeh finally looked up to meet the young woman’s gaze, Miss Huda went rigid with fear.
“Heavens,” she gasped. “It’s you.”
Thirty-Three
KAMRAN FLINCHED.
The seamstress stuck him with yet another pin, humming quietly to herself as she worked, pulling here, tucking there. The woman was either oblivious or heartless, he’d not yet decided. She never seemed to care that she was maiming him, not even when he’d asked her, several times, to desist from these nonessential acts of cruelty.
He looked at the seamstress, the ancient woman in a velvet bowler so diminutive in stature she hardly reached his waist, and who tottered over him now on a small wooden stool. She smelled like caramelized eggplant.
“Madame,” he said tersely. “Are we not yet finished?”
She started at the sound of his voice and stabbed him yet again, causing Kamran to draw a sharp breath. The older woman blinked big, owlish eyes at him; eyes he’d always found disconcerting.
“Nearly there, sire,” she said in a weathered voice. “Nearly there now. Just a few minutes more.”
Soundlessly, Kamran sighed.
Kamran loathed these fittings, and could not understand why he’d needed one, not when he owned an entire wardrobe full of clothes still unworn, any number of which would’ve been sufficient for the night’s festivities.
It was, in any case, his mother’s doing.
The princess had intercepted him the very moment he’d stepped foot inside the palace, refusing to listen to a word of reason. She’d insisted, despite Kamran’s protests to the contrary, that whatever the king and his officials needed to discuss could wait, and that being properly dressed for his guests was far more important. Besides, she’d sworn, the fitting would take only a moment. A moment.
It had been nigh on an hour.
Still, it was quite possible, Kamran considered, that the seamstress was stabbing him now in protest. The prince had neither heeded his mother upon arrival, nor had he flatly refused to accompany her. Instead, he’d parted with a vague promise to return. An enemy on the battlefield he might’ve cut down with a sword, but his mother in possession of a seamstress on the night of a ball—
He’d not been properly armed against such an adversary, and had settled for ignoring her.
Three hours he’d spent discussing the Tulanian king’s possible motivations with Hazan, his grandfather, and a select group of officials, and when, finally, he’d returned to his dressing room, his mother had thrown a lamp at him.
Miraculously, Kamran had dodged the projectile, which crashed to the floor, causing a small fire upon impact. This, the princess had ignored outright, instead approaching her son with a violent gleam in her eyes.
“Careful, darling,” she’d said softly. “You overlook your mother at great cost to yourself.”
Kamran was busy stamping out the flames. “I’m afraid I don’t follow your logic,” he’d said, scowling, “for I cannot imagine it costs me anything to avoid a parent who so often takes pleasure in trying to kill me.”
The princess had smiled at that, even as her eyes flashed with anger. “Two days ago I told you I needed to speak with you. Two days I have waited to have a simple conversation with my own son. Two days I have been ignored repeatedly, even as you made time to spend an entire morning with your dear aunt.”
Kamran frowned. “I don’t—”
“No doubt you forgot,” she said, cutting him off. “No doubt my request fell right out of your pretty head the moment it was spoken. So swiftly am I forgotten.”