“She was a nice girl,” Deen had gone on. “Oddly well-spoken for a snoda, but a little jumpy, too, easily frightened. Though—that may have been my fault. I feel I may have come down too hard on the poor girl. She’d said some things . . . and I . . .” Deen trailed off. Looked out the window.
Kamran had stiffened at that. “Said what things?”
Deen shook his head. “Oh, she was only making conversation, really. I fear I might’ve scared her. She left the store so quickly I never had a chance to give her the brushes she’ll need, though I suppose she could use her hands just so long as she keeps them clean . . .”
Kamran heard a roaring in his ears then, the sound so loud it drowned out all else, blurring his vision.
The magenta trees of Surati Forest came back into focus with agonizing slowness, the present world materializing one sensation at a time. The coarse fibers of the red rug under his head and hands, the weight of his swords against his torso, the whistling of the wind in the thicket, the bracing scent of winter pine filling his nose.
Kamran swiped a finger along the snow as one might an iced cake; he studied for a moment the shimmering dollop sat atop his finger and then popped it in his mouth, shivering a bit as the frost melted on his tongue.
A red fox darted up through the snow just then and wrinkled its nose, shaking flakes from its eyes before diving back into the earth, not long after which a quintet of reindeer appeared in the distance. The herd came to an abrupt halt still yards away, their large eyes wondering, no doubt, why Kamran had come.
He would answer, had they asked.
He would tell them he’d come for escape. To flee his mind, his strange life. He would tell them that the information he’d sought as an antidote had proven instead to be a poison.
She was going to be killed.
He understood it, but he did not know how to accept that she would be killed, she who treated with mercy a boy who’d tried to murder her, who was born a queen but made her living by scrubbing floors and was, in return, thanked for her hard work with only abuse and tyranny. He’d thought her mad for falling to pieces over a few coppers’ worth of medicine, never considering that those few coppers might be all she had in the world.
Kamran exhaled, closed his eyes.
She did not seem to him in any way a criminal. He supposed he could find new ways to investigate her life, but his always-reliable instincts insisted there was no point. He’d known it even before he’d set off on his earlier task, but had been too deep in denial to face it: no matter the prophecy, the version of the girl who lived today did not deserve to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.
In point of fact, it would be his fault.
He had done this to her, had shone a spotlight on her when she’d seemed to want nothing more than to disappear. Kamran would live with this regret for the rest of his life.
Indeed, the prince felt so much in that very moment he found he could not move—dared not move. If he allowed himself to shift even an iota he thought he might crack, and if he cracked he thought he might set fire to the world.
He opened his eyes.
A single pink leaf fell slowly, spinning as it drifted from a nearby tree, landing on Kamran’s nose. He plucked the leaf from his face, spun it around by the stem.
Madness prompted him to laugh.
Seventeen
THEY WERE NOT ALONE.
Cook had frozen in place, her cleaver aloft, staring agog at the two unlikely allies sitting nervously at the kitchen table. A cluster of servants peered around the corner, three heads stacked like tomatoes on a skewer. More peered out of doorways, others slowing down as they walked past. Everyone was waiting for a single word to be spoken.
Alizeh could not blame them for their interest.
She, too, was stunned by this turn of events. Neither she nor the Fesht boy had said much yet, for as soon as they’d made their initial, exuberant greetings, they’d realized half the staff had crowded around to gawk. Even so, Alizeh felt an uncommon happiness as he and she stared at each other from across the table, smiling awkwardly.
“Et mist ajeeb, nek? Hef nemek vot tan sora.” It is very strange, no? That I can’t see your eyes.
Alizeh smiled. “Han. Bek nemekketosh et snoda minseg cravito.” Yes. But I can’t take off the snoda when I’m working.
At that indecipherable exchange, most of the servants made audible sighs of frustration and returned to work. Alizeh glanced at the few who remained, then at the fifteen-minute sand timer sitting atop the table. The grains slid steadily from one glass bulb to the other, each loss filling her with dread. She doubted there were many—if any—servants in Setar who spoke Feshtoon, but Alizeh could not rely upon such an uncertainty.