This Woven Kingdom Read online

  When he spun around, he spotted the girl only paces away, her clothes sagging with rainwater. The skies had not ceased their torment, and Kamran watched as she struggled to run; she appeared to be balancing packages in one arm, stopping at intervals to pull the wet snoda away from her face. Kamran could hardly see three feet in front of him; he could not imagine how she saw anything at all with a sheet of wet fabric obscuring her eyes.

  “Miss, I mean you no harm,” he called out to her. “But you must remove your snoda. For your safety.”

  She froze at that, at the sound of his voice.

  Kamran was heartened by this and dared to approach her, overcome not only by concern for the girl, but by an impassioned curiosity that grew only stronger by the moment. It occurred to him, as he dared to close the gap between their bodies, that the wrong move might spook her—might send her running blindly through the streets—so he moved with painstaking carefulness.

  It was no good.

  He’d taken but two steps toward her and she went flying into the night; in her haste she slipped, landing hard on cobblestone, scattering her packages in the process.

  Kamran ran to her.

  Her snoda had slipped an inch, the wet netting sealing around her nose, suffocating her. In a single motion she tore the mask from her face, gasping for air. Kamran hooked his arms under hers and dragged her to her feet.

  “My—my packages,” she gasped, raindrops pelting her closed eyes, her nose, her mouth. She licked the rainwater from her lips and caught her breath, keeping her eyes shut, refusing to meet his gaze. Her cheeks were flush with color—with cold—her sooty lashes the same shade as her sable curls, wet tendrils spiraling away from her face, some plastered to her neck.

  Kamran could hardly believe his fate.

  Her reluctance to open her eyes provided him the rare opportunity to study her at length, without fear of self-consciousness. All this time he’d been wondering about the girl and now here she was, in his arms, her face mere inches from his own and—devils above, he could not look away from her.

  Her features were both precise and soft, balanced in every quadrant as if by a master. She was finely designed, loveliness rendered in its truest sense. This discovery was surreal to him to the point of distraction, all the more so because Kamran’s calculations had been wrong. He’d suspected she might be beautiful, yes—but this girl was not merely beautiful.

  She was stunning.

  “Hang the packages,” he said softly. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, no—” She pushed against him like she might be blind, still refusing to open her eyes. “Please, I need my packages—”

  Try as he might, Kamran could not understand.

  He knew she was not blind, and yet she pretended at it now, for reasons he could not fathom. At every turn this girl had baffled him, and just as he was beginning to digest this, she threw herself to the ground, sparing Kamran only seconds to catch the girl before her knees connected with stone. She pulled away from him, paying him no mind even as her skirts sank into the old slush of the filthy street, her hands fumbling in the wet for sign of her wares. She moved suddenly into a stroke of gaslight, the flame bracing her in its glow.

  It was then that Kamran noticed the bandages.

  Her hands were wrapped almost to the point of immobility; she could hardly bend a finger. It was no wonder she struggled to hold on to her things.

  He quickly scooped up the scattered items, depositing them into his satchel. He didn’t want to scare her by shouting over the rain, so he bent low and said close to her ear: “I’ve got your packages, miss. You may be easy now.”

  It was the surprise that did it. It was the sound of his voice so near her face, his warm breath against her skin.

  Alizeh gasped.

  Her eyes flew open, and Kamran froze.

  It was only seconds that they studied each other, but it seemed to Kamran a century. Her eyes were the silver-blue of a winter moon, framed by wet lashes the color of pitch. He’d never seen anyone like her before, and he had the presence of mind to realize he might never again. Sudden movement caught his attention: a raindrop, landing on her cheek, traveling fast toward her mouth. Only then, with a shock, did he notice the bruise blooming along her jaw.

  Kamran stared perhaps too long at the discolored mark, the faint impression of a hand it formed. He wondered then that he hadn’t recognized it right away, that he’d so easily dismissed it as an indiscriminate shadow. The longer he stared at it now the harder his heart moved in his chest, the faster heat flooded his veins. He experienced a sudden, alarming desire to commit murder.

  To the girl he said only: “You are hurt.”

  She made no response.

  She was trembling. Drenched through. Kamran was suffering, too, but he had the benefit of a heavy wool cloak, a protective hood. The girl wore only a thin jacket, no hat, no scarf. Kamran knew he needed to convey her home, to make certain she did not catch her death in this weather, but just then he could not seem to move. He didn’t even know this girl’s name and somehow he’d been stricken by her, reduced to this, to stupidity. For the second time that night, she licked the rainwater from her lips, drawing his gaze to her mouth. Had any other young woman done such a thing in his presence, Kamran might’ve thought it a coquettish affectation. But this—

  He’d read once that Jinn had a particular love of water. Perhaps she could not help licking the rain from her lips any more than he could help staring at her mouth.

  “Who are you?” he whispered.

  Her chin lifted at that, her lips parting in surprise. She studied him with wide, shining eyes, and appeared to be as confused by him as he was by her. Kamran took comfort in this, in the realization that they’d confounded each other equally.

  “Will you not tell me your name?” he asked.

  She shook her head, the movement slow, uncertain. Kamran felt paralyzed. He could not explain it; his body seemed anchored to hers. He drew closer by micrometers, propelled to do so by a force he could not hope to understand. What mere minutes ago might’ve struck him as lunacy now seemed to him essential: to know what it might be like to hold her, to breathe in the scent of her skin, to press his lips to her neck. He was scarcely aware of himself when he touched her—light as air, faint as fading memory—a stroke of his fingers against her lips.

  She vanished.

  Kamran fell backward, landing hard in a puddle. His heart was racing. He tried and could not collect his thoughts—he scarcely knew where to begin—and he’d been rooted to the spot for at least a minute when Hazan came running forward, out of breath.

  “I couldn’t see where you’d gone,” he cried. “Were you set upon by thieves? Good God, are you hurt?”

  Kamran sank fully into the street then, letting himself be absorbed by the wet, the cold, the night. His skin had cooled too quickly, and he felt suddenly feverish.

  “Sire, I do not think it advisable to sit here, in th—”

  “Hazan.”

  “Yes, sire?”

  “What were you going to tell me about the girl?” Kamran turned his gaze up to the sky, studying the stars through a web of branches. “You say she is not a spy. Not a mercenary. Not assassin nor turncoat. What, then?”

  “Your Highness.” Hazan was squinting against the rain, clearly convinced the prince had lost his mind. “Perhaps we should head back to the palace, have this conversation over a warm cup of—”

  “Speak,” Kamran said, his patience snapping. “Or I shall have you horsewhipped.”

  “She— Well, the Diviners—they say—”

  “Never mind, I shall horsewhip you myself.”

  “Sire, they say her blood has ice in it.”

  Kamran went deathly still. His chest constricted painfully and he stood up too fast, stared into the darkness. “Ice,” he said.

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “You are certain.”

  “Quite.”

  “Who else knows about this?”

>   “Only the king, sire.”

  Kamran took a sharp breath. “The king.”

  “He, too—as you know—had been convinced there was something unusual about the girl and bade me report to him my findings straightaway. I would have come to you sooner with the news, sire, but there were a great many arrangements to be made, as you can well imagine.” A pause. “I confess I’ve never seen the king quite so overwrought.”

  “No,” Kamran heard himself say. “This is terrible news, indeed.”

  “Her collection has been set for tomorrow evening, sire.” A pause. “Late night.”

  “Tomorrow.” Kamran’s eyes were on a single point of light in the distance; he hardly felt a part of his own body. “So soon?”

  “The king’s orders, Your Highness. We must move with all possible haste and pray no one else gets to her before we do.”

  Kamran nodded.

  “It feels almost divine, does it not, that you were so swiftly able to identify her?” Hazan managed a stiff smile. “A servant girl in a snoda? Lord knows we might never have found her out otherwise. You’ve most assuredly spared the empire the loss of countless lives, sire. King Zaal was deeply impressed with your instincts. I’m sure he will tell you as much when you see him.”

  Kamran said nothing.

  There was a tense stretch of silence, during which the prince closed his eyes, let the rain lash his face.

  “Sire,” Hazan said tentatively. “Did you come upon cutthroats earlier? You look as if you came to blows.”

  Kamran placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Within moments his horse came galloping toward him, the stunning beast rushing to a reckless halt at his master’s feet. Kamran placed a foot in the stirrup and swung himself onto the slick seat.

  “Sire?” Hazan shouted to be heard over the wind. “Did you meet with anyone out here?”

  “No.” Kamran grabbed the reins, gave the horse a gentle nudge with his heels. “I saw no one.”

  Thirteen

  ALIZEH HAD BROKEN NO FEWER than seven different laws since fleeing the scene with the prince. She was breaking one right then, daring to remain invisible as she entered Baz House. The consequences for such offenses were severe; if she were caught materializing she’d be hung at dawn.

  Still, she felt she was left with little recourse.

  Alizeh hurried to the hearth, stripping her coat, unlacing her boots. Public undressing of any kind was considered an act of stateliness, one deemed beneath those of her station. She might be forgiven for removing her snoda late at night, but a servant was forbidden from removing any essential article of clothing in common gathering areas.

  Not a coat, not a scarf. Certainly not her shoes.

  Alizeh took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was invisible to Clay eyes. She suspected there were a handful of Jinn employed at Baz House, but as she’d not been allowed to speak with any of the others—and none had dared compromise their positions by reaching out—she’d no way of knowing for certain. She hoped that any who might come upon her now might be willing to look the other way.

  Alizeh drew nearer the fire, trying as best she could to roast her sopping jacket and boots. Alizeh had a spare dress, but only one jacket and one pair of boots, and there was little chance the articles would dry out overnight in the musty closet that was her bedroom. Though perhaps if she remained indoors all day tomorrow she’d not have need of her jacket—at least not until her appointment with Miss Huda. The idea gave her some comfort.

  When the jacket lost the worst of its wet, Alizeh slipped her arms back into the still-damp piece, her body tensing at the sensation. She wished she could lay the article out by the fire overnight, but she’d not risk leaving it here, where it might be noticed by anyone. She picked up her boots then, holding them as close to the flames as she dared.

  Alizeh shivered without warning, nearly dropping the shoes in the fire. She calmed her shaking hands and chattering teeth by taking steady, even breaths, clenching her jaw against the chill. When she felt she could bear it, she put her mostly wet boots back on.

  Only then did Alizeh finally sink down onto the stone hearth, her trembling legs giving out beneath her.

  She removed her illusion of invisibility—fully dressed, she’d not be reprimanded for taking a moment by the fire—and sighed. She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the outer brick. Would she allow herself to think about what transpired tonight? She wasn’t sure she could bear it, and yet—

  So much had gone wrong.

  Alizeh still worried over her treasonous comments to the apothecarist, and a bit about the man who’d tried to attack her—no doubt to steal her parcels—but most of all she worried about the prince, whose attentions toward her were so baffling as to be absurd. Where had he come from? Why had he cared to help her? He’d touched her just as the devil had foretold, as she’d seen in her nightmares the very night before—

  But why?

  What had possessed him to touch her so? Worse: Was he not a murderer of children? Why, then, had he acted with such compassion toward a servant girl?

  Alizeh dropped her head in her hands.

  Her throbbing, bandaged hands. The medicine had been all but washed out of her wounds, and the ache had returned in full force. If she allowed herself to consider for even a moment the devastating loss of her packages, she thought she might faint from heartache.

  Six coppers.

  The medicine had cost her nearly all the coin she had, which meant she’d not be able to afford replacements without further work. And yet, without her medicine, Alizeh didn’t know whether her hands would recover quickly enough; Miss Huda would no doubt require the five dresses in short order, as the royal festivities would be arranged without delay.

  Hers was a simple tragedy: without work Alizeh would not be able to afford medicine; without medicine she might not be able to work. It tore her heart to pieces to think of it. No longer was she able to conquer her despair. She felt the familiar prick of tears, swallowed against the burn in her throat.

  The cruelty of her life seemed suddenly unbearable.

  She knew her thoughts to be infantile even as they arrived, but she lacked the strength to stop herself from wondering then, as she’d done on so many other nights, why it was that others had parents, a family, a safe home, and she did not. Why had she been born with this curse in her eyes? Why was she tortured and hated merely for the way her body had been forged? Why had her people been so tragically condemned alongside the devil?

  For centuries before the bloodshed between Jinn and Clay had begun, Jinn had built their kingdoms in the most uninhabitable lands, in the most brutal climates—if only to be far from the reach of Clay civilization. They’d wanted to exist quietly, peacefully, in a state of near invisibility. But Clay, who had long considered it their divine right—no, duty—to slaughter the beings they saw only as scions of the devil, had mercilessly hunted Jinn for millennia, determined to expunge the earth of their existence.

  Her people had paid a high price for this delusion.

  In her weaker moments Alizeh longed to lash out, to allow her anger to shatter the cage of her self-control. She was stronger than any housekeeper who struck her; she was capable of greater force, greater strength and speed and resilience than any Clay body that oppressed her.

  And yet.

  Violence alone, she knew, would accomplish nothing. Anger without direction was only hot air, there and gone. She’d seen this happen over and over to her own people. Jinn had tried to flout the rules, to exercise their natural abilities despite the restrictions of Clay law, and they’d all suffered. Daily, dozens of Jinn bodies had been strung up in the square like bunting, more charred at the stake, still others beheaded, disemboweled.

  Their divided efforts were no good.

  Only the unification of Jinn might hope to affect real change, but such a feat was hard to hope for in an age where Jinn had fled their ancestral homes, scattering across the globe in search of work and shelt
er and anonymity. Their numbers had always been small, and their physical advantages had offered them much protection, but they’d lost hundreds of thousands of people over the last centuries. What was left of them could hardly be cobbled together overnight.

  The fire snapped in its brick cove, flames flickering urgently. Alizeh wiped her eyes.

  It was rare that she allowed herself to think on these cruelties. It did not comfort her to speak aloud her agonies the way it did for some; she did not enjoy reanimating the string of corpses she dragged with her everywhere. No, Alizeh was the kind of person who could not dwell on her own sorrows for fear of drowning in their bottomless depths; it was her physical pain and exhaustion tonight that’d weakened her defenses against these darker meditations—which, once torn free from their graves, were not easily returned to the earth.

  Her tears fell now with abandon.

  Alizeh knew she could survive long hours of hard labor, knew she could persevere through any physical hardship. It was not the burden of her work or the pain in her hands that broke her—it was the loneliness. It was the friendlessness of her existence; the days on end she spent without the comfort that might be derived from a single sympathetic heart.

  It was grief.

  The price she still paid with her soul for the loss of her parents’ lives. It was the fear she was forced to live with every day, the torment that was born from an inability to trust even a friendly merchant to spare her the noose.

  Alizeh had never felt more alone.

  She scrubbed at her eyes again and then, for the umpteenth time that day, searched her pockets for her handkerchief. Its disappearance had not bothered her so much the first few times she searched for it, but the loss was beginning to worry her now that she considered it might not be misplaced—but well and truly lost.

  The handkerchief had been her mother’s.

  It was the only personal possession Alizeh had salvaged intact from the ashes of her family home. Her memories of the dreadful night she lost her mother were strange and horrible. Strange that she remembered feeling warm—truly warm—for the first time in her life. Horrible that the roaring flames that engulfed her mother had only made Alizeh want to sleep. She still remembered her mother’s screams that night, the wet handkerchief she’d used to cover her daughter’s face.