Every Spiral of Fate, page 4
“And will you not tell me why you’ve done something as scandalous as allow the naked king to bathe in your room—before your vows have even been spoken?”
Now Alizeh did smile, though it felt forced. “Hazan and I moved Cyrus to my rooms last night. The guest room he’d lately occupied had grown stale with fever and sickness. I felt it would help him recover to be somewhere new. Somewhere with private access to fresh air, where I might look after him.” She glanced reflexively around, where the magicked pink blooms had touched everything. The sight of these luminous roses—fashioned in her honor by the very man who refused to look at her—stoked the flare of heat in her chest, causing her to shift restlessly.
She’d been so preoccupied with the dramatics of her wedding day that she’d almost allowed herself to forget there’d be a wedding night, as well.
Seven
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, DEAR?” asked Huda. The young woman had yet to take her seat. “You’re not nervous about your fake vows to your fake husband, are you?”
“I’m fine.” Alizeh forced another smile. “Cyrus, however, has been terribly ill. The blood oath, as you can imagine, has been hard on him. His fever broke only this morning. He’s taking a medicinal bath at my insistence; I think it will do him good.” She gestured once more to the empty chair across from her, indicating that Huda should sit.
“Well,” said Huda, looking around herself before finally, finally, taking a seat. She sighed. She seemed almost disappointed there wasn’t more of a scandal. “And he’s going to remain behind that wall, then? Naked?”
“Must you keep using that word?” Alizeh said, her cheeks warming. “Do you expect him to keep his clothes on while he bathes?”
“Yes.”
“Huda.”
“What?” said the miss, crossing her arms. “Murderers are notorious scoundrels! One trait inevitably begets the other!”
“By that logic,” Alizeh pointed out, “all scoundrels are also murderers.”
“And what scoundrel hasn’t killed a woman’s soul?”
Alizeh stilled. A genuine smile curved her mouth as she nodded, ceding the argument. “A fair point well made.”
“Thank you.”
“You need not worry, in any case,” said Alizeh, pouring Huda a cup of tea. “The blood oath prevents him from so much as touching me without my permission.”
Huda looked up, considering this. She took the proffered tea. “Well, no one else knows that. Did the servants see him here this morning? The gossip alone—”
“We’re to be married, today,” Alizeh said with finality, pouring herself a cup. “I cannot afford to care any longer about the improprieties, for I need him to be well enough to make it to the ceremony.” She met Huda’s eyes. “We’ve already been delayed three times. Our proximity is such now that his pain should be manageable while he prepares for the day. As for me, here in my room I’m far from the prying eyes of the public, which brings me a great deal of comfort. The arrangement is ideal. You need not fret that I will see Cyrus naked. He seems more guarded of his modesty than most.”
“That’ll be the Diviner in him,” Huda said astutely, having a sip of her tea. She helped herself to a biscuit. “I hear they’re painfully proper.”
“I thought you said he was a scoundrel.”
Huda waved a hand, dismissing her own logic with the gesture. “Yes, well, perhaps he’s conflicted. It must be strange in his head. He’s what, twenty-one? And he was at the temple for seventeen years? Imagine dedicating your entire life to being a Diviner only to die a dissolute rogue! Madness.”
Alizeh stirred a lump of sugar into her tea. She made a noncommittal sound.
“Most of them don’t even think to marry, you know.”
“Yes,” Alizeh said softly. “I know.”
“I doubt Cyrus ever considered marriage before the devil forced him into it,” Huda mused. She took a bite of biscuit, chewing. “I suppose I can see why he’s so angry about the arrangement. Though I’m also beginning to understand why he might’ve once been drawn to a monastic life. I couldn’t understand it before, but now—”
Alizeh looked up. “You can?”
“Oh, yes,” said Huda, taking another bite. “He’s a very drab and dour sort, isn’t he? Dreadfully solemn, too. I’ve no idea how you intend to tolerate his company long enough to kill him. It’ll be depressing work. Noble work, but depressing.” She tilted her head. “He really doesn’t seem the type to be interested in the pleasures of the world, does he?”
Alizeh had returned her eyes to her cup. She wanted, suddenly, to be alone. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t.”
“Just goes to show,” said Huda, “that you never can tell who people are. Trust no one, I say.” She gestured with her teacup, the liquid sloshing. “Nearly a Diviner! Now look at him. A morally debauched brute. Scoundrel through and through.”
Alizeh turned her eyes out the window.
Always their conversations turned eventually to the evisceration of Cyrus’s character.
She’d grown tired of it.
Alizeh could raise no defense in his honor; she owned no logical reason for demanding an end to these excoriations. She, too, was embroiled in the mess of it all, having sworn to kill him. It was, in fact, better for her to hate him—to marinate in the reasons that might make it easier to drive a dagger through his heart. Yet every unkind word spoken against him registered in her soul as an injustice. She felt impatience boiling within her. Indeed she wasn’t sure how much more of it she could take—
“I fear I’d make a terrible, frivolous king,” said Huda, contemplating a second biscuit before taking a bite. “Banquets every day, I’d wager. And balls! Oh, but I love to dance. The glittering lights, the opulence, so romantic …” She hesitated. “Do you think Cyrus knows how to dance?”
Alizeh stilled, her teacup halfway to her mouth.
It had never occurred to her to wonder whether the man she was meant to murder would make a proficient dance partner. “I haven’t the faintest,” she said, setting down her cup.
“I’d guess not,” said Huda, finishing off the cookie. “I detect no passion in him whatsoever. The best dancers, I think, can access great emotion—”
“I’m sure he’s an excellent dancer,” Alizeh said too sharply, that familiar anger surging within her.
Huda shot her an odd look.
Alizeh took a moment to breathe, to soften the bite in her tone. Heavens, when had her hands started shaking? The teacup, which she’d yet to relinquish, now clattered lightly against its saucer. Alizeh withdrew her hands, knotting them in her lap. It was no fault of Huda’s that Alizeh was addlebrained. There was something dangerously wrong with her; she’d never been so furious or unbalanced.
She felt liable to scream for no reason.
“He is a king, after all,” Alizeh added with forced equanimity. “It’s a skill all but required of his position.”
“Mm. And doesn’t it strike you as odd?” said Huda, as if she’d hardly registered this response. “You, a Diviner, and he, nearly so. It’s an interesting match, if not a doomed one.”
“I am not a Diviner.”
“So you insist, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
Alizeh sighed. She turned her bleak gaze upon her wedding gown, which hung in front of the open window, its majestic train trailing along the floor. The gown had been chosen for her by Sarra, the Queen Mother, long before her arrival in Tulan. It was an ice-blue confection of lace and silk, fairly exhaling with diamonds. It was without a doubt an exquisite garment of the highest quality and caliber, befitting of royalty, and had needed only minor alterations.
It should have pleased her.
Indeed it should have given Alizeh comfort to think that she might finally take the throne. Today she would be crowned queen of Tulan, and the uncertainties of the future might finally be resolved. She’d be taking the first real step toward the liberation of her people—toward a future that might secure freedom from tyranny—
And yet—
Her heart felt as misshapen as an arthritic hand.
“Are you ready for tomorrow, then?” Alizeh asked with forced brightness, changing the subject as she returned her eyes to Huda. “Have you finished packing? Have you written to your family to let them know you’ll be coming home?”
“Ready for tomorrow, when I’ve yet to experience today?” Huda set down her teacup with some force, and the porcelain rattled. “You intend to gloss over your wedding day, then? Skipping the party and diving straight into the pain, are we?”
Alizeh gave her a look. “You know as well as I do that today is no party. It’s a performance in service of the people, and as simple as I could mark the occasion without drawing suspicion.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Huda dismissively. “There will be cake and dancing—”
“Dancing?”
“—and feasting and cavorting well into the night—”
“Huda, are you unwell? There will be a solemn ceremony and a simple luncheon. I’ve instructed Cook to make a small cake for the staff. We’re to leave for Ardunia at dawn—”
“Oh, I nearly forgot to ask!” Huda gasped and put down her teacup again, this time so loudly the clatter rang in her ears. “Have you seen the ring yet?”
Alizeh hesitated, distracted. “What ring?”
Huda’s eyes went wide, then narrowed with indignation as she leaned in. “You mean to tell me that good-for-nothing weasel hasn’t even picked out a ring?”
“Of course I have.”
Huda gave a terrifying start, knocked her knees against the underside of the table, and jolted the contents of her teacup directly into her lap. She managed only a tremulous, choked sound as she stared up at him in horror.
The problem was, Cyrus was wearing nothing but a towel.
Eight
HUDA TORE HER EYES AWAY; she’d gone deathly pale. “Good God,” she breathed. “It suddenly seems a shame to kill him.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said, directing his words to the wall. “I didn’t know we had company. Too late I realized I have no clothes here, and I’ve no notion of where to find them.” Cyrus’s voice was rough, his eyes tired but clear.
He’d appeared unsteady as he strode in from the hall, but his movements had gained strength as he approached their table. The medicinal bath had done him a great deal of good, but Alizeh knew it was her proximity to him that was responsible for his swift journey back to health. Magic was ineffective against the torture of a blood oath, but she’d requested Deen brew him a restorative elixir nonetheless, and she’d stood watch over Cyrus to ensure he drained the cup. Yet even as he’d obeyed her command to drink the tonic he’d refused to look at her, and she noticed he did not lift his eyes to hers now, either.
Alizeh felt her frustration sharpen.
Cyrus had been treating her with a polite, cold distance from the moment she broke down his door. He seemed determined to treat her like a stranger. He would not converse, choosing to answer her questions only in short sentences, respectfully, with indifference; he did not animate or otherwise offer evidence of emotion.
It was driving her into a fury.
She knew he was only protecting himself. She knew she had no right to demand anything of him, not when he’d already given her everything—his home, his heart, his kingdom—
By the angels, his very blood ran through her veins.
That she wanted yet more from him was indefensible. He’d bled for her, would soon die for her. Their union was meant to end only after she killed him. It was cruel of her to want to see him smile despite his suffering; she knew she was callous and selfish for wanting him to bare his heart when she’d already severed it from his body. She knew this and still it stoked a wild fever within her. They were to be married today.
Married.
He’d promised he wouldn’t treat her like this on their wedding day—with a cold remove, with borderline contempt—
“Huda,” she said softly. “Would you leave us, please?”
Only then did Cyrus lift his head, an inscrutable reaction flashing in and out of his eyes.
Huda, who’d been patting down her bodice with a napkin, looked up as if pinched. “Leave you? With him?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Yes,” Alizeh said irritably. She frowned at Huda. “I need to speak with him regarding a private matter.”
“A private matter?” she repeated, aghast. “But dear, he’s indecent. We’re all very lucky I happened to be here to act as chaperone when he came upon you in such a state—”
“Huda, please—”
“Have you seen the man’s thighs?” she said, pointing. “That towel is hardly strong enough to do the job required—in fact, I daresay it’s liable to tear in half—”
“You seem somehow incapable of delicacy,” said Cyrus, cutting her off, “so I ask this question sincerely: Do you happen to think I’m deaf?”
Both ladies promptly lapsed into silence.
Cyrus had crossed his arms against his chest as he spoke, which only emphasized the problem: he cut a majestic figure.
In fact, he was breathtaking.
The broad expanse of him; the sinewy cord of muscle that carved his arms and shoulders; the masterful lines of his torso. Everywhere, every inch of him, had been honed.
His gleaming, golden body seemed to have been built with the simple purpose of containing tightly coiled power. Even after all he’d suffered he remained vividly rendered, and the effects of his beauty were not lost on Alizeh, who was only better at hiding her reactions than her friend.
Privately, she felt she might need to lie down.
Alizeh was trying to draw her eyes away from him, scolding herself for gaping at him like a shameless idiot, when her eyes caught a flash of movement—
The bright green locust, from earlier, had sprung upon his shoulder. Cyrus released his arms in surprise, then turned to look at the insect as if he’d been tapped by a stranger.
His eyes widened a touch.
She watched, hardly breathing, as Cyrus tilted his head toward the visitor, then slowly, elegantly, turned out his hand. The locust promptly hopped into his palm.
Huda gasped aloud; Alizeh gasped in her heart.
It looked for all the world as if the insect had arrived with the express intention of paying Cyrus a visit; and Cyrus, for his part, did not seem surprised enough by the focused attentions of a locust.
His eyes pulled together with indecipherable emotion as he studied the creature, and then, so briefly she nearly missed it, a smile touched his lips.
That was it.
The locust tossed itself dizzily into the air and flew away, propelling itself past her shimmering gown and out the open window. Within seconds, the swarm in the distance dispersed, the din fading entirely into the white noise of the waterfalls.
That could not have been coincidence.
Alarmed, Alizeh looked from the window to Cyrus, then back again, but Cyrus was gazing steadily outside, at the spiders unfurling themselves from their threads, launching themselves off the ledge.
Something had just happened. Alizeh felt certain of it.
In fact, she felt strange: almost emotional. Her head was heating unevenly. She couldn’t explain why the ephemeral scenes had moved her so. There was nothing to it. Just earlier she’d experienced a similar encounter with the locust; and yet she felt, inexplicably, that Cyrus had experienced something more.
Huda, meanwhile, had been affected not at all.
“Are you quite finished?” she said sharply. “Standing there scandalizing your audience in a towel that scarcely fits—”
“As I said.” Cyrus cut her off, lowering his eyes to the ground. The dark tension had returned to his face. “I’d not realized we had company. I have no dressing gown here. My old clothes were taken away. I was only in search of something to wear—”
“We?” Huda’s eyes went round. She still held the sopping napkin she’d used to mop up her dress, and she lifted it now to her mouth in shock. “We? As if you might be entertaining guests together? As if my presence is the only issue of impropriety? As if it might’ve been acceptable for you to appear before the queen unclothed!”
“Huda,” said Alizeh. “Please—”
“No—no, I will not leave you with this—this rogue,” she said to Alizeh. “I’m afraid it is my duty as your best friend to remain firmly by your side until he is decent.”
“Best friend?” Cyrus raised his eyebrows. “Is this a recent promotion?”
“I am ignoring you, degenerate that you are!” Huda declared, rising quickly to her feet and nearly knocking over the table. She smoothed the tablecloth, righted the clattering teapot, then readjusted the silverware. “Come, Alizeh. I see now why he was deemed unfit to be a Diviner. Not an ounce of virtue—liable to pounce upon a lady at any moment. We’ll get him his dratted clothes—”
“There’s no need,” Alizeh said, standing with a composure she did not feel. “I have his wedding garments here.”
Cyrus went solid with alarm. “Wedding garments?” he said, and almost—almost—looked at her. “I have no wedding garments.”
“I know,” said Alizeh, hesitating. “Your mother said you’d never had anything commissioned for the occasion. So I made them for you myself.”
He looked up sharply at that, finally meeting her gaze for the length of a breathless moment, his eyes heating with an emotion so intense it was impossible to decipher. Just as sharply, he looked away. He fell silent, then said flatly—
“No, thank you.”
Alizeh absorbed this rejection like a shock to the heart. It was a second before she could gather herself.
“No, thank you?” she echoed. “You mean you will not wear the garments I made for you by hand?”
Cyrus returned his eyes to the ground. “No.”
