Page 20 of The Wishless Ones
“I heard that the Sultana’s son went off on an expedition across the sea, by ship,” he said, pausing to crunch loudly on some candied almonds, “and never returned.”
The prince of Maghriz. Interesting.
Iago flapped over and perched on a boulder. WhywasRohan so wary of him? Did he fear Iago might have overheard Rohan talking to Baba about the scholarship, and that Jafar might trust Iago? Jafar still didn’t know if he trusted Iago, but Rohan wasn’t doing himself any favors by acting so suspicious himself.
“Did you hear me?” the caravan leader asked.
Jafar shook away the errant thoughts.
“So he…he…” Jafar left the end of his sentence hanging as if he were too frightened to say the word.
“Yes,” the caravan leader whispered loudly. “Hedied. No one has seen that ship in months.”
“That’s horrible. Surely word would have spread,” Jafar replied. “There’s no reason to keep silent about the prince’s death.”
The caravan leader shrugged. “Could be rumor, could be an opportunity.”
Iago squawked. “Opportunity! Opportunity!”
The caravan leader turned to him in awe. “You’re a funny little bird, aren’t you?”
Jafar inched closer to Iago and glared. It took everything in Jafar’s power not to clamp his beak together to keep him quiet.
“Opportunity,” Jafar repeated. “That’s an odd way to view a missing prince, no? Was he not liked?”
And what relation did any of this have to whispers of war?
“Oh, he wasloved,” the man said. “And so it begs the question: Why remain silent about his death?”
“Because he might not be dead,” Jafar said. “The ship might not have sunk. Perhaps they are mired in a storm and their voyage is delayed. There’s still hope of his return.”
It wasn’t as if they hadproofof his death. Jafar studied the caravan leader. There came a point when gossip veered into scandalous and shocking falsehood. Jafar didn’t know how much of what the caravan leader spoke was actually true, and how much was the conspiracy of a man who guided camels through the desert all day.
Still, he pocketed every word he’d collected. He never knew what might prove useful.
They spent days on that caravan, and from there, Jafar and Rohan hailed passage on a boat, losing their dinners and turning green as the sea stole their legs. Iago barely said a word, clamping his wings tight and coiling his talons around anything that kept him steady.
With nothing but the endless sea to distract them, there was more than enough time for Jafar to relive every moment that had led to the destruction of Baba’s manor while Rohan shed more tears about the debris itself. Jafar often felt he was two disparate halves of a whole constantly at war with each other: one nurtured by his mother, the other battered and bruised and tormented by his father.
One evening, when Rohan dozed off against his shoulder, Jafar carefully pulled the scraps of his scholarship out of his pocket, wishing he could show them to his father and tell him,See, I’m going there anyway.Nothing could stand in the way of what Jafar wanted. When he closed his eyes, he saw the House of Wisdom. When he closed them tighter, he saw those rubies he was going to find, bright and red and powerful.
Oh, the power he would have after a lifetime of having none, like a starved animal finally freed of its shackles.
Jafar lost track of the days—had it been five nights? Ten?—before the crew spotted land, and amidst their triumphant shouts and ululations, he saw it: Maghriz. The kingdom shone like an oasis, shimmering in the midday sun, gold sparkling like magic. Jafar felt Rohan’s gaze on him, his judgment, and Jafar masked his excitement. He couldn’t be too happy when he was supposed to be mourning his father.
Jafar couldn’t leave the boat soon enough. He hobbled on weak legs, grateful, in more ways than one, for the sand beneath his sandals. Iago wobbled along a small dune and collapsed on his face.
“I’ll suffer a lifetime of bland crackers if it means never having to ride in another boat,” he groaned when he finally righted himself.
“We’re here,” Rohan breathed. “We made it.”
“The kingdom of Maghriz,” Jafar said with the same hushed awe. “At last.”
He couldn’t quite believe he was here. Everything felt richer, better. Even the air tasted of success. A bazaar spread ahead of them, and it was alive in a way the entire village of Ghurub was not. Vibrant and at once homey. The Sultana was imposing to the world as much as she was compassionate and caring to her people—tales of Maghriz were carried far and wide, and it seemed without exaggeration.
“I can almost see the golden scarab, Jafar,” Rohan said, barely containing a grin.
It took Jafar several tries before he could meet his eyes. “It’ll be ours, brother.”
