Page 55 of The Wishless Ones
“The two of you remind me of my son,” she said, seemingly unaware of the turmoil inside him. “Much of the palace agrees, as well. Those who have seen you in passing.”
“Well, since you haven’t told anyone he’s dead, maybe one of us can take his place,” Jafar said, callously disregarding her pain as she did his. Showing her that her son could be replaced, just as Rohan had taken Jafar’s place.
The Sultana recoiled as if he had slapped her.
Jafar froze.
And the world slowed as he realized: That was it.
That was why she’d taken them from the House of Wisdom, why she regarded them with far more attention than two bedouin boys from a far-off village deserved, and why her palace staff were so few. The Maghrizi, like most kingdoms and tribes of the desert, weren’t keen on portraits, so it was unlikely anyone would even notice.
Jafar almost laughed at her. She had planned this all along—ever since she’d pocketed those rubies and seen him behind her. That was why she had been testing them.
Which meant—
“The prisoner,” Jafar breathed, his chest tightening with the realization. “He wasn’t really a prisoner.”
The Sultana neither denied nor affirmed his words, but her silence was confirmation enough. She looked impressed when she met his eyes, as if she had hoped to carry on the ruse a little longer. He’d lost a piece of himself inside that dungeon, and for what? He had hurt a man, made him suffer,bleed. Because of a twistedtest?
And yet, the only person he was angry at,lividat, was Rohan. His brother, still loitering by that pool, playing with the smallest of the ducklings in the water as if nothing were awry.
“The prisoner is fine, by the way. Despite how well you did,” the Sultana said, finally.
Well.She was commending the level of damage he’d dealt.
Jafar kept staring at the duckling, even as it began to squirm and struggle, his rage rising with the babe’s thrashing as he imagined the Sultana in its place.
And then it stopped.
A stillness fell over the gardens, and down below, when Rohan opened his palms, the duckling was dead.
“But you must know,” the Sultana continued, “that one cannot afford to be second best.”
The babe lay quiet and unmoving in Rohan’s palms, its warmth already bleeding into the cool waters. The other ducklings continued to splash in the pool, blissfully oblivious. His sleeves were wet, but that wasn’t what chilled him to the bone.
First Mama, then Baba, now the duckling.
Jafar was nowhere to be seen—the trellised rooftop terrace where he’d stood with the Sultana was now empty—but he had been there to witness the duckling’s death. And as the chick had gasped its last breath, Rohan was struck with a sense of certainty that his brother’s ire was the reason for the death.
That can’t be,Rohan chided himself.
Still, Jafar’s rage itself scared Rohan far less than howwellthat anger suited him. As if Jafar had cultivated such fury long ago and, over the years, had mastered a way to keep it at bay. He had no reason to be that angry, not when he’d wronged Rohan just as much by dragging him all this way on false hope.
The duckling was only a weight in his palms now, delicate beak prone, feathers still softer than soft. Death was a little like alchemy. An irrefutable change, an irreversible shift from one state to another. The realization sent a surge through him. An excitement, almost. Potent and heady.
Rohan needed to hide the duckling before someone saw him holding it and assumedhe’dkilled the thing.
No sooner had he had the thought than a shadow slanted over him and the dead duckling in his palms. He chanced a look up, hoping it was a passerby, and balked.
The Sultana. The source of Rohan’s problems.
“It happens,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “Runts rarely make it.” Would she believe Rohan if he said it was Jafar’s doing? Rohan wasn’t sure he believed it himself. He was the one who was cursed, who had killed his parents, but what if Jafar’s ire was at the core of it? That darkness that swirled in Jafar’s gaze? “Aman had a graveyard for all the young deaths.”
Rohan hadn’t heard that name before. “Aman?”
The Sultana looked away, but not before he caught the swallow that bobbed her throat, half obscured by her pearl-white shawl. “My son. The prince.”
The eyes she turned to him were ones of torment and pain, rimmed in red. She looked much, much older then. “I do not have the freedom to mourn or tell my people. I will always be a mother, but I’m a ruler first. My son has died, but the prince must still live on.”
