Page 76 of The Wishless Ones
Prince Aman kept walking. His gaze flitted from the Sultana to her royal vizier, then drifted to Yara and her father and the guards surrounding the room. He appeared to be analyzing more than looking, like a hawk assessing its prey.
Behind him, Jafar was saying something only Aman could hear. Yara tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at her. It felt deliberate, somehow, as if he was angry at her now. As if he wanted to punish her.
Aman stopped at the front of the room, on the dais near the banquet throne, and every eye turned toward him. He lifted his chin a little higher and spoke, his voice crisp and clear, but empty. “My mother, the Sultana, who has prepared this grand feast for us”—he paused with a dry laugh—“did not intend for me to be here. She sent me on a voyage across the seas in the hopes that I might never return.”
Yara had not spoken to Aman much at all, but she’d thought him timid and soft-spoken, certainly notthis.
Gasps rippled through the banquet crowd. They’d all heard of the voyage. Even Yara had known—this betrothal had been delayed several months because of it. But his insinuation was clear. Had the Sultana truly intended to kill off her son?
She and her royal vizier looked stricken.
“But here I am,” Prince Aman called. “Returned from the dead, safe and sound. King Qadir, you must know that she would rather go to war with you than see me married to your daughter.”
No.A cold sweat broke out along Yara’s brow. That was the wrong thing to say. Everything about it was wrong, as if it had been designed to vex Baba in the worst possible manner. Her father had been waiting for any excuse to end the treaty they’d agreed upon a decade ago.
He shot to his feet now, wrenching Yara up beside him. The Sultana looked pale.
“You think your armies are capable of defeating Hulum,” he snarled, his next words an oath. “I will send this kingdom back to the sands from whence it rose.”
The Sultana struggled to rise. “I—”
“There, there,” Aman continued, speaking over her. “No need to be so hasty, Qadir.” Yara flinched at the disrespect in his bold tone, but her father quieted and listened. He respected those who challenged him. “When I’m sultan, I’m certain we can work out a new treaty.”
The Sultana gasped. “You will do no such thing.”
“Then you will deny me my right,Mother,” Aman countered. The way he spat the wordmothermade Yara flinch. The way he held the Sultana’s gaze with steel made her pity the woman. The Sultana regarded Aman like she could not believe his words and actions were his own, her gaze flitting between Aman and Jafar as if trying to work out a puzzle.
Yara understood one thing: power was shifting. Yielding. Aman drew closer to the front, Jafar behind him. He held a staff in one hand. It was beautiful, a wicked serpent with vibrant eyes of red that seemed to reflect in Aman’s.
“Guards!” Aman shouted. Spears snapped to attention. “Put my mother in a cell and put her royal vizier in another. Far apart—I don’t want them plotting against me again.”
The Sultana began to laugh. “They will not obey.”
But Yara had been here long enough to notice that the guards were new, and Aman’s words were moving—hadthe Sultana attempted to kill him? Still, the guards appeared torn, at first. Then one by one, like puppets slowly being brought to life, they moved. Several stormed toward the Sultana, and another group moved against the royal vizier, who put up more of a fight than she did. The guards were merciless as they restrained them both.
“How is all of this happening?” Yara whispered.
“A divided family can ruin the world, my daughter,” Qadir said, his hand a comfort on her shoulder. “Here we are witness, and we must leave.”
He turned to his own retinue while Yara watched as the Sultana and royal vizier were taken away. Prince Aman walked the remaining steps to her throne—histhrone now—and sat down, Jafar just behind him with his parrot on his shoulder and staff in hand.
Aman’s eyes still glowed the same red as the rubies in Jafar’s staff, almost…Almost as though the two of them were connected by an invisible thread.
She drew her gaze to Jafar’s cold and angry one.
He was watching her. Reading her. That was what was wrong with Aman: he was acting like Jafar. She’d seen Jafar glued to the section on alchemy in the House of Wisdom, learning, studying. Was he controlling Aman? If he was controlling the prince, why had the Sultana looked so stricken by Aman’s claims, as if they were true? Why had the guards listened to him without hesitation?
Yara did not know, but she did know with a sickening feeling what was coming next: punishment.
“Guards!” she shouted, but they were slow to move. Something whizzed past her ear, flying into her father’s neck. She didn’t know what it was or where it had come from, but did it matter? It was the Maghrizi removing a threat in the most cowardly of ways.
Hurt my baba, and it’s as if you’ve hurt me.
The king of Hulum was sinking to his knees. Blood gurgled from his neck. He was fading fast. Unnaturally fast.No, no, no.People were yelling now, some of them trying to leave, others rushing to her aid.
“Baba, no. Don’t—”
“Hush, my honeybee,” Baba whispered, blood trickling from his mouth. “Rule well. Destroy admirably.”
