Page 12 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)
Twelve
“BUT IT WAS MEANT TO be a surprise,” cried Huda, her cheeks high with color. “You weren’t supposed to know.”
Alizeh struggled to hold her smile. “Yes, I realize that, and I’m grateful you went to all the extra trouble, but this was rather an unexpected surprise—”
“Unexpected? My dear, that’s the very definition of a surprise!” Huda pointed from the balcony to the ballroom below, where a kaleidoscope of skirts waxed and waned across the room like phases of the moon. “Look at them,” she said, beaming. “Doesn’t everyone seem happy?”
In fact, they seemed rhapsodic.
The music was deafening, punctuated over and over by cries of joy and laughter.
Even the pilgrims beyond the castle had dissolved into merrymaking, the collective clamor of their raucous festivities pressing, like an endless cheer, against the walls and windows of the castle.
Of course, Alizeh understood the need to celebrate—for the gathered Jinn, her ascension to queen signaled a historic hope—but it had been a difficult day for her, and the relentless shrieking and stomping and drumming had by now muddled her head and frayed her nerves.
She’d convinced Huda, at least, to allow her to retire to this quieter balcony, where they now sat, and which was stationed high above the celebrations.
From here her duties had quieted; rather than dance and clap hands with people, she was expected only to occasionally wave, looking in upon the night with the approval and indulgence expected of her royal title.
“The staff has been deprived, my dear!” Huda was saying. “Deprived! After all we’ve put them through—after all they’ve had to put up with—it’s practically neglect to deny these people an opportunity to celebrate!”
Alizeh feigned enthusiasm, pushing the heavy crown back into place upon her head. Cyrus, who wore no adornment at all—not even a wedding band—was planted like a gravestone beside her.
Alizeh was unwell.
She forced a smile, trying valiantly to deny the impulse to cry as she turned to her friend. “You’re right,” she said, fighting the burn at the back of her throat, the heat conspiring with her eyes. “Of course, you’re right. Thank you for all you’ve done.”
Huda had been plotting these last few days with Sarra, the Queen Mother, and Mrs. Zaynab, the housekeeper, to throw a small but lavish ball in honor of the newlyweds.
For security reasons, they’d invited no one beyond the royal staff—none beside the present Ardunian contingent—so there was really no reason to be concerned.
It was a self-contained affair, and a lovely opportunity for the household to enjoy a bit of well-earned frivolity.
Deen and Omid, the two unlikeliest members of their group to still be celebrating, were at this very moment cavorting about the ballroom. Alizeh was truly happy for them.
She was happy for her people, for the good this day might do. She was able to hold a multitude of feelings inside her—celebrating this hope even as she struggled—for she was being presently torn apart by all manner of unprocessed emotion.
Every time she caught sight of the gold band on her finger, she felt stricken with grief. Every time Cyrus so much as shifted beside her, she grew only more desolate. She wanted to rip this gown off her body and burn it. She wanted to scour this day from her skin.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to leave this room, leave this day behind, and redirect her desperate, unfocused mind to something useful—like their impending journey to the Arya mountains.
She hadn’t expected to endure a party.
The sun had set ages ago, and Alizeh was losing patience. There was a great deal to be done before they could leave for their journey in the morning, and she knew she’d need time to unspool her mind of the day’s events before she could ever convince herself to sleep.
It was bad enough that she hadn’t a moment of quiet since she’d been crowned queen—bad enough that she’d need to tease apart the meaning of a horrible new riddle from the devil—but worse was that Cyrus appeared to tarnish by the hour, growing only more withdrawn as the night wore on.
He hadn’t said more than a few words to her since the close of the ceremony, and his devouring silence was starting to scare her.
She desperately wished to speak with him.
The trouble was, even if she could get him alone, she didn’t know if she could get him to talk.
“Imagine living in a palace,” Huda went on, “and never using the ballroom. Imagine working in a royal household and never inviting a guest, never hosting a feast, never celebrating anything at all—and all because you take orders from a dreary rogue of a king.”
Dispassionately, Cyrus said, “I am not a rogue.”
“Yet you do not challenge the accusation of dreariness,” said Huda, brows raised. “And why should you? You, who cannot conjure a smile on your own wedding day. You, who sit beside your queen now only upon pain of death—because Hazan has threatened, no doubt, to string you from limb to limb—”
“That’s enough,” said Hazan flatly.
“He’s refused even to dance with her!” Huda cried, turning to face Hazan. “How can you rise to his defense? If my husband refused to dance with me on my wedding day I think I should fling myself off a bridge as repayment for my own poor choices—”
“Huda,” said Alizeh, a warning in her voice.
Her friend looked suddenly horrified. “Forgive me,” she said at once. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean that you—”
“I know you speak in passionate terms only in the interest of my protection,” said Alizeh, softening the rebuke with the tone of her voice, “and I cherish your loyalty. But surely you understand, too, that we should not be held to traditional standards, as this is no ordinary wedding.”
“But they don’t know that,” Huda pointed out, sounding only a little chastened. “If we are to put on a show, should we not do it correctly? Do you not think the people deserve more?”
Huda grasped Alizeh’s hands, looked into her eyes, and said with great feeling: “Do you not think that you deserve more?”
And Alizeh, who knew not how to countermand such a statement, could think of nothing to say.
She lowered her eyes.
Huda did not retreat from her position. “Considering the swarm of hurtful rumors preceding this wedding day, would it not have been kinder to you—more considerate of your reputation—to have done more to deny the gossip flung about behind your back? Heavens, he hardly even looks at you—”
“Yes,” said Hazan.
“ Yes? ” Huda looked up, triumphant. “You mean you agree with me?”
“Yes. Indeed, you make several salient points,” said Hazan, his voice stiff with irritation.
“I, too, think it a minor scandal that the king did not dance with his queen. I suppose I’m willing to be more understanding only because I fear Cyrus has lost a bit of essential brain matter in the wake of the blood oath—for he seems a great deal stupider than he was just days ago.
I can’t fathom why else he’d allow Kamran to spin his bride about the room before he’d enjoyed the privilege himself. ”
Cyrus’s only response to this was to turn slowly in his seat. He regarded Hazan then with a rare, unsheathed look of barely restrained fury.
Hazan smiled.
Alizeh watched this exchange in confusion.
“What about you? Have you no opinion on the matter?” Huda prodded Kamran’s shin with the toe of her slipper, and the prince recoiled, repulsed.
He was still regarding Huda with distaste when he said, “I do have an opinion, and you will not be surprised to find that I vehemently disagree with you.”
Huda scowled.
“Why should she pretend to be happily married?” Kamran expounded.
“It seems far more impractical to set expectations high when they’re to come crashing down so soon.
In fact”—he took a sharp breath—“in fact, I feel that the unsavory performance at the end of the ceremony was perhaps a bit too much—”
“Too much?” Huda cried. “Five seconds of feigned affection was too much for you? Their single embrace has all but fed the empire and slaked their thirst—it’s all anyone can talk about.
Had I not known with my head that Cyrus was a lost soul I might’ve believed in my heart that he truly loved her.
The scene was in fact so breathtakingly romantic that I found myself wondering—”
“ Romantic? ” Kamran laughed. “And you’re the arbiter of romance, are you? You, who move through the world as a sentient bludgeon, could never appreciate the refinement of true romance—”
“Are you meant to be the expert, then?” she said icily. “The self-satisfied prince, so enamored of himself he’s only ever fallen in love with his own reflection? You, who wouldn’t know passion if it slapped you in the face—”
Kamran was upright so quickly he nearly overturned his chair.
“You will never be fortunate enough to know what I am capable of,” he said with a cutting calm.
“By the angels, you astonish me. That you would dare call me self-satisfied, when you are yourself the embodiment of arrogance, leveling accusations as if you know anything about me—as if you’ve ever bothered to ask a single question of me that might satisfy anything but your own prejudices—”
“You terrible hypocrite,” she said angrily. “You—”
“ Shut up ,” said Hazan. “Shut up, shut up . The two of you never shut up . I swear I’ll wring both your necks if you don’t cease speaking to each other for the rest of the night.”
Huda went stock-still before folding herself tightly into her seat. She was positively steaming.
The prince, for his part, had the decency to look mortified.
Alizeh was stunned.
She stared, fascinated, as the tension between the two of them slowly dissipated.
It seemed curious to her that her friend had partly averted her head, and she watched closely as Huda bit her lip and clasped her own hands desperately, dark eyes gleaming with what looked perilously like unspent emotion.