Page 24 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)

Twenty-Three

THERE WAS A SPARK OF motion as Hazan’s firefly appeared on his collar. The insect nosed its way around his neck, and Hazan, his eyes on the horizon, whispered something inaudible.

The firefly took flight.

The creature was almost indistinguishable from a common fly in the daylight, which made it impossible to know what it was doing just then, for its glowing abdomen was illegible in the sun.

Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter.

In the distance, a hive of fireflies came into view, first gathering, then crashing together in a buzz of static where they swirled for several seconds before appearing to dissolve, like dust motes, into the skies.

“ Whoa ,” whispered Omid.

Roughly a thousand men and women materialized then, as if out of thin air. Alizeh blinked and stepped back, astonished by the unusual display of magic.

But then—

Of course. These were no ordinary fireflies.

Alizeh had always known that the insects were inherently magical; not only could they communicate with Jinn, but they also lived mostly among the stars. It was only that she’d never realized they might imbue another with power.

Were all fireflies charged with such magic?

She glanced at Hazan, wondering what secrets he might be keeping from her; but his eyes were fixed firmly on the scene transpiring before them.

The mass of people assembled as warriors might, separating to form various organized factions, though their movements were less rigid, their dark outfits more informal.

As they marched forward it became clearer that they were armed, though they carried a panoply of weapons, and in no particular fashion.

Jinn soldiers.

These were the militias Hazan had mentioned. The outpost, then, must’ve been nearby—or perhaps they already stood within its boundaries. Alizeh grew heavy with wonder as they approached. More than that: she felt nervous.

The weight of what she’d become was every day hitting her harder. That these men and women had been organizing in her name for years, holding faith in her ascension even when she was but a worthless servant enduring beatings from a housekeeper—

This was astonishing to her.

In every moment Alizeh was trying to grasp the depth of her responsibility, of what she might mean to so many. Her heart pounded at the thought. How long had her people withstood oppression without relief, without the promise of salvation?

She felt desperate, suddenly, at the thought that she might disappoint them.

As the various formations charged ever closer, Alizeh looked once more to Hazan, hoping for information, and instead she caught sight of Firuzeh, who was watching the soldiers with an easy familiarity; as if she’d seen this sort of display a hundred times before.

It was another shocking realization:

The princess of Ardunia, daughter-in-law to the late King Zaal, mother of the incumbent heir to the mighty empire, had taken up residence inside an illegal military outpost in the interest of protecting her son.

It was practically treason.

Heavens, but there was a great deal to unravel here.

Alizeh directed the blaze of her confusion in Hazan’s direction, and this time he caught her eye, offering her a bracing smile as he moved to stand beside her. At this small show of faith, she felt herself relax a degree.

Several feet away, the soldiers came to a sudden halt.

Alizeh should’ve known what would happen next—in fact, she should’ve expected it—yet she was still so unaccustomed to these displays of deference that it stunned her when a thousand soldiers fell together on single knees, pressing the first two fingers of their right hands to their foreheads in salute.

“They’re all here for you, of course,” said Hazan quietly. “These are four of the fifty-eight covert militias in Ardunia.”

Alizeh hardly knew what to say.

“It’s not much, I know,” he added ruefully, “but over the years we’ve amassed about twenty thousand soldiers across the empire—”

She gripped his arm blindly. “Twenty thousand soldiers,” she breathed. “ Hazan —”

“I wish our numbers were greater,” he was saying. “Ardunia’s military is half a million deep—”

“How dare you apologize,” she said, turning to him in affecting anger. “Twenty thousand—”

Heavens above, she struggled to speak.

“ Twenty thousand people ,” she tried again. “You mean to tell me that, all these years, twenty thousand people have been searching for me?”

Hazan’s expression sobered as he studied her, his hazel eyes softening.

“Far more than that, Your Majesty. Twenty thousand are only those who took up arms in preparation for your arrival. Rumors of your birth and your changing eyes spread fast across the land nearly twenty years ago. Your parents hid you so well that some lost faith in your arrival. But there were those of us,” he said, lowering his head, “who did not.”

She nearly kissed his hands.

“Hazan,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to thank you for your faith in me.”

He shook his head. “My faith in you is far less extraordinary than theirs,” he said, nodding at the assembled soldiers. “I had the benefit of having met you as a child. I’d seen you with my own eyes. But this—”

He turned to face the crowd. “Your Majesty, this is the first time they’ve ever seen you.”

Alizeh was shaken.

She looked over the scene with great emotion, searching the downcast eyes and bowed heads of those assembled.

Far from homogeneous, there were no superficial traits to bind them all; Jinn, like humans, were not a monolith; there were no external markers to distinguish them from their Clay counterparts.

Here, too, kneeling before her, was a diverse group of ages and backgrounds, younger soldiers wedged between others old enough to be their parents—

Or grandparents.

Alizeh was struck in particular by those among them who should’ve been resting in their advanced age, who should’ve been gently tended to by loved ones after a lifetime of hard living—and who were instead bent now before her in positions that put pressure on their tired bones.

She could only imagine the nightmares that might’ve motivated each one of them to pick up a weapon in the name of a queen they’d never seen.

Alizeh didn’t feel she was worthier than any of them.

She dropped to her own knees before them, gently bowed her head, and crossed her hands against her chest in gratitude.

A ripple of audible shock moved through the assembled troops.

When Alizeh lifted her head, she saw that she’d unnerved them. They were all of them disassembled now, arrested in various half-bent positions, their eyes wide with astonishment.

Alizeh drew herself upright—feeling she might’ve done something wrong—but when she searched for Hazan’s eyes she found that he was looking at her through a rare sheen of emotion.

“Well done,” he said softly.

Alizeh returned her eyes to the crowd.

“Please rise,” she said, holding steady. “You need not bow before me, not when I am so humbled before you.”

Again, a tremble of surprise unsettled the soldiers, whispers lifting on the wind as they searched each other—then Hazan—for a directive. She felt Hazan nod slightly beside her, and it was enough to settle the issue.

With a shudder of sound, the soldiers rose slowly to their feet, the young assisting the old, all of them looking at each other in wonder. A low hum of voices soon animated the meadow, and a thousand pairs of eyes were now aimed at her in awe.