Page 36 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)

Thirty-Five

ALIZEH FINALLY SIGHED, RUBBING HER EYES .

“Hazan,” she said wearily. “I think we might need to risk making a full journey into Arya. Scaling the mountains each time is costing us days, for it requires tremendous physical exertion, and a single flight on dragonback might not be so conspicuous.”

“Do you mean to suggest we set up camp in the mountains?” he said, frowning.

“ Camp? ” said Huda, dropping her snowball.

“I realize we still don’t know where to start,” Alizeh went on, “but yes, I fear we must simply commit to the unknowns. It’s been five days, and we’ve made no discernible progress—”

“That’s true, but—”

“We’d originally planned to establish camp in the old mountain village in Temzeel province,” Alizeh was saying, “where access would’ve been more direct, but now that we can’t risk such exposure, I think we should pitch tents directly upon the alps for the next few weeks—”

“ Tents? ” Huda cried. “On the alps? For a few weeks ?”

“Your Majesty,” said Hazan. “While I appreciate the frustration that motivates this suggestion—for it’s a frustration we share—I’m afraid our thin-skinned group would never survive such a scenario. The temperatures at that elevation fall to at least fifty below freezing at night.”

“Then perhaps you and I can go alone—”

“Absolutely not,” called Kamran over his shoulder.

“You must travel with a caravan,” Hazan reminded her gently. “Five souls must be willing to lay down their lives for you before the mountain will part with its magic.”

“What about the soldiers?” Alizeh said, dropping her voice as she leaned in. “Can we not ask them, instead, when so many already live in the mountains? Or do you think it would be a great imposition to ask them for such a tribute?”

In response Hazan sat back in his seat with a sigh, looking more than a little exhausted.

He wore a fox fur cap nearly the same shade as his ash-blond hair, his hazel eyes looking both brighter and older in the cold morning light.

He closed his logbook with slow motions, regarding her then with steady warmth, but thinning patience.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he said quietly, “but I’d rather not involve anyone we don’t implicitly trust unless it proves absolutely necessary.

I do believe that your soldiers would die for you, but I have no faith in their ability to keep gossip out of their mouths.

Besides,” he added, “you try having that conversation with Huda.”

Huda looked up. “Did you say my name?” Then, to Kamran. “Did someone say my name?”

Alizeh squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them.

She felt she was unraveling.

She worried if she did not do something soon she might be driven to something like lunacy.

Every day her skin heated and trembled with sensation, circling her throat.

Morning and night Alizeh searched her own reflection and wondered, as a breathless panic overtook her body, whether she was capable of committing the necessary, impending murder.

She released a shaky breath.

All she knew for certain was that she’d been masterfully deceived.

She should’ve listened to Hazan and never bound herself to something so dark as a blood oath.

She never should’ve allowed any of this to happen.

She’d played directly into the hands of the devil, and she knew not how—and she knew not wherefrom the counterattack might come.

For she was certain there would be a counterattack.

She was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cyrus was innocent of the crimes leveled against him.

She could not explain how she knew this.

She didn’t care if no one else agreed. She could only say, with a conviction that grew stronger in every minute, that he had been unjustly maligned and cruelly handled, and she would pay for condemning him so easily.

She would pay for the darkness she’d inevitably deliver herself when she finally, dishonorably, killed her own husband.

Heavens, Alizeh feared she was losing her soul.

“I know there is a process, Hazan,” said Alizeh, straining for equanimity. “I know we must keep to the plan. But I’m beginning to worry that our progress is too slow. If we delay any longer we’ll put a great deal at risk. My people remain unprotected and exposed—”

“That’s not true, Your Majesty, the Diviners have promised to watch over them in your absence—”

“Yes, but how long can I be gone before my absence causes another uproar? And what of the collection of threats we’ve received from distant kingdoms, so many vying for my head? Have you had any indication of further aggression from the Zeldan empire?”

Kamran chose that moment to hurl a snowball at Huda, who shrieked in outrage. The prince nearly doubled over laughing, just until Huda launched her own snowball in retaliation, pelting him straight in the face.

Kamran lost his head.

“Was it really necessary to hit me in the face ?” he cried, shaking snow from his hair. “That was excessively violent—”

“Alizeh,” said Hazan.

She turned to him at once, for Hazan rarely, if ever, called her by her first name.

“You are my queen, first and foremost,” he said, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “But you are also my friend. And I think, before we make any further plans, we must finally discuss this delicate situation, which is becoming dangerous and untenable.”

Her heart picked up. “What situation?”

Hazan did not dignify the question with a response.

“The tension you carry about you now is so palpable it’s beginning to scare me.

I can understand that you are under a great deal of pressure, trying to balance all that must be on your mind.

I know that you fear for our people and that you’re worried about accessing your magic.

But over the course of the last week you’ve appeared every day more dejected—more agitated—and I fear it’s beginning to affect morale. ”

“Morale?” she said, sitting back.

“You deserved it,” Huda was shouting. “No gentleman would strike a lady unawares—”

“Are you meant to be the lady in this scenario?” countered Kamran.

Huda gasped so loudly she startled the birds.

“The soldiers fear you’ve lost your conviction,” said Hazan.

“They’re beginning to wonder what’s happened to diminish your smiles.

They want to know why, among other things, you are rarely seen with the king, why he takes his meals alone—why you don’t so much as look at each other for long.

Despite the circus of it all, I feel I must, for the purposes of our greater mission, ask you to encourage each other to put forth a little effort into the performance—”

“Hazan”—she shook her head—“you don’t—”

“You sanctimonious swine,” cried Huda, who began pelting Kamran with anything she could find—sticks, clods of dirt, a few round stones—

“I’ve tried to emphasize to the troops that we are all but at war,” Hazan was saying, “that there is little time for outward displays of cheer, but they are beginning to doubt—”

“Hey!” The prince covered his face as he was bombarded. “Stop! What the devil is the matter with you—”

“And you should know, of course, that I’ve spoken with Cyrus several times,” Hazan pressed on. “The problem is he won’t speak on anything unrelated to the present political and logistical matters before us—”

“Then you are favored, indeed,” Alizeh said quietly. “For he hardly speaks to me at all.”

“What?” Hazan froze. “What do you mean? You share a room. You share a bed . You see each other morning and night—”

“We do not share a bed,” said Alizeh stiffly.

“We almost never see each other. We retire for the day at the same time only to keep up appearances, but Cyrus rarely does more than acknowledge me. He faces the wall while I prepare for sleep, turning around only once I’ve put out the lamplight.

And then he sits in the dark by the front door, fully clothed.

I don’t know whether he sleeps. Were it not for the glow of the wood stove I’d scarcely even sight his shadow.

He’s always gone just before the sun rises.

Sometimes I hear the door, but most times he’s simply gone by the time I wake. ”

Slowly, Hazan closed his eyes. “Tell me you exaggerate.”

“Hazan,” she said desperately, “he doesn’t even remove his boots.”

Hazan dragged a hand down his face, looking somehow angry and amused. “That infuriating, headstrong, incorruptible jackass, always the bloody martyr—”

Alizeh felt her heart stop. “You think he’s incorruptible?”

“No,” Hazan said quickly, though he frowned, as if he were confused. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“But—why did you say he’s always the martyr? What did you mean?”

“Nothing,” said Hazan, though he said it haltingly, with the same confusion. “I merely—I spoke too hastily—”

“All right, children,” came the saccharine tones of Princess Firuzeh’s voice. “Everyone settle down now. It’s time for tea.”