Page 7 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)

Seven

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, DEAR?” asked Huda. The young woman had yet to take her seat. “You’re not nervous about your fake vows to your fake husband, are you?”

“I’m fine.” Alizeh forced another smile.

“Cyrus, however, has been terribly ill. The blood oath, as you can imagine, has been hard on him. His fever broke only this morning. He’s taking a medicinal bath at my insistence; I think it will do him good.

” She gestured once more to the empty chair across from her, indicating that Huda should sit.

“Well,” said Huda, looking around herself before finally, finally, taking a seat. She sighed. She seemed almost disappointed there wasn’t more of a scandal. “And he’s going to remain behind that wall, then? Naked?”

“Must you keep using that word?” Alizeh said, her cheeks warming. “Do you expect him to keep his clothes on while he bathes?”

“Yes.”

“ Huda. ”

“What?” said the miss, crossing her arms. “Murderers are notorious scoundrels! One trait inevitably begets the other!”

“By that logic,” Alizeh pointed out, “all scoundrels are also murderers.”

“And what scoundrel hasn’t killed a woman’s soul?”

Alizeh stilled. A genuine smile curved her mouth as she nodded, ceding the argument. “A fair point well made.”

“Thank you.”

“You need not worry, in any case,” said Alizeh, pouring Huda a cup of tea. “The blood oath prevents him from so much as touching me without my permission.”

Huda looked up, considering this. She took the proffered tea. “Well, no one else knows that. Did the servants see him here this morning? The gossip alone—”

“We’re to be married, today,” Alizeh said with finality, pouring herself a cup.

“I cannot afford to care any longer about the improprieties, for I need him to be well enough to make it to the ceremony.” She met Huda’s eyes.

“We’ve already been delayed three times.

Our proximity is such now that his pain should be manageable while he prepares for the day.

As for me, here in my room I’m far from the prying eyes of the public, which brings me a great deal of comfort.

The arrangement is ideal. You need not fret that I will see Cyrus naked.

He seems more guarded of his modesty than most.”

“That’ll be the Diviner in him,” Huda said astutely, having a sip of her tea. She helped herself to a biscuit. “I hear they’re painfully proper.”

“I thought you said he was a scoundrel.”

Huda waved a hand, dismissing her own logic with the gesture. “Yes, well, perhaps he’s conflicted. It must be strange in his head. He’s what, twenty-one? And he was at the temple for seventeen years? Imagine dedicating your entire life to being a Diviner only to die a dissolute rogue! Madness.”

Alizeh stirred a lump of sugar into her tea. She made a noncommittal sound.

“Most of them don’t even think to marry, you know.”

“Yes,” Alizeh said softly. “I know.”

“I doubt Cyrus ever considered marriage before the devil forced him into it,” Huda mused.

She took a bite of biscuit, chewing. “I suppose I can see why he’s so angry about the arrangement.

Though I’m also beginning to understand why he might’ve once been drawn to a monastic life.

I couldn’t understand it before, but now—”

Alizeh looked up. “You can?”

“Oh, yes,” said Huda, taking another bite.

“He’s a very drab and dour sort, isn’t he?

Dreadfully solemn, too. I’ve no idea how you intend to tolerate his company long enough to kill him.

It’ll be depressing work. Noble work, but depressing.

” She tilted her head. “He really doesn’t seem the type to be interested in the pleasures of the world, does he? ”

Alizeh had returned her eyes to her cup. She wanted, suddenly, to be alone. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t.”

“Just goes to show,” said Huda, “that you never can tell who people are. Trust no one, I say.” She gestured with her teacup, the liquid sloshing. “Nearly a Diviner! Now look at him. A morally debauched brute. Scoundrel through and through.”

Alizeh turned her eyes out the window.

Always their conversations turned eventually to the evisceration of Cyrus’s character.

She’d grown tired of it.

Alizeh could raise no defense in his honor; she owned no logical reason for demanding an end to these excoriations.

She, too, was embroiled in the mess of it all, having sworn to kill him.

It was, in fact, better for her to hate him—to marinate in the reasons that might make it easier to drive a dagger through his heart.

Yet every unkind word spoken against him registered in her soul as an injustice.

She felt impatience boiling within her. Indeed she wasn’t sure how much more of it she could take—

“I fear I’d make a terrible, frivolous king,” said Huda, contemplating a second biscuit before taking a bite. “Banquets every day, I’d wager. And balls! Oh, but I love to dance. The glittering lights, the opulence, so romantic …” She hesitated. “Do you think Cyrus knows how to dance?”

Alizeh stilled, her teacup halfway to her mouth.

It had never occurred to her to wonder whether the man she was meant to murder would make a proficient dance partner. “I haven’t the faintest,” she said, setting down her cup.

“I’d guess not,” said Huda, finishing off the cookie. “I detect no passion in him whatsoever. The best dancers, I think, can access great emotion—”

“I’m sure he’s an excellent dancer,” Alizeh said too sharply, that familiar anger surging within her.

Huda shot her an odd look.

Alizeh took a moment to breathe, to soften the bite in her tone.

Heavens, when had her hands started shaking?

The teacup, which she’d yet to relinquish, now clattered lightly against its saucer.

Alizeh withdrew her hands, knotting them in her lap.

It was no fault of Huda’s that Alizeh was addlebrained.

There was something dangerously wrong with her; she’d never been so furious or unbalanced.

She felt liable to scream for no reason.

“He is a king, after all,” Alizeh added with forced equanimity. “It’s a skill all but required of his position.”

“Mm. And doesn’t it strike you as odd?” said Huda, as if she’d hardly registered this response. “You, a Diviner, and he, nearly so. It’s an interesting match, if not a doomed one.”

“I am not a Diviner.”

“So you insist, despite all evidence to the contrary.”

Alizeh sighed. She turned her bleak gaze upon her wedding gown, which hung in front of the open window, its majestic train trailing along the floor.

The gown had been chosen for her by Sarra, the Queen Mother, long before her arrival in Tulan.

It was an ice-blue confection of lace and silk, fairly exhaling with diamonds.

It was without a doubt an exquisite garment of the highest quality and caliber, befitting of royalty, and had needed only minor alterations.

It should have pleased her.

Indeed it should have given Alizeh comfort to think that she might finally take the throne.

Today she would be crowned queen of Tulan, and the uncertainties of the future might finally be resolved.

She’d be taking the first real step toward the liberation of her people—toward a future that might secure freedom from tyranny—

And yet—

Her heart felt as misshapen as an arthritic hand.

“Are you ready for tomorrow, then?” Alizeh asked with forced brightness, changing the subject as she returned her eyes to Huda. “Have you finished packing? Have you written to your family to let them know you’ll be coming home?”

“Ready for tomorrow, when I’ve yet to experience today?” Huda set down her teacup with some force, and the porcelain rattled. “You intend to gloss over your wedding day, then? Skipping the party and diving straight into the pain, are we?”

Alizeh gave her a look. “You know as well as I do that today is no party. It’s a performance in service of the people, and as simple as I could mark the occasion without drawing suspicion.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Huda dismissively. “There will be cake and dancing—”

“Dancing?”

“—and feasting and cavorting well into the night—”

“Huda, are you unwell? There will be a solemn ceremony and a simple luncheon. I’ve instructed Cook to make a small cake for the staff. We’re to leave for Ardunia at dawn—”

“Oh, I nearly forgot to ask!” Huda gasped and put down her teacup again, this time so loudly the clatter rang in her ears. “Have you seen the ring yet?”

Alizeh hesitated, distracted. “What ring?”

Huda’s eyes went wide, then narrowed with indignation as she leaned in. “You mean to tell me that good-for-nothing weasel hasn’t even picked out a ring?”

“Of course I have.”

Huda gave a terrifying start, knocked her knees against the underside of the table, and jolted the contents of her teacup directly into her lap. She managed only a tremulous, choked sound as she stared up at him in horror.

The problem was, Cyrus was wearing nothing but a towel.