The servants paid us little attention as we approached, and only a few guards remained in Vaida’s wing, peering enviously from the window at the end of the hall. When we reached the hall with the Sultana’s room, Sefa and I hid around the corner. A Lukubi guard leaned against Vaida’s door, idly adjusting the strings on her vest. Marek rumpled his hair, undid the top laces of his tunic, and swaggered past us.
Her face brightened at Marek’s approach. She recognized him from the Ivory Palace. He aimed a mischievous grin at her, bracing an arm above the guard’s head as he murmured in her ear. She trilled a laugh. Watching Marek wield the appeal that came so naturally to him, I couldn’t help my swell of envy. My personality did not lend itself to romantic musings, even the fleeting kind. Or so I had thought. Recent events seemed to indicate otherwise. But where Marek could be dying from six stab wounds and still find the energy to charm the nearest living creature, I had nearly broken my ankle trying to avoid Arin this morning. I didn’t understand the reactions I was experiencing, so I did what I do best in times of inner turmoil: I ignored it.
A gleeful shriek snapped me back to attention. The guard was swatting at Marek’s chest with her free hand while he kissed her fingers one by one. From Sefa’s exasperated sigh, this was far from her first encounter with Marek’s weaponized allure.
The guard hooked her fingers into Marek’s waistband, yanking his hips flush to hers. He captured her lips in a filthy kiss. Broad hands lifted her against the wall. The guard wrapped her legs around Marek’s waist, mussing his golden hair and nibbling at his ear. Marek gripped her thick thighs and carried her backward, sparing a wink in our direction before kicking a random door open and disappearing inside.
I straightened, following Sefa to Vaida’s abandoned door. “Should we… interfere?”
Sefa closed the door behind us. “Seducing beautiful women is not a hardship for Marek. Let them have their fun.”
Vaida’s quarters were twice as large as mine, and I suppressed my groan. There were countless places she could have hidden a ring. The breeze from her open window carried a faint note of the festival’s music.
“I will take the right side, you take the left.” I yanked the drawer of her dressing bureau. A mountain of red undergarments burst free. “Did Marek do this often while you two were bouncing between villages?”
Sefa rummaged through Vaida’s bedside table, sweeping each drawer. “Constantly. He couldn’t seem to help drawing attention everywhere we went.”
“Does it bother you?” I threw open the wardrobe doors, searching for any hidden jewelry chests.
“Why would it?” Sefa moved to the opposite bedside table. “Just because I have no interest in such affairs does not mean I expect the same from Marek.”
My curiosity chose this inopportune moment to demand satisfaction. I flipped the cushions on Vaida’s chairs, digging into the corners of the divan. “Was there ever a time when Marek wanted more than friendship?”
Sefa pursed her lips before groping under the pillows piled on Vaida’s cavern of a bed. “Yes, and then that time passed. I have encouraged him to find someone in Mahair, to build a life with a partner who welcomes his passion and devotion.” She crawled under the bed, and I went through the washroom. When we emerged, she continued. “He refuses.”
“Where you go, he will follow. A relationship with another person will falter under his commitment to you,” I pointed out.
Sefa heaved a sigh, opening the doors to the second wardrobe adjacent to the bed. A dozen ivory gowns hung inside.
“We have depended on each other for too long. He thinks letting himself love someone will break his attachment to me. I don’t know how to prove to him he doesn’t owe me his life.” Sefa admired the stitching on the hem of a delicate silk gown. She glanced over as I slit open a cushion and stuffed my arm inside. “Are these questions new to you?”
I flipped the cushion to its good side and shoved it back to the seat. “It was not my place to ask before.”
“But it is now?” Sefa asked, smiling. She parsed the items on Vaida’s beauty table, knocking perfumes and powders together. “If it means anything, it has always been your place to ask.”
I stopped slashing Vaida’s cushions. Sefa always did this. Casually offered her heart to me. I had thought it was a personal failing, the ease with which she gave it away. But Sefa—Sefa was stingy with her confidences. She simply chose to trust me, in particular, over and over again.
“Sylvia? What is it?” Sefa abandoned the table, perching on the divan beside me.
Essiya, Hanim warned.
I swallowed past my dry throat. “You were right.”
“Right about what?” Sefa frowned. She scrutinized my downcast gaze. Understanding flashed across her features, and her jaw dropped. “Oh, Sylvia, no.”
The words spilled with the force of blood bursting from a severed artery. “The Heir—he enrages me, Sefa. I have never encountered a more paranoid man in my life. He lives from one theory to the next, manipulating people with utter detachment, and I can never guess what horrors his mind will concoct. Did you know he eats with his right hand when he is in a good mood and his left when he isn’t? Why do I even remember that? And if he touches me, it does not—I don’t—” I shoved the dagger into the cushion, tearing a diagonal line across the velvet surface. I could not bear to look at Sefa. “He is Nizahl’s Commander. I should burn with hatred every second spent in his presence.”
“Do not tell me what you should feel,” Sefa said. Brown eyes met mine without a trace of judgment. “Tell me what is true.”
How could I tell her I did not have the words? Words… those were the least of my troubles. They were not my eyes, fastening to him as soon as he entered a room. My heart, beating in double at his nearness. But worst of all, I could not admit to Sefa that the Nizahl Heir made me feel most like myself—and myself was not someone I had the luxury of learning.
Vaida’s voice echoed from outside. “She’s coming!” Sefa panicked.
“Into the red wardrobe. Go!” I shoved her from the divan, waiting until she pulled the doors shut over herself to catapult over the bed. I closed the doors of the white wardrobe, immersing myself in darkness just as the door rattled.
I peered through the narrow slats in the wardrobe. The door burst open, and I had a surprisingly clear view of Vaida reeling into the room.
“This beggarly kingdom may lack in every other respect, but Omalian festivals”—she hiccupped—“do not disappoint.”
By her unsteady gait, the Sultana had not been conservative in her consumption of Omal’s wines. A second figure stepped forward, and I recognized the line of his broad shoulders before he spoke. “Watch your step,” Arin said.
Vaida tripped over a chair leg, careening into the Heir. She caught herself on Arin’s chest and seemed baffled to find her wrists clasped in a gloved grip and held away. Vaida frowned.
“Is this about yesterday? It was a misunderstanding. Don’t you believe me?” She arched up on her toes. I squinted, balanced precariously against the wardrobe doors.