Even my own kind were not immune. I had seen my lesser kin go down from the mountains too early, before their power had rekindled. They tried to make bargains and manipulate humans, but they overextended themselves and could not pay the price that magic always requires. I had paid it in small sums, stretched over decades of waiting, and as a result, I was strong.
I could tell that she was close. We followed the trail that the piskeys had made by accident, but before we went too far, I knew that she was before us. I could feel her—the part of her mind that I had ensured would always stay empty until I chose to fill it. It called to me, as I had known it would. The gaping space where I would make my beginning with her, before I reached out and took the rest of her by force. It was every bit the temptation I had feared it would be, but I was not afraid.
This was what my kinsman had felt, all those years ago in the desert. He had taken the king and used that power to get more, but he had still been tempted by the Storyteller Witch, and by the magic she had brought to their marriage bed. He had not been strong enough to kill her, to take from her if she would not give, and to leave her body in the sand like he had left hundreds before her. So he reached too far. He failed. And he took the rest of us with him when he fell. I would not make his mistakes.
The hunting parties rode out the morning we reached the first wadi bed, but the prince commanded that the camp be left standing. He knew that his prize was close, though he did not know what winning it would cost him. Magic is a tangled knot pulled tightly in each direction, and some of the threads are hidden by the others. The Maker King’s son could not see the complexity before him. That suited my purposes too.
And so I waited one last time while the horses went out and men scoured the desert. I could have gone with them, could have found the Little Rose before they did, but they had earned this chase and catch. And I had earned the fear that the Little Rose would feel when she was finally caught. If I had raised her, she would have been perfect, but she would have been a pawn. Now she would be frightened and angry, and she would try to fight me. It would be all the better when I caught and crushed her, leaving her screaming in her own mind while I did horrors in her name, or sent her to her husband’s bed.
The sun rose, and I took a form that men could see. I went to the prince’s tent and demanded entrance. His remaining guards let me in without mustering any defense, even though they were plainly surprised by my appearance. Their master thought it a lark, I supposed, for a demon to surprise his own men. I felt my distaste for the lot of them surge, and was glad that soon enough I would grind them all back into the sand from whence they had come.
At last there were shouts from the wadi, and the prince was called to see what had been found. I could have gone then, to look at her, and see her face when she was trapped. But I had not come so far to waste this moment on a whim. She would see me for the second time in her life, and she would be on her knees before me. It would take time to arrange, time for the prince to secure her and bring her back to his camp, but it was time I did not fear to spend. I had waited this long, and I could wait a little bit more.
THEY TOOK ZAHRAH OUT FIRST, lightly pulling her with one man at each of her elbows. I felt Saoud move to restrain me if he had to, but I offered no resistance, since Zahrah didn’t either. She could have made them drag her, but they seemed willing to treat her respectfully, and so she let them. That was the first thing I learned about our captors. The second thing I learned was that they were less certain what to do with the rest of us. They had clearly been expecting to rescue a kidnapped princess, and likely thought they would find her in the clutches of bandits or some such. To find us so young and vulnerable in a cave perplexed them, and so they hesitated.
Several long minutes passed, and we stayed sitting on the floor of the cave. We didn’t move, and they did not come in to take away our things. I saw Arwa dig into her pack and shuffle something around. Without Zahrah between us, there was a space for her to move. I couldn’t see what she was doing, and she was too far away to stop without drawing the attention she was clearly trying to avoid. It took her only a moment, and then she was sitting still again, waiting.