I turned back to the men at the cave mouth. They were soldiers in Qamih colors, and they carried short swords at their waists. They had the look of men who had traveled far—worn boots and the slight bowlegged stance that comes from sitting astride a horse for hours at a time—but they did not look overly weary. I knew their camp was close, but apparently they had not ridden hard to catch us. It was useless to lament the days we had wasted in Kharuf. We had stopped with purpose every time, and it was not as though going farther into the desert would have solved anything, but still I felt like we should have done more. We were all Zahrah had, and we had failed her.
I thought how, only a short time ago, I had dreamed that someday soon we would break the curse and Zahrah would be a princess in truth, instead of a dark secret that everyone pretended would live without worry for the rest of her days. I had dreamed that I might marry her and take up a place in her court, as my mother had planned, though it would not be the place she had thought I would have. It was so foolish now, and I realized that it had always been foolish. Dreaming had done me no good, as it did us no good now. There was only the reality of capture, and the uncertainties of what punishment we would endure at the hands of the Maker King’s son. I hoped for Zahrah’s sake, and for Arwa’s, that the rumors of his character weren’t true. And yet, he had chased us across the heathered slopes of Kharuf. We were probably not so fortunate.
There was a stir at the cave mouth, and a man’s figure came into sight.
“Get them out of there,” he said. “It’s too stuffy in that cave for me to go in. Bring the villains out to face me, as they ought.”
My first impression of Prince Maram was that he had not earned his reputation as a fighter. He was broad-shouldered, of course, and well-muscled enough, but the sword he carried was too delicate for real combat, and his hands had no sign of any of the calluses that would have been formed by extended use of weapons. He dressed very well in silks that were far too expensive for the conditions he wore them in. They would be ruined, certainly, by the day’s end, but he seemed to have no care of that. It angered me, who had seen the suffering of those who starved to buy the most basic homespun wool, to see him have so little regard for his clothes.
The prince made a disgusted sound when he saw us, waving his hand before his face as though the air of the cave offended him. I’ll admit that after several hours of sitting in close quarters there was a bit of an odor, but it was hardly as bad as he made it out to be. I wondered how he could bear the scent of his horse at all, or if he rode with some sort of scented handkerchief to protect his frail sensibilities.
They took Saoud out first, hauling him ungracefully to his feet and forcing him to his knees as soon as he was clear of the overhang. Then it was my turn, and then Tariq’s. Arwa caused them some problems, because in the dim light of the cave they hadn’t seen her veil or realized that she was a girl until they picked her up. The guard who set her beside me looked at her almost apologetically. Too late, I wondered if we should have tried to pass Arwa off as Zahrah’s handmaiden, but as soon as I thought about it I realized that between her clothes and her bearing, Arwa was clearly one of us. We were all blinking as our eyes adjusted to the light.
“My princess,” Maram said, and I realized that Zahrah was standing just behind him.
There were still guards standing at each of her elbows, though they no longer supported her. She was straight-backed, and had covered her face with her veil, which she had never done in front of us before. I noticed that they had taken her shoes. He didn’t know then, the Maker King’s son, how far she could go in bare feet.
“Your captors, my love,” he said to her, bowing slightly from the waist. “Now you can see that you have nothing further to fear from them.”
Zahrah said nothing and did not so much as move her head, though her shoulders trembled a little bit. She had put the veil up as a defense, so that Maram could not read her face. I hoped he merely thought she was being modest in front of her fiancé and so many of his men. I couldn’t see her either, but I knew she would be fuming. It was rage that shook her, not fear.
“What shall we do with them, your highness?” asked the guard who had carried Arwa. I sensed a great reluctance in his tone, and fear coursed through me. This man was expecting to receive a terrible order, and he would hate it, but he would carry it out.
The Maker King’s son looked at us for a long moment, as though he expected us to beg. We wouldn’t, of course; and I knew Zahrah wouldn’t either.
“Bring them,” he said. “We will return with these miscreants to the castle of King Qasim.”
I let out a whisper of a breath, but did not dare show more relief than that. We would not die here in the sand.