“Enough of this.” The impostor stepped away from Fariq’s side and stood in front of Javan. With quiet malice, he said, “You have dishonored your kingdom. As the prince of Akram, I sentence you to death.”
Panic hit, a shock of fear that shook Javan’s knees and set his heart pounding as the guards hauled him to his feet and dragged him away from the palace.
“Wait! Please! I swear I’m Prince Javan. Let me talk to my father. Keep me in chains if you must, but let him see me. He’ll know me.” Javan’s words tumbled out, fast and desperate, but it was no use. The guards had orders from Fariq, and nothing Javan could say would change their minds.
He was going to die.
“Please listen.” Javan’s breath came in quick gasps and his pulse roared in his ears. The iron chain binding his wrists behind his back cut into his skin as he walked the streets of Makan Almalik, led by Abbas, the guard who used to be assigned to Javan’s mother.
“My name is Javan Samad Najafai of the house of Kadar. I just graduated with top honors from Milisatria Academy in Loch Talam and am returning home for the first time in ten years. The boy who told you to kill me is an impostor.” Javan’s voice was hoarse from pleading his case as the guard escorted him to the magistrate’s courtyard in the heart of the city where he would be beheaded for the crime of attacking the prince of Akram.
The irony was not lost on him.
“I can prove it,” Javan said, for what felt like the hundredth time. “One minute in the king’s presence, and he will recognize me. One minute. That’s all I ask.”
“Those who attack the royal family of Akram don’t get to ask for favors.” Abbas spoke with unflappable calm.
Javan’s voice rose as they reached the base of the hill, the palace perched high above them, and turned toward the center of Makan Almalik. “That boy isn’t Prince Javan of Akram. I am. He plotted to replace me because he looks enough like me to fool those who haven’t visited the academy in Loch Talam.”
“Prince Fariq visited Javan in Milisatria,” the guard said quietly. “Are you saying he failed to recognize his own nephew?”
No, Uncle Fariq hadn’t failed to recognize Javan. How could he? He’d seen his nephew just last year on a two-day stop as he traveled to visit the king and queen of Loch Talam. Javan’s heart ached, and grief pressed sharply against the back of his throat. Fariq had lied. Thrown his support behind the impostor who looked like he could be Fariq’s own son, though Fariq himself had once told Javan the best way to deal with a bastard was to kill it before it grew old enough to want what it could never legally have. It didn’t really matter who the impostor was. Fariq had turned his back on his family. His honor.
The understanding that his uncle wanted him dead—that he was even now welcoming the impostor into the heart of the palace knowing that Javan was about to be executed—was a live coal sinking into the pit of Javan’s stomach.
If Fariq could kill his nephew to put another on the throne, how long would it be until he killed his cousin, the king? Surely Fariq didn’t believe he could deceive Javan’s father for long. The impostor would make a mistake. Forget one tiny detail. And the king would know.
Maybe his father hadn’t neglected to show up to Javan’s graduation on purpose. Maybe Fariq had somehow kept him from it so that the king wouldn’t know about the ruse until it was too late.
They were going to kill his father and take his kingdom, and Javan was the only one who knew. The only one who could save his father and his people.
But first he had to save himself.
And he was quickly running out of time.
“You look familiar,” he said as they passed a bakery with honey cakes and almond-crusted cinnamon knots on display. The air smelled of hot chicory and sugar, and Javan’s stomach rumbled. “I’m certain I remember you.”
“Move faster,” the man answered as they wove their way past clusters of people standing outside a racetrack wearing white linen with sashes the color of their favorite stables, waiting for the betting hall to open. Several craned their necks to watch the guard escorting the boy whose hands were bound in iron chains.
Frantically, Javan cast about until he unearthed a memory—faded and blurry, but it was the best he could do. The picture of happier times, easier times, was a bittersweet pain that bloomed in the hollow space carved out by Fariq’s betrayal.
“You carried me once,” Javan said softly. The racetrack disappeared behind them as they turned onto a street lined with stately white buildings whose tiny courtyards each had a single fountain flanked by a pair of orange trees. The road ended in front of a wide building with a brown domed roof and a courtyard fountain, only this fountain wasn’t flanked by orange trees. It was flanked by a pair of muqsila, their large blades affixed to their iron frames and hanging suspended over the stocks below, ready to decapitate anyone whose crime deserved death.
Javan’s stomach pitched, and the thick, sun-soaked air felt impossible to breathe.
He spoke faster, trying hard to keep his voice from shaking. “I think you were assigned to guard my mother. Your name is Abbas, right?”
The guard ignored him. They were halfway up the street, and Javan couldn’t take his eyes off the muqsila blades glittering like silver glass in the sun.
He’d get to plead his case before the magistrate and ask for evidence and witnesses to be produced, though it was unlikely he’d get much of a stay of execution when everyone believed the crown prince was the one who had ordered Javan’s death. Especially with Prince Fariq ready to lend credence to the impostor’s every word.
Would it hurt? Or would it happen too fast to feel anything at all? One moment, he’d be kneeling in the magistrate’s courtyard, his arms locked in the stocks, his neck resting on a slab of wood with the blade poised above him. The next, he’d be in the verdant fields and golden cities of Yl’ Haliq, earning his reward for his faithful service.
Except that he hadn’t completed his service.
He hadn’t protected his father or his people. He hadn’t done anything at all except honor his mother’s muqaddas tus’el.
And he was out of time.
“Yl’ Haliq, be merciful upon your servant’s soul. Grant me absolution from my sins and forgiveness for my enemies.” He choked on the second line of the dying man’s prayer, but the sacred texts were implacable in their requirements of him. He couldn’t die with a pure heart if he harbored hatred for another.
He’d always thought forgiving others before death would be easy. What did it benefit you to hold an old grudge when you were moving into the next realm?
But now the pain of the injustice done to him lodged in his heart like a splinter of fire.