Abbas roughly hauled Javan into the magistrate’s courtyard. Javan glanced at the guard’s uniform, at the black armband that denoted him as the head of the palace unit. It was too late for the prince. It didn’t have to be too late for his father.
“Please double the guard on the king,” he said quietly as they approached the closest muqsila. “Even if you don’t believe that I’m telling the truth, you must know that he’s in danger. Whoever is trying to take the throne can’t do that while the king is still alive. Not unless he abdicates, which he won’t do once he realizes the boy in the palace isn’t his son.”
The guard said nothing, and Javan’s feet slowed as they reached the bloodstained stocks of the muqsila. His lips formed the rest of the dying man’s prayer, his words a faint breath of sound as his throat closed and his eyes stung.
Soon the magistrate would step out, flanked by his clerks, and the futile process of pleading for his life against the testimony of a royal would begin. It didn’t matter that Fariq and the impostor hadn’t accompanied Javan to the magistrate’s office. The word of the head of the palace guard would be enough to condemn Javan. He was going to fail to complete the destiny Yl’ Haliq had given him. He was going to fail to protect his father.
But he was finally going to see his mother again after eleven long years. The knowledge was an anchor of peace in the center of the raging tumult of fear and grief that stormed within him.
He opened his mouth to ask for the magistrate to take evidence, when Abbas said, “Why do you care what happens to the king? You just tried to kill his son.”
“I’m his son.” Javan raised his head to look at the guard.
They stared at each other for a long moment, their silence broken by the tinkling splash of the fountain and the cooing of doves roosting in the building’s dome.
“It’s a strange thing for a traitor to want to protect the king,” Abbas said.
“I’m not a—”
“Traitor? Of course you’d say that. You’d say anything to avoid being executed.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’d even pretend to worry about the king to deflect suspicion.”
Javan shook his head, desperation lacing his words. “Do what you will with me, but please double the king’s guard. Swear it before Yl’ Haliq. I’m begging you.”
Abbas frowned, and stared at Javan for a full minute before finally saying, “I’ll double his guard.”
“Thank you.” Javan drew in a breath, but before he could say anything more, the guard said, “You definitely look like a Kadar. I’m not sure I remember you. It’s been ten years. You could be the traitor, or it could be the boy in the carriage. Either way, Fariq runs the kingdom far more than the king these days, and he gave me an order. I can’t disobey without losing my own life.”
The man’s jaw tightened. His gaze slid from Javan’s to the muqsila behind the prince. Then he abruptly grabbed Javan’s arm and pulled him away from the blades of death and toward the magistrate’s office instead.
“What are you doing?” Javan asked as they passed the fountain and began mounting the steps that led toward the front entrance.
“I’m not going to chance having a royal’s blood on my hands. Not when I swore an oath to protect them. Say nothing about who you claim to be. If anyone finds out that you’re still alive, I’ll be dead, and shortly after so will you.” He reached for the door handle.
“What are you going to do with me?” Javan asked as the door swung open and the scent of parchment, ink, and peppermint sticks spilled out.
“I’m doing the one thing that will keep us both alive and, if you’re smart about it, could eventually give you what you need to prove your claims.”
“All I need for proof is a few moments with my father.”
The guard escorted Javan into an entrance lined with framed quotes from the sacred texts and said, “I’m throwing you into Maqbara. Gaining an audience with the king will be entirely up to you.”
NINE
THE ENTRANCE TO Maqbara was in the back of the magistrate’s building behind a narrow wooden door with a thick iron bolt across its middle. Abbas had left three hours ago after turning Javan over to the magistrate, a small man with ink-stained fingers and a meticulously groomed mustache, on the charge of attempted murder.
No mention had been made of Javan trying to kill the “prince.”
The magistrate had accepted the guard’s account of catching Javan in the act of trying to run another boy through with a sword. Seconds after the guard had signed his testimony, the magistrate sentenced Javan to thirty years in Maqbara and locked him in a holding cell until he could be escorted into the bowels of the prison. No witnesses called. No evidence recorded.
It was unsettling how easy it was to be convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.
Did a palace guard’s testimony carry enough weight to excuse the fact that the magistrate hadn’t conducted an investigation or allowed Javan to speak in his defense? Whatever the reason, Javan had more important things to think about. He was about to enter Maqbara, Akram’s most infamous prison. No one ever got out before their sentence was served, but Javan was going to have to change that.
As the magistrate unbolted the door and swung it open, Javan sent a swift prayer to Yl’ Haliq for deliverance. Then, heart crashing wildly against his chest, he started the long walk down the tunnel that led into Maqbara.
The magistrate and two of his guards walked behind him. One of the guards held a lit torch. The air smelled of dust and burning pitch. Javan sucked in one slow breath after another, trying desperately to calm the terrible thunder of his pulse so he could think instead of panic.
The guard had said gaining an audience with the king was entirely up to Javan. What did that mean?
The chains that bound Javan’s wrists behind his back clinked with every step, a noise that began to feel like the tolling of a funeral bell.
Why would the king grant an audience to a prisoner? It didn’t make sense.
Javan’s mouth went dry as the truth hit him. Abbas must have lied. He hadn’t wanted to kill Javan himself and risk having innocent blood on his hands, and so he’d thrown him in Maqbara to be forgotten.
What would happen to his father while Javan and the truth of his birthright spent the next thirty years in a cell? The tunnel curved gently to the left, and a light glowed faintly at the bottom of the long incline in front of the prince. It took everything he had to keep walking when all he wanted to do was run, even if it meant the magistrate’s guards would kill him before he ever made it out of the building.
His head spun, and he forced himself to stop thinking about the prison. About spending thirty years here while his father unwittingly welcomed a traitor into the palace.
Maqbara was a puzzle he had to solve. A task that required him to be at his best physically, mentally, and spiritually.
The riotous thunder of his heartbeat steadied. He’d spent ten years focusing on completing every task set before him. On being the best. The stakes were impossibly high this time, but at the heart of it, Maqbara was a test.