“WHAT ARE YOU – ARE you eating an orange?”
Kamran turned as he spoke, his face taut with dismay, to study the young woman seated in the night sky beside him. For hours now they’d been soaring through the heavens, and whereas he’d only grown frigid with disquiet, Miss Huda half reclined atop her magical bird, staring up at the
stars and eating a piece of fruit for all the world as if she were the heroine in some impassioned novel.
“Yes, why?” She’d paused in the act of lifting a section of orange to her mouth and suddenly startled. “Oh! Forgive me, Your Highness – would you care for a piece?” She held out her sticky palm, upon which sat a sticky wedge, and Kamran recoiled.
She’d offered him the fruit she’d been about to put in her own mouth. It was as if the girl had no manners at all.
“No,” he said curtly.
How Miss Huda had procured the citrus, or why she’d thought to tuck away an orange in the midst of so much mayhem, he’d never know, for he’d
no intention of –
“I filched a few from a passing tray before we left the palace,” she supplied, pausing briefly to chew and swallow. A wash of starlight illuminated her artless movements, her eyes glassy as she stared at him with ill-concealed admiration. “I hope that’s all right. I grow a little light-headed when I take too long between meals.”
Kamran made a noncommittal sound, turning away.
Of all things, he’d not meant to encourage conversation. All this time their unlikely troop had been little able to converse – the constant noise and turbulence of their journey making long chats impossible – but the headwind had finally settled, and the relief among their quintet was nearly palpable. The stunning winged beasts that carried them drew together in a tight formation as they began their slow descent into Tulan. Not long before they touched land.
Meanwhile, Kamran’s mind was waterlogged with fear and weariness.
Grateful as he was for the extraordinary circumstances of his escape, the shine of their journey had begun to dull under the steady scour of his thoughts. He’d no interest in holding forth with anyone.
“Oh – can I have some?” came Omid’s eager Feshtoon. “I’m so hungry.”
The boy had recently decided to communicate exclusively in Feshtoon while the others responded in Ardanz. This new system of communication had lately given their conversations an interesting texture, developed only after the child had discovered, to his supreme delight, that all in attendance were fluent in Feshtoon.
Even, apparently, Miss Huda.
Kamran had been surprised to discover the illegitimate miss was properly educated. He knew the assumption made him seem cruel, but neither could he condemn himself for the thought; it was, quite frankly, bizarre for someone of her uncertain station to be brought up with a governess. Then again, her father was known to be an eccentric.
“I’d love a piece as well, if you’ve enough to spare,” added Deen, the apothecarist. “It smells heavenly.”
This much was true.
The air around them had been scented by the spritz of orange oil, and as Miss Huda broke apart her rations to share with the others, their excited
voices and ensuing conversations served only to provoke the prince. He’d
barely tolerated most members of this unlikely group even in the best of spirits, and now, rumpled and unsettled, his patience had worn thin.
“Leave her be,” came the whisper of Hazan’s familiar, scolding voice. “She doesn’t mean to vex you.”
“Who?”
“Miss Huda.”
Kamran registered these words with surprise, turning to face his old friend as if dealt an insulting blow. “Miss Huda? You think I preoccupy myself now with thoughts of Miss Huda?”
Hazan did not smile, though his eyes indicated some private amusement. “Do you not?”
“If I think of her at all, it is only to marvel at the many inelegant turns of her mind.”
Now Hazan frowned. “That seems unfair.”
“Earlier,” he said, lowering his voice to a hiss, “she tried to eat her way through a cloud. Her jaw, can you imagine?” He mimed a biting motion with his hand. “Snapping her head around, making some ridiculous voice, just to entertain the child. She appears to have no sense of propriety whatsoever.”
Hazan’s face remained impassive as he said, “I believe she called it the hungry cloud monster voice.”
“Oh, and you approve of this, do you?”
“Not everyone takes themselves as seriously as you do, sire. They have neither the energy nor the interest.”
“Are you implying that I’m vain?”
“I’m not implying it, Kamran. I’m delivering the statement to you directly.”
“You’re an ass.”
“It’s a mercy I don’t stare too long in the mirror, then, contemplating the contours of my face.”
Reluctantly, Kamran cracked a smile.
“You’ve never been allowed to drop the crushing weight of imperial
expectations,” Hazan said quietly, staring now into the distance. “Others are not so encumbered as you. That does not make them inferior.”
Kamran gave a small shake of his head, appraising Miss Huda once more from afar. When he forced himself to imagine her beyond the
outrageous crime of her gown, he was able to glean the finer details of her
features. It was not that she was an unattractive girl; it was simply that he found her lacking in refinement. She was loud and indelicate and childish, and being in her orbit made him feel restless, as if his clothes were two
sizes too small.
She laughed, then, laughed until her body shook, and he turned sharply away, the cheerful sound grating his nerves. “If only I might experience the luxury of being so unencumbered,” he muttered. “A cold day in hell that would be.”
Hazan offered him a grim look of understanding, and Kamran, deciding he deserved some relief from his mental punishments, allowed himself to slouch a little in his seat.
He sat astride Simorgh – a legendary bird who’d offered him escape in his most desperate hour – while the others had settled upon the steady backs of her four children. The Ardunian prince hadn’t known what to expect when he’d first climbed aboard the magnificent, towering creature, her wingspan as wide as a room. He’d been so overwhelmed with awe and
gratitude for the privilege of her company that it hadn’t occurred to him to wonder whether the long journey from Ardunia to Tulan would be easy. It was bad enough that he’d been tossed together with these motley souls – all of whom had been lodged into his life by virtue of knowing the same
enigmatic young woman – but the addition of exhaustion, hunger, fear, and unprocessed grief had made the very occupation of his body nearly intolerable.
Kamran had wanted Alizeh – Alizeh and nothing more – and instead he’d been forced to collect the orphan, the by-blow, and the misanthrope; as if his life were some children’s quest game and he’d been dealt a set of
cards he had no choice but to play. Considering how rarely Alizeh seemed to allow others a glimpse into her life, these characters were precious indeed – but had he not been so blinded in his pursuit of a young woman, he might’ve known the bliss of an existence apart from these people.
To compound his churlish mood, the prince had heated unevenly.
Despite the warm engine of the bird’s body, his extremities were all but numb with cold, the bow and its quiver of arrows slung across his back slowly digging into his flesh, and – though he’d never admit this aloud – he’d been carefully ignoring a need to use the facilities for nearly an hour.
Still, Simorgh had proven a mount both unshakable and shockingly plush; her silky, iridescent feathers were a gratifying cushion for his tired
body. He’d hardly slept in days, so upended had been his life. If only he could be certain he wouldn’t topple out of the sky, Kamran might’ve dozed against her neck. Now, as the steady, gentle motions of flight threatened
more than ever to lure him to sleep, he struggled to keep his eyes open. Silently he was grateful for the occasional, bracing slap of cold against his face.
“Are you still hungry?”
Kamran looked up, a soft wind tousling his hair, only to realize the question had not been addressed to him. Miss Huda had procured a banana from some secret pocket in the billowing folds of her horrifying dress and was now straining across the dark expanse of the universe to hand the fruit to Omid, whose eyes had lit up even as his mouth was still full. He scrambled eagerly to accept the offering and, in a moment that caused Kamran to stiffen in alarm, the two of them knocked heads and nearly fell out of the sky.
Omid and Miss Huda promptly dissolved into gales of laughter, delighted to have nearly killed themselves with stupidity. Even Deen, the grouchiest of the four companions, had managed a smile.
It made Kamran irrationally furious.
He didn’t understand that what he felt as he watched them was not anger, exactly, but a mix of longing and resentment. Omid, Huda, and Deen had come on this journey only for a bit of adventure, for a touch of the magical. They were not here as he was: in a desperate fight for his life, his throne, and his legacy. That they might laugh so easily, recline so freely, snack as they chatted – it made him seethe with indignation. Secretly he longed to know such cheeriness; but being unable to express these feelings even to himself, he simmered in his frustration instead, allowing the familiar arms of anger to bolster him as he sat in the sky, slowly eaten away by unknowns.
His thoughts of Alizeh, of course, loomed largest.
