“We could throw a sheet over him!”
“Ormovehim, you idiot—”
“Dark magic! Oh, dark magic to be sure—”
“He say something about a Jinn queen? To rule the world?”
“I, too, struggled to hear the girl—”
“Are you suggesting I touch those snakes? Are you really suggesting I touch those snakes?”
“Where are the servants?”
“Complete nonsense—Jinn royalty died out ages ago—”
“But you were able to see her, then? Sometimes she really seemed to blur—”
“The servants? They appear to have run away—”
“Look, he’s still bleeding!”
“Ha! It’s more likely you’ve had too much wine—”
“Am I meant to call for my own carriage, then?”
“Appalling, really—simply appalling—”
“What onearthdo you think is happening to his face?”
True, there existed no criterion for managing the present situation—Kamran had sympathy enough to understand that—but this stream of insipid, unproductive commentary was punctuated by random shrieks and shouts, all of which so aggressively thrashed his frayed nerves that he wished, with great passion, that the mass of imbeciles might drop dead.
It required every bit of his energy to keep his mind sharp as pain battered his body, electric spasms seizing his chest, his neck—even aspects of his face—so much so that Kamran didn’t know how much more he might withstand. He was well aware his body was bleeding out, his lungs compressing under the ever-increasing weight of this magic.
Still, he dared hope he might not die.
It was Cyrus’s parting words that kept him calm, kept his mind from unraveling; for it seemed clear that if the southern royal had meant to kill him, surely he would have.
But Cyrus had wanted him to live.
The demented king had claimed a desire to see Kamran survive if only to watch him suffer; indeed, Cyrus seemed tolook forward to his survival, and to the inevitability of their next skirmish.
How, then, might Kamran be released from this prison?
Without a doubt there were living Diviners capable of undoing such magic, but they were scattered across Ardunia; it would take weeks to collect enough of them to form the necessary quorum at the Diviners Quarters—but with an urgent summons, it was possible to deliver to the palace whichever Diviner was nearest.
Evenonemight do just fine.
Perhaps if Hazan hadn’t proven an unfaithful bastard, he might’ve already issued such a summons; doubtless Hazan would’ve handled every detail of this horrific night with aplomb, stepping gingerly over pools of blood only to usher home the affronted nobles with a smile. Even Kamran, who intended to kill his former minister, could acknowledge this truth—and experienced at the thought a resulting pang in his chest. Nevertheless, Kamran would not allow himself to dwell on Hazan’s betrayal; there was no point, and there was no time.
If only he could speak, Kamran would direct the masses himself; he would right now be shouting commands into this sea of gaping halfwits, some too busy proving their delicate constitutions by repeatedly fainting into the arms of their escorts, others too accustomed to the softness of peacetime to remember how to react in a crisis.
Kamran would not refute it: he loathed his peers.
He hated their pretensions, their obsessions with frivolity,their quiet competitions to crush each other with displays of imagined superiority. He resented that he belonged to their circles at all, resented that his new role would force him to spend more time in their company, resented his birthright altogether.
It was then—in an extraordinary moment—that the impending king of Ardunia realized he wanted his mother.
She had been here.
