The woman’s anger surprised her.
Alizeh studied the lady framed in the doorway: her flashing eyes, her pursed lips, the tension she carried in her shoulders.
Rather than being comforted by the woman’s fury, Alizeh found the conversation alarming. Sarra railed against her son, condemning him for his actions and demands—even as she fulfilled them. Alizeh had sympathy enough to imagine why Sarra mightstayin the palace; perhaps she remained on principle, not wanting to be forced out of her own home—or maybe Cyrus had taken control of her assets, leaving herwith nowhere to run. Having experienced it herself, Alizeh could not recommend destitution as a worthy alternative to a warm bed.
No, it was not that Alizeh lacked insight to understand the difficulty of the woman’s situation; it was the matter of Sarra’s inconstancy that scared her—that insisted something was amiss. These rooms, after all, were by Sarra’s own admission a result of her efforts; the wardrobes stocked with gorgeous garments were evidence of orders executed.
How could she rage against her son while doing his bidding? How could she not see that by building Alizeh this beautiful prison, she was complicit in her son’s crimes?
Still, there was some comfort to be derived from the woman’s company, for Sarra had proven that she was not a liar. As promised, the pain in Alizeh’s wounds had begun to subside and, finally, she unclenched; she allowed her body to float a moment in the warm water, her hair surging against her face, dark tendrils like tentacles streaking across the foamy surface.
Carefully, Alizeh reached for a bar of soap set neatly in a cove above her eye line and began lathering her aching limbs. Her head soon filled with the decadent scent of star jasmine. “Why did you come to me?” she asked, glancing at Sarra. “Why did you think we could form an alliance?”
Sarra studied her, saying nothing for a long moment. “You’re certain you don’t want to marry my son?”
Alizeh returned her assessing gaze. “You doubt me?”
“I am not blind to the beauty of my own child,” she said, arching a brow. “There are thousands of young women acrossTulan who would marry him in a trice. It might shock you to hear it, but he has quite a dedicated army of admirers. They don’t yet know about you, of course—but they’ll be very sorry, indeed, when your betrothal is announced.”
“There will be no such announcement,” Alizeh said angrily, “as I will not be marrying him. Why are you even telling me this? You think my opinion of your son might be swayed by the passing fancies of a deluded mob?”
“Not at all,” Sarra said, rewarding her with a blinding smile. “You were tricked, as you said, into coming here. You told me yourself that you loathe him. You’ve already tried to kill him. And you proved in the first minutes of your arrival that you are both brave enough to stand up to him—and strong enough to challenge him. I have no expectation of you marrying my son.”
Alizeh went uncommonly still.
Sarra was closing in on her, taking careful, measured steps into the room, and Alizeh couldn’t shake a fear that she was being slowly outwitted—swindled, somehow, by the character she’d least suspected.
The problem was, she didn’t know why.
Or how.
“What do you want from me?” Alizeh said, reaching for a nearby towel. She snapped open the cotton as she stood, somehow managing to protect her privacy while bandaging herself in its warmth, clinging to the cloth as if it were a suit of armor. “You vilify your son at great length, and yet I haven’t heard you offer me an avenue of escape. If you hate him so, why will you not help me break free of him?”
“Because I need you,” she said, retrieving a robe from a hidden cabinet, which she then offered to Alizeh. “Because we need each other.”
“I neednothingfrom you,” said Alizeh, even as she snatched the robe from Sarra’s hands. She stepped out of the tub, her heavy curls dripping water everywhere. “But I see now that you, as with everyone else, seem to want something from me.”
“I only want justice.”
Alizeh scoffed at that, discreetly swapping her towel for the soft robe, which she tied, with angry motions, at her waist. “You remain complicit in my capture—and yet you expect me to trust that you have any idea of justice?”
“You and I are both captive here,” Sarra said softly. “I only play my role differently than you.”
“How can that be true?”
“You seem to forget, darling, that Cyrus killed my husband.”
At that, Alizeh went still.
Very slowly she looked up, studying the woman before her as if for the first time.
Indeed, Alizeh had forgotten.
She’d heard the rumors of course; there’d been all kinds of stories about Cyrus the Ruthless, the child who’d murdered his own father for control of the crown. This news was as recent as several months ago; Alizeh had not yet arrived in Setar then, where the conversations surrounding the bloody exchange had no doubt been louder—but it had not mattered. The massive headlines had been plastered across thefront page of every local paper for weeks on end, for the savage transfer of power had seemed ominous to all the world. If the young king was willing to murder his own father in the pursuit of glory, whose throne might he try to overturn next?
Well. They knew the answer to that now.
“It’s not fashionable for a mother to hate her own son,” Sarra said quietly. “No matter their ills and evils we are expected to go on loving them, forgiving them even when they mutate before our eyes into murderers.”
