“Die, princess!” A high, nasal voice split the silence, a fervent, passionate scream that sent cold fingers down my spine.
A slither and stamp filled the room as every member of the audience shot to their feet, sliding weapons from hidden places, elbows and stray limbs colliding because of the tight quarters.
Another bright flash hung in the air, a second blade spinning toward my sister.
Lalana dropped to the ground, the lute clanging to one side in a discordant crash of broken strings. She dropped to her belly and, without pausing, pressed up to all fours, scrambling away from where she had been sitting.
A second loud thud reverberated through the air, the knife sticking just below the first in the wooden pillar. I blanched. That one would have gone right through her throat.
Lalana kept moving, fast, like I would’ve expected from Aliyah or Namir. She disappeared into the audience, wisely making for the safety of the crowd, where the attacker would no longer be able to locate her.
In spite of the panic, my concern for her safety, the fear that an assassin still hid in our midst, I couldn’t keep one thought from crossing my mind…
When did she learn to move like that?
Someone’s elbow smacked into the side of my head, jerking me out of my stupor.
I lurched toward the makeshift stage with everyone else, scrabbling to get to Lalana. She still hadn’t sprung up from wherever she’d ducked down to on the floor. Spirits, if she isn’t stabbed, she’ll be trampled. I tried my best to tear my way through the wall of bodies, but it was hopeless.
People began shouting, arguing about whether it was more important to get Lalana to safety or find the intruder who had somehow located the thieves’ lair and slipped unnoticed into our midst, able to throw a knife at one of our own.
“Zadie.” Lalana’s voice sounded right by my ear, and her fingers clamped down around my arm. “Are you okay?”
Grabbing hold of her, I choked back a laugh. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
Her grip tightened as the mass of bodies moved around us, still shouting. No one seemed to have noticed that my sister had reappeared safely among us, having somehow navigated her way through the crowd completely unnoticed.
I clutched her more tightly. She came here so I could keep her safe. And it was twice now that she’d accidentally been targeted by an assassin while with me. My gaze snagged on a line of blood down the side of her face. I let out a sharp hiss of breath, suddenly turning cold.
Lalana shook her head frantically. “It’s nothing. The knife clipped the side of my ear. You always bleed a lot from the ear. See?” She lifted her hair from the side of her face.
A prickling sensation ran down the back of my head. Even if she were telling the truth, it looked like a lot of blood to me…
Aliyah let out a furious howl, her voice just distinguishable above the cacophony of confused, furious voices. “There!” she bellowed. “On top of those crates!”
A different scream sounded, and there was a stumble of bodies away from an explosion of perfumed, violet smoke.
Tarak had turned into a falcon, a blur of feathers and sharp talons, and shot straight for the shadowy figure on the crates Aliyah, Lisha, and I had sat on earlier.
The figure leapt straight off the other side and ran down the tunnel, another screech echoing as the djinni set off in pursuit.
“Gadiel!” Aliyah barked. “Take Behira, Pakshi, and Nuri and get that assassin.” She leapt up onto a barrel, glaring imperiously at the others assembled around us. “The rest of you, get out, now.”
Outraged voices swelled in the air.
“I don’t want to hear it!” the thief queen snapped. “Someone got past my guards, and I need some space to think about how. Go back upstairs and Faris will listen to your theories about the assassin. I don’t care what you want to say or even if you don’t want to say anything at all. But get…out.” Her lips pulled back into a snarl, her teeth bared, with kohl rimming her eyes and the tattoos stark on her scalp, she looked more like a vengeful spirit than a human.
A few moans and grumbles sounded, but the audience began to filter out as instructed, leaving the chamber looking very large and empty as they disappeared into the tunnel leading back to the thieves’ lair.
The thief queen’s gaze roved the room. Spotting me and Lalana still clutching each other, she leapt down from the barrel and stalked over to us. “We need to talk,” she growled.
“They went after Lalana.” As it really sank in, my hands began to shake. “Do you think they’re trying to use her to get to me?”
Aliyah looked between us thoughtfully. “They could have mistaken her for you, Z. You do look very alike.”
I scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Ali. Lalana looks like that, and I’m, well…” I flapped my arms up and down my body, waving my hand around my face and nose.
Aliyah’s mouth set into a line. “Didn’t you say you helped your sister escape the palace back in Khiridesh by dressing as each other?”
“Yes, but–”
“Are you saying I’m not good with faces?”
“No, but–”
“Then we’re not ruling out that the assassin might’ve mistaken Lalana for you.”
“Actually…” Lalana wrung her hands together. Her dark eyes darted to meet mine, then dropped to the ground again. “Actually, Zadie, I know you were skeptical before–”
“Lana,” I said in the most patient voice I could, hoping that exasperation wouldn’t be etched into my face. “There’s no reason for anyone to send an assassin after you. Everyone thinks you’re dead.”
There was a long silence when Lalana refused to meet my gaze.
Aliyah stepped closer to Lalana. Her face was expressionless, but for some reason, it made me shiver. “Princess,” she said in a soft voice, “your sister has done everything for you. She helped you escape your home so you could marry the man you loved. She welcomed you back here when you returned, and she has done everything she could for you since then. She gave you the most powerful protection anyone could offer with that ring, surrendering what protection it offered herself.”
Heat rose to my cheeks. I supposed it was true, but, well… Anyone else would have done the same, wouldn’t they? Lalana was my sister.
Aliyah gave a soft smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “If there’s some information you’re keeping from us, it’s putting both you and your sister at risk. Now, after everything Zadie’s done for you, don’t you think she at least deserves your honesty?”
Tears spilled from Lalana’s honey-colored eyes.
I looked between Aliyah and my sister in alarm. “Ali, you don’t need to upset her–”
“Don’t, Zadie.” Giving a loud sniff, Lalana pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, allowing her sleeves to soak up her tears. “She’s right.”
“What do you mean?”
Not removing her hands from her eyes, my sister took a deep breath. “Ambar wasn’t just a merchant, Zadie.”
My brow furrowed. “He sold magical items,” I said slowly. “That’s how you met him. He sourced objects for Mother.”
“He did.” Lalana took another shuddering breath. “But the reason he was trading in those goods in the first place, and the reason he was able to arrange for us to steal away from Satra in the night, was that he primarily sourced those objects for resistance fighters in the hill towns bordering Phoenitia.”
I shook my head, still struggling to understand. “What resistance fighters, Lalana?” My nose wrinkled. “Do you mean he was working against our parents?”
Lalana shook her head violently. “Not our parents.” She lowered her hands, and I flinched at her raw, red-rimmed eyes. “Across Astaran, Kemeni, Qushara, the other kingdoms bordering the Ossur Mountains… They’re all under threat.” She gave me a half-smile. “You know your history better than I do, Zadie. Those northern towns used to be their own principality. They still have a sense that they are their own people
, being so far removed from everywhere else in each of those kingdoms. They’re very isolated.”
I gave her a small nod.
“The kingdom above the mountains… You mentioned earlier that the Phoenites are your enemy. Well, they’re mine, as well. They’re Ambar’s…” She swallowed, hard. “They’re everyone’s enemy who lives in those hill towns and have suffered raids for years. But this time it was worse. The soldiers didn’t leave. They tried to take over Yadina.”
I shivered again. If the Phoenites had been infiltrating the mountainous border for longer than we thought…
“Ambar was part of the resistance. And when I left with him, Zadie, I became part of the resistance, too.”
I just stared at her. Lalana, part of some sort of resistance? I couldn’t imagine it. Not my sister. She was too…
“We threw the Phoenites out of Yadina.” A hint of pride entered my sister’s voice. “Me and Ambar. It couldn’t have happened without us.”
I swallowed, then opened my mouth to speak, but found I didn’t know what to say.
Lalana gave me a small smile. “The Phoenites aren’t hunting the lost Princess of Khiridesh, Zadie. But they are hunting the Ghost of Yadina, the girl who took back the town.” Her bottom lip trembled, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “They already got Ambar…with a poisoned arrow…”
A cough sounded beside us as Lisha emerged from the shadows. “There’s just one problem with that story.” She gave a catlike smile, twirling a knife between her fingers. With a jolt, I realized it was the knife thrown by the assassin. “Didn’t you hear what the assassin said?”
Aliyah’s eyes widened as she clapped a hand on Lisha’s shoulder, giving her a proud smile.
Lalana dabbed at her eyes again, adding drily, “Actually, I was a bit preoccupied trying to dodge flying blades…”
Lisha and Aliyah exchanged a look, and a mixed feeling of relief and fear snaked down my spine as I recalled exactly what the assassin had shouted.
“Die, princess…,” I whispered.
Lisha nodded grimly. “Exactly.” Her eyes slid to Lalana. “If they don’t know you’re the princess, that means they’re after Zadie…”
Everyone’s eyes turned to me, and my heart began fluttering in my chest. “I told you so, Lana,” I joked, but it fell flat, the tremble in my voice betraying my fear.
Lalana’s lips parted, her caramel skin growing paler. “B-but…,” she stammered. “I-I didn’t…”
“Well, that’s one question answered.” Aliyah shot Lisha a look. “We know they’re after Zadie, but they confused her with her sister both times. Now we just have to figure out who they are.”
Lisha tossed one of the knives into the air, and the blade spun wickedly before she caught it again. “Fortunately, we’ve got a lead. We find whoever owned these knives, we find whoever wants you dead.”
Chapter Eight
I slumped over the desk in the palace library, my cheek resting on the rough, wooden top, my eyes already sore from staring at hundreds of inked drawings of knives, trying to find something that would help us identify the weapon.
I moved my hand listlessly to the hilt, running my fingers over the smooth leather, the strange shape that had been stamped into it. No jewels had been inset into the knife – it was designed to throw, after all – but it was clearly an expensive, finely made blade. The curious pattern on the hilt was distinctive, the shape of the blade unusual. It should be possible to identify it.
At least I’d thought so when I’d offered to investigate in the library while Aliyah searched for any information she could find out on the streets.
“Hard work being a scholar, isn’t it?” Lisha snipped from behind me.
Outraged to be accompanying me to the library instead of working with the other thieves out in the city, Lisha hadn’t stopped pacing back and forth the entire time I’d been working, occasionally pulling a random book from the shelves and scowling when I broke it to her that the tome she’d selected had nothing to do with weaponry at all, let alone knives.
She’d been furious when she discovered she’d pulled a courtly romance from the shelves, flinging it across the room and earning herself a long lecture from one of the librarians.
With some effort, I sat upright to snap back at her. Then the will left me again and I leaned back in my chair, staring up at the domed ceiling, my eyes glazing over.
Lisha dragged a chair over the stone floor with a loud screech, straddling it backward, her arms hanging over the back. “Look,” she snapped. “The faster you find out what this knife is, the faster we can get out of this paper tomb.”
“It’s not a tomb,” I said automatically. “There’s life in books.”
Her eyes narrowed. “But not much in you, apparently.”
I glared at her. “We’ve been here all day. My back hurts from bending over the table. My eyes ache from staring at pages all day. And all the while, an assassin roams the streets. I want to do something.”
“Poor, tired little princess.” Lisha stood and spun the chair around again, then pushed back from the table, resting her chair on the back legs. “Is looking through the books in this giant home of yours difficult? Have the servants not replenished your glass? Do you wish you lived on the streets with the rest of us common folk?”
“That’s not what I–”
“Zadie!”
I leapt up from my chair at Safiyya’s bright voice resounding through the room. She drifted between the shelves in a cloud of white skirts and sweet jasmine scent, her long, glossy hair swinging freely down her back.
Prince Diyan traipsed along a few steps behind her, nose buried in a book, barely looking at where he was going.
She bounded up to me, eyes flicking curiously between me and Lisha. “What are you doing here?”
I tapped Lisha’s shoulder. “This is Princess Safiyya.” I waited expectantly, my cheeks heating when she didn’t bow or even get up from her chair. Giving up, I added, “Safiyya, this is my friend Lisha. She, uh… She’s friends with someone Kassim, Namir, and I worked with on our recent trip away from the palace.”
“Worked with…kidnapped… It’s all the same to you royal folk, isn’t it?” Lisha drawled, still swinging in her chair.
I glowered down at her. “Lisha’s supposed to be helping me with some research.”
“What kind of research?” Prince Diyan finally looked up from his book.
“Uh...” I glanced down at the knife, wondering exactly how much I could safely share. “Well…” My gaze suddenly snagged on the book in the prince’s arms. “Is that my dictionary?”
“Oh, Zadie!” Safiyya’s hands flew to her hips. “We’ve been here every moment since Kassim mentioned it.” She shot Diyan a dark look. “I had hoped we might take a walk in the gardens this afternoon, but the prince can’t seem to tear himself away from this book of yours.”
“Actually, I have a few questions,” Diyan said earnestly, his eyes widening. “How did you–”
“I’m here trying to find out where this knife came from,” I said hurriedly, tapping the blade still sitting on the table. Spirits knew how I’d explain if Diyan started asking too many questions about how I wrote a dictionary of An Nimivah.
Propping the dictionary under one arm, Diyan moved closer, frowning down at the blade. “It’s certainly unusual, but why the interest in this particular knife?”
“Oh, let us help, Zadie,” Safiyya begged. She shot another look at the prince and lowered her voice. “I can’t stand another moment of sitting around while Diyan reads your book over and over again.” Her face brightened. “This way, at least I can help you for a while.”
Before I could agree or refuse, she settled into the chair beside me and began sorting the books, which I had littered over the table, into neat piles.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to say too much about where the blade had come from, but in spite of her complaints about Diyan’s obsessive interest in books, Safiyya was a meticulous re
searcher. I remembered the book she had made when the princes had visited the palace to compete for her hand, carefully listing information about the different princes and the kingdoms they’d come from.
My eyes slid to Diyan. He was a scholar through and through. Perhaps it would be good to secure their help.
“We’d be very grateful for your help, Safi.” I gestured to the table. “This is every book the palace library possesses on weapons.”
Safiyya tutted. “And look what a mess you’ve made. Which of these have you already finished with, Zadie?” Standing back up again, she piled the books higher, organizing the unread books into four separate piles.
“Uh-uh,” Lisha said, seeing what she was doing and dropping the front legs of her chair to the floor with a crash. “Sorry, princess. I’m no use to you. I can’t read.”
Safiyya smiled sweetly, pushing one of the four piles toward her. “You don’t need to. You just need to look through the pictures.”
Lisha’s face fell.
“Have you thought about trying history books, as well?” Diyan asked earnestly. “If the knife’s something more unusual – a cultural artifact, say – it might be easier to find there.”
I shook my head, kicking myself for having not thought of that. I’d devoured books on the history of warfare before I’d come to Astaran. “That’s a great idea, Diyan.”
“If you tell me where they are, I’ll go fetch them,” Lisha said hurriedly, getting to her feet so quickly that the chair screeched back across the stone floor again.
“Don’t be silly, Lisha,” Safiyya chided. Waving one of the librarians over, she carefully explained what we needed, then sent him off in search of books covering the history of warfare.
Lisha slumped back down into her chair, and Diyan took the seat next to her, shooting her a slightly nervous glance.
Looking considerably happier than she had when she’d arrived, Safiyya issued brisk instructions. “Pile books that are no good on this table here, and the librarians can clear them again for us. That way, we’ll feel like we’re making progress.” She shot a smile at the hovering librarians, all drawn to their princess and her incredible sense of order. “It’ll also mean order is restored to the shelves more quickly, of course!”
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