One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series

by Ingrid Seymour

“That’s one of her sisters,” Zet said, smiling like a fool, “Cala is never far behind. There she comes now.”

  Something stabbed me in the chest.

  Dear Wise Lord! Zet, my brother, is in love with the girl that Father has hand-picked to be my bride.

  What sort of curse was this?

  7

  “Mother, you must help me.” I was on one knee, my mother’s hand between my own. A day had passed, and I’d had the opportunity to think and decide what to do. Mother was the only one who could help us now.

  She looked down on me with her sweet, brown eyes. Her still-dark hair was hidden under a white headdress that fell to her shoulders. She sat under the large cypress tree in the back of our house, a small patch of weaving on her lap.

  “What is it, son?” She ran her soft hand down my jaw, making me wish I was still just a boy and her loving ministrations were enough to make everything better. “Is this about your father’s wish for you to marry? He said you would come around. Cala is a very beautiful girl. She cannot seem disagreeable to you on that account.”

  “No, Mother. Indeed, she is beautiful, and I suppose most men would be proud to call her their wife.”

  “Most men, but not you?”

  I did not wish to offend my mother. She had probably been aware of Father’s plans for me and had, at some level, agreed in the match.

  “You know my desires,” I spoke carefully. “You know marriage has not figured in my plans, but I would hardly ask for your help simply on my behalf.”

  “Oh!” Her perfect eyebrows rose in surprise. “You mean the girl is against it too, but I thought—”

  I cut her off. “No, it is not Cala I speak of. Though I can only assume she feels the same way I do.”

  “No. I assure you it isn’t so. She—”

  “I do not speak entirely for myself,” I interrupted again. “I also speak for your youngest son.” My stomach squeezed again, just like it did every time I thought of Zet in love with the woman Father was bent on making my wife.

  “Zet? But how could your brother possibly . . .” Mother trailed off, understanding slowly coloring her expression. “You mean Zet . . .” She did not dare finish, but I did so in her stead.

  “Zet is in love with her and claims she’s in love with him, too. They have . . . met. Several times, it seems. They have exchanged vows and promises.”

  “Oh, Wise Lord.” Mother pressed a delicate hand to her chest, her expression as disturbed as my own.

  I breathed out a sigh of relief.

  She understands! There is hope!

  “Zet has told you this?”

  I nodded.

  Mother stood and stepped away, turning her back on me and facing the setting sun in the distance. “This is . . . a grave misfortune,” she said in a quiet tone.

  I rose from my knee and stood behind her. “You must talk to Father. Zet does not know about the betrothal and, if he hears about it, he will be devastated. If you explain the circumstances to Father, he will surely see there is an easy solution to all of this. He wants his son married to General Medes’s daughter. Well, let Zet marry her. He will be more than willing. In fact, he will be delighted.”

  I watched Mother’s stiff back. She had not moved at all, had shown no visible reaction to my entreaty. My heart tightened inside my chest. Mother was never cagey, not unless there was a good reason.

  “Mother,” I stepped in front of her and faced her.

  She lowered her eyes to the sandy ground. “I am afraid your brother has been deceived.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but closed it again when her eyes met mine.

  “The girl is quite taken with you,” she said. “General Medes himself visited your father this morning to express her pleasure and definite approval of you.”

  Dumbly, I shook my head. There had to be a mistake. Cala barely knew me, and what she had seen of me could hardly have impressed her.

  “That makes no sense,” I mumbled. “It is a misunderstanding. She could not possibly wish to marry me, not after our meeting yesterday. We are like water and oil. We could never make each other happy. In fact, I am certain I could never love someone like her.”

  “Hush, son. You are too young to talk in absolutes.” Mother’s tone was harsh, something I had rarely experienced. It took me aback.

  I struggled to understand her suddenly cold attitude. She had always been there for us, to beg us out of trouble when Father wished to punish us, to set things right when an injustice was committed against us. Why was she suddenly different?

  “You will not help us?” I said, and it was barely a question.

  “I cannot. I am sorry, Faris. The best I can do is talk to Zet and explain why he must . . . refrain from seeing Cala again and entertaining feelings that should have never been allowed to flourish without approval.”

  “Mother, this cannot end well. You must do something.”

  Her eyes wavered with sadness. “Your father is set on this. You and Zet are good, obedient sons and must do your duty.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Mother raised a hand to stop me. Her lower lip quivered with ill-restrained emotion. It was obvious this was not easy for her. She knew she would never be able to change Father’s mind on this, so her hands were tied as well as mine. It was unfair of me to lay this trial on her.

  I bowed my head. “I apologize, Mother. I did not mean to cause you any worries.”

  After taking two steps back, I walked to the house, leaving Mother under the shade of the tree, her face lifted to the heavens.

  Maybe her prayers would help us. We were running out of options.

  8

  I did not know how I would give Zet the news or how he would take it, but I had to talk to him. There was no avoiding it now.

  Wearily, I searched for him all over the house but found no signs of him or hints to his whereabouts.

  Searching to escape from my anxious thoughts, I changed into training gear and went to the arena. There, I gave myself wholly to the task of disemboweling a wooden post. It was here, tired and drenched in sweat after two hours of sword practice, that Zet found me.

  He came to me like a diving bird of prey and tackled me from the side. My dull practice sword flew out of my hands as I hit the ground with a thud.

  Face contorted in rage, my brother straddled me and struck me across the face. His fist went up again, ready to deliver a second blow. My fighting instincts kicking in. I blocked his attack and bumped him off balance with a push of my legs. Then, grabbing his arms, I rolled him to the side and jumped to my feet.

  “What is the meaning of this?” I asked, though I knew well the one thing that was sure to send him into this kind of frenzy.

  “You bastard.” He got to his feet and spit at my feet.

  “I take it you have heard.”

  “How could you?”

  How could I?! It seemed that whatever he had heard had given him the wrong impression.

  “Who told you?” I asked.

  “Who told me?! Who told me?! How long did you plan to keep it a secret?”

  “I only found out yesterday, and, today, I intended to tell you as soon as I found you.”

  “You damn liar.”

  “I am not a liar. I searched for you earlier, but I couldn’t find you.”

  “You have known about this betrothal much longer than that.” Zet wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and rolled his shoulders, ready to fight again.

  I took a step back and held a hand in front of me. “That is true, but I did not know she was the girl you’d talked to me about. You never told me her name.”

  “If that is true, then why didn’t you tell me as soon as you realized it?”

  I shook my head. “Because I feared your reaction. Because I wanted to talk to Mother to see if there was something she could do to help us. It was a mistake. I see that now.”

  “I never knew you could lie with such ease.”

  I rubbed a hand across the bac
k of my neck, grasping for understanding. Why did he think I was lying? He knew I was a man of honor. I would never lie to anyone, much less my own brother.

  “I am not lying, Zet. What makes you say that?”

  “She told me everything!” he screamed, a vein becoming visible on his temple.

  “She? Cala, do you mean?”

  “Who else?”

  A chill went down my back. “What did she tell you?”

  “She told me how much you admired her beauty, and how you talked to her about duty.” He said the word with the same contempt I had begun to associate with it.

  Wise Lord, she is a manipulative snake!

  I had to tread carefully. Cala had Zet enthralled with her charms. He would not easily believe me.

  “I do not wish to marry her, brother,” I said firmly.

  Zet blinked in surprise. His eyes darted to and fro as if he had lost his path and was trying to find it again.

  “Another lie,” he said stubbornly though with less conviction than before.

  “I have expressed my discontent to Father on the arrangement, and I will do it again in your presence to make matters clear.”

  Zet took a step back, his breaths fast. He shook his head. Whether disbelieving me or Cala, I could not tell.

  “She said you might say that.” His eyes grew watery. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “You know well Father will not change his mind on this. Not after giving General Medes his word. Your discontent will mean nothing to him, and you are counting on that, so you can seem like the exemplary brother you have always pretended to be.”

  “Pretended?! Zet, you talk as if you do not know me. What poison has that girl filled your head with?”

  “That girl, as you call her,” he said, his words sounding like gravel, “is the woman I love. And she loves me back, not you!”

  “If that is true, why would she consent to marrying me?”

  Shocking me, Zet fell to his knees and pressed both hands to his face. His shoulders shook, making me think he was weeping. But that was impossible. My brother did not weep. He was tough. Even when he was a child he had known how to keep his eyes dry whenever pain visited him.

  I took a few steps in his direction. “Zet?” I said tentatively.

  He startled at hearing my voice and uncovered his face, placing shaky hands on his thighs.

  “Why does she consent, you ask? As if you did not know better. What other choice does she have? She will never disobey her father.” Slowly, he stood. He shook on the spot, eyes red, mouth partly open.

  “You could not stand it, could you?” he asked.

  I shook my head, missing his meaning.

  “For once your younger brother had something that you did not, a creature more lovely than you could ever dream of. So you had to take her for yourself.”

  Anger began simmering in my gut. He had known me his entire life. And he had met this girl how long ago? A month? Two? How could he now think me capable of such disloyalty? How feeble was he? How weak and easily swayed his heart?

  My fists clenched of their own accord. They trembled with my hard-to-contain fury. There was only one way to make him see the error of his way.

  “We are going to see her,” I said between clenched teeth, then turned on my heels.

  9

  Zet had a way to secretly meet Cala, a message sent through a number of servants. It took a couple of hours for her to come, but, in the end, she did.

  She tentatively walked into the tent where my brother and I had been waiting, sitting on two large bolts of silk. The place stood in the middle of the busy market and belonged to a merchant Cala favored with her purchases. Zet had surreptitiously slipped the man a golden coin, and, with a smirk, the merchant had left us in the tent to complete the sequence of messages that finally delivered Cala to our presence.

  Zet jumped from his spot as soon as the silk-clad girl floated in. His face was expectant and full of hope. I could see in his eyes how much he loved her and knew I had never loved anyone that way.

  Despair edged itself closer to my heart. Could the hope my brother held in his heart be fulfilled? I hoped for nothing more.

  A veil covered Cala’s face, granting us no more than a glimpse of her reddened eyes. She had been crying. Zet’s expression filled with compassion, my heart with deep distrust. Something told me her tears were not sincere but simply another tool she used to manipulate.

  “I apologize I could not be here earlier,” she said in a meek tone. “It was hard getting away from Mother and my sisters.”

  “There is no need for apologies.” Zet took a step closer to her. Cala stiffened and wrapped her arms around her middle. My brother frowned, looking confused.

  A scarf of light red silk hung from Cala’s neck, she held one side of it between her delicate fingers, worrying at it.

  I took a deep breath to stave my simmering anger. If there was a solution to this situation, it laid with me. No one else.

  “I pray there has been a misunderstanding,” I said. “One we need to dispel before we find a solution to our predicament.”

  Cala sniffed and lifted the scarf to her eyes. She dabbed at the tears that had started flowing like two small rivers.

  “It is all my fault,” she said between sobs.

  Zet moved closer to console her. He touched her shoulder and squeezed her reassuringly.

  Cala shrugged him off. “No, Zet. Please.”

  My brother’s face tightened. His eyes wavered, the rejection splitting him in two.

  I hadn’t liked to learn that they’d been meeting in secret. It was highly inappropriate. But to see Zet touch her made me wonder what might have transpired between them.

  “I should be honest with you, Zet,” Cala continued, sounding as if she had a large knot lodged in her throat. “I . . . I like you. A lot. But—”

  “Like me?”

  Cala’s reddened eyes met Zet’s own. There was infinite sadness in her gaze. I felt it myself, a tangible thing with the force to destroy. She was about to tear Zet’s world apart, and she knew it.

  I stood immobile as if carved from stone. I was torn between stopping her and letting her continue. Whatever honest truth she would offer Zet would surely undo him. But it wouldn’t be forever. He had a foolish heart. He would recover and fall in love again. With that in mind, I decided it was for the best to let Cala speak.

  “You don’t just like me,” Zet said, a trembling smile on her lips. “You . . . I love you, and I know you do, too.” His voice faltered in the end, breaking my heart in almost as many pieces as his own was breaking.

  “I never said that.” Cala lowered her eyes to the threadbare rugs that covered the ground.

  “But you . . .” Zet trailed off, his eyes clouded with what seemed a distant memory of a moment they’d shared together, a moment that had led him to believe something that was not.

  “I should have never . . .” Cala shook her head. “I owe respect to my father, my family. I was daring and disobedient. I must mend my ways. I must pray to the Wise Lord and ask for forgiveness.”

  My eyes darted between them, wide open, disbelieving. Zet laid a hand on the bolt of silk next to him, looking as if he would collapse to his knees for the second time in one day.

  “You deceived me?” he said. It was but half a question, showing he still didn’t believe what had been plainly laid before him.

  “Forgive me,” Cala said, her voice ridden with shame.

  Zet inhaled deeply, pushed away from the bolt of silk. “And now what? You choose him.” He thrust his chin in my direction.

  Cala did not answer, making her silence louder than words.

  “Duty has been laid before me,” was finally her answer.

  I felt for my brother, for the unfair suffering this thoughtless girl had thrust upon him. She was nothing but a spoiled general’s daughter who thought her beauty enough to account for her vile actions.

  “Duty means nothing in the face of what you have done,” I sa
id, my anger finally spilling over.

  Cala looked up at me, startled. My voice had come out deep, like a roar at the base of my chest.

  I continued, “I have told you before, and I tell you again. I do not wish to marry. Surely, you have now made my decision easier.”

  “We cannot disobey our parents,” Cala said, the outrage of such a possibility clear in her voice. “Besides, I . . .” Her eyes met mine, brilliant with the possibility of . . . what? Us?

  Was she insane? Her heart so vain as to hold some misguided affection, obligation, or what have you, toward me?

  “You do choose him,” Zet said in an accusatory tone.

  “No!” I protested. “She is just a stupid girl who hasn’t enough sense to measure the consequences of her actions.”

  “How dare you talk to her like that?” Zet lunged in my direction, but Cala stepped between us.

  “Please, no. Don’t fight!”

  Zet’s eyes burned into mine as the wisp of a girl served as some miraculous barrier between us.

  Cala turned her back on Zet and faced me. I took a step back, repelled by the pleading in her eyes.

  “I will not be the cause of my brother’s pain. Duty means nothing to me. You mean nothing to me.” My words were vicious, but true.

  Cala flinched and let out a small gasp.

  “I see only one way out of this and, as much as I have feared it, I now embrace it. I renounce everything, break ties with my father. I am Faris Nasser. A man on his own.”

  “No!” Cala cried out. “You cannot do that. Father has announced the betrothal this day. It would be an embarrassment to him.”

  “That is of no consequence to me.”

  “Please, I will make a good wife, give you many sons. I promise.”

  Behind her, Zet staggered back, his face disfigured in pain.

  I quaked with fury. Her callousness knew no measure. I held my fist back as it clenched to strike her. I had never wished harm upon a woman, but she was a challenge upon my honor.

  “I leave now.” I walked toward the door.

  “I will end my life if you leave,” Cala shouted at my back.