Not much to say here, this is the next one I had waiting in the wings. I don't own parts of this story and I do own other parts, trust me even I'm confused by it.
Everybody was still in the banquet hall, so Aladdi started down a corridor she hadn't yet searched. As she went through each room by room, she knew she was smiling even though she felt like crying, but she kept turning over pieces of parchment, refusing at the moment to figure out why she felt so strange.
Finally she found herself at the doorway into the sultan's chambers. She had avoided these rooms. She liked the sultan, and somehow stealing directly from him felt wrong, the first time she had thought twice about taking something from a noble.
Reluctantly, Aladdi walked into the room. The sultan's desks were littered with parchment slips and rolls, and there was a large colored map on the wall of Akraba, Fariz and other countries. Aladdi studied these a moment- it always amused her to see the places she had been all at once, count the cities where there were prices on her head. At least, it used to amuse her. Now, for the first time in a long time, it just made her afraid.
Aladdi ignored the tables by the sultan's bed, and noticed a little table stacked carefully with animal figurines. Again she stopped to admire the bright colored paint and intricate designs of the tiger, which was balanced on the rump of a giraffe and the head of a monkey. She smiled at the toys, then walked past them to a closed door in the corner.
Picking the lock quickly, Aladdi followed a narrow passage to another room, this one larger with one table and chair surrounded by a circle of seats. Aladdi noticed a map on the central table, then approached it to see arrows drawn on the parchment. A red arrow began at the capitol city of Fariz, a name Aladdi recognized as one of the first places where she could remember living. It trailed down along a river, and met a green arrow which came from Akraba. At the heads of the two arrows stood tiny wooden figures, rows of soldiers that faced each other or followed smaller arrows, splitting off to curl around their enemies like the legs of a desperate spider. Aladdi stared at the map, absorbing how many red soldiers there were compared to Akraba's, and thought how unfair it was that Fariz should obtain the one plan the sultan and his son had for facing their enemies.
Resigned to success, Aladdi looked around for more scrolls, which she found in a chest under the table. She collected combat orders and a smaller version of the map on the table, copying the arrows onto it with a quill from the sultan's desk. These papers she slipped into her robes, which luckily were loose enough to hide several tight scrolls as long as she walked with her back ramrod-straight.
She began to walk this way toward the door, eager to escape, when she glimpsed a tapestry on the wall. The beautiful threads depicted a grinning sultan with black hair instead of white, and a small and round-cheeked baby in a sky blue blanket. Standing with them was a beautiful woman with soft eyes and long hair, holding tight onto her baby Jasper.
Aladdi cursed to herself as the tears in her eyes blurred the lines of the tapestry, and she hurried out the door, locked it behind her, then started the way she came. Turning a corner, Aladdi stuffed the last roll of parchment into her sleeve. She slowed her breathing, ready to make her excuses to the first noble she found and leave. Leave. She would leave, go back to her friends and her life, back to her own world to figure out how to get Sed out of this one. She would leave and never see the prince again. Then those thoughts stopped dead in their tracks, and so did her feet.
The sultan, however, kept walking toward her, the same friendly smile on his face. "Lady Aleria!" His voice was jolly as he called her false name. "How nice to find you safe- your disappearance gave us quite a scare, but this palace is large and the halls can be confusing. May I help you back to the feast?"
Aladdi tried to smile, and slipped her hand through the elbow that he offered. "I apologize," she stammered, her thoughts racing again. "I did not mean to disturb the festivities, I was just-"
"Looking for something," the sultan finished for her, his smile still kind but no longer jolly.
Aladdi stared at him.
"If you don't mind hearing an observation, Princess," he continued in a perfectly casual voice. "You seem to be here for a reason, and not the reason for which the other ladies have come."
Aladdi allowed him to lead her toward the music, her tongue between her teeth as she tried to find a way to respond.
Finally, they reached the entrance to the ballroom and the sultan stopped walking and looked at her, patting her arm affectionately. Aladdi turned her wrist so that he could not feel the papers in her sleeve. "I hope you find what you are looking for, my dear girl. And I hope it truly does make you happier than you seem think my son would. He would marry you, you know," the sultan said with a wink.
Aladdi almost frowned at this as he released her arm, gave her a last smile, then turned to make his way back into the ballroom.
She stared after the prince's father, watched him waddle back into the crowd of nobles, then caught the prince's smile at an unheard joke, watched that smile blossom as he caught her eye.
Aladdi spun on a heel then, walking as fast as she could away from the noise and the light of the ball room, past the stairs that led to the dungeons, to her chambers. There she sat on the floor again, right inside the door, staring at the ceiling until the tears came like rain, slipping down her neck and seeping into the wrinkled and dusty silk of her gown.
Hearing Katin enter the other room, Aladdi crammed the war plans between the mattresses of her bed and then slipped out of her frock and into softer bedclothes. She worried for a moment about Katin's reaction to the state of her robes, but abandoned that thought, climbing into bed to bury her aching head in the pillows.
"He would marry you, you know." The sultan's words rang in her ears, sending images unheeded to her mind of herself standing by the prince's side, with no veil and a gold crown on her head. She was happy, and comfortable, and could care for Rood and Nik and Sed-
Sed. He was still in prison, and suddenly facing their friends seemed like the last thing she wanted to do. Nik's eyes would make her feel guilty, as they always did, and Rood would ask her why she hadn't rescued Sed while she was in the palace.
She thought then of the woman in red robes, her voice dripping in sarcasm as she promised to do her part and 'take care' of the prince. Aladdi shuddered to think what that might mean and pulled her pillows tighter over her eyes, as though she could smother the images of Jas's lifeless form, his face bloodless, the sultan without his smile, the whole country going to war.
Aladdi slipped into sleep the world fading to black just as the footsteps of noblewomen and their companions shuffled past her doorway, from the ballroom to their own bedchambers.
Review!
Thank you!
-natalie.