Jasmine didn't even wait to get her cloak off before she rounded on Razoul after they were back inside the palace. "All right, Razoul. I'm listening. Not very patiently but I'm listening. Since when did you start having visions?"
He gestured at the servants who were staring at them. "Please, not here, Princess, it's not private enough."
She glared at him and then caught a glimpse of the staring faces. She grimaced. "You're right. We'll do this in the Rose Garden."
"The Rose Garden? But it's not secure."
"It's the Rose Garden or nothing." She shot back over her shoulder as she strode down the hall. With a shake of his head he followed her into the Rose Garden.
"All right, Razoul, I'm waiting." She stood there glaring at him, tapping her foot.
"You're going to think I'm mad, Princess." He protested.
"You don't know what mad is until you've seen me lose my temper. Obviously you've been keeping things from me and I hate people keeping secrets from me." She snapped at him.
He sighed. "All right, all right. On the day that Jafar told you I'd died he had tried earlier to make me assassinate you. I refused when I realized that I loved you and tried to kill him. That's when he blasted me and left me for dead."
Jasmine frowned. "You only said he tried to control you when you told me about it; you said nothing about loving me."
"Princess, how would've you reacted at that moment to a declaration that I'd nearly died because I'd decided that I loved you? You would've wondered what I was trying to gain or you would've decided that I was just flattering you like all the rest of the servants."
She frowned. "You might be right. I certainly wasn't ready to entertain any thoughts like those."
"Well, neither was I. I'm only a common guard who could never imagine you could come to care about me like you did." There was a long silence.
"Now, what about this vision?" She asked with a sigh.
"After my apparent death, I found myself in a grey fog facing three woman standing before a boiling cauldron. They told me that a great disaster was coming and only you could save us. They said you had to become Sultanas and it was my job to educate you. They also declared that you desperately needed a friend and that I had to be that friend to save you and that I could only tell one other man about the coming disaster after the tower recognized you."
"Did these women tell you how to win my heart? Tell you how to fool me?" She snapped.
He hung his head. "They told me nothing like that." He looked at her with his love plain for her to see, pleading desperately for her understanding. "I never set out to win your heart. I never dreamed that was even possible. I set out to be your best friend as I secretly had been for years and I never aspired to be more."
He knelt before her, offering up his sword. "Princess, if you don't believe me then take my sword and strike off my head, but before you do, then know this." He looked up at her and declared earnestly. "I love you, Jasmine. "I loved you from the first day that I met you, and I'll love you until the day I die."
Jasmine sighed and wiped her forehead. "Oh, Razoul, what am I going to do with you?" She smiled slightly as she pushed his sword back with her hand. "Keep it. It looks better on you." As he sheathed the sword she declared. "No more secrets, ever again. Do you understand me?"
He nodded. "Yes, Princess."
She sighed. "And of course the one man you told was the Astronomer Royal." At his nod she continued. "You went to see him right after we went to the tower, didn't you?"
"Yes. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. I just couldn't find a way that wouldn't have had you thinking I was insane."
She shook her head. "Just don't ever keep things from me again and as to how this has affected us, I'm going to need time to mull this over."
"I'm sorry, Princess, but you've run out of time." Jafar said as he and Aunty dropped to the ground between them. He gestured and Aunty shot out a blue light that seized Jasmine in looping coils and picked her off the ground and a yellow ball from her other hand froze Razoul. They were not immune to Aunty's magic like they were Jafar's.
"What about him?" Aunty asked as she jerked a thumb towards Razoul frozen in his own yellow cocoon.
"Bring him along. I don't know why but I think she cares in some disgusting way for him. He'll provide some needed leverage before we dispose of them." Jafar replied. He lifted off into the cooling night air humming happily to himself.
"This is a great partnership." Aunty groused. "I get to do all the heavy lifting and he flies first class." She lifted Razoul and Jasmine into the air with a jerk, rose up and followed Jafar.