Princess of Smoke (2020 Reissue) Read online

  I craned my neck for any sign of my sister among the rest of the storytellers, for her glossy sheet of midnight hair, then sank back into my chair with a sigh. It’s impossible.

  I didn’t even know what kind of costume she had chosen, and based on the ones we had seen in the performances so far, I was unlikely to recognize Lalana even if she walked right past me. With skin painted vibrant colors, the storytellers were dressed as spirits, wearing costumes and headdresses of feathers, scales, and fur to mimic the shape-shifting nature of the spirits.

  I shifted again as beads dug into my leg, prickling my skin.

  “Spirits, Zadie!” Kassim snapped from beside me. His hand came to rest on mine. “What’s the matter?”

  Startled, I turned to look at him. “Wh-what do you mean?”

  He glared at me. “Do you think I can’t tell when you’re stressed by something?”

  My hand twitched under his, and his fingers clamped more firmly around mine. Dragging his eyes away from the storyteller currently reenacting a swordfight on stage, the sultan trained his glowing amber eyes on my guilt-ridden face.

  “Zadie,” he breathed out. “I thought we got past keeping secrets.”

  I wet my lips. More recently, I had tried harder to inform Kassim of what I was planning…but I hadn’t wanted to worry him about the assassin, not when I needed my freedom to help Lalana. And we still had so many secrets between us, what was one more?

  He lifted his hand to my cheek, stroking one thumb along my jawline. “Whatever it is, you can tell me,” he said softly.

  I sighed again, but couldn’t help leaning into his touch. Perhaps this was one secret I could share with him. “Remember, this is for Astaran,” I said, tilting my face so that his hand cupped it. “So you mustn’t be angry.”

  “I’ll promise no such thing.”

  “Well, Aliyah and I discovered a Phoenitian weapon in the marketplace–”

  “Namir told me.”

  My brow creased and I sat upright, leaning away from him. “Then how can you ask what’s bothering me?”

  A storm of emotion flashed across the sultan’s face, the fingers that had been gently stroking my face just moments before curling into fists in his lap. “How exactly did you discover this weapon?”

  I swallowed.

  “Zadie,” Kassim said in a low voice, “please tell me that weapon wasn’t used against you in any way.”

  “Well…”

  Kassim sat bolt upright in his seat, scanning the crowd, his expression thunderous. “When I get my hands on Namir… How could he let you out of the palace knowing that someone had threatened you–”

  “It was my idea,” I said hastily. “Namir’s men are here, as well as Aliyah’s thieves. There’s no chance of anything happening to me. But this is a golden opportunity to catch the assassin–”

  “I don’t care,” Kassim snapped. “Decisions involving your safety should be run by me first. I won’t have my spymaster keeping things from me, especially when those things could result in harm to my betrothed.”

  “And what say am I supposed to have in those decisions?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  Kassim swiveled to look back at me. “You know I value your opinion, Zadie. But you have demonstrated a repeated disregard for your own safety.” His lips twitched up into a half-smile. “Someone has to worry about you.”

  My lips pursed as I struggled to keep from smiling back. His words might have set something purring in my chest, but that didn’t mean I wanted him making decisions about my life. “What about you? I don’t see you worrying a whole lot about your safety when you go chasing spirits in the desert, chartering pirate ships, and fighting off Phoenitian soldiers.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “How about we agree to worry about each other?”

  I sank back into my chair, chewing on a fingernail as I tried to figure out whether I had just fallen victim to the sultan’s charm. At least he seemed to have stopped worrying about whether I was about to be attacked by an assassin. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too furious with Namir for keeping select information from him.

  Shivers swept over me as a familiar, haunting voice filled the air. I jerked forward on my throne, my gaze drawn back to the stage.

  I couldn’t keep in a gasp. I hadn’t seen the costume Yerusha had picked out for Lalana, but it was an inspired decision. Unlike the gaudy, theatrical costumes selected by the other storytellers, each competing to be a wilder spirit than the next, Lalana hadn’t dressed as a djinni.

  Dressed in soft gray chiffon, with golden threads catching the flicker of firelight and tiny rubies glittering at the bottom of her pants and the cuffs of her sleeves, Lalana had dressed as the realm of smoke and fire.

  She looked like she might dissolve into the fire, a smoking girl whose embers might burst into flame at any moment. A curling, golden crown, which somehow appeared to be alight, circled the top of her head, and a matching fiery lute rested on her lap.

  Small fires littered the stage, but they dimmed beside my sister’s beauty. I couldn’t tell if it was just my imagination, but even more smoke seemed to have filled the stage now, and the crowd gasped as a line of shadowy dancers appeared behind Lalana, striking up graceful, curved positions, as though they were made of smoke, too.

  Kassim straightened beside me, and I tried my hardest to ignore the way his obvious interest in Lalana made my stomach clench.

  But then I felt his fingers curl back over mine, the heat of his palm sending tingles up my arm. He leaned over, his breath tickling my neck as he whispered close to my ear, “You realize, we’ll be married in three days?”

  Warmth pooled in my stomach. What was I worrying about? It was good Kassim had taken notice of Lalana. We needed everyone to do just that. For her to be so clearly the best that she would secure both the sultan’s favor and the support of the crowd, so that last year’s winner would crown her the new palace storyteller.

  I squeezed his hand, allowing the sad, lilting music of Lalana’s voice to wash over me. Even having heard it once before, her story made my heart ache. I shivered again, Lalana’s grief raw and powerful against her light, sweet voice.

  Tarak had done well. The story he’d spun for her matched her voice perfectly. A tale of love lost.

  “Spirits, this girl’s good,” Kassim murmured.

  “I’ve never heard anyone so talented before,” I said truthfully, relieved that convincing the sultan that Lalana ought to win the competition wasn’t going to be so difficult. Daring to push my luck, I added, “It would be criminal if she didn’t win.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Kassim stared at the stage, enraptured by the performance. I glanced at the crowd. Everyone else in the square had fallen silent, too, assuring me that Lalana’s voice had them all completely spellbound.

  I settled back onto my throne, still clutching Kassim’s hand, and allowed myself to just watch my sister perform.

  Although she didn’t dance so theatrically as many of the other storytellers had done, the slow, fluid way in which Lalana moved around the stage was, in my opinion, far more impressive. She moved achingly slowly, as though the tragedy had seeped out of her and thickened the air around her. Her steps matched the waves of music flowing from her lute, the golden instrument shining in the firelight.

  Behind her, the shadow dancers moved like flames, their bodies rippling as smoke caught in the wind.

  I gave a small smile, some of the tension in my chest easing. Tears pricked in the corner of my eyes. I was proud of her.

  As Lalana reached the crescendo of her song, the shadow dancers moved closer, taking slow steps forward so they curled around her like a crescent moon.

  Tears blurred my vision. This wasn’t just Lalana’s doing. It was everyone I’d met since I’d arrived in Kisrabah. All of Aliyah’s associates… They’d helped us in the end.

  Then I stiffened.

  The shadow dancers had stopped in their arc around Lalana. All but one.

  One dancer still t
ook slow, graceful steps toward her, body arcing and curving in the steps of the dance, almost as if it were still part of the act...

  Frantically blinking to clear my tears, my heart flew into my mouth as the firelight caught the shining line of a blade in the dancer’s hand.

  Chapter Ten

  Across the square, unable to reach Lalana, I screamed.

  Kassim shot to his feet, Namir’s guards poured in, Lisha materialized from nowhere… All racing for me, convinced the assassin had made his move.

  I stumbled forward from my throne, grabbing hold of Lisha’s arm, flinging a hand toward the stage. “Help! Someone help!” I screamed.

  But no one seemed to understand that I wasn’t the one in danger. I shook my head frantically, still pointing at the stage, fresh tears flooding my cheeks.

  “No! Not me!”

  I reached instinctively for the ring, feeling only bare skin.

  Lisha’s head turned to the stage, suddenly understanding. My knees buckled and I dropped to the floor as Kassim raced to my side.

  But close to the stage, they were too far away to hear my screams or Lisha’s warning shouts. I watched in horror as the lone shadow dancer stole across the stage while the others froze in place. No one did anything about it, too enraptured by Lalana’s performance to notice.

  Pain seared across my stomach as the dark figure approached my sister from behind, closer and closer.

  A knife flashed across Lalana’s throat.

  I clamped my eyes shut, burying my head in my hands, my body wracked with sobs. A roaring sound rushed through my ears, a bright red light flashing before my closed eyes. The pain across my middle spread, seeping into my chest, into my fingers, into my head. I seemed to be pulling into myself, the air pressing against me so that I shrank, smaller and smaller.

  Lana.

  A terrible, accusing voice screamed in my ear. It was supposed to be me

  I couldn’t breathe…

  “Zadie… Zadie.”

  Kassim’s voice was distant, as were the rising waves of screams, shouts, and voices, as it became clear something had gone horribly, terribly wrong on the stage, that this was not part of the story.

  Lalana’s dead…

  A strange, high-pitched keening sound broke through the other noise swelling around me, and I thought perhaps it might have been me who had made it.

  Then rough hands grabbed my face from behind, wrenching my chin up, taking fast hold of my hair so I couldn’t curl up again.

  “Sorcerer’s beard, Zadie… Look!” Lisha screeched into my ear.

  Through the blur of tears, the pain tearing at my scalp, I looked.

  On stage, a black figure grappled with a figure in gold and gray, silver flashing like light in a mirror before the two of them.

  I frowned. She was moving… Lalana was alive and moving. Fighting back.

  “How…”

  “Let go of her,” Kassim growled, wrenching Lisha away from me. “The princess is clearly upset. She doesn’t want to watch this.”

  But with my head free of Lisha’s grip, I stumbled to my feet, taking a few faltering steps toward the front of the dais.

  “It was supposed to be me…,” I whispered.

  A collective gasp rose from the crowd as a second figure shot across the stage, trailing a cloud of brilliant, violet smoke.

  To anyone watching, it could have been a costume. But I knew only one person could move that fast…one djinni…

  Tarak was a blur as he collided with the two figures grappling on stage, the gold cloak of his uniform momentarily shielding the three bodies from the audience.

  Then Lalana’s scream cut across the square…

  Tarak stood, a knife protruding from his chest. My breath caught in my throat.

  “Zadie, please,” Kassim’s voice was low and urgent as he took a gentle hold of my elbow, trying to urge me back from the front of the dais and turn me away from the action unfolding on stage.

  I shook him off. Could a knife kill a djinni?

  The shadowy figure lunged for Lalana again, reaching his fingers toward her throat.

  But it was as if Tarak hardly noticed the blade sticking into him, and in another, inhumanly fast move, he had grabbed the dark figure around the neck, pulling him away from Lalana and forcing him to the ground.

  A moment later, the real guards rushed in, gold cloaks billowing as they crowded around my sister and Tarak.

  Barely a minute must have passed, although it had felt like hours.

  I let out another sob.

  “Zadie,” Kassim tried again. “I’ll have someone take you back to the palace.”

  “No.” My voice trembled, but I wiped my sleeve across my eyes. “I want to be involved in this. I want to question the assassin who threatened…” I stopped myself before saying my sister’s name, “Astaran.”

  The guards brought the assassin back to the palace. Kassim and I traveled in tense silence, the sultan convinced I had been upset by the violence, me unable to tell him the real reason I couldn’t stop shaking.

  Aliyah had assured me Lisha would look after Lalana, or as we told Kassim, the unfortunate storyteller caught up in a plot clearly designed to create fear on the streets of Kisrabah. Although the thief queen herself had remained with me. She evidently didn’t feel completely certain I was out of danger yet then.

  My thoughts began spiraling. It didn’t make sense… We had been sure the assassin was after me. He had yelled out, Die princess. Had he somehow figured out who Lalana really was? Would I finally have to confess to Kassim that my sister was alive – and here in Kisrabah?

  I got sick twice on the way back to the palace, and each time Kassim tried to convince me not to meet the assassin. But I had to know. I had to know who had sent him, and how much he knew about Lalana. Sitting beside Kassim on a throne, there could have been no doubt I was the princess at the competition, and the assassin had still attacked Lalana. It didn’t make sense.

  No time was lost once the palace doors heaved shut behind us. Aliyah and I followed Kassim, Elian, Namir, and the vizier into a dimly lit room deep in the center of the palace, guards lining the walls. These weren’t guards I recognized. Clad all in black, they made me feel almost as uncomfortable as the shadow dancer hunched in the middle of the room, awaiting our questions.

  His mask had already been taken off, revealing a perfectly ordinary man with a pinched face, paler than anyone I’d ever seen, thick, black hair, and stubble peppering his chin. His costume had been ripped open to bare his chest, exposing the mountain tattoo I’d come to dread. A Phoenite.

  Namir twirled a familiar blade between his fingers, the same mountain symbol stamped into the hilt, then pulled a second from his belt. That one was still stained dark with blood from where it had clipped Lalana’s ear.

  At that thought, any pity I might have felt for the man surrounded by Astarian guards evaporated.

  “I take it both of these belong to you?” Namir’s voice was mild as always, but a cold expression I’d never seen before masked his face.

  The man blankly stared up at him.

  Namir repeated the question in a rough tongue I didn’t understand. I startled. That must be Phoenitian. It was one of the only languages I’d never studied. Do they not speak the common tongue in Phoenitia?

  Kassim and the vizier kept back, in the shadows, watching everything. I stayed close to the sultan’s side, flanked by Aliyah.

  The man’s mouth curled into a smile. “I understood you the first time, Astarian filth.” His voice was thickly accented, and he spat at the spymaster’s feet. “I would prefer not to speak to you at all, only I can’t stand to hear you butcher my language.”

  Namir’s expression didn’t change, but he moved to crouch beside the man, the knife shining in his palm. “Don’t you think–”

  The man grabbed the spymaster by the front of his robes and bashed his head against Namir’s.

  The spymaster grunted, and one of the guards around th
e walls shot forward, wrenching the two men apart and forcing the assassin to his knees.

  The man let out a humorless laugh. “Just as I thought. Even when attacked, even though you hold my weapon in your hand, you do nothing. Your people are weak.”

  Namir let out a snarl.

  Elian stepped forward then, his huge frame casting a shadow over the man on the floor. He didn’t try to speak to the assassin. He just pulled a small knife from his belt, quick as a flash, and drove it into the man’s shoulder with a sickening crunch, then pulled it out again.

  Only a slight widening of the man’s eyes betrayed the shock and pain he must have felt. He looked down at the blood spreading across his robes with an unnerving smile.

  Shivers crawled down my spine. What kind of people are these?

  “You threatened an innocent member of our city, spread fear through our streets.” Elian’s eyes were as cold as Namir’s. “We mean to find out your purpose. Have no doubt, we will extract that information from you however we have to.”

  My stomach churned. Am I really capable of watching this?

  A flicker crossed the man’s face. “Your threats mean nothing to me. I will tell you nothing. I will not betray my kingdom.”

  Namir let out another low snarl, but to my surprise, Aliyah placed a gentle hand on his arm. She smiled sweetly at the guards lining the walls, and somehow, her smile made me more fearful than any of the others in the room had, the assassin included. “Would you hold your guest still for a moment?”

  The guards looked to Namir, who gave a slight nod.

  They wrenched the assassin to his feet, holding him firm.

  “Thank you.”

  Aliyah took a step closer, her eyes running over the man’s face, down his body. He stayed still, frozen under the stare of the thief queen. Her hand darted forward, sliding behind his ripped shirt. The assassin twisted awkwardly in the soldiers’ grip, trying to pull away and failing.

  She held a thin piece of parchment aloft. “Interesting.” Aliyah slowly fanned herself with it, head tilted to one side as she surveyed the man before her. “I wonder what kind of correspondence an assassin deems important enough to keep with him while out on a job?”