It will all be over tomorrow, I think.He will marry Caspida, and surely by then, Nardukha will have set me free.
I rest my head on his shoulder, feeling his heart beating against me. I wish I could gather time around us, slowing the minutes, making them last a lifetime.
“I was born on the island kingdom of Ghedda,” I whisper. This is a story I never told even to you, Habiba. I tell it now only because I cannot bear to leave him without the truth, knowing only half of me. I raise my head and meet his eyes. “That was more than four thousand years ago. I was the eldest daughter of a wise and generous king.”
Aladdin stares at me, his eyes soft and curious, encouraging me to go on.
“When I was seventeen, I became queen of Ghedda. In those days, the jinn were greater in number, and the Shaitan held greater sway over the realms of men. He demanded we offer him twenty maidens and twenty warriors in sacrifice, in return for fair seas and lucrative trade. I was young and proud and desired, above all else, to be a fair ruler. I would not bow to his wishes, so he shook our island until it began to fall into the sea.”
I shudder, and Aladdin draws me closer.
“I climbed to the alomb at the top of the Mountain of Tongues, and there offered myself to the Shaitan, if he would only save my city from the sea.” My voice falls to a whisper, little more than a ripple on the water. “So he took me and made me jinn and put me in the lamp. And then he caused the Mountain of Tongues to erupt, and Ghedda was lost to fire. For he had sworn only to save my people from the sea, not from flame.”
Falling silent, I wait to see what Aladdin will do. Call me naïve for trusting the word of the Shaitan? Tell me I should have bowed to Nardukha’s wishes in the first place?
But Aladdin says nothing.
Instead, he lowers his face and softly kisses the side of my neck, his mouth trailing up to the skin behind my ear. Goose bumps break across my skin, and I turn my face to meet his lips with mine. This kiss is gentler than our last, long and slow and restrained. It is a kiss of longing. A kiss of farewell. His hands tighten around my waist, pulling me against him. We drift in a slow circle, sending out ripples that make the floating flowers bob and dip.
“You keep so many secrets,” he murmurs. “I could spend the rest of my life discovering you.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, his eyes devouring my face. “Of course you were a queen. Of course yousacrificed yourself for your people. You did all you could, Zahra. You can’t blame yourself for what the Shaitan did. He would have done it anyway.”
“I should have died with my people.”
“If you had, I would have never met you.” He kisses me again, more deeply, his hands twining in my hair. I let his touch wash away the past.
It is Aladdin who pulls away first, with a soft, husky laugh.
“This is crazy. I’m getting married tomorrow,” he says.
I nod and lay my head on his shoulder.
“It’s not too late,” he says. “Zahra, I—”
“Sh.” I lay a finger across his lips. “Don’t say it. You will marry Caspida, and you will learn to love each other. You will live a happy life, long after my lamp has passed to new hands.”
“I won’t make my third wish,” he says. “That’s the answer! If I don’t make the wish, you can stay here in the palace for as long as you want. You’ll never have to go back to your lamp. We can fight off anyone who tries to take you from me.”
“Even if that were true, you would grow old and die. Or more likely, someone would discover my existence and kill you for my lamp. Or most likely, Caspida would learn that you’re a fake and that I am one of the jinn she so deeply hates, and she would destroy you and me both.”
“She’d understand.”
“Would she?”
He winces. “Fine. I won’t marry her.”
“And what of your vengeance? Will you let Sulifer win that easily?”
He lowers his gaze. “Everything I’ve lived for will have been in vain. Sulifer will win. He will force Caspida to marry Darian.She’ll become their puppet, if they even let her live long at all. And no one will be left to oppose him. He’ll get away with everything.”
I nod. “It would be our fault.”
He looks up, his forehead creasing. “Why do you care what happens to her? I thought we humans were vapors to you, here today and gone tomorrow.”
“Caspida is... different. She reminds me of someone, someone I’d give my life for if I could.”
“The queen?” he asks. “The one who died?”
“Roshana. My dear Ro.” My voice is soft as a ripple on the water. “She once ruled the Amulens, and Caspida is her descendant. She has Roshana’s strength of spirit, and I cannot look at her without thinking of my old friend. If she were to come to harm on my account... I could not bear that through the centuries.” I already carry a mountain of shame, a constant reminder of that day on Mount Tissia.
