Page 47 of A Filling of Fables and Firelight

He closed the distance between them, touching his forehead to hers. Her eyes fluttered shut.

The door flew open with a crash. “Rana! Teta said you were awake!”

Kamaran stifled a groan as Jasper blew in with Zade and Spot on his heels. Zamar followed at a more sedate pace. The hint of a knowing smirk appeared on the vizier’s face as he greeted them. “Rana, Your Majesty. I’m glad to see you both appear to be recovering well. As you can see, I’ve brought the menagerie.”

Zade immediately jumped on the bed and started chittering away as he rubbed his head against Rana’s side.

“Thank you,” Kamaran responded drily.

Jasper plopped himself into the chair beside the bed. “How are you feeling, Rana?”

“A little bit like I’ve been dragged by a camel,” she laughed. “I’ve got a headache and my shoulder is still pretty tender, but it’s manageable.”

Jasper nodded. “The surgeon said you not only got dosed with viper venom, but you likely have a concussion from hitting your head on the floor. He was pretty impressed when you didn’t die.”

Kamaran’s arm tightened around Rana’s shoulders at the reminder. The image of her lying pale and limp in his arms as he felt her life draining away was one that he would never fully recover from.

Rana shrugged. “The dart must not have hit right or something. Or maybe the venom wasn’t very strong.”

“It was concentrated at ten times the amount.” Zamar shook his head. “I don’t know what kind of training Princess Aida underwent in Jinnal, but we had all but given up when she arrived and offered her assistance. However it happened, the fact that you’re alive is a miracle.”

“But why?” Kamaran asked, voicing the thought that had been plaguing him since the night before. “What could Aliyah have possibly hoped to gain?”

Zamar sank onto the couch. “I’ve been trying to piece that together myself. Nabil—her home region—has long been one of the more prosperous regions in the empire. As their wealth and influence over their neighbors have grown, Aliyah’s family seems to have only grown more hungry for power. They have a distant connection to the royal line—-not enough to challenge for the throne, but enough to make a claim should you be taken out of the picture.”

“But the Queen’s Contest was already happening,” Rana said. “Why resort to murder when they could just have Aliyah marry him?”

“Because that would leave her father still in the position of a subordinate, and nothing less than Sultan would satisfy.”

“Unfortunately for him,” Jasper cut in, “his daughter is a very bad assassin. Either that, or His Majesty is just very bad at dying.”

Kamaran frowned, “What do you mean?”

“She tried to kill you several times,” Rana answered, squeezing the fingers she held more tightly and pressing into his side as if she needed to be closer to him.

“Four, to be exact,” said Jasper. He held up a hand, ticking off his fingers. “There was last night, of course. Then the scorpion that she put on your shirt. The attack in the marketplace.”

“I thought that was an accident,” Kamaran interrupted, looking to Zamar.

The vizier shook his head sadly. “After we knew where to look, we found that he had connections to Aliyah’s family. The surgeon confirmed that the seizures he suffered while in custody could very well have been caused by viper venom. It’s likely that when you survived, he was killed to keep the whole thing quiet.”

A somber moment followed. “What was the fourth attempt?” Rana asked, finally breaking the silence.

“The garden party,” Jasper answered smugly. “I did some asking around. Aliyah brought you a drink, Your Majesty, didn’t she?”

Vague memories popped into his mind as Kamaran nodded.

“She tried to poison you by putting arsenic in your punch, only instead of drinking it, you tossed it onto a rose bush.”

Rana gasped. “That’s the one the gardener was asking Teta about!”

“That’s what made me think of it.” Jasper nodded proudly.

Kamaran exhaled, numb with the kind of disbelief that only comes from learning that one was the target of a handful of assassination attempts. “I never would have guessed.”

“Because while she’s a very bad assassin, she is an excellent actor.”

“How did you figure it out?”