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"Why should I trust you? If I release you now, what assurance do I have that you will return in a month, or at all?"
Aladdin met the Sultan's eyes steadily. "Because, Your Majesty, if I do not find her in that time, then I fear Princess Maram will be dead, and I will beg you to die so that I might join her."
The Sultan was silent for a long moment before he finally said, "Very well. But if you fail to return my daughter to me, you will not need to beg. Your death will be painful, I promise you."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." The words came out of his mouth, but Aladdin's thoughts were not in the Sultan's palace at all. Instead, they were with Maram, wherever she might be. He prayed Hasan had not hurt her yet, and that Aladdin would be in time to save her from him.
He had to be.
TWENTY-NINE
Maram woke in her own bed, her head throbbing as though she'd attended one of those all-night feasts the northern kingdoms loved so much. The ones where wine flowed like water.
But if she had attended such a feast, there would be a naked man in her bed, and she would be wearing a lot less than she was now. Instead, she was alone, wearing the same clothes she'd worn yesterday. All she was missing was her shoes.
She rose and called for her servants, but received no answer. In fact, the palace was strangely quiet, as though she was alone, yet she could see daylight filtering through the windows. Her staff were never lazy – they would not be abed at this hour. One of her maids should have woken her hours ago.
Something was terribly wrong.
Maram crept out into the garden, which sparkled in the sun as though nothing had changed. She knew otherwise, though, touching her head where it hurt most. She'd hit her head on a tree. This morning, the trunk was marked with a streak of blood that had blackened in the sun. Maram had not imagined the events of last night.
That meant Hasan was...Hasan was...
She swallowed and squared her shoulders. She had to see it again to be sure.
Her feet made almost no sound as she traversed the cool tiles to the entrance hall. Her eyes scanned the floor for the spot where Hasan had fallen.
Where he'd splattered.
Her stomach roiled, but Maram refused to let the nausea rule her. His body had been right there...yet now the tiles were clean of blood and brains and whatever else was supposed to stay inside a man's head when he was alive.
She had not imagined it, Maram told herself. Perhaps that's where the servants were – called to her father's court to bear witness to the body they'd found. She should join them, for she'd seen the blue man kill Hasan with her own eyes.
Not that her father would believe there was such a thing as a giant blue man made of smoke. Maram herself didn't believe it, but if there had been some magic at work, then perhaps such a thing could exist. Such magic was beyond her, though.
She returned to her apartments and dressed carefully, for she had no servants to help her. No matter. She managed, as she always did.
With one final pat to make sure her veil was in place, Maram marched to the gate. She crossed the entrance hall without faltering, maintaining a steady trot as she descended the sunlit stairs into air that seemed distinctly cooler than usual.
Only when she reached the bottom of the stairs did she dare to look up into the street outside the palace gates.
But the street was gone. In its place, endless grassland stretched to the horizon, the straight line broken by a few scrubby trees. This was not the city or the desert she knew – it was somewhere else entirely, a country Maram, even in her extensive travels, had never visited before.
She heard a squeak, which drew her gaze back from the horizon to the gates. Someone's dogs were nosing something in the grass, so she took a step closer to investigate.
One of the dogs heard her, for it lifted its bloodied muzzle and mewed at her. It was the strangest dog she'd ever seen. Why, it sounded almost like...
A loud roar drowned out whatever thought she'd intended to have as a larger creature rose from the grass. This Maram could identify. The lioness was leaner than the ones she'd seen in menageries across the world, but there was no mistaking the deadly intent in her eyes as she stalked. She appeared to be hunting, and the dogs were not dogs at all, but lion cubs, eating the remains of...Hasan.
If she'd had anything in her belly, Maram would have brought it up then and there.
She had no right to feel faint at the thought of someone killing the man, not when she'd been ready to hire an assassin to do the job for her, Maram told herself, but it was no use. Even she would have seen that the man was given a proper burial, not fed to someone's pet lions.
Except...there was something wild about this lioness that made her take another look. No chains or collars bound them. No fence or walls caged them. The lioness and her cubs were free as the air, which meant there was nothing stopping them from...from...
Maram scrambled up the steps, not daring to take her eyes off the lioness. She backed inside the palace, fingers scrabbling at the door so that she might shut it firmly behind her. Were there bars? Something to keep the lioness out?
"You should not leave the palace, Princess. It is not safe."
