Twenty-Three

 

When the prince finally returned Mai's shoes and asked her to become his wife, after no small effort on the part of Briska and even Zuleika, Briska allowed herself the luxury of another peep at Maram.

Her daughter looked much like Briska herself, for her enchanted servitude had kept Briska unchanging on the outside while she aged imperceptibly inside. Yet the years had aged Maram, too. Travelling to foreign courts and bewitching foreigners with her beauty and wit, all the while brokering trade agreements for the Sultan had turned the girl into a woman more worldly-wise than Briska would ever be.

The courts Briska observed in secret, casting spells through the mirror while she stayed safe in her palace of ice...Maram marched into with her head held high, the unchallenged mistress of all she surveyed. When she departed, she carried many new jewels and other precious gifts, most of which she sold or traded away at her next port of call. After one trading expedition, her wealth was more than her mother's dowry, making her the wealthiest woman in the Sultan's kingdom. Richer than the Sultan himself, Briska suspected, until the trade agreements Maram negotiated began to bear fruit. Maram would have made a formidable queen, and more than one foreign prince had offered for her hand, courtesan or no.

But no matter how eligible the offer, she had declined them all. Briska thought it was because none of them had yet managed to touch her heart. Because for all she'd inherited her father's political acumen, Maram was definitely her mother's daughter. It would take an extraordinary man to capture Maram's heart, though the girl would leave a trail of broken hearts behind her.

While her mother made matches between two people, Maram united entire nations. She had a courage Briska would never possess. Briska prayed that Maram would never need to know the violence that had driven Briska into hiding.

But today, as Briska watched the girl shrug out of her clothes in the old bathhouse by the city gates, she was struck by the deep sadness that seemed to surround Maram, a dark pool far deeper than the water she stepped into. For all her conquests, happiness eluded Maram, too, much as it had her mother. Was Maram destined to spend her life alone, in the midst of so many, yet untouched?

But she wasn't alone in the bathhouse, Briska noticed – a shadow lurked in the linen room, the shadow of a man, she was certain of it.

The mirror obeyed her order to focus on the man, to see which of her suitors was spying on Maram, and whether he meant her ill. But this man was no suitor Briska had ever seen before. His patched, worn clothes made him appear little more than a common beggar, until Briska recognised the make of them. A fashion from decades past, only ever crafted in silk, but worn so threadbare now she couldn't discern any of the original sheen. A nobleman or a merchant, fallen upon hard times...did he blame Maram for his misfortunes, and seek revenge?

Briska sent a spell through the glass, fanning the flame of his existing passions. If it was Maram he wanted, then he would make himself known to her instead of hiding. If it was revenge...better that he reveal himself now that her servants were alert for her call for aid.

The man edged out of the shadows and into the light, but only to where he could see Maram better.

Not a man at all. He was barely more than a boy, his father's cast-off clothes hanging off his thin frame, but the way he stared at Maram was like a man dying of thirst regarding a cup of wine. Infinite longing.

Briska reached through the mirror and sent a stack of towels tumbling off the shelf. The boy never heard it, for he was too intent on Maram, but Maram's head snapped up, as she became aware that she wasn't alone.

She summoned him, using the same honeyed tones she might try on one of her suitors. Unlike those other men, he crept out of hiding and prostrated himself before her.

Briska would have called for her attendants to take the boy away, knowing that the boy deserved death for invading the Sultana's privacy. But Maram, for all her regal airs, was not a virtuous queen.

She called for food to be brought, enough for two, claiming the man as a lover to her servants, though she'd only met him. She even honoured him by serving him with her own hands, something Briska had not even done for the Sultan himself.

The boy – Aladdin, he'd said his name was – was nothing and no one, yet Maram treated him like her equal. She offered him food, drink...and then she did the unthinkable. She offered him her hand, and he took it.

A look passed between them, for the most fleeting moment, but Briska caught it, for she knew it well. In that touch and in that glance, two hearts had connected. If only other matches could be made so easily.

Briska sent a seduction spell at the boy, the strongest she could muster, and instead of stepping closer to Maram, he bowed his head. Swearing softly, she cast a second spell, this time aiming squarely for Maram.

Love could spark, but sometimes it needed more to fan it into a proper, enduring flame.

"Kiss me," Maram said. What should have been a command came out as a desperate plea.

Quietly, Briska retreated, willing the mirror to return to mist, so that her daughter might enjoy the boy's heartfelt kiss in peace and privacy.

For the first time in more than a decade, Briska wanted to weep for joy. A man had touched her daughter's heart. One who might be able to give her the love she deserved. Love Maram might return.

Her heart considerably lighter, Briska lay back on her bed of ice, secure in the knowledge that while her own heart was frozen, at least her daughter's future would be happy.