Asha leaned towards Nuru to whisper as soon as Hadhi stomped away. “So...there was a strange woman dancing with the prince?” “She is of no consequence to you,” Jauhar snapped. “Nuru fetch your sister’s gown before she ruins it! You can adjust it and wear it yourself tomorrow.”
“Is Prince Azize much matured?” Asha snuck her question in as Nuru, rolling her eyes and grumbling, moved to obey her mother.
“What does it matter to you? You never liked him.” Nuru trudged away like it were the most strenuous chore in the world. Hadhi had seemed a bit more sour than usual, but hardly worth all her sister’s grumblings. Nuru would be just like Hadhi one day if she kept on like this, content to have everything done for her.
“Listen well,” Jauhar’s tight voice pulled Asha’s gaze away from her half-sister. Asha caught sight of Sabra watching her with an odd searching expression. “If you shame this family, if you insult the prince or the king, you will have no home here.”
“I have known King Enzi since—”
Jauhar cut Asha off with a snap. “You know what your father wanted you to know.”
Asha wondered what Jauhar meant by that, but hadn’t a chance to ask as Jauhar jerked her head towards the house. Asha followed Sabra through into the main room. Only one lamp was lit. Of course, neither Nuru nor Hadhi had lit them. Sabra walked about the room, lighting the oil lanterns set high on outcroppings built into the walls.
Jauhar walked to a covered basket in the corner and selected a trio of silks that would do. None of their clothes were particularly fine any longer, so Asha was required to embellish older worn and dull silks.
“Hurry up, Nuru,” Jauhar cut herself off to yell at her youngest. “And take off your own gown, see what can be salvaged from it to make something for Hadhi.”
Jauhar didn’t finish her earlier lecture, just snapped out her orders, threw silks in Asha’s face, and walked away. “Pull your head out of your fantasies, Asha. See what is before you, it’s all you will ever have.”
“I want to sleep,” Nuru whined the second her mother was gone. She flounced onto a stool, dropping Hadhi’s dress on her legs, and stared with a scrunched-up face into the fire.
“Then we had better get working,” Asha pointed out cheerfully, yanking the dress from Nuru. “Altering this for you should be no trouble. Take off your own so we can work on one for Hadhi.”
Nuru left the room again. Asha hadn’t realized Sabra was still there until she approached, pulling the bands of beads from her arm and laying them in Asha’s pile of possible embellishments.
“You seem much recovered, Asha,” she said with seemingly great meaning. “I am glad. I was sorry to see you hurt. As were your sisters.”
Asha laughed. “I am sure,” she said dismissively, ignoring Sabra as she took sides against Asha, just like she had been since she joined this family.
Sabra nodded several times, rubbing a hand over her son’s back. She spoke low and heavy. “We can miss out on a great many beautiful things when we aren’t willing to look beyond the surface.” She left quietly without another word.
Her cryptic words like Jauhar’s about the king held the air for a moment, but quickly enough, Asha’s mind carried her away. Her fingers found the threads of the gown from memory, knowing instinctually which places to rip, so the seams fell apart in her hands without harming the silk.
Azize. Her childhood enemy. How could he possibly be the man she danced with? But he had her slipper and was enchanted enough by her to use another ball to seek her out. It had to be him, but she couldn’t quite believe it. Azize was the man who spoke and drew her into another land with him. Only Baba had ever been able to do that. Even Asha didn’t have the talent. She could wear a person down with the force of her enthusiasm. Or overcome their opinions with her adorable innocence, but she had never been able to completely drag someone else into her wonder, except for Baba. But Azize, the man she’d danced with, he could do it. He could bring a fantasy alive.
Nuru came back, grinding her teeth. Asha watched her sit and begin ripping the seams of her own gown without a word. That wasn’t like Nuru. She didn’t look pouty any longer or tired even, just sad.
“What’s wrong?” Asha asked, absently searching for the thread she had put away earlier.
“Nothing to bother you,” Nuru muttered under her breath.
Asha shrugged, ignoring Nuru’s tone. This was the sister Sabra thought was upset by Asha’s pain. Asha made a bit of a mess tearing through baskets until, at last, she found the purple thread she’d been seeking. Seeing as the work had been all her own, she should have known where it was, as she did with the stitches. But tidying was different. Jauhar was a bit right, Asha’s mind was rarely on the work. It was one reason she didn’t mind her chores. Her mind carried her anywhere. Everywhere imaginable. Everywhere but here.
“Do you think wanting to see the world must mean you hate your home?” Asha asked, thinking of all she and Azize had argued about, whispered about, fantasized about.
Azize. It was still too radical an idea for her mind to accept.
“Everything has to be special for you,” Nuru hissed, tugging too hard on the seams and tearing a bit of her fabric in the process. “You were never satisfied with your home or your family.”
Asha rolled her eyes, “I didn’t mean—”
“She cried herself to sleep again,” Nuru choked the words out, over what sounded like tears of her own.
“Oh,” Asha didn’t know what to say. Hadhi had been prone to sudden bouts of tears in her sleep since Baba died. No one spoke about it with her. But Nuru grew angry whenever it happened. “I am sorry. I’m sure it wasn’t what Jauhar said. She just misses Baba.”
Nuru sniffled still, but she did not cry.
Asha still grew overwhelmed and sobbed at odd moments. She would see something Baba would have loved and want to rush home to tell him, realizing she could not. She would have to sit down and sob. Or sometimes... she’d just be working, or walking, not really thinking of him at all, and tears would come slipping down her cheeks before she even felt the burning sorrow fill her chest.
Nuru wasn’t like that. She cried every day for two months straight after Baba died. Then one day, she got up, saw the sun rise and went about her life again. She was still sad; she just didn’t cry any longer.
It was strangely comforting that Hadhi still suffered. She must have really loved him, and Asha hadn’t been sure of Hadhi’s feelings.
Asha let Nuru be for the moment, settling in to sew. Her fingers had calluses again, scrapes and old scars, and the tips of her fingers were dry and thin from too much time in the water. He would have to believe she knew how to work now, her prince. He hadn’t earlier.
After they danced the first time, they slipped off to a corner to speak more. They got to discussing the oddest things; it was mostly Asha’s doing.
“Do you suppose fairies ever wash laundry?” Asha asked with a smirk. If she had magic all the time, she would never do laundry again. Not because it was too hard, or because she was lazy, but magic as she felt racing up her spine and teasing the hairs on her skin, it was too powerful, too lively to be stuffed down long enough to wring and score and wring again. It was too frantic a power to be held still long enough to thread a needle and pull it through a tattered gown.
Azize had laughed. “I’m sure they have servants to do it.”
“Yes, but are the servant's fairies?” She demanded excitably. “Wouldn't that be awful? To have such power flooding your being but to have to wait on others.''
“Maybe they like it," Azize said. “I've been around servants my whole life. Most are much happier than the people they serve. Maybe the work makes them happy."
She smiled, all the broader for her incredulity. “You have never worked a day in your life, have you?” His mouth fell slightly open. He was so cute. Azize was cute. “Work is frequently fulfilling and occasionally clarifying but it doesn't make you happy,” Asha informed him lightly.
“I won't stand here and be insulted,” he said with mock outrage, because of course he would. “Particularly not by a lady with such pampered skin." He lifted her hand in one of his own, running his other over it, seeking a flaw so gently. “These hands have never done laundry."
“I've done my fair share of work. More sometimes," she defended, with her heart racing from the contact.
He shook his head in playful disbelief, but refused to release her hand. He opened his mouth slowly, as if he would speak, but he said nothing, his gaze shifting to Asha's lips, his thumb rubbing across her hand in a steady rhythm.
Asha was breathless with anticipation and the tiniest bit of nerves. She’d been kissed before, but this was different; this stole her breath before his lips were even near her own. This held her trapped on nothing but the possibility. She was so caught up in his eyes she couldn't move. His eyes were so...lush.
Asha giggled now, in spite of her audience. Lush was a lovely word. It didn’t have an exact match in Maltuban. The closest word meant bountiful, and that wasn’t at all the same. Lush. Asha was tempted to open her lips and press her tongue against her teeth to speak it, lush.
But Nuru’s gaze was suddenly critical. Some moments she looked so like Jauhar and others, she reminded Asha of their father, his energy, his wildness.
“Do you think Azize is handsome?” Nuru rolled her eyes at the question, but Asha was undeterred. “I never thought he was handsome before.”
“He’s a prince. No one cares if he’s handsome. Ssss!” Nuru hissed, stabbing herself with a needle. The gown she was altering for Hadhi was not what Asha would call beautiful. Its adornments were barely held together; Nuru had no patience. And the gold that ran all throughout it, while a lovely color on Nuru, would do nothing for Hadhi’s eyes. On their own Hadhi’s eyes looked nearly gold, but by comparison to the real color, they looked pale and lackluster, sandy.
When Baba was alive, they could have any fabric they chose, as many gowns as they wished. Asha had been too busy working since his death to miss that, but she thought Hadhi might. She needed all the help she could get to offset her constant scowl.
“Is the entire ball tomorrow meant only to find one woman?” Asha demanded, tickled by the idea. “Here.” She yanked a large, vibrant green scarf out of her overturned basket. It was fraying at the end, and wasn’t nearly enough to improve the whole gown, but it might help. “Add it to the shoulder.” She tossed it to Nuru. “Yes, make a bow just there. No leave the fraying bit hanging off the shoulder and string some green beads to it. Hadhi looks much better in green. And if it’s on her right, it will help hide her scars.”
Nuru softened after the help. She yawned, taking Asha’s suggestions somewhat sloppily, but it looked better.
“Azize stole her shoe when she ran away from him.” Nuru spoke in a lethargically amused tone. “He’s vowed to find her and marry her on the spot.”
“On the spot?” Asha could barely breathe. It was one thing entirely to accept that her stranger was truly Azize, to realize she wanted to kiss Azize, her old enemy. But to marry him—
“His friend Masahiro says Azize is bewitched, that he was never this passionate before.” Nuru went on, nodding a bit, fighting off sleep. “But the king told Mzaa he doesn’t trust any woman he doesn’t know, so he made Azize promise to have the second ball first and give every woman who fits the shoe a chance to be his bride.”
Asha paused with her needle poking through the fabric; she saw him in her mind again, as he’d been when he chased after her.
Come find me.
He was, wasn’t he? He’d known her only a few hours and already he loved her.
Marry her on the spot.
She could be someone’s most beloved again. Asha’s eyes leaked, and her skin shivered from a sudden wave of grief. She had been trying so hard not to miss Baba, not to miss being so well-loved.
“Asha.” Nuru lay aside the gown she was altering and watched her half-sister with evident concern. “I...am glad you will be at the ball tomorrow. You will like Azize’s friends. I am sorry...“
Asha cut Nuru off, though it was nice to see that at least one sister cared about Asha’s feelings. “I was thinking what fun Baba would have had teasing him.”
Nuru accepted this with a nod and settled back into her work. “Baba did love teasing.”
“Tell me more about Azize; did you talk to him? Did he seem intelligent to you?”
Asha asked her questions until Nuru fell asleep with her needle in hand. But Asha couldn’t sleep. She felt truly alive, truly herself for the first time since Baba died. She wasn’t only pretending to smile, in hopes of feeling joyful again.
She could be someone’s best beloved.
“Thank you, Zawadi.” Asha smiled into the night despite her silent trickle of tears. Somehow she just knew she had found her fate tonight, and tomorrow she would go claim him.