The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

about it. And it’s quite possible Kirrana will come up with something as well.

I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.

Chapter

42

A page arrives with two notes for me as I am getting ready to attend Alyrra to dinner. I very nearly snatch them from his hand, gasping my thanks. It is the same page who brought Bren’s notes, but an initial glance tells me the topmost one, at least, is not from him.

It’s from Kirrana. I sit down in my desk chair and read it with relief. She is perfectly fine, enjoying her time with her family, and her father will bring her back this evening. She’ll be sure to be careful and stay in the palace complex until she hears further from me. Therefore, I am not to worry.

I grin and send up a word of thanks before opening the second note. This one is, indeed, from Bren. It says only:

I thought you said you wouldn’t leave the palace. My man tells me he followed you all the way to the docks and back without your noticing a thing. Would you please take a guard with you next time?—Bren

I lean against the chair back, the letter dangling from my fingertips. It was just Bren being overprotective. There is no other danger; no one has discovered what Kirrana and I have been working on. All is well.

It is almost too good to be true. Silly Bren, watching over me like a mother hen and scaring me half to death. I will have to let Alyrra know when I can catch her alone.

“Ready to go?” Mina asks from across the room, focused on putting the last touches on her makeup.

“Yes,” I say, and hide the letters away.

The evening party goes well enough. The others manage most of what needs to be done, and I just smile and chat amiably with whoever addresses me, generally aware that, in fact, the court still seems given to thinking rather partially of me. The women offer me condescending smiles, the men nod to me from around the room, and no one lets the foreign prince come anywhere near me. It’s all rather wonderful.

I watch Alyrra’s brother closely, and he seems brighter today than he did before the wedding, his pale eyes alight. I cannot imagine why, though. He spends most of his time standing aloof, rarely speaking to anyone other than his mother, the queen. Our nobles, while they greet him politely, do not even attempt to engage him. If they have rallied around me, they have positively flocked around the princess, according her every courtesy of her station and acknowledging her place before them. It must grate on him, the realization that he has ensured her their support where she had to work for it before.

By the end of the evening, my foot is hurting once again, my ankle aching and at least a few blisters burst. I’m grateful when the royals retire early, Kestrin and the king walking together with Alyrra to the royal wing, all of us attendants trailing behind them.

Alyrra moves to the door to her suite, and Kestrin winks at her, promising to meet her soon, before moving farther down the hall with his father, toward his own door. It’s quite sweet how he ensures she has her own space, and is comfortable in the space they share. He will no doubt wait in his own sitting room until she has made herself comfortable in their bedroom.

We pass through the empty rooms and into the bedchamber. Zaria goes to pour Alyrra a cup of almond milk. I shift; we don’t usually walk Alyrra all the way in and I wonder if she simply forgot to dismiss us this time.

“A lovely evening, but oh! I am tired,” Alyrra says, moving toward the bed. The blankets do not lie quite flat, a few larger wrinkles disturbing the surface. Odd, that. Shouldn’t they have been pulled taut by the maids?

I blink at the bed as Mina says something and the princess laughs in return. “I know,” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed, near one of the wrinkles. “I’ll just sit for a moment, and then you can—”

“Get away!” I cry, leaping forward. I catch Alyrra’s elbow and yank her off the bed as the wrinkle contracts in on itself. My wound shrieks with pain—I should not have used that arm. But I can hear a faint rasping sound, a warning I’ve heard twice out on the plains, one that anyone would be a fool to ignore, wounded or not.

“What?” Alyrra asks, stumbling.

“Back, back,” I gasp through the pain.

“You’re acting like a madwoman, Amraeya,” Jasmine says, rounding on me. “There’s nothing wrong with the bed. See?”

“No—don’t,” I manage, stepping forward, good hand out, as Jasmine yanks off the bedclothes.

She screams.

An orange-and-white saw-scaled viper balances precariously on the edge of the bed, its body easily as thick around as my wrist. Startled, it throws back its head and then slides off the bed in a heap, right onto my feet.

I freeze. It writhes once, righting itself and disappearing completely beneath the hem of my skirt. I can feel it rasping its scales against each other, its weight heavy over my feet, cool snakeskin wrapped around one ankle. Its warning rsss-rsss sounds beneath the ongoing, gasping shrieks issuing from Jasmine’s mouth.

“Rae?” Alyrra says softly.

I don’t move, except to speak. “Get out. All the rest of you get out. Jasmine. Listen to me.”

She takes a gasping breath, and while her mouth remains open, the screams stop.

“If you move quickly, the viper will attack you. You have to move slowly, slide your feet backward. Don’t lift them. You must not scare it.”

“Scare it?” Zaria demands from somewhere behind me. “You’re—”

“Out,” Alyrra says, brooking no argument. “Now. Mina, you too.”

“You too, zayyida,” I say. My hands are beginning to shake. I curl my wounded arm against my chest, wrap my other over it to still my body. I cannot afford to frighten the