KAMRAN STOOD IN THE SHADOW

of a shuttered storefront, the hood of his cloak whipping in the wind, snapping against
his face like the leathery wings of a bat. The snow had softened to rain, and he listened
to the drops pop along the awning overhead, watched as they pelted the white drift
frosting the streets. Long minutes passed, piles of snow perforating, then dissolving at
his feet.
He should not have come.
After their meeting, the king had taken Kamran aside to ask further questions about the
suspected servant girl, questions Kamran only too gladly answered, having felt
validated by his grandfather's concern. It was in fact at the king's behest that Kamran
was to continue his inquiries into the girl's whereabouts, for Zaal, too, had seemed
perturbed upon hearing a more detailed accounting of the morning's events. He'd
dispatched the prince into town to fulfill various obligations⠀”among them a visit to the
Fesht boy—and to then surveil the city.
Naturally, Kamran had obliged.
A focused task was precisely what he needed, as it would allow him a reprieve from his
own mind, from the weight of all that his grandfather had recently imparted. The prince
had thought to see the mobs for himself, in any case; he
wanted to hear the commotion he had caused, to bear witness to the consequences of
his actions.
In the end, it had led to this: darkness.
No, he should not have come at all.
First was his visit to the street child, who'd been installed at the Diviners Quarters in the
Royal Square. The king had made it clear to Kamran that to ignore the boy now would
make his earlier actions appear rash and hotheaded. Subsequent actions of care and
compassion toward the boy would not only be expected, Zaal had said, but anticipated,
and as Kamran already owed the Diviners a visit, it had not seemed too great a waste of
his time.
Instead, it had been infuriating.
As it turned out, magic alone had saved the boy from the brink of death. This revelation,
which should have been a relief, was to the prince grim news indeed, for it had been
upon his perceived orders that the Diviners had acted⠀”and rarely, if ever, was
magical assistance offered to any outside the imperial family.
Vast though Ardunia was, magic as a substance was exceptionally rare. The unstable
mineral was mined from the mountains at great risk, and as a result existed only in
small, precious quantities, meted out only by royal decree. Kamran's call for help had
been interpreted as just that; marking yet another reason why his actions toward a
thieving street urchin had been so significant, and would not be easily forgotten.
He sighed at the reminder.
Though the boy was healing still, he'd managed to flinch
when Kamran arrived in his room. The child had inched backward in his bed as best he
could, scrambling out of reach of his unlikely savior. They both knew it; knew that the
scene within which they'd been trapped was a farce; that Kamran was no hero; that
there existed no amity between them.
Indeed, Kamran felt nothing but anger toward the boy.
Through the careful dissemination of new rumors, the crown had actively sought to
distort the story of the street urchin; King Zaal decided it would be more difficult to
convince an audience that the prince had done good by saving a murderous child, and
so had modified the tale to exclude any mention of harm done to the servant girl. This
bothered Kamran far more than it ought, for privately he felt the rascal deserved neither
the efforts made to spare him, nor the care he received now.