"You may not be a virgin, but I am, and I fear my clumsiness will make you wish to break your promise. I am not worthy of you. Not yet."
Her eyes mesmerised him like never before. "What if I told you I knew a spell that could guarantee when you make love to the woman of your heart's desire, she will know nothing but pleasure at your touch?"
His mouth was too dry to speak. He tried twice before he had to clear his throat to get the words out. "Keep your spell for our wedding night, for you will need it then. Please, Princess."
She stared at him for a long time, then nodded. "All right. If you wish. I have never had to wait for a man before and I find I do not like it. However, I believe you will be worth the wait, so I shall."
If Aladdin looked at her for any longer, he would be lost in her eyes, and he would agree to anything she desired, for he desired it, too. He bade her a hasty farewell and hurried out before he could surrender to her.
It was a long walk home, but he noticed little of it, for his thoughts were filled with Maram, and their future nights together. The desert heat was cold in comparison.
TWENTY-SEVEN
For two days, Aladdin did not visit her, and it drove Maram mad. She'd seen him again, and kissed him. She'd kissed him so many times he heated her blood near to boiling, and still he resisted her. Not even their betrothal was enough to bring him to her bed. If she didn't know better, she'd swear the man had seduction magic of his own, but she'd never met a man so frightened of intimacy before. Clumsy, indeed. She'd known clumsy, and he wasn't. His every kiss was perfect – making love to him would be even more perfect.
Yet still he did not come, and it was her turn to fear. Had she driven him away with her persistence? Or did he have other matters to attend to? For she knew he was no prince, not truly, so his money must come from somewhere. When she saw him next, she would ask about it, and this time, she would not rest until she had her answer.
Darkness crept over the city on the second day, dulling her spirits until Maram had scarcely any appetite for her evening meal.
A cacophony of banging and shouting sounded outside, and Maram sent a maid to find out what was going on.
Another maid came skidding into the room, wide-eyed. "Your Highness, he's here!"
So Aladdin surprised her servants, did he? "Send him in," Maram said, calling for a second place to be set at her table for her soon-to-be husband.
The first one returned, laughing. "There is a madman outside, rattling a great bundle of new lamps all tied together, offering to trade new lamps for old. There is an old lamp in the entrance hall. I found it while I was cleaning. Shall I take it to him and see if he will truly trade it, as he says?"
Maram no longer cared about whatever was going on outside. "Fine, fine," she said vaguely, combing her fingers through her hair. Did she have time to summon a servant with a comb to do a proper job? She had not expected Aladdin to come so late, and she did not want him to find her looking anything but her best.
"What is this I hear that you are to marry some prince? You are promised to me!"
Hasan burst into the room, his eyes as wild as any madman outside.
Maram cautiously rose to her feet, so that she might run if she needed to. "My father, the Sultan, controls my fate, as he rules over us all," she said slowly. There were no guards in her private chambers. Her only weapon was a small eating dagger, and even that lay on the table where she'd left it.
"You're mine! Mine!" Hasan spat, striding forward.
Maram scuttled back, hoping she had judged the entrance to the gardens right. Once she reached the darkness, she could turn and run, and perhaps hide.
Her back hit the wall. Oh, by all that was holy, she had the worst luck. Maram edged to her left, closer to Hasan, but also closer to freedom.
Not close enough. His meaty hands closed around her throat and choked off her air.
"You belong to me, not some foreign prince!"
Colour leached away from Maram's vision as she struggled to breathe. Hasan would kill her after all and she and Aladdin would never...she'd never...
"You dare to steal from me!" a new voice roared.
Hasan threw her to the floor, knocking the remaining breath from her lungs. Maram coughed and gasped and fought to stay conscious. She had to get to the knife...
"She is my bride, and no one else's!" Hasan shouted back, storming back the way he'd come.
Maram dragged herself across the floor and snatched the knife from the table. Thus armed, she subsided on the tiles, too exhausted to move any more just yet.
But she had to. Had to get up, be ready to run or defend herself, because if she didn't, Hasan would kill her for sure.
She drew in a great gulp of air, then another, and the second was somehow tainted with smoke. Fire. Faintly, she could hear her servants screaming, and the sound of running feet as they escaped the blaze now filling her palace with smoke.
She coughed, hard, tears blurring her vision. Maram grabbed the table and hauled herself into a sitting position, still coughing as the smoke grew too thick for her to see.
She must have hit her head, she decided, because she couldn't be seeing what she thought was before her. The smoke coalesced into a giant, blue man, who faced off against Hasan as though the two were about to fight.
"Kill the miserable thief. No one steals from Gwandoya!" the unfamiliar male voice said.
Maram blinked, her vision clearing just in time to see the blue man clasp his hands together and bring them down on Hasan's head. Hasan's head burst like an overripe melon, bits of flesh splattering on the tiles, before his headless body collapsed amid the gore.
"Oh my God," Maram breathed, then clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the scream that would not be silenced. The blue man had killed him, squashed him like an insect, all over her floor...
And she was next.
With a squeak, Maram leaped to her feet and bolted into the garden. She sank to her knees behind a shrub and hoped the shadows hid her from the blue man's sight.
Moments passed, and no one gave chase. She dared to breathe again.
"Servant of the lamp, I command you to take this palace and everyone in it, and carry it to my homeland," the unfamiliar man ordered.
"As you wish, master," boomed a voice that could only belong to the blue giant.
Then the ground shook beneath Maram as though the palace had been hoisted on the back of a giant camel. She lost her balance, slamming her head against a tree, and darkness swallowed her whole.
TWENTY-EIGHT