24 - Jafar
J afar had watched a man retch his secrets while spewing bile and blood. He had looked at his father’s corpse and he had run for his life from guards. Yet it was only now that he felt sick to his stomach. Why was Rohan doing this? Every I that escaped his lips was a blade nicking Jafar’s skin, a slap across his cheek.
Jafar tried taking a sip of tea, to busy himself, to do something , but it was cardamom and only made his stomach churn more.
“You can’t just sit there, Jafar,” Iago whispered in his ear. If the Sultana had heard, she didn’t react.
But Jafar had no choice. He couldn’t denounce Rohan’s claims, not without condemning him to the sword for lying to the queen. An important oath, Mama had said long, long ago. It stuck with him mostly because oath was a funny word, and he didn’t learn what it truly meant until he was much older.
An oath was solemn, protected, sacred, and as the adults in his life violated them time and time again, it became increasingly imperative that Jafar never did.
“Our rubi—” Iago began.
Jafar shook his head. He couldn’t even think of the rubies right now, he couldn’t even worry about the fact that Rohan was going about it all wrong by not attempting to set up a trade first.
“My secret?” the Sultana asked Rohan, brow creased.
Rohan didn’t pause, he didn’t look to Jafar, he didn’t even let a beat pass before he volleyed his response: yes . That one word became two, then ten, and even as Jafar’s blood heated and simmered and eventually boiled, Rohan didn’t stop.
“The secret to papermaking that you so desire.”
The Sultana whirled to Harun. He gave her a small, almost imperceptible nod. His stern scowl softened. His cold gaze warmed. Their joy and pride was directed at Rohan, despite the blood on Jafar’s fingers, despite the words that had been hoarse in his throat as the prisoner had gone from smug to alarmed, despite the way something in Jafar had broken while he followed through with the alchemical experiment.
Jafar finally locked eyes with Rohan. Why are you doing this?
Rohan stared back coolly, and his response was clear. Did you not do the same?
He sat back, realizing he had given Rohan too much credit. It wasn’t that he was inept and going about it all wrong by not demanding to barter with the Sultana—he was punishing Jafar.
This wasn’t like Rohan. He was never vindictive; he never held a grudge. He was forever doting, forever fascinated by anything and everything Jafar had done. But ever since setting foot in the palace, Rohan had been different.
He had dissuaded Jafar from interrogating the prisoner. He had done worse than just stand there as Jafar extracted the secret—he’d tried to make him feel horrible for looking out for their best interests. For helping them.
He had wanted to make Jafar feel like he was in the wrong , just as Baba would, time and time again, and now he was claiming Jafar’s deeds as his own.
The Sultana turned back to them. “This is not what I wished upon you. The young must be allowed to be young, even those in a palace.”
The royal vizier cleared his throat.
The Sultana looked chagrined. Was she speaking of her son? Jafar was sorting through too many of his own emotions to decipher hers.
“How did you do it?” she asked, glancing from Jafar to Rohan. Did she suspect the lies? Could she see right through them? Jafar latched on to that glimmer of hope.
Still, he said nothing. He couldn’t tell them the truth without vilifying his brother.
“By combining two well-known alchemical findings,” Rohan said, and then smiled. Confidence dripped from his every word, because he knew Jafar. He knew Jafar wouldn’t betray him the way he’d just done. “The words spilled out of him.”
As they were spilling out of Rohan now, as if Jafar had ceased to exist. He didn’t tell her the secret itself, his burgeoned pride likely waiting for her to ask him for it. Or maybe he hadn’t heard it at all, too frightened by what he had been seeing to hear anything.
The Sultana laughed, still a little uncertain. For her, this was likely too good to be true.
“We’ve been at our wits’ end for months,” she said.
“I’m currently at my wits’ end myself,” Iago groused in Jafar’s ear.
Jafar couldn’t dwell on it anymore. His focus was on the wall that had risen between his brother and himself. He didn’t feel angry, he didn’t feel that insult to his pride Rohan often did.
He felt sad, but he remained silent.
Whatever you’re worried about might just not be worth the trouble, the girl had said, but she was wrong, wasn’t she? The worst part of betrayal was that it never came from an enemy.
An oath was an oath, even when it was a burden.