31 - Jafar
W hen the Sultana had said she needed to choose between them today, Jafar hadn’t thought that meant this instant. He saw the words directed at Rohan and wanted to tell the Sultana she was mistaken. Jafar was standing here , not there . She could not have meant his younger brother, who knew so little of the world, who would never step out of the shadows without coaxing but would happily take credit for deeds beyond his capabilities.
Jafar had known the Sultana for less time than he’d known anyone in his life, and yet the betrayal rippling through him was startling.
Rohan balked. “Me?”
The Sultana’s quick laugh was muffled in Jafar’s ears.
“Yes, you, Rohan,” she said. “But from this point forward, you will be known as Aman.”
Her voice cracked when she spoke her drowned son’s name, as Jafar’s heart already had.
“I don’t know how to feel,” Rohan said while a pair of dressmakers swept toward him. He was lying—he knew exactly how to feel. Jafar recognized that trill of excitement in his brother’s tone.
His own blood roared. He could barely comprehend his surroundings, so full of noise and hurt and anger that he wanted to scream. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus.
Later, he remembered turning his back to the Sultana and her vizier. He remembered Rohan calling his name, the marble floors unforgiving beneath his feet, the morning heat surrounding him like a blanket against his cold reality.
It wasn’t that Jafar would not be crowned, but that Rohan would be . He hadn’t come here for power and a throne, but he could not stand for his brother to have both or either.
“Jafar.”
The world spiraled into focus. He opened his eyes and stared straight into Iago’s golden ones. They were outside in the gardens. When had he stumbled out here?
“Don’t make me slap you,” Iago squawked, settling on a plinth by the reflecting pool. The water rippled ever so slightly as a pair of birds flitted in and out of the roses.
Jafar was still finding it hard to breathe. Rohan was being crowned prince. Rohan. His—his—
“Do you know what we have that Rohan doesn’t?” Iago asked.
“An uncrowned head?” Jafar asked.
“Well, at least you still have your wits about you,” Iago remarked. “But no, a plan. We still need to get those rubies.”
He’d momentarily forgotten about the rubies.
“For what? To control the chef as he cooks?” Jafar asked.
“You know what, I think I will slap you,” Iago replied cheerily.
“I don’t even know where the rubies are,” Jafar said.
“In the Sultana’s pocket,” Iago said. “I saw her fiddling with them. I can’t tell if she’s using them.”
“She isn’t,” Jafar said, pressing his eyes closed until his head cleared. Somewhat. He’d read that there were indications when the rubies were being used, subtle enough that it wasn’t fully noticeable to those who didn’t know where to look.
“I think she was trying to use them to buy more time for her prince problem before she saw us. Maybe persuade the Hulumi king or something,” Jafar rambled as Iago lifted a brow. “I don’t know. Desperate minds rarely think things through.”
“Well, there you go, then,” Iago said.
“There we go what?” Jafar asked. “Are we just going to reach into her pocket and pull them out?”
“Yes,” Iago said, and rolled a pair of cheap red glass orbs in his talons. Jafar didn’t know when or where Iago had found them. “She’s frazzled and as anxious about everything as we are. We’ll swap them, and she won’t notice a thing. Desperate minds, remember? You said it yourself.”
“Oh, goody,” Iago said, “she’s alone.”
The throne room was indeed empty. Rohan was nowhere to be seen, nor was the royal vizier, but the Sultana was waiting for Jafar.
“He was taken to be fitted for a wardrobe,” the Sultana explained before he could ask. “You will be fitted for a new collection as well.”
“For what?” Jafar asked, his voice tight. The throne room felt larger than when he’d first arrived, or maybe it was just he who had become smaller, something less than without his brother’s company.
“For a life of luxury as a companion to the prince,” she said, but Jafar wouldn’t fall for that again. He’d always known the Sultana was cunning, yet somehow he’d arrived in Maghriz and ignored the fact.
Jafar scoffed. “Advisor, you mean, because ‘together, we make a formidable pair’?”
“If you would rather leave the palace, you are welcome to, but Rohan must be made presentable for the princess and her father tonight.”
Tonight . Jafar felt cold all over. Iago’s talons tightened around Jafar’s shoulder.
“Will there be no swearing in or ceremony?” he asked, grasping at straws. Trying to delay the inevitable.
“Aman has always been prince,” the Sultana said. There she was again, manipulating words and the world, renaming his brother like he was a pet fish she’d come to own.
“Do you really think the people will look at him and believe he’s your son?” Jafar asked. “No alchemy can alter that many minds at once.”
“We’re changing guards as we speak. Those who will patrol inside the palace will never have seen the prince before. As far as officials go, my son was rarely present to discuss matters of state. Believe me, Jafar, I have thought this through.”
Jafar scoffed. “No matter what your kingdom might believe, Rohan will always be my brother first—and a commoner.”
Then he leaned closer to Iago, biting out a single word under his breath to signal the start of their plan. “Now.”
The Sultana smiled as Iago leaped off Jafar’s shoulder. “I expect nothing less. Do you know why you were not chosen?”
There were too many bitter ways to answer that question, and so Jafar remained silent.
“You possess far more qualities worthy of a king than your brother ever will,” the Sultana said as Iago rounded behind her. For a bright red parrot, he could be subtle when he wanted to be. “But there is a darkness about you, a beast you keep hidden. And you hide it well.”
Jafar’s pulse thrummed beneath his left eye, at the swell of his cheekbone. “That same darkness lives in his blood.”
“You were prepared to kill that prisoner, and the thief,” the Sultana said.
“Prepared to,” Jafar parroted her words back at her, half his focus on Iago dipping his beak into her pocket. “He killed an innocent, helpless duckling.”
She held his gaze. “As you did your father.”
Behind her, Iago’s beak fell open with a soundless croak, just as surprised as Jafar that she’d somehow learned the truth. Jafar could only stare.
“No retort?” she asked. “Am I wrong to assume that days after you are accepted into the House of Wisdom, your father destroys your scholarship, and so he dies in a mysterious fire? Why else would you arrive here with no scholarship in hand?”
It was true, and no one but Iago knew of the fact. Baba had deserved every moment of his suffering, every lick of the fire that burned him to a crisp. The only remorse he had ever felt about the fire was because of Rohan’s suffering. His pain, his self-blame.
Now, Jafar regretted nothing.
She lowered her chin to look him straight in the eye. “Something tells me his death was due to more than the scholarship. Was it to protect you and your brother, or was it to unleash your anger?”
“Are they not one and the same?” Jafar asked. He couldn’t stop his eyes from widening when Iago’s talon hooked in the Sultana’s cloak. He quickly whipped his gaze to the window as if he’d seen something flit past, and the Sultana looked, too, her cloak shifting with the movement. Iago pulled free and hopped to the back of the throne.
The Sultana hm m ed in answer. A thrum spread to Jafar’s veins, beating beneath his skin, begging for release.
“I will not have a woman who lies to her people wielding judgment upon me,” Jafar said. “You know nothing of my life and my suffering. Or Rohan’s, for that matter. Do you think he can take the place of a son you had groomed for the throne from birth? Do you think your son’s replacement only needed to look somewhat like him? Rohan is my brother. If I am a monster, then he is my match. Death surrounds him. You’ve seen it yourself.”
Rohan did have a gentler soul than he did, but Jafar had seen the dead duckling in Rohan’s hands. He’d seen the way Baba emerged in Rohan’s actions at times. He didn’t know what his brother was truly capable of doing.
Jafar was the one who had given the Sultana what she had needed. Jafar had been the one to pass her test. Barely a day later, this was his reward.
“I’m queen,” the Sultana said. “I don’t waver in my decisions. I will say again that you are welcome to remain here as the prince’s companion and even continue your studies in the House of Wisdom. Or leave.”
It didn’t matter, he told himself. If the Sultana wanted to dig herself and her kingdom a grave, that was her choice. Perhaps Rohan could be taught. He was young and willing to learn.
Jafar looked to Iago to see if he’d found the rubies, but the parrot only shook his head. At the question in Jafar’s furrowed brow, Iago gestured to her other pocket with a wing.
The Sultana heard the rustle of his feathers. She started to turn around. “Wh—”
“F-fine,” Jafar half shouted.
She lifted her eyebrows at him. “What did you say?”
“I said fine. Yes. I accept your offer.”
For you, Mama. For the oath he’d made to her long ago.
The Sultana smiled and clasped her hands. “I would not be half the queen that I am without my vizier, and I know for certain the same will apply to you and your brother one day.”
Jafar returned her smile, but he had no intention of remaining long enough to find out, not when Iago was grinning ear to ear from the edge of the Sultana’s throne, something shiny gripped in his talons.
He owed the Sultana nothing. It was she who should be thanking him for delivering her a replacement on a gilded tray. Iago returned to his shoulder, and the pair of them turned to leave.
He would be there for Rohan’s banquet, the moment where he’d officially assume duties as prince. A betrothed prince with an entire court of people to guide him, at which point he would no longer need Jafar.
Still, Jafar would be there for his brother, because he carried an oath.
And then they would be done.