35 - Jafar
T he bazaar was alive with wonder, mostly because Jafar was holding Yara’s hand. He didn’t know when that had happened. They were like moons orbiting the same planet, gravitating round and around until they’d collided, sparks rupturing the peace he had attempted to cultivate in his soul.
She twined her fingers between his, locking him in place. Yara. It was a lovely name for a lovely girl. Jafar had never considered himself to be like one of those lovelorn fools from Mama’s tales, but it felt nice to hold her hand. It felt right. He liked to think of himself as a man of many words. He was versed in history and language and, if he was vaunting, the arcane.
Yet Yara continued to make him speechless.
“I seem to be trapped,” Jafar managed.
Yara looked down and swiped her thumb along the back of his, making his breath catch. As if that weren’t enough, she swung their clasped hands between them, letting the backs of his fingers graze the warm curve of her thigh. He savored the gasp that shuddered out of her.
On his shoulder, Iago was just as starstruck.
In this moment, Jafar could forget that Rohan had taken credit for his work and won the Sultana’s secret competition. The world could crash and burn and he wouldn’t care, for he was happily, gloriously, blissfully drowning in the marvel that was Yara.
She leaned into him, as close as she could without touching him with her body. “That you are, ink boy.”
This was torture.
“Shall we?” she asked, gesturing ahead as if she wasn’t at all affected.
Jafar led them deeper into the bazaar. Men, women, children—even the desert came to play, dust stirring in excitement, sand glittering like diamonds. There were rolls of fabric in every hue, spices in just as many shades, mounds fragrant and rich. People bartered with good-natured merchants, surprising him. None of them wore a permanent frown as his father had. None of them snapped and shooed customers away when they asked too many questions.
Yara bounced in her shoes as they meandered the stalls, and pulled him along with her, five fingerprints of fire sending shock up his veins. “Where do you want to go first?”
“Anywhere,” Jafar said. Everywhere.
They passed a man selling oils in every scent, some deep and enigmatic as the night, others bright and flowery as the girl by Jafar’s side. The man indulged her questions, and just before they left, he dabbed one of the oils on her neck. It took everything in Jafar to not press his nose to her dusky skin.
He took her to a merchant selling baubles and jewelry, watching as her eyes shone even more at the sight of the glittering trinkets.
“You like what shines,” the merchant-woman said.
“Don’t we all?” Yara asked.
The woman tilted her head. “We like what gives us power, and to shine is to be powerful, no?”
She directed the question at Jafar, as if she could see his thoughts. He didn’t know if what she said was true, but a jewel did make one stand out from the crowd. Like the rubies in his pocket.
“Let’s get moving,” Iago said, shivering.
Jafar agreed.
“My mama loved shiny things,” Yara said with a laugh as Jafar led her away.
“Were you close with your mother?” Jafar asked.
She laughed. “Kill my mama and I’ll weep. Hurt my baba and it’s as if you’ve hurt me.”
Jafar couldn’t imagine anyone feeling that way about their baba. He tugged Yara over to the next stall, and then the next, drinking in her reactions and her laughter. Her awe and her excitement.
He bought her a flower from a vendor who had traveled from a far-off isle, the bud matching the pure white of her gown. He bought her a pastry filled with almonds and drenched in honey, topped with crushed rose petals the same hue as her pretty lips, and she bought him knafeh, warmed and gooey from the heat.
He told her of the alchemical findings he had just unearthed during one of his many excursions through the House of Wisdom. He told her of how he had survived a fire that took down the empire of a merchant. When she pushed and prodded with her questions, he even told her he had saved a boy close to his age before the flames could claim him.
But as he and Yara continued through the twisting paths of the bazaar, he remembered that all things came to an end. He still didn’t know who she was, and really, he didn’t know who he was, either, in the grand scheme of the Sultana’s plans now that Rohan was the prince.
Yara froze. “Oh, camel humps, no.”
Jafar followed her line of sight to a riot of sound. A caravan had paused by one of the stalls on the outer edge of the bazaar, closest to the road.
This was no normal caravan, either; it dripped elegance, with steeds draped in jewel-toned cloth and wheels glinting in the sun. The burly driver looked as though he doubled as a bodyguard, and Yara seemed to recognize him.
“They’re here,” she whispered. “We have to get back to the palace.”