Chapter Text
In the end, Alibaba takes Cassim’s hand and doesn’t let go. Their fight is forgotten in the dust.
It’s silent ride in the king’s carriage. Alibaba’s staring at the man again—the father none of them knew he had—and Cassim feels a familiar curl of discontent in his gut. Alibaba’s blessed with divine luck. Royalty, of all things. It’s a slap across Cassim’s face, and he’s still reeling. He hugs Mariam tight and feels Alibaba cling to them both. But Cassim just wants to push him away.
The servants see Cassim’s bloodied lip and bruises. He knows they think he’s trash.
Alibaba disappears inside. Then, Mariam. And finally, Cassim is ushered into a sterile room, where they hack off his hair. They call it filthy, and Cassim thrashes and bites until he’s pressed helpless against the floor, exhausted. It's not fair; he knows this with all his heart. He and Alibaba come from the same place, from the same filth, and he knows, he just knows Alibaba will keep his golden hair, and it's not fair.
They leave him by himself that night, scrubbed raw of his past life in all but memory.
But his belly is full. He’s dressed in sturdy cotton, cleaner than anything he’s worn in his life, and he even has a room of his own. There are blankets for cold nights, a plush carpet bed, and an actual mirror that’s almost twice his height. He throws a blanket over it. His reflection is the most pitiful thing he’s ever seen; his hair is so short that he looks seven again, right after a beating from his wretch of a father.
He once daydreamed about being a prince in the palace. Anise’s tales of noble kings protecting their lands resonated with him like nothing else. But she’s gone now, gone for a long time, and she’s left Cassim with nothing but her son and her stories. Cassim aches thinking about either. Alibaba is too different from him, has always been, and the king is not noble. In the harsh reality, the only way he can stay in the palace is if they make him a servant. A rush of indignation burns through him at that.
He rises to his feet. He would go back to the city.
And Mariam? He stops in the corridor. The adrenaline’s gone, leaving him cold and uneasy. He’s not afraid. He hasn’t been since Anise died. He found his purpose then: Mariam and Alibaba. And so he walks, listening for their voices, but he’s so deep within the thick palace walls that he can’t see the sky.
In the dark, he hears it, a sound so soft that it nearly evades him.
He'd recognize it anywhere: coins sliding on wood. Then, the clicking of ivory on ivory. Merchant noises. They beckon him into a room, where the door is ajar, and lamplight spills from within. Inside, the fortune and finery from Anise’s stories glitter before his eyes.
“What is it, boy?”
Cassim looks up, alarmed.
He fights his instinct to run when he meets eyes with the old man at a great desk. Cassim sees wizened fingers, looped in exquisite rings. The man flicks deftly through the ivory stones of an instrument—an abacus. Cassim has stolen them from caravan men before, but none so beautifully decorated. It dawns on him that the man using it must be someone important, and finally, Cassim sees an opportunity at hand.
He walks forward, emboldened by the wealth around him, and he lies with ease, “I’ve been sent to be your assistant.”
“In the middle of the night?” The man studies Cassim, taking in the split lip and two black eyes, and says, “Ah. You’re the firebrand they brought in from the slums. One of the third prince’s pets.”
Cassim swallows his anger so fast that he has to clear his throat. “I can read and write. I can use the abacus.” Anise taught him the former. He taught himself the latter. “And I can do arithmetic in my head.” He knows how to divide spoils from a robbery. He knows how to stretch and save what should only last a week into a month.
The man looks vaguely intrigued and slides ten gold pieces before him, one by one. “How do you pay nine soldiers fairly with this?”
A trick question requires a clever answer, and Cassim takes a chance. He’s aware of the worth of gold and counters, “Why are soldiers paid so well during peacetime? What does this mean for Balbadd?”
The man raises a bushy brow. Then, he laughs.
He sends for Cassim in the morning, which is how Cassim becomes the assistant to the royal treasurer.
-
Cassim used to join Zainab, Hassan, and the others down the road, where they laid in wait for careless merchants. Soldiers were called in at some point or another. Cassim was too fast for them—still is—and had since learned which ones would turn a blind eye for a mere coin or two of his loot.
They acknowledge him in the palace and wave him over, amused: “Now, what are you doing here, little gutter rat? Moving up in the world?” They pat his head, thinking he’ll be less trouble for them inside the palace. Cassim lets them believe what they will.
He spars with a few of them at sunrise. More join in. They begin to point out his mistakes, at first through jeers but then more constructively when they see how quickly he learns. Cassim suggests they bet on him, then he starts winning more, and soon he finds himself popular with the morning guard. Money has always been the language of adults, which is fortunate because Cassim is fluent in it.
-
Several days later, he finds Mariam with a group of older girls. He hugs her by the waist and twirls her around. She laughs and hangs off his arm for the rest of the afternoon, skipping every step.
She is a maid, as Anise had been. Favored by Alibaba, she keeps to his quarters, but she starts sneaking into Cassim’s room when the adult servants are asleep. They were kinder to her, too, and let her keep her hair. He’s not surprised. She’s sweet as honey.
Mariam gifts him gold thread, beautiful and gleaming in the sunlight. He weaves it into his locks and puts it all up in his usual half-ponytail. It takes time to maintain every day, but as long as the people in the palace see he’s putting in an effort, surely they won’t cut it off again.
When Mariam sees what he’s done, her eyes sparkle, and she comes running back with jars of beauty supplies. Cassim takes one nervous look at it all and deems it very unnecessary, Mariam, I don’t want— but more often than not, he spends his evenings sitting at the foot of his bed with his sister rubbing all sorts of oil mixtures into his scalp. Mariam, the little bundle of delight, pulls in giggling servant girls to aid her endeavors, because they all have different opinions on hair care that Cassim must consider, and suddenly Cassim has servants.
Well, sort of. They come and go as they please, and are rather inattentive to chores they say they come to do, but they seem to like him.
“It’s because you’re handsome, Brother,” Mariam says knowingly.
“You are nine,” Cassim quibbles back. “You have no clue what handsome is.” Cassim has never had so many people dote on him before, especially not girls his age. He's kind of embarrassed.
But lo and behold, they do indeed figure out Cassim’s hair. Eventually. He grudgingly admits it feels like heaven from that day onward. With the golden decoration, it looks marvelous as well. Young women of the court, and a few men, cast lingering glances his way.
As his hair grows longer, so do the looks.
Mariam continues to bring him more fine trinkets and jewelry. Cassim begins to take on the appearance of a proper bureaucrat-in-training, and definitely not like a slum brat. Soon, he has more rings than he has fingers. He reconsiders wearing them all at once when he notices the treasurer eyeing them pointedly. Cassim explains, “I didn’t steal these,” but the old man shrugs with a sigh, “That third prince.”
And Cassim realizes he really has been wearing Alibaba’s favors like a prince’s pet.
Cassim uses his wages to buy his first set of earrings off a palace scribe. Mariam helps him pierce his ears, and he admires their handiwork in the mirror. The red metal glints back at him in the sunlight. He doesn't replace them with any that Alibaba sends and begins collecting his own jewelry. He slowly phases out Alibaba’s gifts from his attire entirely, but he keeps them. His maids polish them to shine, and he looks at them from time to time.
Cassim’s loathe to admit it, but they’re better than anything he can afford.
-
Cassim knows he has a safety net as long as someone influential takes his side, so it’s important for the royal treasurer to think him indispensable. And frankly, he is. Cassim is keen to notice the strange trends in the numbers. He points them out. The treasurer usually gives him an indulgent “good lad” before going back to work. At first, Cassim is put off by the dismissal, but then he studies and begins to learn a new kind of robbery. It’s less work than hijacking a cart in the market, that’s for sure.
Weak spots perforate the budget, like Alibaba’s stupid tunnels in their junkyard mountain. If Cassim shaves off a bit here and then shuffles this there, he can easily exploit the holes for his own profit. Should everything already be a little inconsistent, then all the better.
Cassim thinks, as he often does, how he’ll never be able to walk a straight and narrow path like Alibaba, but he’s having a lot of fun this way. It won’t be long before he understands enough to funnel money back to his friends in the slums, which is the kind of justice that suits him.
And then what? Things are looking up, for once, but it also means he has no idea what the future holds.
-
Mariam visits him more often. Cassim thinks nothing of it. If he’s not working, then he’s reading up on what he should be working on, so she’s a welcome sight for sore eyes. She wants to stay in his room most nights, and he lets her.
The other girls stick around, and Cassim thinks that maybe they're going to be a long-term fixture in his life. It's kind of nice. Everything's fairly neat and clean when he returns from work, and if there's no food to be brought in or taken away, then... Well, he has no idea what else they’re supposed to do.
They eat their meals together, and Cassim likes to listen to their gossip about lords and ladies in the palace because it’s all so hilariously accurate. It’s almost like being back in the slums with his group of friends, and it’s not bad being surrounded by other kids in general again. He has Mariam to thank for that, so he tries to give her the freedom to be nine, which is more than he had at that age. And Mariam seems happy.
But she’s always happy, even when it was just her, Cassim, and their father. Cassim doesn’t think about those days. There will be better ones ahead, of that he’s certain.
He scribbles through paperwork while she leans against his back and tells him the things Alibaba wants to say. Alibaba usually says nothing of importance: I’m doing well, will Cassim please read the Tales of Sinbad, here read it please and let’s talk about it through Mariam.
Mariam hands him a book of the most embarrassingly lurid prose. Cassim truly does not want to waste his sight on those, so Mariam delivers his responses back to Alibaba: good, no, and god no.
Cassim lets her put on all his jewelry while he studies economics. He lets her sleep under a nest of his kaftans while he reads up on Balbadd law. He lets her bring her new doves into his room, but she has to clean up after them, ugh, Mariam, you foolish girl!
On days when he makes her cry, he lets her dictate his outfits for a week. This sometimes yields vengefully extravagant results, but truth be told, he doesn’t mind too much. He thinks he looks good in splendor, and apparently the noble ladies do, too. If he doesn’t receive at least three silk scarves a week, he begins to wonder if he’s run afoul some influential minister yet again, according his girls.
“You’re always doing that, Cassim.”
“You have to be careful. They don’t trust you on principle!”
One of these days, he will have to learn this diplomacy thing.
-
But then: “The first prince wants Alibaba to give me to him,” Mariam tells him one night before she drifts off to sleep. Cassim has interacted with enough nobles to recognize a power play when he sees it. As the third prince, Alibaba has no authority if the first prince overrules him, no matter how outrageous the demand. The other girls suggest that he appeal to the king.
Cassim seethes. He won’t let his sister’s fate be decided by an irresponsible nobleman. He will see Ahbmad’s head roll, but he doesn’t have the power to fight him, not without drawing Mariam into the fray. At the same time, Cassim isn’t entirely powerless either.
“I need to get my sister out of the palace,” he tells the treasurer the next morning.
The old man purses his lips and continues to sort through piles of suspicious Kou documents. He doesn’t count the ten gold coins Cassim exchanges for Alibaba’s rings. When Mariam arrives in his room that night, he tells her his plan, and she weeps so hard that her pigtails droop. Cassim hugs his dear sister, tucking her head under his chin, and tells her about his friends in their old neighborhood, “There’s Zainab, who’s a reliable girl, but she’s got damned knuckles like brass. There’s Hassan. Now, he’s what you could call handsome, even though he’s missing an eye. That was his own fault, so don’t believe him when he tells you about the time I…”
At daybreak, Cassim gives nine soldiers nine pieces of gold to let Mariam and her doves join their patrol at the edge of the slums. He gives her the last piece and Zainab’s address.
-
Mariam’s disappearance is met with a minor rumble in the court, but it settles without much ado. They don't even remember her name, which is fine by Cassim. A heaviness lifts from his chest, but it’s quickly replaced by a new weight. He tells the other girls he wants to be alone, and they leave him, hesitantly.
He kind of regrets that. For the first time in weeks, he lies in bed with all his work and no sister. No whispers from Alibaba. No one. It’s quiet and cold. He regrets taking the months of idle company for granted.
He dreams about life in their old tent.
-
Without Mariam, the intrigues of the royal court become his new distraction.
The asocial treasurer sends him to their gatherings in his stead, so he has plenty of time to study and interact with them. His girls drill him on who’s who in court, but honestly, their faces blur together. The nobles, the wealthy, the other bureaucrats; they’re all the same in his eyes.
Cassim observes and hates them all for the privilege they were born into.
Alibaba is never there, so Cassim maneuvers through the den of vipers on his own. It’s a foreign world. Cassim knows the language they speak, but there are incomprehensible layers to their words. Their eyes, however, all tell him the same thing: you are an outsider.
He’ll see about that.
When he assesses them properly, he recognizes a lot as a kid coming from the slums. True, he doesn’t stake life and limb in the heat of an argument, but the aftermath isn’t so different from gang warfare on Balbadd’s streets, when everyone rallies their factions, and the daggers emerge from the cloaks. In the palace, it becomes a game of hide-and-seek within the shadows, and the round ends with someone missing in the next gathering of the lords and ladies.
It’s a complicated game with too many rules and more punishments, but Cassim plays anyway. He gains allies, but more quickly—enemies. He says a few things too acrimoniously, and once, he kicks a man in the shin before fleeing. Everyone laughs at that, including the man. But Cassim isn’t always forgiven.
An assassin—a large soldier with a formidable grip—has him pressed against a wall with a blade to his neck. “It's a shame, Cassim,” a petty emir clucks, safely behind his hired man. Cassim doesn’t even recall what he did to offend this one. “If you only had the sense to hold your tongue, you could have learned to polish it into silver.”
Cassim has lived through far worse in his short life. There were days when he, Mariam, and Alibaba would collect scraps (and cuts and hurts) from the junkyard to resell in the market. There were the days he risked his hand for a single purse. He could win a battle of words and intimations on an empty stomach. For now, he just needs something to tip the scales in his favor…
“What are you gonna do about that debt you owe the kingdom?” The emir stops his man, face blanching, and Cassim grins. “I can move things around until your investments come through.”
“You know nothing. You’re a mere assistant.”
“I have to double-check the import tariffs, which is a real pain, I tell you. Judging by the hike in fees for all incoming shipments starting this week, you’re gonna need help on this one.”
And just like that, Cassim is exonerated.
From his position in the treasury, Cassim realizes he can figure out who owes who what sum in the court, where more often than not, gold flows in the place of blood. Everything is corrupt surrounding money, which is strangely a relief because at least Cassim understands this. It’s as if, at the same time, the world both cracks wide open and shrinks to the size of the throne room. It's thrilling.
The emir who nearly killed him falls out of favor with a particularly influential lord. Cassim surreptitiously mentions to a few others how the emir had cheated them out of a tidy profit, according to one of his boss’ notaries, of course… And well. A servant finds the man dead the next morning, stabbed six times over. Cassim gains some new friends in the process, but he still keeps his old knife tucked securely at his waist.
More importantly than anything else, Cassim starts to understand that knowledge is a currency unto itself. In good time, too. Once the ministers, lords, and chamberlains register exactly what a boon Cassim is to have on their side, they begin to seek him out—a channel to the treasury and each other’s tax records.
Cassim becomes as shrewd with his favor as he is with his money, and through trading secrets for secrets, he builds up his own faction in court. Under the treasurer’s protection, and between his allies in the royal court and the royal guards, Cassim suddenly finds himself with a hefty amount of influence at the tender age of fourteen. And the adults sense this. Their eyes rarely leave him, so intrigued by this child who grew up in the slums, whose hair now drips gold.
"The lad shows promise."
"What a pretty puppy he turned out to be."
"I wonder what other tricks we can teach him."
Each adult thinks they’ll be the one to control him, to turn the pauper into a proper boy. If it means they’ll do what he says, he lets them believe what they will, but it does grate at his pride. When Cassim returns to his quarters each night, he kicks his silk pillows until they’re all misshapen. The maids scold him, but bring him replacements each time. He sulks and sleeps fitfully until work the next day.
There’s something else that keeps him up at night.
Yes, Cassim enjoys seeing the grown-ups preen and posture for him, but he knows to never show weakness himself. They’ll tear him down from everything he’s built, so he must stay vigilant at all times. He must watch his footing because it’s ultimately a game of capture-the-flag, except the flag is invisible and constantly shifting hands between the powerful men before him. That’s fine for now.
Ever since the death of his father, Cassim has held little regard for his own soul, and in different ways, Cassim enters adulthood too quickly with that same cavalier ambition. His voice has only barely started to crack, but as long as he remembers where that flag is, victory will be his someday. He’s not one to forfeit a game he can win.
And he's going to be king of this mountain.
-
Partevian imports and exports drop drastically. Erratic funds transfer back and forth between the Kou Empire and Balbadd. More goes to the military, and a strange amount of incendiary oil is being stockpiled. It’s all very suspicious. Cassim takes some wry amusement at the fact that his misdeeds are still nothing compared to the misdeeds of countries.
Life goes on as usual.
The king grows ill.
First Prince Ahbmad becomes prince regent.
Cassim still hasn’t seen Alibaba yet. They’re both busy. He tries to not think about the third prince, but it’s impossible.
He is sharply aware from an outsider’s view the difference between Alibaba and the two older princes. The legitimate heirs are disappointments. The ailing king favors the golden one. Cassim knows this. He also knows Alibaba has no experience in the court, either, probably thanks to Ahbmad, so Cassim begins to study the court from the perspective of a prince: the politics, the people, the proper plays to make.
He begins replying to Alibaba’s notes again, this time in his own calligraphic scrawl. (His boss had tutted over his handwriting, “Almost elegant, but rather aggressive. I fear we’ll never train the streets out of your hand.”) With knowledge from the treasury, he gives Alibaba countless nudges toward the right comments on the right policies to make him shine in the right way. And the king adores Alibaba.
Through this, Cassim develops his own plan for the future: let Alibaba fight Ahbmad in his place. Since the third prince is under his influence to begin with, Cassim will push him to the throne to secure his own power.
And what then?
Cassim will cross that bridge when he gets there.
-
But the king dies too soon. Cassim’s heart flutters restlessly when he sees Alibaba’s stupid triangle cowlick in the throne room. It sinks when the coronation ends with the crown on Ahbmad’s head.
“What will happen to Balbadd now?” Cassim asks the treasurer, but receives the usual, inattentive hum.
Taxes go up. They keep going up.
-
Cassim’s hair is past his shoulders when the treasurer vanishes.
Cassim hadn’t seen it coming, and if the treasurer knew, he gave no warning.
Of course, Ahbmad wouldn't dream of leaving Cassim alone in the treasury and replaces the old man with a new man in black robes: Markkio, the Banker. Markkio keeps a stranglehold on all the funds, so Cassim can't afford to be bold anymore. He backs down, bides his time, and becomes sneakier. The court also notices the subtle shift in power, like sharks smelling blood in water.
Markkio talks in ways that stirs the dark feelings in Cassim, like an iron through smoldering coals. Markkio’s words has an edge to them that digs under his skin. It’s more than the soft, needling comments that remind Cassim of his place under the heel of the upper class; he hears those everywhere. It’s how Markkio answers only to king Ahbmad, who sneers at Cassim from the high throne. Cassim hates them both.
Cassim begins to hate his job. He begins to hate Alibaba, who keeps sending him notes asking him to visit the royal library. He doesn’t want to see Alibaba, whose hair is naturally gold and doesn’t have to wake an extra two hours every morning to make it so. Alibaba, who’s born with nobility like the blood in his veins. Alibaba, who throws it all away for inconceivable reasons: “I couldn’t be king anyway, Cassim. I’m just a kid from the slums. The country would be confused. I'm going to work under my brother Ahbmad, who has let me stay to serve Balbadd.”
Cassim positively demolishes his pillows after reading such cowardly pretenses and kicks a hole through his reflection in the mirror. It feels like a million black moths are eating away at his heart, and he wants to scream until he chokes.
Markkio, the Banker, seems pleased by Cassim’s perpetual ire. It makes Cassim angrier.
He thinks about killing Markkio, but there’s no point. He’d rather kill Ahbmad, but he doesn’t know where Ahbmad resides in the palace, and he certainly can’t just charge up the steps to the throne and stab him. At least, not in his current position. He considers sending one of his servant girls to catch Ahbmad’s eye, but after receiving a slap from each of them for even suggesting it, he decides not to pursue that course of action. (It was two strikes to one cheek and one to the other.)
Meanwhile, Cassim hasn’t answered any of Alibaba’s notes for weeks, the latest being, “Let’s meet in the library sometime?”
He reads it again and groans, feeling an old, unnamed anger creep into his heart. It's one he's carried from the slums to the palace, and he's sick of it. It’s not the right time to see Alibaba; it never is. Cassim can’t bear to face him yet. He crumples the paper and throws it across the room. It hits the broken mirror, against his unhappy face.
-
On one marvelous summer day, the nobles crowd into the courtyard to watch the third prince practice his swordsmanship. Alibaba wields a knife he bought with his own money. The late king had been content with the boy’s mercantile prowess. If only he had made Alibaba king.
Cassim observes from the steps under a tree, errand forgotten. Markkio doesn’t really care about the little chores he assigns Cassim, which are just excuses to keep Cassim out of the treasury. He didn’t say a word when Cassim played hooky on his fifteenth birthday.
The sun shines off Alibaba’s blade as he dances. He executes a flurry of stabs, with one arm held expertly behind his back. Cassim’s breath slows to a halt as he watches Alibaba, who bears Anise’s face but has somehow, in that second, grown more beautiful than his mother. The guards clap at their prince’s grace, and Cassim breathes out a long sigh, a familiar twinge of resentment welling in his heart. This is what it’s like to be trained and nurtured as a right and as a noble—to draw admiration so easily that you shine brighter than the sun.
It’s been three years since he last saw Alibaba at the palace entrance. The once-scrawny child now looks like a genuine prince under the white clouds above. Cassim withdraws further into the shade, but—
“Cassim!”
Cassim isn’t ready to talk to him.
And yet, he turns around. “Yo, Alibaba! It’s been too long!”
The blond prince beams at him, short of breath, a dusting of sweat across his brow. He’s taller now, maybe almost the same height as Cassim, and Cassim has definitely grown since they parted. “What do you think?”
What does he think, Alibaba dares to ask him, what does he think? It catches Cassim off guard, and for a blinding moment, the fluttering darkness in his heart swells into a monster. There’s a thousand things on his mind, but mostly Mariam, Mariam! Cassim could yell even though he knows it's unfair to blame Alibaba. Why didn’t you protect Mariam when you're the prince? Why did it have to be me again, when I already have to work twice as hard to stay afloat here?
“You’ve grown a lot more impressive since I last saw you.” His voice holds steady. “Prince.”
“Ah, I dunno. General Barkak can still knock me around the ring like it's nothing... But the guards say you’re pretty good with the sword, right?” Alibaba’s eyes are dazzling. He bestows upon Cassim that look of admiration, bright as a clear day. And Cassim feels a pang in his heart, a lash to the beast that sends it fleeing back into the dark.
Damn it to hell and back, but he has missed Alibaba.
Cassim recovers and scoffs. “Well, I've been training with 'em. Many are from the slums like me.”
“Like us,” Alibaba corrects playfully, delivering a light box to Cassim’s arm.
Like us? Cassim says nothing. He begins to wonder if Alibaba is taunting him. Does he really think that he is… Like us? But Alibaba isn’t, which is why he is so incredible in the first place. Cassim has been angry for a long time, but he’s also happy to see Alibaba, so he smiles. “Like us.”
And for some reason on that fine afternoon, Cassim agrees to a friendly spar with Third Prince Alibaba Saluja of Balbadd.
Cassim moves swiftly and savagely, gold wire in his hair shimmering. The ever-growing crowd applauds, delighted. He knows he’s just as captivating as Alibaba because Alibaba’s eyes never leave him; they set his heart ablaze. They’re evenly matched, aren’t they? They could stand next to each other and seem like a perfect set, couldn’t they? Cassim wants to stare him down, to make him lose his nerve first. But Alibaba truly is like the sun, moreso than ever, and it’s hard to look at him for long without hurting.
Alibaba disarms him and sends his borrowed sword flying into the garden. Cassim feels numb, frozen, defeated , but Alibaba looks at him anxiously, so Cassim smiles and laughs. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
When the two kings enter the courtyard, they find the street rat Cassim and the bastard prince laughing in each other’s arms like real brothers.
-
Suddenly, Cassim and Alibaba are children again. They chase each other down the halls that night. They argue and spar. They eat sugared dates and catch up. They talk of Mariam and the world outside the palace. It’s nostalgic and fun, but Cassim is wary.
This new blond prince isn’t quite the Alibaba he remembers. He never considered Alibaba a particularly studious boy, far too excitable and wavering to decide on any field of study. So, of course , Alibaba would excel in them all. As a prince, he is faster, keener, and unexpectedly cunning in ways Cassim doesn't expect. And it’s annoying.
Sometimes, looking at Prince Alibaba is like looking at a stranger donned in fine green with ribbons in his hair.
“Do you see Ahbmad outside of court?” Cassim asks as they sit under the stars in the gardens.
“No,” Alibaba says with the solemnness of a good child. “King Ahbmad refuses to have anything to do with me. Brother Sahbmad is the one including me in things…”
“Betcha he’s the one keeping you alive, too,” Cassim says lightly. He doesn’t mention how many hired daggers and malicious words he's personally struck down on the third prince’s behalf, but Alibaba looks at him with a quirked brow, as if he’s aware.
“Aren’t I lucky to have big brothers looking out for me?” he says playfully, and Cassim scoffs.
“You’re a crap prince,” says Cassim. He gives Alibaba’s shoulder a shove. “Can’t you carry your own weight?”
Alibaba is silent, and for a second, Cassim thinks he spoke too cruelly. He turns to Alibaba, apology ready on the tip of his tongue, expecting to see something resembling self-doubt on the other boy’s face.
But:
“I’m trying,” says Alibaba. He gives Cassim sheepish, but determined, grin. “For Balbadd. I’ll make you proud of me, all right?”
“Ah,” Cassim replies, smiling. But he feels an irritating sort of disappointment drip from his heart. It’s a feeling he knows will nag at him until he gives a name to it. “Yeah, I’m counting on you.”
Alibaba beams at Cassim, and he’s so beautiful and good under the moonlight, surrounded by purple orchids and constellations, that Cassim wants to push him down and rub his golden hair in the dirt. He wants to use Alibaba and throw him away like trash, like how Cassim always feels underneath the silk, the jewelry, and the gold draping his body—because no matter how much finery you heap on top of it, trash is still trash.
Oh.
With startling clarity, Cassim realizes that he's jealous. Bitterly jealous. That's the parasitic feeling eating away at his soul for years. That's why Cassim has been avoiding Alibaba, even though Alibaba was the one who brought him here. Even though Alibaba sees him as someone worthy of looking up to.
Even though Alibaba doesn’t think he’s trash.
Alibaba is still the better person after all these years, and Cassim still feels so small next to him, uncertainty hollowing itself out a home in his chest.
Cassim falls onto his back and looks up at the endlessly black sky. He doesn’t hear another word the prince says for the rest of the night.
-
“Okay, you’ve got to tell me,” Alibaba demands one afternoon, petulantly, across his work desk. “Why weren’t you ever at the library?”
“That again? Can’t you just let it drop already?” Cassim glances up from his scroll, but Markkio is nowhere in sight. He pokes Alibaba in the forehead. “I'm busy. Go away!”
Alibaba waves the first volume of Sinbad's escapades enticingly before him. “There’s all sorts of great stories there!”
“Pass!”
“Umm, I also started reading up on trade!" Alibaba adds, peering up at him with big golden eyes, as if hoping Cassim would be more agreeable to talking shop. "I read that if mercantilism declines then there’s this new system—”
“Capitalism,” finishes Cassim, dipping his quill in the inkwell. He’s read that book, too, but a copy from the royal treasurer’s shelves. They disappeared after Markkio arrived. A lot of books disappeared after Markkio arrived. Cassim tries not to dwell on it. “Capitalism, was that it?”
“Yeah! So you did go to the library!” Alibaba beams at him, radiant as a star.
“Sure,” Cassim lies to his parchment with a grin.
“It was a long time, not being able to see you. I thought you were mad at me about the fight, and you were avoiding me...”
Oh, so that's what this was about. Typical Alibaba. Cassim had forgotten all about it. “Of course not. We’re best friends, right?” Cassim watches Alibaba practically tear up in joy, and it’s really too easy to string him along. At this rate, Cassim may still very well have a use for him in the future, and that at least makes Cassim happy about Alibaba, if not happy for him.
“What about my chambers?” Alibaba taps nervously on his desk. “You could have visited me there…”
Cassim sets down his pen and says, “You could have visited me. ” He thinks back to the nights Mariam slept by his side. He could have asked her where Alibaba was. They could have all been together, like before. But he never asked, and Alibaba hadn’t either. For the same reasons, perhaps, but most likely just pride.
Markkio arrives before Alibaba can respond, and Alibaba ducks behind Cassim's chair. For the rest of the evening, Alibaba tries to show him passages from his book. Cassim shoves him back down because Markkio keeps looking over here, idiot. The prince responds to each rejection by making faces at him, and Cassim has to bite the inside of his own cheek to keep from laughing. Alibaba is so annoying, but this is easily the most fun Cassim has ever had at work.
They part around midnight, and Cassim feels a little flutter in his chest, like butterflies. He recognizes that feeling of affection for Alibaba. He felt it back when it was just the two of them and Mariam, when Alibaba tucked himself under Cassim’s chin as they fell asleep beneath their blanket. Cassim remembers Alibaba’s unruly tuft of hair tickling his cheek. He remembers Alibaba holding his hand in the mornings.
He takes a deep breath and wonders if there are stars out that night.
-
The Banker’s plan to switch Balbadd to Kou’s paper fan passes despite Cassim’s compelling argument against it, moreso compelling because it was presented by Alibaba. Taxes are at an all-time high, and Ahbmad is going to tank Balbadd’s economy to benefit the one percent of elites at the very top. It’s no way to run a country. Cassim feels weak, his hard-earned powers sapped by a single pig-headed tyrant.
Later, he thinks to himself, absently in a dark, quiet part of his mind, that if he had been born here as Alibaba’s proper older brother, he would have kept Balbadd on the gold standard. Balbadd wouldn’t be drowning in debt. He wouldn’t have disappointed the king.
He would have been king.
The monster fumes resentment from his heart. It settles in his veins. Cassim’s too ambitious to have inherited his father’s worthlessness, but fate is so unkind. If only he hadn’t been born to such trash, if only his destiny was worth something in the grand scheme of all that was…
Markkio, the Banker, must have noticed a shift in him that day. For the first time, he places a hand on Cassim’s shoulder and asks him, kindly, “Have you heard of Metal Vessels, my boy?”
-
“Open Sesame!”
Cassim has a recurring dream where he follows Alibaba into a room of gold, but the door slams shut behind him, and the lights extinguish.
Alibaba vanishes.
In the dark, Cassim feels forty black swords plunge into him.
This is the one dream that always yanks him upright in bed, gasping, nauseous, and in pain, pain, pain. Whether he’s alone or not, he leaves the room and roams the halls until he stops shaking like a rattled ghost. Cassim tries to find something with which to ground himself, but he's like a wisp of smoke in a hurricane. Sometimes, he heads straight for work, before Markkio arrives and locks him out "by accident," for "security."
It’s a stupid stress dream. An annoying one at that. Rationally, he accepts that Alibaba wouldn’t leave him for dead.
At least, not like that.
Rationally, Alibaba is too good for that.
-
Cassim is sixteen when Alibaba shows him the tunnel back outside.
“You dug this?” Cassim can't help but be impressed. It’s huge. There’s no reason for it to be as big as it is, but try telling Alibaba that.
“This is why I was the King of the Mountain!” Alibaba proclaims proudly, and just this once, Cassim doesn’t contest it. Alibaba has a knack for stealth, despite his uncanny ability to stand out.
“You know, someone could use this tunnel for an invasion,” he points out, following Alibaba down the dark path.
And suddenly Cassim stops, recalling that dream. Alibaba looks back, perplexed. He holds out a hand to Cassim, and Cassim reasons to himself that they will be fine. They're just going home. To Mariam, to his friends, to the place where they grew up.
Cassim breathes in. Then, out.
Angry with himself for his own weakness, and with his companion for the usual reasons, Cassim grabs Alibaba’s hand and barrels down the tunnel. He hears Alibaba laughing, carefree as a cloud behind him. When they make it to the other end, Cassim is rewarded with sunshine and the sight of Alibaba waving him toward everything they used to be.
But the slums changed while they were in the palace.
In fact, they're gone.
For a moment, Cassim panics. Mariam! He races through the streets, calling for her, with Alibaba trailing not too far behind, until his lungs burn too much to keep going, but still in his mind— Mariam!
He and Alibaba have all but collapsed at a dry well when they appear. One by one, Cassim’s old gang: Hassan, Zainab, all of them summoned by the sound of his voice. And finally, “Mariam!”
He holds her tight and promises her he’ll never let go again. She laughs and tries to pry his arms off, but Alibaba is hugging her, too, so she endures their embrace like a champ.
Mariam’s home with Zainab is small, but there’s sunlight and sturdy walls, and it’s certainly an improvement from their old, musty tent. As she feeds her doves, Mariam tells them the story she's learned—the slums are gone, burned down after an epidemic. It was horrible. All those people, their neighbors, and even the junkyard: up in smoke.
Cassim says nothing.
Old documents come to mind. The oil, the money, the soldiers. He witnessed all of the separate parts in the destruction of his childhood home, and yet he didn't see it coming. The old treasurer had approved it. In the end, Cassim’s past had been nothing but numbers to him. He was a bureaucrat, after all. And so was Cassim. Cassim was complicit.
Cassim feels used.
And now, Cassim is helpless, trapped by Ahbmad’s policies in what should be a position from which he could help his neighborhoods, but now he's useless. There’s no out. Cassim can’t see a way out.
Alibaba says something in a comforting tone, but Cassim doesn't hear him. He only hears the angry blood pounding in his ears, and one look at Mariam tells him she understands.
At last, Alibaba leaves. “I’ll be back with lunch,” he says and hurries away from the rage sloughing off the two siblings.
Cassim broaches the subject of revenge, and Mariam is beyond receptive, her weary eyes blazing with dark fury he has never seen before in her. He can see she’s been stewing for months and shed countless tears over it. How quickly she must have grown up since fleeing the palace. How angry she was at Ahbmad for causing her to leave a blissfully uneventful life.
He tells her about the Metal Vessels and the powers Markkio swears they possess. He tells her to gather the people, and he will feed them all the information and weaponry they need to take back the wealth of their nation. And then he sheds his rings, his bangles, his necklaces, dropping them with his promises into her hands.
“Get my old gang together. Hire everyone you can. Strike when the next fog settles in the city,” he tells her, “We start with the trade ships from Kou.” She takes everything with a marvelous determination.
In less than a fortnight, the mob that would become the Fog Troupe descends upon the streets of Balbadd.
-
It takes a year for Ahbmad to really notice, which gives Cassim time to slowly increase their numbers. He has enough saved up from his days embezzling under the old treasurer’s supervision to keep everyone happy. Everyone except the rich, who retaliate.
It takes everything in Cassim’s mental arsenal to keep taxes from tripling that year. It doubles, despite his best efforts. Markkio begins to blatantly lock him out of the treasury, but he doesn’t fire Cassim. It’s baffling, and Cassim finally approaches Markkio with a deal.
"I'll give you a percentage of what we take, if you stop interfering with my job."
"My clever assistant, you needn't worry about the petty economic affairs of this country. Think of it this way: I've given you that other job so you can focus on helping your people."
"You mean you're pushing me out of power here, so I have no choice but to lead a revolution against the aristocracy."
“Yes, that is the only other option, isn’t it?” Markkio’s lips split into a smile. "If you believe the aristocracy is destroying the economy by hoarding wealth, then isn't it the best one?"
Cassim hates the man. If the paper currency had worked according to Cassim's earlier studies, logically that is, he wouldn’t be in this position. But the Banker's system is like nothing Cassim has ever seen. Cassim can't find any books about it, and he can't pinpoint where the fault lies. To make things worse, Markkio and Ahbmad have frozen him out of everything having to do with the Kou Empire, so Cassim can't even calculate when and how the Kou fan will fluctuate in the future. There seems to be no set pattern, and Cassim absolutely hates being powerless to do anything.
"Why work for them if you despise them?" Cassim hisses, completely vexed.
Markkio's mismatched eyes widen a little in surprise. "Why, couldn't you ask yourself the same thing?"
Cassim thinks about stabbing Markkio to death right then and there. He could run back to Mariam and the Troupe for good, but then Cassim wouldn't be their mole in the palace. And without Markkio, who would supply their weapons?
Where would that leave Alibaba?
And after that, when would Cassim get a chance to kill Ahbmad?
With less information at his disposal, Cassim is quickly losing influence in the court. If the upper class weren't under siege from the citizens, they would have noticed by now and pounced. The Fog Troupe's attacks are the only thing protecting Cassim in court, and so, he decides to put his efforts where they truly count.
At Mariam’s suggestion, Cassim orders the Troupe to share their plunder with all the needy, including those who can’t join. This is a revolution of the people, after all. They disperse what goods they take from the rich to the poor, which helps with the taxation woes, but Cassim can see that he needs to plan on a grander scale. They need gold that isn’t a part of the economy and would otherwise be untaxed. Riches that the elite families have accumulated over the generations. They need to start hitting the hoards.
"Banker," Cassim says one day, through gritted teeth because he shouldn't need to ask, "Will the treasury grant me this power...?"
-
The first major raid begins when Cassim gives the signal.
Cassim yawns and drains another glass of wine.
He can’t give the signal, not with Emir Maruf watching over his own party, Cassim especially, like a giant hawk. Cassim knows Maruf has never liked him, always glaring at him in court functions with cold silence. It’s a small, intimate party, but the guests are tense. Even the man’s wife is chagrined. Cassim should have picked a different target, but for some reason, he really hates this one.
“Cassim, we weren’t expecting you at our party,” she says, towing her scowling husband behind her to Cassim’s divan. He’s larger up close.
“Markkio, the Banker, couldn’t make it. He, uh, sends his apologies .”
“Hmm, just like the old man before him. I, for one, am glad you’re here instead,” she says, stroking his hair with a little more familiarity than necessary. “Tell my lord that delightful story about the frog and the scorpion. The one from those silly Sinbad stories that the third prince is so fond of.”
“Ah. Well,” Cassim begins tepidly as they sit down next to him, one on each side. He sees Mariam approach, decked in servant’s garb with a full jug of wine. She makes to refill his glass, with a meaningful look on her face. Zainab and Hassan are in place. The rest are ready in the mist. But Maruf was once chief of the King’s Guard and still a formidable fighter. He could take out half the Troupe on his own. The rest of the guards also look to him for instruction, so plans can’t proceed until Maruf’s too drunk to move. Cassim shakes his head, not yet.
“I’ll have some, girl,” Maruf commands, and she acquiesces nervously. “And you. Tell the tale.”
Cassim paraphrases Alibaba’s recount, “It’s a story Sinbad told, and it begins when the Scorpion wishes to cross the river. He asks the Frog to take him. The Frog hesitates because he doesn’t wish to be stung, but the Scorpion—”
He freezes mid-sentence when both Lord Maruf and his wife put a hand on his thigh. In a sharp surge of annoyance, Cassim understands exactly what he needs to do to speed the night up.
“What happens next?” the emir asks, squeezing hard enough to hurt, and Cassim turns to him in time to see poor Mariam’s jaw drop. The drink spills over Maruf’s cup and into his lap.
Unenthusiastically, Cassim says, “I could finish the story in private…”
“What a clever boy you are.” The man doesn’t even look at Mariam as he rises to his feet, shoving his goblet at her. “Let’s go.” He takes Cassim by the upper arm and yanks him to his feet. Lady Maruf hugs Cassim’s other arm and leads him across the floor. Cassim catches the incredulous look on Mariam’s face and rolls his eyes. He drops his glass on the ground. That’s the signal.
“Count to three hundred first,” he mouths to her before they pull him out of great hall.
Cassim counts to forty-eight when they close the door behind him in a dark, private room. Their finest room, they had assured him indulgently. Lady Maruf digs her nails into his ponytail. She gives his head a little shake. “I've always wanted to know how you managed to crawl to such a high office. You couldn’t have done that on your own, now could you, pretty puppy?”
Cassim wonders if she was the one who started that nickname.
“Alone or not, he certainly gave us a great deal of trouble once he got there,” Maruf says, seating himself on an elaborate cushion at a low table. He pours himself some wine into a silver goblet. “Brat, if you had told me of that policy change, I wouldn’t have lost half of what I did last week.”
“Eh, real estate’s a tricky thing,” Cassim says cheekily, “Would you have made the right move anyway?”
Lady Maruf laughs and shoves him into her husband’s lap.
Cassim feels their cold, pale fingers slide up his arms, his neck, catching his face. Their hands are rough and punitive, their gazes appraising, waiting to see how he reacts. And he refuses to. He knows what they want, every aristocrat he’s been with, and it’s the same each time: fear, groveling, obedience. Cassim has never done any of that in his life.
The large man forces Cassim’s mouth open with a thumb and comments, “He has good teeth for a street rat.”
“He did grow up in the palace, my lord,” says Lady Maruf, embracing Cassim from behind.
"Eyes like gold coins."
She traces along Cassim's cheekbone to the bridge of his nose. "Makes you want to pluck one out, doesn't it?"
Cassim bites down on the man’s thumb and receives a cuff to the side of the head that sends him to the floor, head first. He swiftly puts the table between the couple and himself, his ear still ringing from the blow. “If that’s what you’re into, I’m not staying for silver.” He pushes Maruf’s goblet off the table, letting the rug soak up the red. His count is nearly up to two hundred.
The husband and wife exchange looks. “The puppy wants to be spoiled, husband.”
The nobleman gives a grunt of exasperation and stands, a tall man with the impressive musculature of a soldier. He's a bald giant, and for a brief moment, Cassim sees his own father’s silhouette, fist raised, and it must have shown on his face because the man sees and grins. Cassim’s heart is thumping madly when the man brushes past him, and he’s angry, so angry, that his father’s shadow still haunts his very soul after all these years. Cassim swallows and turns around. He sees the emir open a chest and pull out a jewel-encrusted cup.
Cassim catches it. It's solid gold.
“Not bad, isn't it? I was King Rashid’s personal bodyguard many years back. I saw the kind of indecent things he got up to, things that resulted in your favorite prince there, for example.”
“Uh huh…” Cassim looks past the cup to the open chest, murmuring quietly, “You were paid well for your silence.”
Maruf approaches and grabs Cassim by the chin, forcing his face up. “If you, too, are a good and quiet boy, you will get to keep this.”
Cassim smiles wryly, listening for his Fog Troupe. He says, “The Scorpion tells the Frog, ‘I would not sting you to death as we cross the river, for I, too, would drown.’ The Frog… he agrees to take the Scorpion.”
Maruf scoffs, “No more of that. I read Sinbad’s stories. I already know how it ends.” He pushes Cassim down, and the woman pulls at the sash around Cassim's waist. His dagger tumbles to the floor. "Where did you get this cheap old thing?"
Cassim slams a hand on the hilt of his knife when the screams erupt from outside. The emir looks to the door for a moment, but that’s all Cassim needs to sink the blade into his neck.
Lady Maruf screams before her husband even hits the ground. She grabs Cassim by the throat and drives him into the cushions. Cassim gasps, trying to kick her off, but he’s racked by a primal terror, one he’s surely already lived through because it’s so damn familiar.
The panic muffles his mind, and all he feels is helplessness— the awful helplessness...
He’s in his father’s hovel. Mariam is crying. He hears his own wheezing: guttural, painful sounds. His eyes are burning.
He’s going to die.
It’s when his vision goes dark that he finally remembers his father’s fingers around his neck, thick thumbs crushing his throat.
It hurts.
It hurts, and all his childhood instincts come rushing back with a vengeance. He strikes at her, as hard as he can, and it’s a moment—a long moment—before he gathers his wits about him and understands that he’s still alive. His eyes sting, tears welling for the first time in years, but he's still breathing.
Cassim survives. He inhales greedily, sweet air, and pushes himself up. He sees the dead woman lying across his legs. He pulls his knife out of her temple, where his blow landed, and looks around. He rubs at his eyes.
And finally, he breathes again, deeply.
“You little wretch!” Maruf gurgles from the floor, mouth filled with blood. He glares at Cassim as he always has. “Gutter scum… Trash...”
Wretch. Scum. Trash.
Cassim doesn’t see the luxury and silk. He doesn’t see the lord. Only the red on his hands and knife. He sees dirt from the grimy alleyway and his father dying as blood blossoms across his belly.
“Cassim, you little wretch. You’re nothing but trash like me.”
He blinks, and the man dies.
It doesn’t hit Cassim as hard the second time.
He splashes lamp oil on everything. He lights a match and takes another deep breath before he drops it.
The smell of death overpowers the smell of wine in the great hall. The guests are dead and their valuables plundered. There’s a fire in every room of the house, and it all burns.
Fire’s good, he thinks. Fire cleanses and erases.
He hands the emir’s chest of bejeweled gold to Hassan, and Zainab passes Cassim a black katar dagger that reeks of smoke. They make the final rounds to finish off any survivors.
Cassim knows he can’t count on good fortune like Alibaba’s, so he trusts in himself to take what he wants. In killing his own worthless father, he took control of his and Mariam’s safety. In killing Maruf, he took his first step towards what he deserves.
“Brother!” He turns and sees Mariam at his side, her eyes filled with tears and terror. There is blood splattered up her arms and blade. Cassim sees her face, and for a second, he sees himself standing over his dead father. Bile rises up from his stomach. He’s turned his sweet, kind Mariam into a monster like him.
But then, in an almost humorous way, it dawns on him that Mariam— his dear, angelic sister —was still his father’s daughter, with his blood coursing through her veins. And so, it was inevitable, wasn't it?
Cassim grabs her and hugs her close. He thinks maybe this time he’ll hold her forever. She wails into his shoulder, and he doesn't know what to say. He feels his heart breaking. He takes her hand and leads her outside, but he still doesn’t know what to say.
As they disappear into the dark streets, it finally dawns on him to ask, “Mariam, do you recall our father?”
“No—! Not at all,” she sobs breathlessly, and Cassim is grateful for that small kindness the universe has granted them.
-
“Did you hear what happened to Emir Maruf’s household? All dead! Even his sons.”
“Even his guests.”
“Never mind that. What’s happened to all his wealth, if there was no one to claim it?”
“Surely there is a nephew or even a bastard…”
“The thieves made off with the gold, but I hear his land and assets were immediately seized by the treasury.”
Cassim walks into the throne room, thick gold torques glistening around his neck, and feels all eyes land on him in silence. He smiles and recites his monthly numbers to the kings. When he leaves, it is to a cascade of whispers.
-
“Sometimes, I feel like you’re growing up a lot faster than me.”
There’s a note of jealousy in Alibaba’s voice. Cassim hums, amused, intrigued to see where it leads. “Yeah? Well, I am a year older, aren’t I?” It’s sort of the truth. They’re at the point in their lives in which Cassim is exiting his sixteenth year, and Alibaba is entering his.
Alibaba sits on his balcony, dressed in blue silk and brocade befitting a prince of his station. He bites at a thumbnail, looking down at the party, at the now-thinning crowd of noblemen, ladies, chamberlains, and bureaucrats. “Earlier, those adults were all around you and talking to you like you were one of them… It’s like you’re a part of their world.”
And how. Cassim knows the layouts of their households like the back of his hand. In a few months' time, each will be ransacked by the Fog Troupe without him. He needs to maintain some distance from the raids, after all, and it hasn't been easy deflecting suspicions from himself, the former slum brat. Cassim can hardly remember a time when he wasn't so intricately involved in this absurd court life. It's such a pain. He had considered not attending this event, since it's held at the palace, and there’s nothing worth stealing inside the treasury.
But he did gain something unexpectedly useful upon arriving.
He found Alibaba's room.
“Then, come down to the party with me,” Cassim says, taking a seat next to him. He claps his hand over the prince's and draws him in as he always does. “I’ll introduce you. To them, to their daughters and nieces…” Alibaba blushes at this, a dopey smile lighting up his face. Cassim grins and pinches the blond’s cheek. “What are you doing? You can’t show up with that silly look on your face.”
“You go to a lot of these parties…” Alibaba gazes at their hands. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what? Losing my virtue?” Cassim knows precisely what feathers to ruffle. “Oh, Alibaba, no one guards their chastity as faithfully as you.”
“Hey, hey!” Alibaba fixes him a dour look but remains focused. “No, I’m talking about the Fog Troupe. The less fortunate citizens have banded together and are crashing elite gatherings with magic weapons. They’re people like us. They just didn’t have our luck.”
No one has your luck, Cassim thinks bitterly behind his smile.
“Don’t worry so much. It’s only been a few attacks this year.” Cassim dismisses the whole thing with a wave, but then Alibaba begins listing exactly how many attacks Cassim neglected to count in his estimate.
“They also hit Emir Maruf’s party last month. Were you there?”
“Ah? I wasn’t invited,” but I was there. Cassim has an airtight alibi for that night.
“Oh. Good. I hear it was a bloodbath.” Alibaba looks him in the eye, and it takes Cassim all his willpower to not look away. He licks his lips, considering his next line, but Alibaba beats him to it, face pink and earnest as always.
“Look, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I just don’t want you getting hurt.” Alibaba breaks eye contact, embarrassed. “You can’t leave me all alone in the palace, all right? Promise me that.”
“You’re a prince, idiot. You’re never alone in the palace.” Cassim says, pretending to be exasperated. “If anything, I should be the one worried. Your wonderful big brother Ahbmad hates me. When am I gonna turn up dead in a ditch?”
Alibaba looks pained. “Cassim…”
“You have to protect me, Alibaba! You’ll let me know if he moves against me, won’t you?” Cassim clasps his hands tight on Alibaba’s shoulders, and Alibaba nods fiercely at the responsibility.
"And you—you’ll tell me if something’s the matter, right?" he asks. He's giving Cassim that concerned look again, with the determined brow and the tight mouth, like he wants to say more but is afraid to.
Cassim smiles warmly at him. Where this prince fits into his plans is a mystery, but it doesn't hurt to reestablish their bond every so often, a reminder of why one is so important to the other. "Ah, well. It's nothing."
"Tell me!"
"It's embarrassing, so don't tell anyone, but I sometimes get bad dreams." Cassim sighs and looks away, and it feels like he’s baring his throat. “Can I come see you when I do? I could really use a friend then.”
The blond rises to the occasion like a goddamned sunrise: "Of course, come see me whenever. I'm here for you."
Cassim chuckles and taps lightly at the boy’s earring. "Oh, Alibaba... I’m so lucky that we’re together in this wretched life."
Alibaba turns away, ears red.
-
Cassim receives doves at his window, each with tiny scraps of paper tied to their legs. When Alibaba asks about them, Cassim replies, “Love notes,” and Alibaba ribs him over it mercilessly.
“Is it from one of your cute maids, Cassim? How’d you even get them? Tell me, tell me!”
“Like father, like son, aren’t you?” Cassim says hypocritically, and that shuts the prince up. It somehow also sends him to a baleful corner of Cassim's room, and they sit in irritated silence for the better half of an hour. Cassim wonders why he doesn’t just leave.
He isn't sure exactly how Alibaba found his living quarters, but it's making slipping out at night remarkably more difficult. At the same time, he can't bring himself to forbid Alibaba from coming. What would he say anyway— respect my space, even though we used to live in a tent half this size and snuggled under the same blanket at night? Or perhaps, Get out of my sight. I don’t wanna see you again! But Alibaba didn’t take kindly to that the last time, and well, now they’re here.
At least Alibaba doesn't mention the broken mirror, so Cassim lets him sulk in the corner.
And he doesn’t turn Alibaba away when he sheepishly returns the next night apologizing with his heart on his sleeve.
Cassim doesn’t want to admit it out loud, but he sleeps better.
Cassim manages a few trips back and forth from the city to the palace, undetected despite Alibaba’s constant presence, and he loses more of his jewelry. Alibaba’s eyes light up one day, when he sees the bracelets he sent Cassim years ago leave their dusty drawer and grace Cassim’s arm at last. He frowns in confusion when they’re gone a week later.
“Hey, are you being robbed or blackmailed or…?” Alibaba takes Cassim’s bare wrists in his hands, as if the gold will suddenly reappear if he stares hard enough.
“I’m giving them to Mariam and the others.” Cassim is pleased to find he can answer honestly. “They need them more than I do.”
Alibaba smiles and says nothing more. He squeezes Cassim’s hands a little before letting go, as if he’s not sure if he should be letting go at all. Cassim is bemused by the reaction.
“They were gifts from the late king,” Mariam explains when he finally asks her. “Alibaba treasured all of them because… Well, they were from his father. It was jewelry King Rashid had always wanted to give Anise.”
Cassim takes a puff from his cigar, a habit he picked up recently, and says, “Then why’d he give ‘em to me?”
“Why do you think?” Mariam seems older yet again after that night. It’s his fault for dragging her into this revenge. She's only twelve, and he's robbed her of that childhood. He thinks this so often that a soft, anxious guilt buzzes in the back of his mind whenever he sees her. “Cassim?”
“...Bribery? To ensure he keeps his allies in the palace?” Cassim ventures, abruptly returning to the stacks of gold before him: the Fog Troupe’s budget for the next three months. When revolutionaries are paid so well, what does that mean for Balbadd?
“You could say that,” says Mariam patiently. “You could also say he wanted to show how much he treasured you. He wanted you to keep him in mind while you were apart. And well, to make it known that you were under his protection, as he’s still a prince…”
“Uhhhh, don't give me that, Mariam.” Cassim has an gist of what Mariam means, but he doesn't want to dwell on it, not when Alibaba gives him such a headache as it is. “And c’mon, that's basically what I said.”
“Oh, Brother.” Mariam gives him a pair of scarlet metal earrings, gifts Alibaba sent a few days after Cassim pierced his ears. “At least keep these. Yours have completely lost their luster!” Cassim studies the little red hoops winking in his palm. He had saved these up until now because they were his favorite. Almost identical to his own, but of red gold and ruby.
Mariam is right. In all the planning and raiding, he has forgotten to treat himself. Cassim spends the rest of the day in the marketplace, searching for something just as good.
He finds Alibaba in his usual spot in the library, so immersed in the latest volume of Sinbad’s adventures that he only manages a squeal when Cassim tackles him off his cushion. They play-wrestle on the ground, like they have since childhood, until they upset a shelf of periodicals.
“Cassim, you jerk!” Alibaba whines, crawling away under the flurry of papers, but Cassim hops onto his back and dangles a fist in front of his face. “What’s that? What are you up to?”
“If you can open my hand, you can have what’s inside."
“This game has never turned out okay for me...” But Alibaba sighs and flips himself around onto his back. He diligently pries at Cassim’s fingers, and when Cassim laughs and doesn’t budge, Alibaba nips at his wrist. Cassim yelps and drops his prize.
A pair of earrings, small jade hoops.
Alibaba picks them up, astonished. “These are for me?”
Cassim flops down next to Alibaba. “What do you think? They're a good match, right?”
Alibaba furrows his brow when he looks to Cassim. “A match for what ...” His voice cracks when he sees the red winking from Cassim’s ears. Cassim smiles smugly.
Now, they’re a perfect set.
-
Cassim watches the stacks of paper money disappear from the treasury. The scraps under his feet are all that remains of Balbadd’s national treasures. But the aristocrats still monopolize the gold in the country, and Cassim has his eyes set on them. So many of them. Markkio enhances his katar to a sword’s length, and it smokes black fog; thick and binding.
Suffocating.
Ironic, but fitting.
The raids go on. The military swells its ranks to protect Balbadd’s elites, but it’s as if the Fog Troupe always knows where the guards are. Even if an attack isn't successful, and progress has truly plateaued these days, they always escape. Ahbmad closes his eyes and ears to everything. Sahbmad, if he’s aware of anything, says nothing and keeps his head low.
Cassim brings Balbadd’s powerful to their knees in the next few months, but it’s not enough to make them stay there. It never closes, the gap that divides the poor and the privileged. Cassim burns through his cigars, but they taste like ash and want.
He wouldn't have had to do this if Alibaba had just taken the throne when the king offered it. Yes, Cassim had learned. Alibaba had fidgeted and worried at his nails when he told him, “Maybe I should have taken it, and then you’d be safe, but…”
Cassim had punched him, hard enough to bruise. It was the first time he’s truly hit Alibaba since Anise’s death, since he declared himself Alibaba’s guardian. The deputy-king and servants had fussed over Alibaba’s face, wondering who had the audacity to strike a prince of Balbadd. Cassim had stared at him in silence, red knuckles under his sleeve, daring Alibaba to point the finger and condemn him.
But Alibaba hadn’t.
So now, the fate of Balbadd is on Cassim's shoulders. Again. It has to be Cassim bloodying his hands once more, and this time, Cassim will take what he wants while he fights against the aristocracy. He's going to take, and plunder, and steal with every tool at his disposal because he deserves at least this much. Now, if he had been offered the kinghood like Alibaba had, he would’ve seized it in a heartbeat. But here he is: born a criminal, not a prince.
How long can he keep going before he's caught? Before he's tried for his crimes and executed like the scum he is? Will he even get a trial when Ahbmad is king?
Will Alibaba cry when Cassim dies before him?
Cassim will burn that bridge when he gets there.
-
Long weeks of tedious planning, punctuated by nights of wild pandemonium, and then mornings like spiritual hangovers that leave Cassim wishing he was nine once more and blissfully sandwiched between Mariam and Alibaba under their tattered blanket. But he’s ruined, he’s ruined Mariam, and Alibaba is the only one left unstained by the past four years.
Cassim still keeps an eye on the royal court, but his servant girls fill in most of the information he needs to keep his head above the water. They make excuses and alibis for him. They know what he’s doing, and they keep silent. Their little siblings and grandparents outside the palace are eating at least two meals a day thanks to the Fog Troupe.
Cassim considers Markkio an ally and a foe. The devious Banker says nothing about his misdeeds, but continues to block his every move in commerce. Cassim is at best useless to Markkio, so why does Markkio keep him around? It’s like Cassim doesn’t even work in the treasury anymore, and the tax hikes are proof of that. Last he heard, Balbadd has severed economic ties to Sindria, and he only heard of it because it was in Alibaba’s latest volume of Sinbad’s tales.
(“So Sinbad is the kind of man who can’t differentiate his real life from his fantasies,” Cassim had said blandly, and Alibaba had almost cried in outrage over such slander of his hero. Alibaba’s bruise had faded to a faint green-yellow by then, and they had somehow already made up in the silent way they always do.)
And Cassim learns that Hassan and Zainab have broken up again, but that’s hardly news.
Still, things take him by surprise more often than not these days, and Cassim worries he’s losing his grip. He hasn't been sleeping much. He’s locked Alibaba out of his room to sneak out every night and deal with Troupe matters. More members means more trouble. He’s promoted Hassan, Zainab, and Mariam to chief cadres, but there’s not enough discipline, especially in between raids. He’s getting dark circles under his eyes. Alibaba is worried.
The guards notice him dazing off in the middle of a lunchtime spar. One sends him sprawling with a slap to the rear from the broadside of a sword. A couple of Cassim’s servant girls see this, and he’s awarded with peals of laughter when he stomps back inside the palace. He’s too angry and embarrassed to return to his chambers that night and hides in the library.
He picks up a copy of the books Alibaba loves so much. It puts him to sleep, sitting up.
Cassim has that dream, the one where he’s alone when black swords stab into him. This time, Alibaba isn’t even there. Cassim had walked into the dark on his own accord, so he only has himself to blame.
He wakes up against a padded tuffet in the library, sweating and shaking, with blankets draped over him and Sinbad’s classics scattered around. His heart skips a beat when he looks down.
Alibaba gazes up at him in concern, with his head on Cassim’s lap and his nose under a half-read scroll.
Their eyes meet. Cassim aches. He forces his breathing to remain steady. He tries to push himself up, but the tuffet gives way, and he falls onto the rug, shivering. He couldn’t play this up for Alibaba’s sake if he wanted to. His own vulnerability suddenly terrifies him.
Alibaba presses their foreheads together, to check for fever, and Cassim feels a jolt of lightning where they touch. He can’t stop his arms from wrapping around Alibaba’s waist. He pulls him down. He buries his nose in Alibaba’s shoulder and breathes.
“I’m fine,” mutters Cassim.
“Yeah, of course,” says Alibaba, unconvinced.
Cassim watches Alibaba lie down next to him and rearrange the blankets over them both. When the third prince returns to his tales, Cassim closes his eyes and pretends there's nothing outside their world beneath the covers. He thinks about their tiny white flag waving jauntily in the wind. He pretends he isn’t falling to pieces.
Before he drifts back to sleep, he feels Alibaba’s warm hand fit into his, like it always has.
He doesn’t let go.
Notes:
I'm on twitter now @goodnightwrite.
Chapter 2
Summary:
In which Cassim tries to be good, but old habits are hard to kick. Meanwhile, Alibaba is full of surprises.
Notes:
Revamped a few things, so chapter count’s been increased. I hope you enjoy more content!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Brother, why don’t we stop the raids for a while?” says Mariam.
Cassim looks up from his cigar. “What?”
Mariam takes a seat across the table from him. “It’s been impossible to steal anything after the military doubled in size. Again.”
Cassim says, “And what happens when the gold and fan dry up?”
“A lot of it gets wasted as it is,” Mariam counters quickly. “It feels like we’re always putting out fires with it. If we could just rebuild the community, we’d be able to manage it all more efficiently.” It’s a good response. She’s thought this through, probably even rehearsed it a few times while he was away. She looks at him brightly. “Tell me about the land you seized for the treasury. When do we get that?”
“It’s not ready.” He turns to her, resting an elbow on the table. Mariam leans in, fingers interlocked. The Fog Troupe falls silent, watching them.
Mariam is almost fourteen now. Cassim sees his reflection in her a lot. He’s long considered her an extension of himself, but perhaps that’s not quite true either. Mariam is kinder than he was at that age. The Fog Troupe trusts her like they trust him, but they reform into a more agreeable group when she’s in the room. At the same time, she’s killed more men than he had at fourteen. It doesn’t sit well with Cassim. Unfortunately, she refuses to put down the sword until he does. An irritating dilemma.
The people have taken to calling her Mariam the Wonderful, a name Cassim has been actively trying to discourage. If Alibaba hears it in association with the Fog Troupe, he’ll certainly fit two and two together. Alibaba isn’t ready to see Cassim for who he is or for what he’s done. He wouldn’t understand. He would make himself a royal nuisance, and Cassim can’t have that.
“Is this how everyone feels?” Cassim says to no one in particular. The crowd shifts a little, and a clear majority inches toward Mariam, towards rebuilding the community.
“Brother, isn’t this what we’ve been fighting for? A true redevelopment of our neighborhoods, not what they did to us before.” Mariam looks at him with hope. “If anyone can change things, it’s you.”
“Don’t give me that,” he begins, but there’s a murmur of agreement from her faction. Cassim takes a puff, bewildered. Since when had his Fog Troupe become a democracy? He counts the few faces that stayed put. Zainab, Hassan, Tariq, and Sa’id remain behind him as always, along with a few others. With only them, Cassim could take back complete control with force and purge the dissent. It would be violent and bloody.
But Mariam is still his to protect.
It’s so easy for him to slip back into that mentality of needing to be in charge, but it’s all right now. For once, he’s not the one holding everything together, and that should be a good thing. He reminds himself it is a good thing. He sits back and exhales. He starts to shift plans around his mind. “Sure,” he says. “Let’s focus on rebuilding. I’ll handle everything in the palace.”
The tension in the room melts away. Mariam reaches over the table for his hand. He smiles and kisses hers.
-
Mariam’s right in that the military is becoming more than a match for the Fog Troupe. The revolution has stalled. Cassim doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s been banging his head on a dead end for months. The land the treasury seized from the aristocratic estates—that’s what Cassim was after all along: Balbadd, itself. But of course there are roadblocks.
Balbadd’s nobility has been intermarrying, joining, and dividing estates for generations, so their properties are scattered across all the islands. Passages between them, on both land and water, are heavily gated. The ones in Cassim’s possession are mingled with those of other nobles, and if those nobles refuse to allow construction to pass through their property, then Cassim damn well can’t rebuild on his own.
Markkio, the devil. He keeps dragging his feet on all the redevelopment forms Cassim files. The rights to the land will never go through at this rate, let alone the funding.
“We had an agreement,” Cassim had said coldly. “Sign the papers from last week.”
“What papers?” Markkio had asked, looking around his empty desk. “As my assistant, you ought to keep this place better organized.”
(Cassim almost killed someone that day.)
And if that isn’t worrying enough, Ahbmad has expressed a keen interest in selling all the treasury’s assets to the Kou. Tax breaks for all the elites, he promised, to resounding applause in the royal court. It’s just as well; Ahbmad has no other supporters outside the aristocracy at this point, the tyrant. King Sahbmad sweated and said nothing, as usual. Prince Alibaba was not present. As usual.
The nobles will accept any royal decree refilling their coffers with fan. Anything to keep up their lifestyles. Cassim doesn’t bother keeping score of debt anymore. Everyone’s swimming in it. Ahbmad has told Markkio to give the nobles whatever they want, since Balbadd’s citizens will foot the bill, and the elites at the very top just feel entitled to more and more.
But there’s an end to the money. Gold is traded for fan upon reaching the treasury, thanks to Markkio, and then it’s hauled onto Kou ships back to their empire. With Kou as their only major trade partner, the fan dispersed to the people are spent on Kou goods, so the paper, however worthless it is, returns to the empire, too.
Kou, Kou, Kou.
They’re plundering us.
Cassim thought Balbadd had laws to stop its own upper class from carving up the country. Several laws, in fact, to protect the citizens, their rights, and their own country’s sovereignty. But clearly, he hasn’t read enough on the subject, and the books aren’t in the library anymore. It’s just pulpy dungeon tales: cheap reprints imported en masse from Kou publishing houses. Celebrity drivel about foreign royals. Idiocy.
And it’s thanks to Markkio, the Banker, who has been a sleeper agent of the Kou all along. Cassim has long figured out that much. He doesn’t have enough information to counterattack an entire empire. Not yet. Not in his position. Not when Mariam is trying to rebuild their old home, and Alibaba is a mine of untapped potential. Cassim knows better; he has everything to lose.
If he could just slow down the Kou, if something would just give way...
Cassim’s out of his depth. He can’t do this on his own. There are many proposals his associates in court will compromise with him on, but he’s alone in this. The financial situation is a mess. He get migraines trying to think through the politics. And it makes no difference anyway; he’s not high enough in the hierarchy to even broach the subject without getting laughed down, “By our friends, the Kou? Surely you’re joking!”
For the first time in his life, he finds himself facing a problem that can’t be solved by killing the right person. The thought settles into the pit of his stomach. It unravels into unease.
He needs more power and allies he can trust, but for now, Cassim needs to deal with both the land and money.
And he needs to see what’s going on in the treasury. Cassim swallows his pride. He starts sitting outside with his growing stack of reconstruction documents, telling every aristocrat who wanders by, “Yeah, my lazy boss didn’t show up to work again,” until Markkio finally opens the door and pulls Cassim inside to end the slandering.
Cassim hears the tittering of ladies behind him as the door closes, “How cute, the puppy whines until it’s back inside.” It makes his skin crawl, but it’s fine. He can finally get a look at all the documents he missed and check on his own papers… Except Markkio has filed them all away in locked cabinets. Cassim doesn’t even pretend to be of decent character anymore. He pulls a hidden pin from his hair and starts picking the locks while Markkio watches on.
But it’s strange, like stabbing at oil yet still hearing clicks, and when Cassim pulls the pin back, the metal has corroded. He turns to Markkio, and the man smiles at him. Magic, thinks Cassim. He’s not just an arms dealer and a banker. He’s a magician?
Decorum be damned, Cassim shoves the cabinet onto the ground, and the marble cracks from impact. The cabinet lies there, unscathed. Markkio keeps smiling.
“Fire me,” says Cassim, out of breath. “I’ve given you every reason to.”
“Nonsense,” says Markkio, looking at him as if he were watching an egg hatch. “I’m going to keep you.”
Cassim stares back, suddenly gripped by a dark, dark fear, but then immediately furious at his own helplessness. He runs through a couple of scenarios in his mind. If he manages to kill Markkio in secret, who’s to say the Kou won’t just send another agent to woo Ahbmad? Would that buy Cassim some time, at least, or would the ensuing events be even more of a hassle?
Time’s up. He needs to act.
Cassim tries to walk away with a shred of his dignity intact, but Markkio’s doll-like eyes gouge holes into his back.
-
It’s so easy for him to slip back into despair when he’s cornered like this, but he has to maintain a shred of hope for Mariam. He told Mariam he would deal with everything in the palace, and he will. It’s a matter of how.
What would Alibaba do?
He finds himself asking this absurd question, and it’s absurd because Alibaba would get lucky. Everything would work out in the end.
Cassim dusts off an old plan he tucked away in the recesses of his mind. He’d come up with it back when he didn’t know what to do with himself. Now, he knows exactly where he wants to stand. It’s a bigger gamble this time, but Cassim can stack the odds. Alibaba’s a wild factor all by himself, but Cassim can use that. Most importantly, Alibaba would listen to Cassim.
-
The third prince waits for him every morning, primed with the next volume of Sinbad’s adventures. By now, he’s accepted that although Cassim doesn’t read for leisure, Cassim will listen during his morning smoke break. When Alibaba reaches the end of the scroll, he turns to Cassim eagerly. “So—what you think? Will Sinbad escape the slave trader?”
Cassim stretches lazily on the library floor. He looks at his cigar and deadpans, “Alibaba. He’s the friggin’ king of Sindria right now.”
Alibaba falls onto the cushion next to him, clutching the scroll to his chest like it’s something precious. His eyes are bright and reverent. Cassim wonders if that part of Alibaba will ever fade when he grows older. “I know that! But you want to know how, right? He does this clever thing, and bam, he’s out of trouble. Remember that incident with the meat in the canyon?! Y’know, with the birds in Artemyra? And how they lived for days in the wilderness—like real men!”
“I can’t believe you made me listen to that with my own ears,” Cassim groans. “If I wanted to eke out a meaningless existence, I would’ve stayed in the slums.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Alibaba sighs, gazing in adoration at the words along the scroll. “Don’t you want to leave Balbadd sometimes? To try and capture your own dungeon?” Cassim doesn’t know why Alibaba would want to leave Balbadd. He thinks this sheltered, coddled prince is conflating excitement with escape.
“Balbadd is my home. We belong here,” Cassim says simply.
Alibaba purses his lips and lets the subject drop. They lie there side by side, pointing out the mosaic patterns across the ceiling and musing on what Mariam’s doing. When there’s a lull in the conversation, Cassim says mildly, “Hey, Alibaba? If you were king, you would never allow slavery, right?”
“We don’t have to worry about that,” Alibaba reminds him. “Balbadd doesn’t import or export slaves.”
“The rich and powerful will enslave the lowest dredges of any society. All they have to do is pay just a hair more than nothing,” Cassim says, taking a puff. “And if they don’t call it ‘slavery,’ then they can get away with it. That’s how Hassan lost an eye.”
“What do you mean?” Alibaba rolls over onto his side, facing Cassim. “Mariam told me Hassan got himself into a dumb accident…”
“I made that up, so he wouldn’t seem as scary to her,” Cassim chuckles and blows a dark cloud above them. “He looks mean, but that’s not his fault. You remember when Hassan joined my gang, right? He already had a bloody bandage over an eye, a real mess. He asked me to protect him from his keepers.”
Alibaba fiddles with a lock of Cassim’s hair. “Oh yeah. You made me stay home and watch Mariam that day. Where’d you go?”
“Cassim.”
They look to the door in time to see one of Cassim’s servant girls bow low. “Look at that. I better get back to work,” says Cassim, knowing very well that he’s just going spend the next five hours staring at the wood grain of his desk and mentally cursing Markkio.
Alibaba is crestfallen. “I want to hear the story.”
Cassim pretends to think about it. “Hmm. Do me a favor today, and I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow.”
Alibaba nods eagerly, delighted at the quest. “Sure! What you do need?”
Cassim nibbles on his cigar thoughtfully, as if he hadn’t already planned this entire conversation from the start. “Get your brother to officially include you in the royal court.”
-
He sends two girls to follow Alibaba. They report back early the next morning, while the stars are still out and Cassim is groggily working on his first cup of coffee. Cassim’s already gilded a fifth of his hair when they take over. They giggle over his head as they describe how King Sahbmad had fidgeted and perspired under King Ahbmad’s evil eye, but in the end, Alibaba had gotten what he wanted. And that means Cassim had, too.
Alibaba drops by when the sun rises. He sees Cassim sitting on the window sill, lighting a fresh cut cigar, and he takes a seat on the opposite end. Cassim leans back against the cold stone wall. He points to a dark corner of Balbadd below. It’s not too far from the palace, a vacant pocket in the elite’s neighborhoods.
“Hassan’s eye,” Cassim recaps. “Look. That’s where I took my gang to investigate. Turns out, his keepers were running a hustle. They took in orphaned kids and put them on the streets to beg.” Cassim takes a puff. “Here’s the thing, Alibaba: crippled kids make the most money.”
Alibaba pales a little, and his opinion of Hassan visibly shifts on his face, to Cassim’s amusement. Alibaba whispers, “They didn’t.”
“Half-blinded Hassan,” says Cassim. “Threw acid on a girl he knew. Smashed in another boy’s leg…” Alibaba looks squeamish, and Cassim smiles a bitter, crooked smile. “The world is an unkind place.”
“What’d you do?”
Cassim shrugs. “An eye for an eye. We gave them hell.”
“Hrmm.” Alibaba folds his arms across his chest and stares at Cassim in adorable consternation, as if he’s torn between admiration and admonishment. “You didn’t get caught, did you?”
“It’s not like they could hunt down all the kids in the slums,” yawns Cassim, lazily waving away Alibaba’s concerns like smoke. “Those kids escaped and joined my gang. Things settled down after all while. The eldest daughter of that family married a powerful emir. She had a huge dowry from the fortune Hassan and those other kids made. The family prospered until…”
Cassim takes a puff, dragging out the pause. Alibaba nudges him impatiently with a foot. “Until what?”
Cassim swirls the rich smoke in his mouth. “Until they and the rest of Maruf’s household went up in flames.”
-
Alibaba is almost seventeen when King Sahbmad officially introduces him to the royal court. It’s on a day when Ahbmad is absent, which is no coincidence. Cassim braces himself, and sure enough, they pounce on the third prince with their sly introductions, all eager to stake their claim on the last member of the royal house.
“For Prince Alibaba to have never shown himself here before…”
“It’s an incredible honor to meet you personally.”
“Have you met my niece?”
“Have you met my daughter?!”
Alibaba shoots one pleading look to Cassim, and it’s like all eyes and claws in the room veer towards him. To Cassim, who can no longer distract the nobility with surprise raids. To Cassim, who’s basically useless in the treasury. To Cassim, who is going to fake it until he makes it because he does have a plan, one that hinges on Alibaba.
“Prince Alibaba has agreed to partner up with me in rebuilding Balbadd’s neighborhoods,” he says, yanking Alibaba back to his side. “We’re using newly-acquired assets from the treasury. Don’t get upset. It’ll be good for you, too.” The glares he receives from the nobles are fantastic.
“And how will dispersing our bread to the rats be good for us?” one of the ministers sneers, and Cassim returns the look a hundredfold. The man backs down. A little. “...Far be it for us to question the treasury’s plans, but it just feels like the banker’s assistant is helping his own with no regard for us.”
“The people are revolting because life sucks down there,” Cassim says bluntly. “There’s no money, and when there is, there’s not enough. We make things better, and they’ll stop killing us.” We. Us. Make them think the people have turned against Cassim as well. “We used to be a renowned country of trade. Now, we only do business at the bidding of one nation. We’re letting the Kou step all over us!” he says to hushed muttering amongst the crowd. “We can do better.”
We. We. We. Make them see Cassim as one of them, that his own ideas are as valuable as theirs. That he’s as powerful as he’s ever been, and moreso with Alibaba.
“And if the people’s basic needs are taken care of, they’ll be more productive,” Alibaba adds helpfully, “which will boost the economy and make everyone’s purses a little fuller. We need to work together.” Alibaba looks to Cassim with a smile. Cassim grins back. Oh, the things he could accomplish with this prince on his side. He would have done this years ago, if it weren’t for his damn pride.
“I—I think they both make excellent points.”
Cassim blinks, surprised by the unexpected support.
“Brother Sahbmad,” Alibaba exclaims as the deputy-king approaches them with all the personality of a terrified mouse. Fitting, since Cassim has seen him run from the cats in the palace.
“W-we’ve been genuinely trying to deal with the whole Fog Troupe situation for months, and ever since Cassim started that rebuild initiative… the people seem to have calmed down a little...” Sahbmad’s voice fades, and he looks entirely ready to wither up and die under the scrutiny of the court. “This sounds promising…”
“Thank you. I think so, too,” Alibaba says gratefully. “We’ll serve Balbadd as best we can!”
“Yes, well,” Sahbmad starts, but he slinks away when he catches Cassim staring at him.
-
With not only one, but two royals as his safety net, Cassim is back on top.
“You and me, working together!” Alibaba crows, practically skipping next to him. “Just like the old days! I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine!”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t have been prepared if you had debuted in court earlier,” Cassim says, fishing a cigar from his pocket and a match to light it. “Did you see them? They wanted to eat you alive.”
“Oh. Yeah... I dunno about that.” Alibaba’s posture falls to an awkward slouch, his eyes drawn to his feet. “You know, they thought I was trash when I just got here. No one would talk to me. Not even the king.”
“Alibaba…” Cassim doesn’t want to believe that, but Alibaba’s abrupt change in demeanor is hard to ignore. It’s like seeing clouds block out the sun. Cassim can understand Ahbmad wanting to hide Alibaba, who would easily outshine him, but for people to ignore radiant, remarkable Alibaba—it sounds ludicrous.
“Things got a better a few years after we arrived.” Alibaba leans against the balustrade of the covered bridge they arrive at. He gazes down at the courtyard below, watching soldiers finish their training session. “And people really started being nicer after our first spar.” He fidgets with the ribbon in his ponytail, and smiles at Cassim, like he’s telling a joke he’s suddenly embarrassed of. “My friends are always your friends first. Even today, right after meeting me, they went straight to you.”
“Ah,” says Cassim. There’s a lot of things he could say to reassure Alibaba. He could tell Alibaba he has no friends in the aristocracy. He could tell him the court is aware that Cassim’s the third prince’s keeper, and that no one could get to Alibaba’s heart under Cassim’s canny eyes. But Alibaba doesn’t need to know. If Alibaba thinks Cassim is his lifeline to friendship, then who is Cassim to tell him otherwise? He pats Alibaba’s shoulder and reassures him uselessly, “You’ll make friends of your own someday.”
Alibaba nods. He seems to take it to heart.
-
General Barkak instructs Alibaba on his form. From the shadows of the covered bridge, Cassim watches and commits the prince’s habits to memory. For no real reason, he could say, but then he’d be lying to himself, too.
Cassim taps the ash off his cigar when he finally hears the sound of Sahbmad’s footsteps. Right on time, according to Alibaba. The deputy-king passes by Alibaba’s practice every day. Sahbmad walks another ten paces, and Cassim steps out from his hiding spot behind a pillar.
“King Sahbmad,” Cassim greets as the man falls over himself in alarm. The kings’ guards ready their spears, but they see him and relax.
“It’s only Cassim.”
“Cheeky brat.”
Cassim bites back a smirk as Sahbmad awkwardly motions for the guards to quiet. Sahbmad turns back to him. “Wh-what brings you here?”
“Alibaba,” Cassim says, pointing a finger to the courtyard. “So let’s talk about all things Alibaba.” He eyes the guards. “Do they have to be here?” They chuckle at his gall.
With everyone’s eyes on him, Sahbmad becomes a mute. Cassim knows this and kneels down to the deputy-king’s level. “Hey, hey. Don’t worry. I’m only the banker’s assistant after all, your majesty.” He looks Sahbmad in the eye. “And we’re practically brothers.”
Reluctantly, Sabhmad waves for the guards to leave. Cassim nods his goodbyes.
“Cigar?” he offers when they’re alone, but Sahbmad refuses politely. He doesn’t look at Cassim.
Quietly, for several minutes, they observe General Barkak drilling Alibaba on the basics of royal swordplay. Alibaba excels beautifully as usual. “I can see why you drop by all the time,” Cassim finally says and takes a puff. “He’s amazing.” When Sahbmad makes no response, Cassim continues conversationally, “But Ahbmad’s an awful king, huh?”
That gets Sahbmad’s attention. He turns to Cassim, they meet eyes, and Cassim tears in, “What about you? You want to be high king?”
Sahbmad looks away so quickly that his crown almost falls off. He readjusts it silently. It’s not the encouraging silence born of ambition and caution, but one of defeat and fear. Cassim can work with that. He takes his time knocking the ash from his cigar before asking, “And Alibaba?”
He hears Sahbmad swallow.
“He’d make a good king, huh?” Cassim presses lightly, glancing at the other man.
“Are you…” Sahbmad asks in a low voice, so quiet that Cassim barely hears him, “What are you saying?” And underneath the dread and distrust, there’s a note of hope in his voice that Cassim rather likes.
Cassim turns to the older man, smiling. “We want the same things for Balbadd, don’t we?”
Sahbmad looks away helplessly, mouth twisted into an anxious frown. He’s thinking and weighing his options. Cassim’s only giving him one.
“This is fun. We should talk more often,” Cassim says, turning back to the courtyard, cigar at his lips. “I think I’ll come watch Alibaba tomorrow.”
Sahbmad nods. After a few seconds, he quietly shuffles away, taking the anxiety in the space with him.
On a whim, Cassim resumes watching Alibaba’s practice. He waves when Alibaba looks up to find him and laughs when Alibaba gets knocked off his feet. All in all, there are worse ways to spend two hours.
He’s lighting his second cigar when Alibaba runs back into the hall, breathless and flushed. The prince smells like dust, sweat, and sun, and it makes Cassim feel a little nostalgic.
“You stayed the entire time,” Alibaba says, beaming.
“I learned a thing or two,” admits Cassim.
-
It feels good and right teaming up with Alibaba again. Alibaba has everything Cassim lacks, and Cassim has more than enough tricks up his sleeve to steer everyone down the direction he wants. He and Alibaba are inseparable, and they fall into a comfortable rhythm.
They begin their mornings arguing against the nobles in court. Alibaba meets them head-on, with their latest redevelopment initiative and the idealism to see it through: consider this money an investment, don’t block construction on your end, my father believed that a nation’s wealth depends on its people’s life quality, not only its money.
When it comes to positivity, Alibaba is worth his weight in gold. And it’s perfect because every time Ahbmad shoots him down, Cassim tags in from a different angle. If Alibaba fails to appeal to the elites’ decency, or vanity, Cassim brings up their fear and self-interests: it only takes a few months for poverty to reach your own neighborhoods, imagine if the Fog Troupe rose up again, when the poor are desperate there is only revolution.
At the end of each session, they manage to win over at least a few influential nobles. Alibaba shakes their hands, thanking them, dazzling them in that way he does. They gape at him with hungry eyes, still stunned by his presence in court. Cassim knows that look all too well and pulls them aside to schedule appointments with Markkio. That’ll teach the banker; shut Cassim out, and he’ll come back with an entitled nobleman hellbent on getting what he thinks he deserves.
“Banker, what do you pay the boy for?” says the umpteenth lord. “Give him the keys to the damn cabinets, so we can hurry along! I’m very busy, I barely have time to eat,” he says, snacking on refreshments brought to the treasury by Cassim’s maids.
Cassim pockets the keys. He pours more wine into the man’s goblet and says cheerfully, “Stay as long as you’d like. I’ll reschedule the other meetings.” The man takes his word at face value and stays for hours while Markkio entertains him with a forced smile. They get nothing done. The banker can stonewall Cassim’s progress and waste the nobleman’s time, but at least Cassim can go through documents that have been locked away from him for months.
This was a good idea, Cassim decides, and he buries the banker in meetings. It’s like forcing Markkio to go by Cassim’s schedule because Markkio can’t afford to leave Cassim alone with the clients. After all, Cassim works fast. If it were just him, half of Balbadd would be properly renovated within the year, and all the money would go to the people.
There are days when Cassim meets King Sahbmad on the covered bridge to watch Alibaba practice. Between the treasury’s documents and Sahbmad’s information, Cassim learns how badly the country has deteriorated. He already knew they were in debt, but they’re so deep in it that if Balbadd doesn’t become more self-sufficient soon, they’ll have no money to fund anything—not even a military. The Kou have bought their country’s national treasures, marine rights, air rights, trade rights… Cassim takes some comfort in knowing that the Fog Troupe’s attacks have at least disrupted negotiations for land rights.
He has to move faster. He has to consolidate his people outside the palace, and he has to figure out who will follow him from within.
While Cassim ponders the specifics of his plans, Alibaba weaves more and more complicated maneuvers into his performance. Sometimes, it’s like Alibaba’s movements mirror the thoughts in his own mind, and Cassim can’t help but wonder at how easily the two of them fall into step beside each other.
When Alibaba’s swordplay lesson ends, he meets Cassim in the library, where they draw out maps of neighborhoods that need restoration and figure out where to direct what funds.
Cassim doesn’t show Alibaba everything.
Smaller gangs and factions are cropping up in the absence of Fog Troupe activities. Cassim keeps that news to himself. The groups will start fighting for resources and sabotaging each other. It’s just a facet of human nature, but it’s one Alibaba isn’t prepared to handle. Not like Cassim. Cassim knows where the neighborhoods are splitting by the streets and lets his cadres monitor the trends in his place. Besides, it’s good to know where the alliances are and what will make or break them.
As for nights, to each his own. Cassim splits his time between the city and the treasury. According to his maids, Alibaba slips out through the tunnel from time to time as well. Cassim has a good laugh when Mariam assures him that Alibaba is off limits to all the bandits in the city. If Alibaba were investigating Fog Troupe matters, she, Zainab, or Hassan would tell Cassim.
But since he isn’t, Cassim gives Alibaba his privacy.
-
After the last nobleman leaves the treasury, Markkio turns to him. “My young assistant, have you heard of the Sorcerers of Creation?” Markkio says. “They’re known as Magi, and they are as divine as the stories say: kingmakers. Would you like to meet one someday?”
“‘Kingmakers,’” Cassim repeats. Then, cautiously, he asks, “What does that have to do with me?” Cassim doesn’t give away any real tells, but Markkio reads him like a book. It’s been like that since the moment he laid eyes on Cassim.
“Well, they’re excellent at judging a man’s character. I think they’d see a great potential in you.”
And while Cassim shouldn’t let that conversation get under his skin, it does.
He turns the words over and over in his head: kingmaker, potential.
He finds Alibaba in the library late in the afternoon, poring over their map of Balbadd.
“What do you know about Magi?” Cassim asks, but he doesn’t sit. He doesn’t want to stay. He feels a ravenous energy burning up his mind.
“Magi? You mean magicians?” Alibaba suggests helpfully. “I know Sinbad met a couple during his journey, but he didn’t write much about them. They seemed to pop up around dungeons, I guess…”
Cassim rubs at a knot tight in the back of his neck. “There’s not much magic in Balbadd.” There’s only the weapons in the Fog Troupe’s arsenal, and they were provided by Markkio. Markkio, who speaks of Magi with familiarity. Markkio, who plundered Balbadd with Kou bills, who convinced Ahbmad to give away almost all but the very land beneath their feet to the Kou Empire. Cassim does the math.
“Hey, Alibaba. What if the Kou have a Magi?” That would be one hell of a wrench in his plans. He sits down and rubs the bridge of his nose. “They’ll try to take us over,” he mutters. “No, they already are. How do we fight them?”
Alibaba crawls over to him. He takes a seat at Cassim’s side and and nudges him out of his brooding. “Look, I don’t know,” he says, and Cassim almost laughs in his face. “Hey—hey! I mean I don’t know right now, but I’m gonna figure it out. We’ll figure it out together.”
“We’ll need to build up the army,” says Cassim. “We’ll need magic.” Balbadd’s current power isn’t strong enough to take on an empire by itself, not when it’s weapons are Kou discards as it is.
“I could... tell General Barkak?”
And Ahbmad will block him. Ahbmad made his alliances clear when he flattened himself at the Kou’s feet. Cassim’s been right all along. They have to get rid of him. Kill him. “One thing at a time, Alibaba,” he says absently, drumming his fingers against his knee.
Alibaba watches him, sees him all wound up at the new challenge, and he says, “We should spar.”
Cassim turns to him. “Oh?”
-
It’s been awhile since they last crossed blades. Their audience this time comprises soldiers and guards, many of whom Cassim knows on a first-name basis. On the other hand, Cassim doesn’t have a family name, so that’s always been a moot point for him. And they accept that.
Cassim sees them placing their bets and thinks maybe the odds are about even now. Between him and Alibaba, Cassim is stronger. He trains with heavier weapons, and he’s efficient in them all. But it’s still only efficiency, not mastery, which is what Alibaba wields with his knife. At the same time, Cassim has also been studying Alibaba’s movements. He should be able to use them to his advantage, so this is also a test for himself: his cunning versus Alibaba’s skill.
Alibaba raises his knife and folds his left arm neatly behind his back. A royal swordplay stance. Cassim draws his own dagger from his waist, the same trusty little dagger that’s delivered him through childhood and adolescence.
And they go.
Their blades are both short; it’s a close-ranged duel. Alibaba’s footwork is impeccable in practice, so Cassim trips him again and again. Alibaba whirls around to avoid his attacks, his feints circling back into counterattacks, but Cassim has seen these maneuvers. He parries them each time, until the two of them break apart, reexamining each other, to the shouts of the crowd. Cassim’s heart is pounding, but his mind is sharp as the taste of spearmint. Alibaba grins at him breathlessly a few feet away, raring for round two.
And they go again.
This time, Cassim begins to talk, “Hey, Alibaba. Do you think royal brats should live like royalty?” The question takes Alibaba by surprise, and his arm is almost a second too slow to block Cassim’s strike. Cassim continues, “Do you think slum brats should stay in the slums?”
Cassim’s blade catches Alibaba’s, and with one forceful swipe, he sends the prince reeling back. When Alibaba regains his footing, he asks, “What do you mean?”
“You and me. We were both born in the same place, but we have different blood flowing through us,” Cassim rushes forward. Alibaba parries his attacks, but he gives ground, inch by inch, as Cassim drives onward, “You’re a slum brat with royal blood. Do you think I could be a noble brat with commoner’s blood?”
And this is when Alibaba’s completely taken aback because he hesitates for a moment, parsing Cassim’s words, and this is when Cassim disarms him. The crowd grows silent as the prince falls. His knife lands in the dust next to him. He looks up at Cassim, unharmed but winded.
“Soldiers, nobles, royals, and slum rats—we’re all human,” Cassim says. He sheathes his dagger because it’s not a duel anymore. It’s a rally. He’s not only talking to Alibaba. He’s gauging the crowd of soldiers around them, wondering if they’ll march to the beat of his drum. “If we’re the same, then anyone has the right to rule.”
“Cassim,” Alibaba cautions because what Cassim’s saying sounds dangerously like sedition.
“There’s no reason we should accept the rule of those who fail us,” Cassim insists, “not when there are candidates among us who can serve the people better. I might even be looking at one.”
Alibaba says nothing. Alibaba is dumbfounded. This was clearly not what he had expected when he suggested a spar. Cassim waits. The silence stretches on, maddeningly, until it is broken.
Someone claps.
And then, more join in. Around them, the soldiers—men who have watched Cassim and Alibaba grow up in the palace—they break into applause. Alibaba looks around in bewilderment, then back to Cassim, who smiles. He knew there were guards who shared his sentiments but wouldn’t have hedged his bets on so many.
He’s ready. Balbadd is ready.
He holds a hand out to Alibaba, who takes it, and he pulls the prince to his feet. He pulls him close, so only Alibaba can hear Cassim’s words over din of the crowd, “Alibaba, become king.”
-
Cassim wants the best for Balbadd, but the country has been stretched thin. It’s a sheet of paper, with their own elites and the Kou hovering about like two halves of a pair of scissors. Cassim needed to dismantle this dynamic, so he came up with a plan.
There are three parts, and the first is simple: gather the forces.
He has maybe three-quarters of the soldiers on his side. The nobles will join whoever looks most powerful, so as long as Cassim directs their attention and distracts them, it will be fine. Sahbmad has agreed to his plan. Alibaba has heard and agreed; not too optimistically, but he agreed, and all he needs to do is stand there anyway. Cassim will take care of the rest. He knows the citizens are with him, too. Cassim will give them the land to fix with their own hands. If the Kou should come for them, Cassim knows the people will fight tooth and nail to keep the Balbadd they’ve rebuilt from the ground up.
The second part of the plan is, of course, to overthrow the king. Cassim will have Sahbmad assume the throne first. It’s natural, and while there may be grumbles, no one will question it. When things settle down, Sahbmad will abdicate willingly, and that will leave the seat vacant for the third prince. For Alibaba. And with Alibaba as king, Cassim will move onto part three.
-
Markkio and Ahbmad fight Cassim and Alibaba with bureaucratic slowness, but with enough pressure from the royal court (thanks to Cassim’s fear mongering), even they must relent.
When the papers finally go through, they do quietly, early in the morning while the city is still sleeping.
Cassim is awake. Cassim is always awake, and he snatches the papers off Markkio’s desk before the ink dries. The estates that the treasury has held for months finally go to the hands of the people, along with permissions and donations from various lords and ministers that will enable them to renovate Balbadd—to lessen the disparity between the poor and the rich. The project ends up with double the amount of resources Cassim started with. He isn’t sure how they did it, but he knows it’s because of Alibaba.
Cassim takes the proclamation to Alibaba’s room, and Alibaba almost cries on his copy. Cassim scoffs at his tears, “Stop sniffling. We won this round. There’s still a lot to do. I’ll organize the budget regarding city planning, but you need to...” Alibaba throws his arms around Cassim’s neck, and Cassim forgets what he’s saying. Alibaba is still warm with sleep. He feels comfortable.
“You’re amazing, and we’re invincible together,” Alibaba whispers into his shoulder, and for a soft, beautiful moment, they feel like one entity. One invincible entity. The sunrise casts its warm rays into the room, and it makes Alibaba’s long hair shine like spun gold. Cassim threads his fingers in it. He presses his lips to it.
If Alibaba notices, he says nothing.
-
Inside the palace, the day begins as it usually does. It goes on as it usually does. The only difference is that Cassim and Alibaba aren’t there.
They take the tunnel back to the city, where they read the treasury’s decree aloud to the citizens. The response is resounding. Men slap Cassim’s back in that paternal way he’s never known. Women, young and old, kiss the gold wire in his hair and the jewels on his wrists and fingers. Children crawl up him in hugs. He laughs and looks to Alibaba, who’s surrounded by his own pocket of cheer.
He sees members of his Troupe beaming at him from their places in the crowd. They all end up at the usual tavern.
“Here, have a drink,” Cassim says, pushing a full tankard into Alibaba’s hands, but turns out that Alibaba is a chatty drunk ( oh man, what am I even supposed to do about Cassim, he doesn’t sleep if I’m not there, and sometimes I have to push him down on the bed ), and Cassim confiscates it, “Okay, you’ve had enough.”
The mug is about half-empty, which is fine. Cassim holds onto it and pretends it's his. He doesn’t drink much, and it’s not that he can’t handle it. Judging by his father, Cassim could have been a spectacular drunk, but he had long promised himself he wouldn’t follow that legacy.
He likes being the last sober man in the room. He roams around, seamlessly joining various conversations, tucking all new bits of information into the back of his mind.
“Ah, Ruwa just had a baby, so we’ll use the money to build a nursery.”
“The wife and me, we’ll add a few more rooms to our inn.”
“My brother says he’ll buy the kebab cart, but I’m telling him we should open a restaurant if we can get some of that prime real estate!”
It all sounds good to him. And he keeps reminding himself that he did that. He did something good with Alibaba.
He’s just as good as Alibaba.
He sees Mariam, at Alibaba’s side, listening to his stories about life with Cassim in the palace. She waves Cassim over and pecks him on the cheek. She whispers, “No one’s said anything about the Fog Troupe to him.” He smiles, but then she says, “Also, that pond in the palace garden is kind of gross. Should you two really be skinny dipping in there?”
“Ohh. It was only once, Mariam. We learned our lesson.”
-
Alibaba is sober by the time they’re reach the palace. The night guards give Cassim a nod when the two of them saunter back in, as if they were never gone in the first place: “Have fun, boys?”
Cassim heads to the treasury to check on a few scrolls he left to some newly-hired scribes. Cassim doesn’t mind the new faces. They seem harmless, and they’ve lessened his workload from life-threatening to merely agonizing.
The room is empty. When Cassim lights a lamp, he sees the scrolls stacked neatly on his desk.
Next to them is his black Fog Sword. He’d recognize its scratches anywhere. He’s surprised to see it, especially here in the open and not hidden in his room. Cassim picks it up and feels a chill shoot straight through him. But it’s not an unwelcome sensation. It’s coupled with that relief of tasting a freshly cut cigar after a long, terrible day without a smoke.
Markkio has made the sword stronger again, and Cassim suddenly wants to equip it. He wants to see exactly how strong it is.
“Cassim?”
Alibaba’s at the door. Alibaba sees him holding the black katar, and it’s like lightning strikes. He bolts to Cassim and pushes the sword out of his hands. Cassim barely has time to react. “Alibaba, what—”
“It’s one of those magic weapons the Fog Troupe has!” Alibaba hisses, blocking Cassim from it. “What’s it doing here?”
Does Cassim tell him about the Fog Troupe?
No, not when this is Alibaba’s reaction.
“I don’t know. I just found it,” says Cassim. He watches Alibaba pick it up. He feels a strange thrill just seeing Alibaba hold it. It’s such a warped image, and he wonders if his sword has the power to corrupt even Alibaba. “Try it on,” Cassim hears himself saying. “See what it does.”
What is he doing?
“On second thought, why don’t you give it to me? I’ll deal with it,” Cassim says quickly, and he makes a grab for it.
Alibaba dodges him, sword and all. “No, I don’t like the way you’re looking at it.” Alibaba gives him a stranger’s expression, and he’s Prince Alibaba again. Suddenly, that awful monster in Cassim’s heart that’s been quiet all this time rears its head, he thinks he can tell me what to do?
But Cassim stays focused. They’re not going to fight, not over this. They’ve had a good day. They’ll have another one, and maybe Alibaba will be more accommodating then. And if not, Cassim can always get him drunk and have him spill where he’s hidden it. There are so many ways he can get his sword back from Alibaba, and if there’s one thing Cassim has learned in the past few months, it’s patience.
“All right,” he says and ruffles Alibaba’s hair. “But I wanna play with it later.”
He walks out the treasury with his heart still pounding.
-
Cassim is at Mariam’s when it starts to pour.
Back when they lived in their tent, Cassim had hated the rainy season. It was cold, and everything stank of wet decay in the gutters. Alibaba told them stories of kids whose feet had rotted clean off. Mariam had cried. Cassim had his hands full patching the roof, quiet both of you, Alibaba go get me more gummy sap, I don’t care that it’s raining, I hope your feet rot off.
It was different in the palace. There’s a melancholy to hearing the rain against the palace marble, to seeing that blue-gray fog sweep across the city from the sea. Even Alibaba’s hair dampens into a straw-yellow when they watch the skies fall together.
Alibaba is downstairs, playing cards with Tariq and Sa’id.
Cassim had excused himself. He was going to sleep, but he can’t. His mind is a jumble of schedules and priorities when he closes his eyes. There’s so much to do and so many things that could go wrong. The bad dreams are back, and he feels like he’s suffocating every time night falls. He’s tired of waking to phantom swords locking him in place. He’s tired, he’s so tired. The skin under his eyes is dark and tender; it makes him look mad all the time.
The rain abates to a warm drizzle as the clouds give way to stars. Mariam finds him upstairs, looking out the window at the palace in the distance. The moonlight shimmers against its stone domes.
“You’re never going to be satisfied, are you?”
Cassim looks at her. “Mariam?”
She crawls under his arm, and he rests his chin on her head. She says, “It’s not enough that you’re the most important man in the city. It’s not enough that you’re really influential inside the palace either. What is enough for you, Brother? Because you’re killing yourself for it.”
“I just want things to be easy for once. I want us to feel safe and…” Cassim shifts uncomfortably, not sure why he’s picking these words. They’re not the grandiose things he’d say to win over soldiers, nobility, or commoners. They’re just honest words that are bare and embarrassing, but he knows Mariam won’t judge him for them. “You have so much hope for the future. I’m trying to give it to you. I want you to be happy.”
“If you can do this without bloodshed, I would be happy.”
“You know it will come down to a fight,” Cassim sighs wearily. “Am I supposed to step back and let them stab me through?”
Mariam hugs his arm. “Cassim, are you even sure this plan will work? It relies so much on Alibaba… And Alibaba says he’ll follow you—”
“Alibaba will follow me.”
“But he still won’t give you back your Fog Sword...”
“Can I borrow yours?” asks Cassim.
She’s quiet. It’s a moody, thoughtful silence that he’s given Alibaba many times. Did she learn it from him, or is this just what they inherently do when they’re thinking? She sighs, “Just this once. But Cassim, you really need to talk things out with Alibaba before—”
“And remember, I need you to reassemble the Fog Troupe one last time for me,” Cassim interrupts because he has talked to Alibaba. He knows Alibaba, and Alibaba is his man, not Ahbmad’s. “In case things go… Mariam, if things go wrong, I’ll send word for you.”
“I know, I know,” she says miserably. “I’ll do everything you say, but god, Cassim. I wish you’d sleep on this. This is a big gamble, and you don’t think straight when you don’t sleep.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll take a nap,” Cassim says in a light tone. Then, more emphatically, “But Mariam, listen, if everything goes right, you’ll never have to kill or steal again. I promise you.”
She looks at him, large eyes unreadable. She smiles. Somewhere in the grown-up Mariam before him, he sees that sweet little girl he adored, the one that cried at everything but was also bright and free, like Alibaba. He hugs her tight. He wants to give her the world and more.
But first thing’s first: Cassim will storm the palace tomorrow.
-
When Cassim awakens, the ground is moving. He’s in an unfamiliar wagon rolling down an unknown road. He raises his wrists, but they’re not bound. He hasn’t been abducted. “What...?”
“Rise and shine!” Cassim looks up to see Alibaba grinning at him from the front of the wagon. “Looks like the past month finally caught up with you, man. You were out like a candle. You slept for twenty-two hours.”
“‘Twenty-two hours?’” Cassim hisses. He makes his way to the back of the wagon. “What about the plan, Alibaba?!” He pushes aside the flap of cloth covering the exit. Sand billows across dunes like a shimmering golden fog. He feels their fine grains, itchy against his face, and squints into the vast nothingness of yellow desert and azure sky. He drops the cloth, and his eyes adjust back to the shade. His heart sinks to the bottom of his gut.
There were three parts to the plan, and in absolutely none of them did one of the two vital pieces, Alibaba, spirit away other one, himself. It’s so absurd that he almost laughs, but it comes out an incredulous wheeze. The air is too dry.
“Alibaba. Is this the Central Desert?” To his credit, his voice doesn’t shake. “Why are we in the Central Desert?”
“Mariam said you needed some distance from the plan, so we’re going on an adventure,” the blond explains cheerfully. “We’re gonna capture the dungeon in Qishan!”
“Mariam,” Cassim breathes, slumping against the wall. He listens to the wheels of the wagon turn along the dry, cracked road and tries to catch up with this insanity. “And nobody else stopped you?” Alibaba hums nervously. Cassim looks around their well-stocked wagon. He takes maybe five seconds to piece things together, then another ten seconds to scramble over to Alibaba.
“You mean they helped you?!”
Of course they did. Mariam must have told them to. Does that means she controls the Fog Troupe now? Cassim balks at the thought. His sister pulled off her own coup d'etat before he did his. And he’s angry, but also impressed, but still very, very angry. He knew this would happen—Mariam is his weak spot. He’s weak to her like Alibaba is weak to him.
“They were worried. They thought you needed a break, too,” Alibaba says placatingly. “I mean, we did finally get all the treasury’s assets to the people. Things are gonna be all right for a while.”
“And what about the Kou? What about Ahbmad? What happens when the palace discovers we’re missing?” Cassim shakes him. “Goddammit, Alibaba, they’re gonna think I’m the one who kidnapped you. ”
Alibaba laughs nervously. “Mariam wrote you a note. Maybe that will help explain. It’s somewhere in the back, I think…?”
Cassim can’t decide if he wants to shove him or drop him, so he settles on a rough mix of both. Behind a barrel, Cassim finds a little bundle, one of Mariam’s sheets. As he unwraps it, a scrap of paper falls out.
I’ll send a dove to the girls. Happy travels. Be safe. Meditate. We’ll wait for your return. —Mariam
Cassim unravels it all until he smells smoke and blood, and he finds Mariam’s magic katar. It’s a little small on him, but it’ll work in a pinch. Well, that’s some consolation. He wraps it back up and hides it.
“Cassim? Are you still mad?”
“Yeah,” Cassim grunts, unbuttoning his palace robe. “Hey, you brought a change of clothes for me, right?” When he finds nothing of the sort and receives no response, he looks to Alibaba, imploringly. “Seriously, it’s too hot for me to stay in this.”
“Extra clothes.” Alibaba turns back to the road and scratches his blond head. “Knew I forgot something…”
Cassim breathes a long-suffering sigh. He doffs his jacket, rolls his sleeves up to his shoulders, and kicks off his slippers. While he’s back there, he figures he might as well take inventory of their supplies. Water, non-perishables, medicine… Alibaba seems to have enough to last a comfortable trip to the nearest trade post. Jewelry, silk, cotton… He’s put thought into bartering for when they leave the regions that the Kou fan hasn’t reached… As Cassim rummages around the wagon, he uncovers more and more of Alibaba’s own brand of planning.
It’s actually very thorough.
Alibaba is serious about this.
“Qishan’s far,” Cassim says tensely. “We’ve never left Balbadd before.” They don’t know the desert like they do the port. They’ve never been to a land so far north that the air ceases to smell of the sea. Cassim sweats, but his lips are chapped and starting to bleed, and it makes him nervous. “Alibaba, turn back. We had a plan.”
“And we’ll have a great time at Qishan!” Alibaba tells him. “After we conquer the dungeon, we’ll go check out the markets. Some of their wares never even reach Balbadd! Come on, sit with me.” His eyes are soft and welcoming and a little desperate for validation. “It’s just the two of us for the next few weeks. We’ll get rich, bring it all back to Balbadd, and use it to rebuild our city. Or at least, it’ll buy us a few more years with the Kou. It’ll be great.”
He moves aside, and Cassim grudgingly takes a seat next to him. The sun feels awful on him, stifling and overwhelming. The arid heat is a nightmare. Cassim pushes his hair up into a loose bun. It reaches his hips in thick locks, so it’s too hot to wear down, and if he doesn’t wear it up, he’s going to be shaking sand out of it for a month. He could use the gold wire to tie it, but they’ll probably barter the gold for more supplies in the near future, so...
“Hey, Alibaba, gimme one of your ribbons,” he says. Alibaba makes a noise in the back of his throat, and Cassim looks to him quizzically. Then, he understands, and he can’t believe he missed it earlier. “You cut your hair.” It’s short. Its ends brush where Alibaba’s shoulders meet his neck, where there’s a light dusting of freckles Cassim hasn’t noticed before.
“It was too hot,” Alibaba agrees belatedly, with a sheepish smile. “You want me to cut yours? It’s gotten pretty long—”
“No,” Cassim says, more brusquely than he intends. “No one’s cutting my hair.”
Alibaba nods, not understanding, but accepting as always. Cassim looks at him appraisingly. He doesn’t know what the hell Alibaba’s wearing now, some peasant’s garb, but he does notice a bright red rope around the prince’s neck. Cassim reaches out and unknots it. “Hey, ow! Cassim!” Alibaba winces, following Cassim’s grip until the cord comes loose.
“I’m borrowing this,” Cassim declares and ties it into his hair. “And I want to go home.”
“Well, we’re not.”
They argue until they’re parched, but Alibaba doesn’t want to turn back, and the camels won’t listen to Cassim.
-
They locate a flask of water and pass it back and forth, fighting until dusk.
“You needed a change of pace. You were killing yourself,” Alibaba says, struggling to light a fire.
“And you wanted to have some fun,” Cassim accuses, watching him with growing disdain. “This is time-sensitive! Who knows how badly the situation will have changed when we get back to Balbadd?” He wants to tell Alibaba, you should have just left me there, but in all honesty, Cassim would have probably been even more furious about that.
Alibaba is silent. Then, he says, “Well, you’re not stopping me.”
And now Cassim is quiet. Alibaba’s right. Sure, they quarrelled the entire time, but there’s a lot of things Cassim could have done in the past few hours that would have forced Alibaba to turn back. Things that would have hurt, and it’s not worth the emotional toll. Alibaba’s indecisiveness could destroy everything Cassim has schemed for the past few months, and coercion would only put fractures in their relationship. That would help neither of them. It’s like arguing with the sun and telling it to stop being so damned hot in the desert.
God help him, it’s still so hot. Why did it have to be the desert, of all places?
“I’m seventeen. You’re eighteen,” Alibaba mumbles, more to himself than to Cassim. “Just seems kind of impossible for us to fix an entire country, y’know?” Impossible, until Alibaba is confident. Until he willingly accepts the burden Cassim intends to place on his shoulders.
“Alibaba. If we conquer this dungeon, you have to agree to play your part,” Cassim says, when the tinder finally catches flame. He looks the prince in the eye. “I’ll be at your side the entire time. I’ll get you through it.”
Alibaba’s mouth twists, but Cassim hasn’t given him a reason to distrust him, so he nods. “Deal.”
-
Cassim takes the first night watch because Alibaba falls asleep reorganizing the rolls of silk. Cassim studies him, strangely fascinated by how defenseless he is. Cassim sleeps reluctantly; he puts off nightmares and vulnerability as long as possible. Alibaba sleeps like a selfish, spoiled child, with his limbs sprawled out and no sense of fear. Cassim feels his anger dissolving into the usual baseline of frustration when it comes to Alibaba.
“Mm, ‘lmost done,” Alibaba mumbles when Cassim pulls his jacket over him, light eyelashes flickering. “Next trade post...”
“Shh.” Cassim places his palm on Alibaba’s brow, and Alibaba nuzzles into it. Cassim’s hand is still tingling when he walks back to the campfire.
He spends an hour playing with Mariam’s blade, getting a feel for its powers. Mariam’s gray fog isn’t as heavy as Cassim’s, but it reaches further and immobilizes more people. Mariam is small but nimble, and it lets her slow down a crowd and stab through it.
And stab Cassim in the back, apparently. It grates on his pride like sandpaper, having the rug pulled from under him by Mariam, of all people. But it’s his own fault, and he can’t stay mad at her. He should have been a better brother. But if she had just given him a chance to make his move, he could have changed everything.
He still will when he gets back.
He’s about to call it a night when he sees a silvery cloud under the moonlight. Sand kicked up by horsemen, around twenty of them. They’re headed straight for the wagon. And it’s not so much talent as it is from experience that Cassim can spot a pack of thieves like a gull spots land. He glances back to the wagon, where Alibaba is dreaming away, and Cassim runs toward the men.
He cuts down the first to ride past, and the rest turn on him in a fury.
He scans the herd for the ringleaders. Three approach: a small mustachioed man with eyepatch, a medium-sized man with hair like Alibaba’s, and a large bald man.
Cassim looks them up and down, unimpressed—a little disappointed, actually. “You’re the leaders of these bandits?”
“We are the SML Nando Brothers,” says the small one, as if that’s supposed to mean something to Cassim. His mustache twitches in anger when it clearly doesn’t. “You better show a little respect for your elders, brat, or you’re in for—”
Cassim raises his sword and unleashes a hurricane of smoke. With his strength, it stretches across the entire pack in a thick swirl of plumes. The horses stagger to the ground, and the riders fall off, all pinned under suffocating gray. Mariam’s weapon is smaller, lighter than Cassim’s and takes less of a toll on his stamina. Perfect for travel. Bless Mariam for her foresight; they really are siblings.
Cassim rummages around their loot and picks out food, water, and whatever valuables he finds. As he walks off with everything he can carry, he hears the large man whimper, “Brother, what happened?”
“Please say something,” coughs the medium-sized blond. “I fear he’ll leave us all here to die.”
“Uhh—Kid! Or Boss! Boss-man! Don’t leave us here!” the small man calls out, and Cassim can’t help but look back at the sheer shamelessness of it. “With your power, you could lead this troupe! We just hit a caravan train down the road, but they fought us off with a blue monster. If you come with us, we can take them for all they’re worth!”
“Oh?” Cassim looks down the road. “Over there, huh?”
-
“Alibaba, get up,” Cassim grunts, heaving his plunder onto the wagon. It lands with a heavy thunk, shaking Alibaba awake mid-snore. “There’s a caravan train further ahead. Let’s join it.”
Alibaba wipes the sand from his eyes. “What’s this? Where’d you get all this stuff?”
“Got jumped by bandits,” Cassim explains, hopping onto the passenger’s seat. He tucks a tight bundle of cloth in the corner of the wagon behind him while Alibaba groggily pulls on Cassim’s jacket. When he realizes it’s not his, he gives a half-hearted glance around the wagon before giving up and crawling to Cassim’s side.
“You? Bandits?” Alibaba yawns as if the words make perfect sense to him together. He takes the reins. Then, after a little more puzzling, he looks to Cassim in shock. “You got jumped?!” And after really giving it some more thought, he looks back and forth between Cassim and his loot. “You got jumped?”
“They’re alive,” Cassim assures him.
Alibaba groans, but decides not to ask. He rubs his eyes sleepily. “Is it just me or is that fog in the desert?”
“Must be one of those mirage things,” Cassim says. “Drive past it.”
-
They catch up with the caravan train by a stream around noon.
“Finally, we can eat something other than your cooking,” Cassim sighs as young women hide shy smiles behind their hands and point to them. He gives them a nod, and they laugh and wave. Alibaba slaps his shoulder. “Ow! What?”
“It beats your cooking, right buddy?” says the blond, giving him a blank, thousand-yard stare.
They would have gotten into another argument about who took care of who back in their tent household, but a funny sight catches Cassim’s eye, and he can’t help but laugh: a tiny boy with a long braid shoveling whole apples in his mouth. Cassim is already pointing him out to Alibaba when a short, squat man stomps over with his hands clenched in fists. The child doesn’t notice. Alarms go off in Cassim’s head; he knows what’s coming.
“Hey!” he shouts, but Alibaba is already ahead of him. He leaps over Cassim and runs to the boy’s side. Cassim would follow, but the reins are suddenly in his hands, and he can only yell and pull in vain as the camels take it in their minds to make a sudden turn into traffic.
By the time he gets the wagon settled, a crowd has already formed. Cassim pushes through in time to see the fat man slap a small fortune of fan out of Alibaba’s hand. The people around him whisper nervously.
“Mr. Budel doesn’t accept that Kou paper.”
“Well, you don’t have to when your boss is Lord Jamil.”
“Look, sweetie, if you talk back to men like Mr. Budel, they’ll make you a slave and take you away.”
Cassim steps forward, and Alibaba’s eyes light up when he sees him. The short man known as Budel shrinks back from Cassim’s glare, but he remains adamant, “Are you responsible for these brats?”
“Cassim! Listen to this. Apparently, these complimentary apples belong to the cart company,” Alibaba explains to Cassim. “So all customers can eat them. Aladdin was hungry, so it just seems like—”
“Quiet, you insolent peasant! I’m the one that paid for the cart! Those apples are all mine!” Budel insists. “Do you know who I am?!”
“Do you know we are?” Cassim pulls off the hooded robe he’s wearing, and he’s thankful he’s in his palace garb. Even without the gold in his hair, he still has enough jewelry on to look formidably wealthy. And wealth is power to a merchant.
Alibaba gestures dramatically, “Yeah, that’s Cassim Saluja, Third Prince of Balbadd!”
Cassim shoots him a look, what the hell are you doing?
Alibaba blinks back in panic, you look more like a prince than I do right now?
Fair enough.
Cassim turns back to Budel with a winsome smile. “I am.”
The rest of the afternoon settles down as one expects. Alibaba and the boy, Aladdin, become friends fast while Cassim fends off curious women, children, and most persistently, Budel.
Being a prince for a day isn’t that bad, just more annoying than he thought. He receives invitations for meals from a few different caravans, which means he and Alibaba won’t need to worry about cooking for the rest of the trip. Budel, a wine merchant on the lookout for new customers, is also an excellent source of information about Qishan’s obscenely wealthy mayor, Jamil. Cassim will have to pay the lord a visit.
When Cassim climbs back onto their wagon, he finds that Aladdin has migrated to Alibaba’s side, listening to his dungeon tales. Cassim has heard them all to the point of memorization, but a few more kids are sitting around Alibaba, eating the stories up like candy. Alibaba looks happy in his commoner clothes, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He’s practically glowing. Cassim feels strangely content in a way he hasn’t since Anise was alive.
He dozes off to the sound of their soft laughter.
-
“So… you have to work to get money. And you need money for food,” Aladdin is saying when Cassim wakes up. “What is work?”
“It’s like what my papa does, carrying heavy things for people,” explains one of the children sitting on Cassim’s stomach. Cassim realizes that he’s been pinned down by the brats. He catches Alibaba snickering at him.
“Oh, I get it!” Aladdin says cheerfully. “Ugo says he can help me do that!” Aladdin blows a shrill note on his flute, and whatever Cassim was expecting, it was definitely not two giant blue arms spiraling toward the sky. They take the top of the wagon with them.
“A magic flute… A legendary Metal Vessel!?” Alibaba says quietly, awestruck, while Cassim pinches himself to make sure he’s awake. The other children scream and run around the wagon.
“We saw that yesterday!”
“Aladdin, you’re so amazing!”
When Alibaba and Cassim have them calmed down, they hear the screaming from outside. Cassim looks out the wagon to see wet tendrils flying toward the caravan train behind them. “Now what—freaking giant jellyfish in the desert?!”
“No!” Alibaba gasps, eyes huge. “A desert hyacinth! They’re like antlions—they’re carnivorous! Sinbad’s crew ran into a ton around Heliohapt. Cassim, this is like a real adventure straight from the dungeon tales!”
Cassim is about to tell him off—idiot, we’re in danger!—when a girl jumps off the wagon and runs toward the commotion. “Mama!”
Alibaba chases her. “Come back!”
The boy with the magic flute leaps out after them. “Alibaba!”
Cassim whirls around grabs the next kid trying to hop out. “No one else leaves this wagon!” They all nod their heads, tearfully, and Cassim turns back to the front. He gives the reins a shake. “Why aren’t we moving?!”
The boy he had detained is still at his side. He’s around Aladdin’s age, and he pipes up with a stutter, “B-because the carts in front of us aren’t m-moving, Mr. Prince, sir…”
Cassim nods irately because that wasn’t an incorrect answer, per se. “You know how to drive?”
“Y-yes, sometimes Pop lets me—”
“Good.” Cassim equips Mariam’s sword and jumps to the ground. “I’ll leave that to you!”
As he races toward the front, he sees the merchants and traders all staring in horror. He yanks them back to reality by their collars and throws them against their caravans. “Drive! Get out of range!” While they scramble back to their seats, he finally spots the one guy holding up the rest of the train at the very front. The man sees Cassim running toward him with pure murder in his eyes, and he takes the hint and ushers his camels onward.
The wagons and the animals kick up dust in their hurry, and Cassim ducks around them, looking for Alibaba. He can only see the desert hyacinth’s arms, and he’s aiming a blast of smoke at one when two completely new kids hurtle into him. They’re lost, crying. He picks them up, praying a third doesn’t appear.
“Alibaba!” he yells, dodging wagons, carts, and camels. “Alibaba, where are you!”
He hears that familiar voice in the distance, “Cassim?! I’m coming!”
But then, “Mr. Prince! You left!” Cassim sees the boy driving Alibaba’s wagon toward him. “Y-you said no one else w-was allowed to leave!”
The children inside are staring at him in terror, and the two in his arms won’t stop screaming in his ears. They’re not slum brats like him. They’re not a gang. They’ve grown up with adults taking good care of them their entire lives, and they’re helpless like this. He looks back to where he thought he heard Alibaba, and Mariam’s blade burns at his wrist, telling him to fight. Of course he wants to fight, but…
He runs back to the wagon with the children. “Do as I say, not as I do!”
-
It’s an hour from sunset, and a fifth of the caravans are still unaccounted for, including Budel’s wine cart. “If they’re gone, they’re gone,” the old, balding owner of the carts says anxiously. “Hopefully not, Lord Prince. We’ll just have to see if they report to the designated Qishan point. We should hurry. We’re low on supplies, and it’s still a day away.”
“Okay, but…” Cassim is pulling clingy children off himself while their parents thank him through their tears. “Did anyone see my companion? The one with the yellow hair.”
But no one has seen the real prince Alibaba nor the mysterious boy Aladdin.
-
“I’m Cassim of Balbadd’s treasury and royal court. I seek an audience with Mayor Jamil of Qishan.”
The title of prince isn’t fun anymore, not when Alibaba isn’t here to play along.
The mayor sits at his desk, pampered with wine and fruit from beautiful servants. “Balbadd’s treasurer, was it?” Jamil says, his voice dripping with disdain. His eyes remind Cassim of the wide-mouthed fish staring at him from the fishermen’s market. He rakes his gaze across Cassim in that appraising way nobles have always looked at him. “Well, you certainly look like you’ve come a long way.” His servants titter appropriately at their master’s jest.
Wordlessly, Cassim approaches Jamil’s desk. Numbers, letters everywhere. It takes him a minute, but then Cassim taps above a column and slides his finger along the scroll. “Those assets are actually controlled by the Kou. Keep them. The interest rate alone will save you a fortune in the next seven years.” Bottom left. “From the southern economy, I can guarantee that’s a bad investment. Cut your losses now.”
Jamil looks up at him and claps in delight. “You must have had quite a journey.”
Cassim gets a bath, a change of clothes, and a large room in the mayor’s mansion.
-
“Cassim, was it? Seems like a popular name in Balbadd. I hear your country’s bankrupt,” Jamil laughs over cigars that evening, and Cassim suppresses an almighty urge to step over the coffee table and deck him in the face. Not worth the hassle, he decides. He focuses on the cigar in his hand. Alibaba was right. Qishan has flavors he could never find in Balbadd.
“What can you tell me of the dungeon in your city?” Cassim asks.
Jamil smiles. “Came to capture it, have you?” He takes a puff and leans forward. “Cassim, you’re a competent man. We’re cut from the same cloth, you and I. And since I like you, I’m going to let you in on a secret.”
“A secret?” Cassim mimics Jamil’s actions, and the nobleman seems encouraged by that.
“Are you familiar with Magi?”
The word takes Cassim by surprise, but he catches himself. “They’re kingmakers?” he innocently repeats what Markkio told him.
“They are great magicians who lead their King Candidates through dungeons,” Jamil explains smugly. “And someday, my own Magi will help me conquer the dungeon in Qishan.”
“Ohhh…” Cassim nods like he’s impressed. Then, he says, “So, you won’t mind if I give it a try first.”
“Knock yourself out,” laughs Jamil.
Cassim finishes his cigar and crushes the stub into a ceramic tray on the table. “You should come with me.”
“What would I have to gain from that?” Jamil looks at him mirthlessly, and Cassim feels the air in the room shift. So, he’s one of those nobles. Well, that just makes him easier to read. “You’ll probably just die in there.”
“Since we’re cut from the same cloth,” Cassim repeats, picking up another cigar. “I’ll tell you a secret in return.” Jamil watches him with a tiny quirk under his eye, so Cassim lights his cigar slowly, infuriatingly slowly. He takes a puff, swirls it around in his mouth, and says, “I met a magician on my way here. A boy with a magic flute. I was going to go in with him and another companion. If he’s your Magi, we should go together.”
“Well, now that is a good secret.” Jamil is pleasant again. “But unfortunately, it’s not up to date.” He turns to the door. “Morgiana!”
As Cassim sets down his lamp, a swish of red catches his eye. He sees her.
A scarlet-haired girl in a ragged dress.
Morgiana pouts when his eyes linger on her shackles, and he looks back up to her face. She’s Mariam’s age. She wrinkles her nose at him and studies him with vigilant curiosity. The girl’s what Alibaba would consider cute.
“Ah, Morgiana.” Jamil smiles warmly at her. “You said something about a pair of boys you met today in the market—the ones Budel says ran into the dungeon. One of them had a peculiar flute, hmm?”
Cassim’s mind races. Damn, Alibaba already went in without him.
“You could find them in there.” Jamil places a hand on her arm, and she shrugs him off. “Can’t you, my pretty puppy?”
Cassim’s thoughts come to an abrupt halt, and his blood runs cold. Hate bubbles up from his heart. He forces himself to stay calm.
“Morgiana has an excellent nose, better than any hound I’ve ever kept,” Jamil explains, pinching her cheek. It’s a painful red when he lets go. She stands up straight, scowling at Cassim, as if angry he was there to witness such treatment. Cassim decides he likes her.
“Oh,” Cassim says, “What do I smell like?”
Morgiana looks away, and Jamil pulls her back by her hair. “Mind your manners. He’s a royal official.” Jamil gives her head a rough shake, and Cassim feels his own scalp prickle. He opens his mouth to object, but she speaks first.
“Smoke. Ocean. And…” This perplexes her: “And that boy from the market…?”
“Not bad,” Cassim says, heart sinking. So it was Alibaba.
“A marvel, isn’t she?” Jamil laughs, releasing her. She caves in on herself, eyes averted, clearly wishing to be anywhere but there. But Cassim still sees that spark of unrest, even if she doesn’t know it’s there. It doesn’t have to be this way, he wants to tell her.
Cassim looks between her and the lord. He says, with a calculatingly unthreatening level of interest, “How much for her?”
Morgiana looks up at him, stunned, a little afraid. Jamil blinks his dead fish eyes in surprise. “She’s not for sale.”
“Name your price,” Cassim presses, pleasant as a summer day. “I’m good for it.”
“Morgiana is mine,” says Jamil.
And that’s that.
For now.
-
Cassim sees Morgiana at breakfast the next morning. He thinks that he could probably unlock the metal cuffs on her ankles in under fifteen seconds, but there seems to be a law in Qishan that enslaves those who freed slaves, so he’d have to do it when they were alone. Although, Cassim doesn’t know her, and she could be the type to run back to Jamil and tattle on him. It’s hard to come up with a decent plan with such little information.
In the end, they say nothing to each other.
Jamil greets them cheerily and announces he’s decided to go into the dungeon after all. Cassim watches the entourage of slaves and soldiers gather. He and Alibaba had not come so prepared. But that’s why Cassim is going to bring Jamil.
“You ought to let me come, too,” Cassim says again in an unassuming tone.
“I could,” Jamil replies generously, inspecting the blade of his cutlass. “You can owe me one.”
Cassim has flipped through more of the mayor’s ledgers upon arriving, and he knows exactly what it means to owe this man a debt. Morgiana’s chains seem to jangle louder on his right. Cassim finishes his cup of coffee with a sordid smile. “Sure, I’ll pay you back,” he says, unafraid.
He’s destroyed wealthy men like Jamil in a single night.
They set off shortly. Alibaba always said anything could happen in a dungeon, but this is not looking to be anything like the adventure Alibaba had promised him.
Notes:
I wanted to give Alibaba and Aladdin the same experiences they had together in canon, so I left Cassim out of most of them. Also, I thought it’d be more fun for Cassim to join Jamil’s crew and explore that side of the story.
Although Cassim mostly just interacted with adults in canon, he's supposed to be very kind to kids, according to the mangaka's concept art from the bluray extras. (That's also where I got the story of Hassan's eye.) If Cassim had met Aladdin and Morgiana earlier, before they came to Balbadd with Sinbad, he would’ve seen two kids being taken advantage of by adults. I think his big brother senses would have kicked in.
Alibaba's been tougher to write in this AU than I expected. He's still that sheltered prince from the flashback because Cassim hasn't betrayed his trust, so he doesn't have a lot of the hangups he starts the manga with! But I guess he’s still unlucky in love, haha...
(I'm on twitter now @goodnightwrite.)
Chapter 3
Summary:
In which Cassim and Alibaba brave both a dungeon and the perils of intimacy.
Notes:
Specific warnings for this chapter: violence and blood typical in canon. Mentions of past trauma and abuse. Sex.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Inside the dungeon, they’re outnumbered.
The slime beasts pile on in droves, and Jamil is nowhere to be found. Cassim throws himself into the fray, shouting orders—All of you stay together! You! Move right! Flank and contain them! Now, Morgiana—!
His Fog Sword slows down the monsters, long enough for Morgiana to crush through with her kicks. Cassim stays the hell out of her way. He recognizes a predator when he sees one, sometimes in his own reflection, but Morgiana is truly a lioness in human form. It baffles him that she willingly follows Jamil and his abuse. If Cassim could have someone like her on his side, Balbadd would be his.
But now isn’t the time to dwell on that. Cassim has never faced such insurmountable odds in battle. He has no experience fighting monsters, but everyone looks to him to make the split-second decisions. There’s barely time to think at all, but he’ll be damned if he dies here—not in this wretched desert, not when Balbadd waits for him by the sea.
The battle exhumes that primal fear he keeps trying to bury, and old instincts kick in. He just needs to survive as he always has. At least Alibaba was at his side then.
But Alibaba already entered the dungeon without Cassim, armed with nothing but a dagger and a little boy. If grown men are so easily slaughtered, would Aladdin’s flute be enough to protect Alibaba?
No, don't think about that.
Cassim swallows that fear back down and fights. He has to worry about his own life.
When the dust settles, what’s left of Jamil’s entourage are Cassim, Morgiana, and the giant slave Goltas. The rest are strewn about the cavern: dead, torn to pieces. Expendable people, all of them. Cassim knows that if he hadn’t been born in Balbadd—no, even a few wrong turns in his life and he could have very well been among their numbers, for another lord in another country.
“Very impressive, Cassim,” Jamil lauds him airily. He and his cutlass are unblemished, well-protected behind Goltas’ bulk. “Treasury be damned, I’d happily take you on as my general when I become king.”
“Everyone’s dead,” Cassim says bitterly, but Jamil doesn’t care.
The black monster in Cassim’s heart awakens again, and he whirls around with Mariam’s katar tight in his grasp. If he kills Jamil right then and there, he could go back to the mayor’s mansion and take everything that’s not nailed down. Most of Jamil’s guards are dead in this cavern, after all. It would be so easy.
Morgiana senses Cassim’s intent and steps forward. A dozen signals flash between them, and Cassim grudgingly backs down. She does the same. Jamil proceeds onward without a care in the world. The man’s arrogance and cowardice is a dangerous combination for everyone else. Cassim miscalculated his plans this time. Morgiana is watching carefully now, so he complies and falls into line behind Goltas.
For now.
Scornfully, he thinks that he has a better chance of becoming king.
-
They roam deeper into the dungeon. Cassim keeps his eyes peeled for Alibaba, but it’s not until he feels a pebble hit his back that he turns and sees a familiar triangle cowlick.
It's as if an invisible hand around his throat finally let go, and he can breathe again.
Effortlessly, Cassim lets his footsteps match Jamil’s as he backs away. When he was a child, he could stalk unsuspecting victims and their purses with the silence of a shadow. He finds some bitter humor in that even now, tamed as he is by wealth and bureaucratic tedium, his street rat skills still come to him like an ugly second nature. But Cassim has always been one to use whatever advantages he has. The other three don’t notice when he disappears into a crevice.
Alibaba’s familiar arms wrap around him from behind, and Cassim hears the blond’s sob of relief in his hair, “You came after all!” Alibaba’s harrowed but unharmed. Cassim wonders if he’s encountered any monsters at all.
“Yeah. I’m here, Alibaba,” he says quietly, and Alibaba hugs him tighter.
“Umm, hey, Cassim... Who’s that guy you’re following?”
“The mayor those caravan folks were talking about. He's called Jamil,” says Cassim as Alibaba takes his hand and leads the way back to his camp. “Thought we’d have more resources and people on our side if we went dungeon-diving with him, but we’re better off doing this on our own. He's a jealous bastard. If he learns of your identity, he’ll see you as a threat...”
“Then, we’ll avoid him,” says Alibaba. “Problem solved.”
Cassim has a few more thoughts to unload regarding Jamil, but he sees the little boy with the braid dozing under the blanket. They crouch around him, and Cassim asks, “What happened?”
“Aladdin summoned Ugo with the flute to fight the slime monsters. But he passed out. He needs food...” Alibaba runs his hand through his flaxen hair, frustrated. He’s not used to being the older one, the responsible one. He looks to Cassim, and Cassim can almost feel their old childhood dynamic click back into place.
Then, Alibaba’s eyes widen in alarm.
Cassim tenses. He turns and sees Morgiana looming over them, her red cat eyes aglow in the dark.
The next few minutes rush by in a blur, but it ends with Jamil taking custody of the boy and declaring him the Magi he has waited for his entire life. Alibaba protests with all his might, until Jamil tells Goltas to kill him. Cassim, of course, intervenes.
“Leave the commoner under my jurisdiction,” he says before Alibaba can draw his dagger and reveal his royal swordplay. “I’ll owe you one.”
“You already owe me one,” says Jamil.
“And I repaid that when I saved your life,” Cassim points out. “Remember? You even said you’d make me your general.”
Jamil shrugs at that. While he has nothing to lose from his arrangement with Cassim, there’s hardly anything to gain from it. He's not like Cassim, who keeps anyone of use. Jamil has the Magi in his possession, after all, and so he orders his two slaves to move on. Cassim can already see that he would be a fool to follow the lord any deeper into the dungeon, where Jamil’s already negligible empathy would wane and Cassim’s own dead body wouldn’t be found.
“Let’s ditch him before he notices we’re gone,” whispers Cassim, pulling Alibaba to his feet. “We're not safe with them.”
“No,” says Alibaba firmly. “That guy’s taken Aladdin hostage.”
“Weren’t you the one saying we should avoid him?” Cassim reasons impatiently, but Alibaba’s fingers are already around the knife at his waist. Cassim claps his hand over Alibaba’s. The two of them are no match for Jamil’s household, not in a fight against all three. “He’s not gonna hurt the kid. He’ll spoil him, if anything. He thinks he’s a Magi—”
But Alibaba is already dashing after them. Cassim gives an exasperated groan and follows. Alibaba does have a point, but it’s stupid to throw self-preservation to the wind. And yes, Cassim knows he can be just as stupid like that at times, but at least always has a plan.
They catch up to see Jamil hide the boy’s flute in his long black coat. Alibaba opens his mouth, but Cassim nudges the blond’s arm and gives him a small nod, I’ll handle it.
Alibaba smiles at him gratefully. It’s like a small ray of sunshine in the dark, damp dungeon, and Cassim remembers why he followed him all the way to this godforsaken desert.
-
The group reaches a draconic obstacle inscribed with ancient Toran letters. A forest of needles lies overhead: dragon’s teeth. Jamil rattles off a few words he recognizes before waving Cassim over to the stone dais before him.
“A Balbadd nobleman such as yourself should be trained in Toran, right? Maybe I could have a second opinion on this text,” Jamil says jovially, like they’re old school mates.
“Of course,” Cassim lies with a warm smile because he’s equally two-faced. Alibaba clears his throat at that and eyes the mayor with a new wariness that Cassim is glad to see. Perhaps Alibaba can read Cassim better than he thought. It makes sense. After all, he should be familiar with Cassim’s facades in the royal court by now. Cassim wouldn't be surprised if Alibaba could tell what kind of nobleman stood before them based on what mask Cassim puts on. Cassim will have to remember that.
The blond flicks his gaze to the inscriptions and then back to Cassim. Cassim understands shoots him a brief half-smile. Of course.
Prince Alibaba is fluent in Toran.
Cassim grabs Alibaba by his jacket and drags him to the dais. “Here, wipe that off for me. It looks filthy.”
“Yes, sir!” Alibaba has a few personas of his own that Cassim has seen him slip into over the years. Right now, he’s wearing that obsequious little character he used to perform while shining shoes in the slums. Cassim bites back a chuckle. He hasn’t seen that Alibaba in nearly half a lifetime, but he recognizes a little bit of Budel in there, too. Clever Alibaba, such a fast learner.
Cassim will trust Alibaba to lead this time. He makes knowing hmm-hmms and mutters nonsense to Alibaba, who pretends to clean the inscriptions with his jacket. When Alibaba looks to Cassim with an idea glimmering in his eyes, Cassim nods and says, “Right, are we clear? You go do… the thing.”
Alibaba pads nervously toward the dragon’s mouth. He looks back to them. “Hey, you’ll look after Aladdin for me, right?”
Cassim doesn’t know what he means, but he says, “Sure.” Alibaba smiles at him and turns to face the dragon’s gaping jaw. Cassim and Jamil wave him on encouragingly.
-
But it’s over in an instant. Alibaba plummets through a trap door, and Cassim is left staring in sheer confusion.
Jamil claps a palm on Cassim’s shoulder and says, “What a shame. He was a good boy in the end.”
-
When Aladdin wakes up, Jamil cheerfully introduces him to his slaves. He tells him Alibaba ran off after stealing his flute.
Sullenly, Cassim holds up the instrument in question. “You mean this?”
Jamil stares at it, then pats at his own clothes in confusion. Aladdin sees the whole thing, and his large blue eyes widen in understanding. He takes the flute and hides behind Cassim.
When the little boy gets a good look at Cassim’s face, he exclaims, “Oh, it’s you! The prince that Alibaba was traveling with! Are you here to conquer the dungeon, too?”
Cassim fights back a grimace thinks of some choice swears he won’t say in front of the child. He risks a glance to Jamil, whose smile becomes strained and even more perplexed as if wondering where and when a prince had learned to pickpocket.
Of all the lies in which he’s entangled himself, Cassim hopes this particularly stupid one won’t be his undoing. Aladdin might as well have painted a target on Cassim’s back as they travel deeper into the dungeon. Jamil glares daggers at him the entire time.
Cassim keeps looking for that yellow triangle of sunshine in the dark.
-
They set up camp in a chamber. “Cassim, perhaps you and I shall venture forth while the others rest,” Jamil says, sword drawn.
“No.” Cassim folds his arms and plants his back firmly against the wall. Like hell he’s going into a dark hallway with that man. And that’s disregarding whatever other monsters lurk within. Yes, he is certain he could kill Jamil in a duel. He could maybe hold his own against Goltas, at least long enough to escape, but he wouldn’t stand a chance against the girl. If the master is dead, would the slaves avenge him? Cassim’s a gambling man, but even he isn’t sure he wants to bet on that, not after seeing how selflessly they fight for Jamil.
Jamil takes Goltas with him down a hall when Cassim flat-out ignores everything else he says. It’s an impudent choice, but Jamil is too preoccupied with impressing the Magi to order Cassim's summary execution.
Cassim needs to think, but god help him, the kids are distracting. Morgiana is left in charge, but Cassim knows when he’s been stuck with babysitting duty. Aladdin does a stellar impression of Jamil, which is a surprise, but the real shock is when Morgiana giggles. Aladdin springs into action and wedges his way into her good graces. They chat about dark continents, invisible chains, and whatnot while Cassim glares around the chamber for any sign of Alibaba.
This is the worst vacation ever. Just his luck that it’s his first. Damn Alibaba and his irresistible personality, Cassim will never listen to him again.
But Cassim’s heart does skips a beat when he sees him.
It happens in seconds. Aladdin spots him first. Cassim grabs onto the magic carpet that unfurls from the boy’s turban—because apparently magic carpets really do exist outside Sinbad’s stories. Alibaba scarcely utters a word before Morgiana runs up the wall after them. Cassim shoots a gush of smoke at her, and she misses the carpet but grabs him by the leg.
She takes him down with her.
“Cassim!” Alibaba shouts, but Cassim waves furiously from the floor.
“Get out of here!” As long as Alibaba is alive, Cassim will find him again. Of this, he’s sure.
He sees Morgiana tense up, eyes blazing and dead set on Cassim, but then Jamil returns, panicked and in desperate need of someone to abuse. He kicks Morgiana to the ground, saving Cassim, but at the same time, Cassim has seen enough. He’s sick of the man. He shoves Jamil and raises his gray katar. “Enough! I’m taking over.”
“Presumptuous brat!” Jamil squawks at him. “I’ve been far too gracious in letting you bark orders at my servants when you owe me your life!”
“You’d be dead if it weren’t for me!” Cassim snaps back. He doesn’t have time for decorum when Alibaba is so close but so far. “So stand aside!”
“I’m the only reason you’re here in the first place!” Jamil’s voice cracks, and he points his shaking sword at Cassim. Cassim knocks it out of his face. He plants a foot between Jamil’s feet and steps forward—their faces suddenly inches apart—and his Fog Troupe snarl emerges:
“Get in my way, and I’ll kill you myself.”
Jamil pales, his teeth grind together, and he’s seething with a fury multiplied by a lifetime of privilege. Cassim knows that look well. He’s seen it countless times in court when he bests the noblemen at their own game. When they don’t get what they want, what always follows is a weak, desperate stab at an insult: “Y-you thug, you’re nothing like a prince...”
“And you’ll never be a king,” Cassim scoffs and pushes past him.
A moment of silence, but it's gone in a heartbeat.
“How dare you—Goltas, kill him!” the lord shrieks after him. “You useless fools—kill him!”
Cassim stops in his tracks when he hears Morgiana rise to her feet. Goltas’ sword scrapes along the floor. Scowling, Cassim looks to the blade on his own wrist. If they fight each other, they’ll never make it out of the dungeon. But they don’t understand this; they’ll obey Jamil’s orders to their own demise. It's absurd. It's insulting. How does such a pathetic man inspire such fervent loyalty?
Maybe Jamil is the only family they have, but Cassim shakes his head, no, don’t think about that, not when the entire dungeon is trying to eat them alive.
And it’s just his luck that a swarm of slime monsters bursts through the hall that Jamil and Goltas returned from. Yet another obstacle between himself and Alibaba. Another life-threatening inconvenience, another annoyance.
Cassim feels frustration, not fear. A thrill of adrenaline pumps through him, and he halts the monsters with his smoke. He’s run up against insurmountable walls his entire life, and he’s torn them all down, especially any that dared rise around Alibaba.
“Stay close, move forward—Don’t be afraid! ” he rallies, and although Jamil ducks behind him, Morgiana and Goltas bravely flank his sides. “We fight together and cut through like a knife!”
And they go.
-
Through the gray fog and monster ichor, Morgiana finally picks up Alibaba’s scent.
“That way!” she shouts, and Cassim blasts smoke to where she points. Goltas smashes through the immobilized creatures. The wretched things wail terrible, mocking imitations of human voices, but Cassim pays them no heed. He, Morgiana, and Goltas crash through them, over and over again, until they’re out in the open.
They land in an ancient city devoid of life but for trees still green from a long-forgotten spring. They run across the roads of the necropolis with crippled monsters straggling behind them until they reach the next grand building, where Goltas finally collapses in front of Cassim, bleeding from the wounds that his own master left on his back. Morgiana’s stoic face flickers in distress, but then she’s cold as stone again.
“Get up, you can't die! We can't make it outta here without you!” Cassim runs forward but stops short when he sees Aladdin at Goltas’ side. Next to the little boy is Alibaba. Before either Cassim or Alibaba can say a word, Morgiana leaps past them both in a blaze of scarlet and kicks the Aladdin into the corridor beyond.
“No, Morgiana—” Cassim begins, but Alibaba interrupts him, “Cassim!”
Cassim sees another flash of red on his right, but this time it’s him.
Jamil’s blade slashes through his shoulder. Cassim whirls around with blood in his vision. He lifts Mariam’s sword to block the next attack, but his hurt shoulder won't cooperate. He changes tactics, dodges at the last second, and loses a few locks of hair—but not his head.
Cassim realizes too late: Jamil isn’t harmless, and he’s finally snapped. He jabs wildly at Cassim, with his sword and his words, “How dare you keep commanding my slaves?! You’re nothing! You vulgar, lying wretch! You’re not a prince! You’re nothing but trash!”
Cassim, you little wretch. You’re nothing but trash like me.
“Shut up!” Cassim can’t help himself, “Shut up, you know nothing about me!”
Jamil lands a few more jabs in his fury, “Princes don’t pickpocket! They don’t pretend to be their own officials! You have no business being in this dungeon! You’re scum!”
Cassim stumbles backwards onto the marble floor, and when he falls, Jamil laughs. Cassim’s chest tightens. The monster inside roars. Even after all these years, it still hurts when this worthless nobleman tells him, “And trash that doesn’t know its place deserves to be punished.”
Jamil brings down his sword across Cassim’s neck. In a burst of sparks, Alibaba’s blade intervenes.
Cassim feels the warmth of Alibaba’s cotton jacket against his cheek, and then Alibaba is standing squarely between him and Jamil, in a royal swordplay stance. Alibaba says, “This is a dungeon. Prince or pauper, status means nothing here, and neither does your lineage or your name.”
It’s like déjà vu. It’s like a dream. But it’s just Alibaba.
“Soldiers, nobles, royals, and slum rats—we’re all human,” he says Cassim’s words with conviction, as if he’s more sure of them than anything in the world simply because Cassim had said them first. “If we’re the same, then anyone has the right to conquer this dungeon.”
He’s seen Alibaba’s swordplay a hundred times, but suddenly it’s as if he’s witnessing it anew. Cassim’s breath slows to a halt as he watches Alibaba thoroughly humiliate Jamil with a childish savagery that Cassim forgot Alibaba possessed. But then—
“Morgiana!” cries Jamil. “Save me! Right now!”
Cassim turns to see her alert against the wall on the other side of the corridor.
He blinks and she’s cleared the room.
Cassim stumbles back to his feet and raises the gray katar to blast smoke at her. It barely slows her. It’s not heavy enough, not like his black fog. He pours the rest of his strength into it, feels the blood from his shoulder trickling down his chest. His vision’s going fast.
Morgiana slows down in the thickening haze. She bares her teeth and takes one heavy step after another, forcing Cassim to retreat until he feels Alibaba’s back pressed against his. Alibaba’s voice is a distant buzz in his ears.
“Morgiana,” Cassim finally says through gritted teeth, and he barely hears himself, “why do you obey him?”
There’s a slack in the smoke binds. She’s stopped. He can still make out the white of her teeth and the confused red in her eyes. Cassim wants to move faster, before he passes out, but it’s too late. He falls to his knees, clutching at his injury, his Fog Sword useless on his wrist. Alibaba wraps his arms around his waist, begging, “No, Cassim, stay awake! Stand with me!”
“Morgiana,” says Cassim, but he’s exhausted the rest of his stamina. His heartbeat pounds thickly, painfully against his skull. He only has his words left to protect both him and Alibaba, but he’s stupid with dizziness. Through the dissipating smoke and the encroaching darkness surrounding her, he doesn’t really see her anymore, and all he can think to say is, “Mariam.”
Fuck.
They’re as good as dead.
But then: “Morgiana, come with us!”
Cassim feels a cold on his back as Alibaba moves away, past him and toward the red-haired girl. He reaches for the blurry beige mess of Alibaba’s jacket. “Alibaba, wait...!”
“This is a dungeon,” Alibaba says, holding his hand out to Morgiana, “so if you leave your master, no one will have to know. Come with us.”
Alibaba always says whatever crosses his mind, but surely Cassim misheard this. The audacity of it has both him and Morgiana staring in bewildered silence.
Because amazing, remarkable Alibaba always leaves people speechless.
“You can be Cassim’s second little sister,” says Alibaba, nodding back to Cassim. “You couldn’t ask for a better big brother. He’s taken care of me my whole life, too.”
“Alibaba, wait,” whispers Cassim because he can’t bring himself to hope, “don’t drop your guard…”
But it’s too late. Morgiana takes Alibaba’s hand and smashes him against a pillar.
Cassim doesn’t even know what’s going on anymore. Alibaba’s facedown on the ground with marble debris clattering around him, and Jamil has Cassim’s hair wrapped tight around his fist.
“What a good, obedient little puppy you are, Morgiana! Do you brats see?! Morgiana is a Fanalis, a descendent of the ultimate hunting tribe from the Dark Continent, and she’s all mine! She’ll only listen to me!” Jamil yanks Cassim up by his locks and slides the cutlass under his chin. He laughs in Cassim’s ear, “Scum like you deserve to die in the dirt. That’s just destiny.”
“I should’ve gutted you and thrown you to the monsters,” Cassim growls back.
Jamil slams him onto the floor. He stomps on Cassim’s injured shoulder, and when Cassim screams, Jamil steps on his neck. Cassim grabs at the lord’s ankle with his good arm—but he can’t breathe, and he’s too weak to fight back, too weak to do more than panic. This is the very last way he wants to go, under the heel of an aristocrat, fighting to breathe. Humiliating.
He feels the cold flat of Jamil’s blade trace along the edge of his face, all the way to the red earring Alibaba gave him years ago. “What do I cut off first, Morgiana?” Jamil asks merrily. “His ear? His nose? Or maybe an eye...”
“Cassim!” Alibaba shouts, scrambling onto his hands and knees.
“Stop him, Morgiana.” Jamil points to Alibaba with his sword. Cassim sees her kick him to the ground. “Good. Now, crush his head.”
Cassim struggles anew, “No—”
Not Alibaba.
“Crush his head, Morgiana,” Jamil repeats, grinding his heel into Cassim’s throat. “Stomp it like a melon!”
Morgiana looks to Jamil, face paling. Alibaba’s flat on his stomach. He looks up to her, and Cassim can hardly believe his ears when Alibaba perseveres, “Morgiana, you don’t have to do what he says anymore. You don’t have to wear those shackles. You can be free.”
And it seems like such a weak, futile gambit, but because it’s Alibaba—it works. The girl falters, the desire in her heart fighting the years of brainwashing Jamil has done to her, and she hesitates. All the power in the room rests with her, and every man here knows it. Who she sides with—that’s the winning side.
“C-come with us,” Cassim coughs weakly, but then because his life depends on it, he shouts, “Come with us! We’ll give you freedom!”
“Silence!” Jamil shrieks. “I’ll cut out your tongue!” Cassim sees the flash of his sword and tastes the blood and metal when Jamil wedges it between his lips and teeth.
But Alibaba tags in, “Come with us! We’ll give you adventure!”
Jamil raises his sword back to Alibaba along with his threats, and Cassim wastes no time, “We’ll give you a family!”
“We’ll give you kindness!”
“We’ll give you power!"
Morgiana looks back and forth between them, overwhelmed as they promise her the world and more. She stumbles back, heedless of Jamil’s orders, and that’s when the lord turns the full brunt of his ire back to Cassim: “Shut up!” He raises his sword over Cassim’s head, eyes dark and dead and yet still full of fury. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
Cassim closes his eyes—
But the mortal blow doesn’t come.
Jamil’s sword breaks in half. The blade skids harmlessly across the floor. Cassim blinks, saved again, still fighting to breathe. His world turns black as a starless night sky.
The last thing he hears are little bare feet pattering on stone.
He thinks he sees bright white birds fluttering across the dark like shooting stars, but surely he’s only dreaming.
-
He hears Alibaba's voice.
He wakes up in Alibaba’s lap.
The first thing Cassim says when he cracks open an eye is, “You look terrible.”
And truly, Alibaba resembles a man who’s seen hell and beyond. His laugh sounds closer to a sob, “Y-you’re not looking too hot yourself, man.”
Cassim smiles at that, but his lips crack and everything hurts. Damn this desert. Damn that Jamil.
Alibaba cups Cassim’s face in his hands and says sternly, as sternly as Alibaba can manage, “Listen, I need you to not freak out when you see the djinn, okay?”
“The what,” begins Cassim, but then he sees them. He grabs Alibaba’s arm, “What the—?!”
The giant blue one he recognizes. At least, he recognizes the arms from the flute in the caravan train: Ugo.
But looming high above them is a colossal old man who says, “Now, Magi, why didn’t you pick this one instead of the blond brat?” He bends down closer to examine Cassim, who glares back and shoves Alibaba behind himself on reflex. “Yes, his rukh is by far stronger, and he has the resolve of a great leader… Ah, I see. What a shame,” He sighs and looks between Cassim and Jamil, who’s petrified with fear, and he strokes his thick white beard. “Another vessel ingrained with darkness. What is the world coming to these days?”
Cassim doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knows when he’s been cast into the reject pile. He bites back his bitterness, but he understands. Jamil’s a bad man, plain and simple, and although they aren’t cut from the same cloth, Cassim isn’t a good man either.
“Sorry, I don’t really understand what you’re saying,” Cassim hears Aladdin reply sheepishly. “I like Alibaba. Does that make a difference? He told me all about this dungeon, and we cleared it together, but I guess… Alibaba’s my first real friend?”
Alibaba.
Of course it would be Alibaba who was chosen by both the Magi and the djinn. Cassim feels that old jealousy swell up again in his chest when Alibaba looks to him shyly. “I made a friend, Cassim,” he tells Cassim. “Just like you said I would.”
“Me?” And that takes Cassim aback a little. He catches himself. He forces that jealousy down and makes everything all right between them. And he laughs, “See, when am I ever wrong?”
But he wishes he had never woken up.
Whatever Aladdin and the djinn are discussing, Cassim doesn’t catch it. Alibaba, with his vibrance and welcome and warmth, is a distraction on Cassim’s best days. And frankly, today wasn’t even close to a good day.
Cassim lets Alibaba pull him to his feet and around the chamber. He doesn’t remember seeing all the gold and jewelry earlier, but it’s there now: riches piled high around them. He finally does let go of his envy as he watches Alibaba sweep mounds of coins into bags. Cassim tries to help as much as he can with one hand. It’s so much gold, and he wants to touch it all. The gemstones are deliciously cold on his skin, but Alibaba’s hands are warm whenever they brush against Cassim’s.
They end up with five large sacks of treasure when the dungeon begins to quake. The old man djinn, Amon, tells them they must leave before the dungeon is sealed. He sets up a glowing transportation circle around them.
“Convenient,” remarks Cassim.
“You all right?” Alibaba asks him as they push the fourth sack into the circle. “Your lips are turning kinda blue.”
Cassim's hearing is muffled again, but he huffs, "I'm fine."
"Right." Alibaba looks thoroughly unconvinced, so Cassim begrudgingly suspends his tough-guy act. More than anything, though, he’s paralyzed by weariness and by the magnitude of their situation.
“It’s just so much gold, Alibaba,” he whispers. “How can you expect me to leave it all here?”
Alibaba is already heaving the last bag into the circle. “This is as much as we can take, okay? If we get greedy, we could end up trapped here!”
“No, no, no! I don’t want to go with so little!” Cassim argues, clutching his damaged shoulder. “Balbadd’s debt is huge! We can’t leave until we take the entire chamber—” He takes a step outside of the circle, and Alibaba grabs his wrist. His grip is so tight that it hurts.
“Stay in the circle!” He pulls Cassim back to his side, eyes fierce like twin suns. He gives Cassim that same look he had on his face four years ago when he pulled Cassim into the king’s carriage. Alibaba is not going to let go of him this time either.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Cassim says quietly, immediately, but it’s weak. He can't summon any malice into it. He feels like nothing, reduced to a plume of smoke before Alibaba's radiance, and yet he can’t tell if he’s angry or happy or some combination of both. He’s overwhelmed by him, by Prince Alibaba. He barely recognizes the yellow-haired brat he grew up with in the junkyard.
“Indeed,” Amon’s voice booms, and Cassim comes back to his senses like a splash of cold water. He remembers there’s more to the world than just him and Alibaba. “Once the dungeon collapses, it’s certain death for all who remain inside!”
Aladdin waves frantically at their side. “Miss, hurry! Take my hand!”
Alibaba and Cassim turn to see Morgiana looking to Jamil. Alibaba joins Aladdin and yells to her, “Why are you still worried about that bastard?! Leave him! Come with us to freedom!”
Wordlessly, Cassim watches the boys yell themselves hoarse, but it’s not until Goltas rises and cuts through her chains that Morgiana joins them in the circle.
Only Goltas could have reached through to her in that moment. Sometimes, all it takes is that one person to tip the odds.
With that thought in mind, Cassim observes his three companions in the circle. Aladdin beams at Alibaba. Morgiana sneaks glances at him, too. They see what Cassim has seen all along, and that's certainly ratifying in a way. Whatever spell Alibaba's presence cast over him dissolves, and Cassim feels like himself again. His mind starts working, and suddenly, it’s all right that they can’t take all the gold back to Balbadd.
If Cassim were to dangle Alibaba before the Magi and the Fanalis, he might be able to bring them home instead.
-
Cassim lands on the roof of Jamil’s mansion. Alibaba, Morgiana, and Aladdin are nowhere in sight.
It takes him too long to get down and even longer to explain to the remaining servants what happened. And they just don’t get it.
“Lord Jamil is dead?”
“Does that mean we have a new master?”
“Are you our new master…?”
Jamil has really done a number on these poor people. They won’t accept freedom until someone literally buys it for them. They’re still confused when Cassim leaves them in order to treat his wounds. He’s too light-headed to count the fingers on his hands, much less tiny digits in a ledger book. He’ll handle it in the morning.
The monster blood washes off with hot water, and he deals with most of his cuts easily, a matter of rubbing alcohol and bandages. But the shoulder will need stitches. He cleans it as best he can. He chugs half the bottle of alcohol, waits for it to steady his nerves, and then takes a needle to his own flesh.
The drink wears off halfway through, but he can’t bring himself to take another swig. He has his father’s tolerance; he doesn’t want to risk his addiction either. The whole ordeal proves to be more difficult, more painful, and god damn it, it’s taking forever. But Cassim has a will of iron, and he’s proud of it. It’s the one thing he knows is his. Completely his.
He keeps an eye on the sun as it drifts closer toward the horizon. He curses everything from his sewing pace to, of course, Alibaba. If only Alibaba hadn’t dragged him to Qishan. If only Alibaba hadn’t convinced him to go into the dungeon.
If only Alibaba were here.
When he finishes sewing himself up, the sun is a sliver of orange behind the city’s skyline. He can't bring himself to cut the remaining string. ( it hurts, it hurts ) His clean clothes are now drenched in red, his fingers are shaking, and the pain’s left him breathless and wired. He closes his eyes, still clutching the needle and thread in his bloodied hand, and that’s how Alibaba finds him, asleep on the bathroom tiles.
“Cassim?!” Alibaba sets his oil lamp down on the floor. He crawls over to pick up Cassim in his arms again. He’s careful, gentle, and his tears are warm. Alibaba is so warm.
Cassim opens his eyes and says, “Alibaba, cut the thread for me.”
Alibaba bawls in the flickering lamplight, “You jerk! How many times are we going to do this?! I really thought you were dead!”
Cassim grins smugly. “Can’t get rid of me that easy.”
“You’re such a pain,” Alibaba complains, doing a frankly excellent impression of him without even noticing it. Cassim almost laughs, but winces instead when Alibaba presses his blade to the bloodied thread. It snaps cleanly, and Cassim sighs the breath he feels like he’s been holding since he fell asleep. He sits up and pours the rest of the alcohol on the shoulder, biting his lip at the fresh sting, and wipes the blood with the last of the clean linens.
He shrugs away when Alibaba tries to help him wrap the shoulder, but Alibaba persists. The blond pulls the roll of white bandages out of Cassim’s hands, and with an aggrieved sigh, Cassim lets him dress his wound.
“You sewed yourself up with the same stitch Mom taught us,” chuckles Alibaba.
Cassim remembers the night Anise had taught him how to sew. He had been so touched that he asked her to marry him with all the bravado of a troubled six-year-old. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, he had proposed two more times after that.
“Because it’s the only one I know, idiot,” he grunts irritably. Alibaba hums a response and continues to work in silence. There’s a contentment in the air, and Cassim feels a little bad for snapping at Alibaba. It must be the alcohol. Or the blood loss. Or the trauma of the day or the stupid childhood memories. It could be anything, really. He tries to think of something kinder to say, but his mind is foggy. He lets Alibaba take care of him for once and savors the novelty.
“You think about her a lot?” Alibaba asks as he finishes bandaging Cassim.
There’s a draft in the room that makes Cassim’s skin rise in tiny bumps. He watches Alibaba’s lamp flicker and says at last, “I do."
Anise was the only person in the world who ever stood up for Cassim—really put herself on the line for him. He remembers that day she begged pardon for his misdeeds. She had claimed him as hers, her child, even though they weren’t the same blood. Cassim and Mariam were hers as much as Alibaba was, and that made him happy. He was so happy that day. He and Anise had walked home from the market, hand in hand. He remembers looking up at her, bashfully, constantly, and she smiled at him each time. The sun shined like a halo above her.
It was first time in his life that Cassim understood what it meant to feel secure. Safe.
“I do,” he repeats. “I think about how all I have left of her is you, Alibaba.”
Alibaba says nothing. He just stares at Cassim, and Cassim waits for something more. He isn’t sure he knows what Alibaba wants. He isn’t even sure what he wants from Alibaba anymore. There are things he’s desired so much that they are practically tangible like the gold rings on his fingers: power, wealth, prestige.
Then, there are things he’s taken for granted: things he’s craved bitterly in their absence, surprising himself. Like sunlight on his skin. Family.
Alibaba.
Whatever Cassim feels toward him, it’s stronger than the love he felt for Anise. It’s mingled with admiration that’s tainted with jealousy and anger. It’s complicated, covetous. It’s rueful and intimately darker than any other love Cassim has known. He doesn’t have a word for what he and Alibaba are together, no, only tasted the moments of perfection when they glance at each other and know what to do, when Cassim says one thing and Alibaba says the next, and they fall into place like two halves of a whole.
As they should. They've been together their entire lives. Cassim ought to know what Alibaba wants because no one knows him better. They should want the same thing. The monster inside him purrs and urges him onward, toward what he—what Alibaba, what Cassim—wants.
And Cassim always takes what he wants.
The last inch of distance between them vanishes when he leans in to kiss Alibaba.
Cassim doesn’t remember if he connects or not. But he does black out before he hits the ground.
-
It's a strange dream. Bright birds of light soar around him. They aren't the same as the ones from the dungeon; these are of fire and smoke. He wonders if they'll hurt him, if they'll blow out in a gust of wind and reveal skeletons of black swords.
SEEKER OF POWER, I AM THE HOUSEHOLD OF BRIGHT FLAME BORN OF AMON, THE FLAME DJINN.
His earrings are hot.
-
He wakes up to a golden afternoon sun.
Immediately, Cassim touches the piercings on his ears. They're warm, but not unusually so. There's a piece of cloth folded on his forehead, barely damp. The air is bone-dry. He's thirsty.
He’s in a large bed, and Alibaba’s elbow is digging into his injured shoulder. Cassim gives an irate grunt when he pushes the blond off. Alibaba is heavier than he looks and rolls over without a fuss, still blissfully asleep on top of Cassim’s hair. It takes Cassim five minutes to free himself, and by the time he reaches the edge of the bed, he is already exhausted. He groans and rubs his temples, not sure he can live with himself if he faints again. He gathers his strength and pushes aside the translucent curtains surrounding the bed.
It’s a luxurious room, populated with plush furniture. He sees intricate wooden panels decorating the walls and opulent rugs on the floors. “Where did you bring me?” Cassim asks in bemusement. "Alibaba." He leans over him, but Alibaba barely stirs. Cassim considers kissing him again, but the notion seems a lot more like a fever dream in daylight.
Cassim lets him sleep.
He washes up and redresses his wounds. When he sheds his bloodied clothes and walks to the closet, it’s exactly what he expected. First and foremost, it is spacious. Cassim could fit Alibaba’s five sacks of gold in this room, if he were particularly determined, but it’s already filled with finery: garments and precious metals dripping in jewels that shine like morning dewdrops. He pulls a neatly folded coat off a shelf. It looks familiar, expensively black. When Cassim tries it on, the hem falls a few inches too low for his liking. It was tailored for a taller man.
It would have fit Jamil perfectly.
“Aha.” Cassim grins. He runs a hand across the rich fabrics hanging before him. “Mine now.”
-
The servants stare when he enters the office wearing their former master’s clothes. Cassim takes a seat at the desk. He pulls the top scroll off a stack. Someone awkwardly brings him a goblet of wine, shooting confused and hesitant glances between him and the others in the room. The hierarchy has finally been disrupted. Cassim smirks and continues reading.
He’s about halfway through when he sees Morgiana standing at the doorway, still in the rags she wore in the dungeon. While she gapes at him in slack-jawed silence, Cassim finishes the scroll and and laughs. It’s like Alibaba read his mind.
“You’re all free,” he says with a lackadaisical wave of his hand. “Alibaba used a portion of his dungeon treasure to buy this house and liberate you.”
"He did what?"
"Lord Alibaba, was it?"
"Gracious Lord Alibaba!"
The servants turn to each other in quiet reverence for such a miraculous, magnanimous act. Morgiana turns and runs.
-
“We’ll take Jamil’s entire fortune. It’s more than enough to cover what you spent to free all his slaves. You can invest the rest in local enterprises. The income from that can cover servant salaries here... Oh, and we'll definitely want to maintain economic ties when you're finally king—”
“Wait, hold up,” Alibaba says, looking up from the scrolls scattered across the bed. “This kind of feels like we’re stealing. Are we really gonna just… take it all?”
“Yeah, with the right papers and officials.” Cassim shoots Alibaba a sly grin from the closet door. “It'll be a cinch for me. What d’you think I’ve been doing for the past year in the treasury?”
Alibaba turns back to the paper in front of him, worrying on his lower lip. “Now that you mention it, it hasn’t been sitting well with me…”
"Seriously?" Cassim walks to the bed, snatches the scroll from Alibaba, and points it at him. “C'mon, dead men don’t need riches. Jamil didn’t have an heir. The money is going to his surviving household and back into the city. What’s wrong with that?” Alibaba seems to have nothing to say, so Cassim takes a seat next to him and continues right on, “I’m right, aren’t I? If anything, we’re leading Qishan down a brighter future.”
“But don’t you think we’re outsiders and we’re meddling?” Alibaba shrugs irritably. “We should appoint an official here to replace the mayor. They can handle it.”
Anything to worm out of responsibility, huh, Alibaba?
Cassim needs a smoke. He rests one leg on the other and taps the scroll thoughtfully on his knee. Then, with as much patience as he can summon, he explains, “Okay, listen. No matter where we go, the wealthy will always live better than the poor. But you’re not like them, Alibaba. You’re a prince who knows what it’s like to live in the shadows of the slums.” Cassim turns to him, really fixes him with that ‘don’t disappoint me’ look that he knows cuts deep. “Don’t you want to give these poor people better lives?”
Alibaba looks alarmed. “Oh come on, me?" He shakes his head. "I mean, sure, but what am I supposed to do?”
Cassim laughs and catches Alibaba’s chin. “Stand there and look pretty. I’ll take care of the rest.”
To his surprise, Alibaba turns bright red, red as the sunset spilling into the room. It reminds Cassim of that night on the balcony when Alibaba promised to protect him. Cassim had noticed his pierced ears then, and he had worried over how he’d keep Alibaba in his plans. Lately, it seems like Cassim spends more time keeping Alibaba out of his way. And Alibaba is constantly surprising him. It makes Cassim uneasy, but he can't tell Alibaba to stop thinking and being his own person, especially since dungeons, travel, and adventure somehow became Alibaba's forte.
It just feels strange to let Alibaba lead when Cassim has been pulling him along for the past year. At the same time, inconvenient as it is, Cassim does like seeing Alibaba take the initiative and become the impressive man Cassim knows he can be. In a way. In a stupid, self-indulgent, maybe even masochistic sort of way. He wouldn't have followed Alibaba to Qishan otherwise.
But it will be nice when they get back to Balbadd. After the takeover, they can click back into their old rhythm, working together side by side to protect their kingdom from the Kou Empire. Cassim misses that normalcy, high stakes and everything.
“Umm,” says Alibaba, and Cassim realizes he’s been holding Alibaba’s face for too long. Cassim withdraws his hand.
“Sorry,” he laughs as he gets up. He walks back to the closet. “I spaced out there...”
“Are you feeling all right?” asks Alibaba.
“My shoulder’s healing fine.”
“Yeah, I mean... you were having your nightmares last night,” Alibaba says, rubbing the back of his neck, the blush on his face fading to a light pink. “I was worried is all.”
“Really? I didn’t wake up,” says Cassim.
“Well, yeah. You never do,” Alibaba replies in surprise. Cassim looks back to him quizzically. “I mean, not when I’m there, I guess. You could be waking up when I’m not, and I wouldn't know a thing about that, haha...”
Alibaba’s babbling. Cassim doesn't hear him. There’s that damned draft in the room again; he can feel the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. He hates learning new things about himself, weird things that somehow make him feel vulnerable, especially to Alibaba. “I…” Cassim pauses, but decides it’s okay to finish, “I must feel pretty safe around you.”
Alibaba blinks. Then, he smiles. It’s a wide, beaming grin that has the warmth of summer behind it, and it seems to get brighter as Alibaba makes his way to the closet to throw his arms around Cassim’s neck. “Cassim!”
“Ow! My shoulder!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Alibaba backs off a little, but he’s still holding Cassim’s arms when he gushes, “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that. It feels like we’ve been so distant lately. I never have a clue what’s going on in your head, so this is just…" He's turning red again. "Look, I know you’ve got a lot on your mind, so if I can help you, that’s all I want.”
"Ah..." Cassim is surprised to find himself disarmed by such heartfelt goodness, but he recovers and shrugs Alibaba off. Smiling, of course. “What would I ever do without you?”
Alibaba has Anise's kindness in his eyes and smile, but he also has all the dumb, endearing quirks inherent to himself. As for Cassim, he has different masks for aristocrats and chamberlains, and even a special mask for Alibaba, but this time he doesn't trust his face to do what he wants. Whatever goodness he manages to muster up would surely burn away from Alibaba's radiance and reveal all the terrible underneath. He turns to the wall of jewelry. He wants to run away until he has the upper hand again, but he's cornered.
Alibaba doesn't notice, thankfully. “You seemed to manage okay when we first got to the palace,” he says happily, watching Cassim slip on gold bangles and rings.
Cassim says nothing. He feels the air grow heavy with all the words he considers saying, and he feels bad for it. He should be able to come up with a perfect response that will cement everything together between them, but Alibaba beats him to the punch with something unexpected, “Hey, you know… You look like you did when we met...”
“‘When we met?’” Cassim finally looks at him, his eyebrows raised in confusion. “What? Pretty sure I was in rags and throwing rocks at a rabid dog back then.”
Cassim can't remember how old he was back then, but he had refused to believe hair could naturally be the color of gold coins. He had pulled on Alibaba's and called him a liar. Alibaba had punched him in the face. It started at an early age, both Cassim's fascination with Alibaba's hair and their perpetual squabbling.
“Aah—no, I mean when we met again in that courtyard...! We sparred, remember?” Alibaba quickly corrects himself. “Y-you were wearing that red brocade, and you had gold in your hair, too…” Alibaba looks almost sheepish. “You looked so different, I didn’t recognize you at first. I thought you were a nobleman’s son. But the way you were watching me—like you knew me—it had to be you.”
"You thought I looked like a nobleman's son..." Cassim can't decide if that's good or bad. He frowns at the implication instead. “Did I change that much in two years?”
“You’ve changed a lot since we left the slums.”
Cassim’s first thought is immediately, for the worse? But that’s a stupid question. Cassim can’t bring himself to ask it. He tries a different one, “Well, you still think of me as…” No, that’s stupid, too, not to mention pathetically accusatory. “Hey, Alibaba, we’re still—”
“Friends!” exclaims Alibaba almost too enthusiastically. “Of course we are!”
“I was going to say ‘brothers,’” says Cassim, and he wishes he hadn’t said anything at all. He looks to the closet door and thinks about making his getaway. Alibaba doesn’t seem to want the conversation to end, however, and tries to laugh it off.
“Yeah, but you kissed me last night, so that would be weird.”
Cassim thinks that was probably the worst thing Alibaba could have said, but then he accidentally one-ups him, “Huh? Did I? I don’t remember.”
“Ah.”
It’s a horrible draw between miscommunication and awkwardness. Cassim and Alibaba look at each other helplessly until Cassim clears his throat and busies himself with a bunch of scarves hanging from the ceiling. Alibaba studies the beautiful carpet under their feet.
If Cassim were a better person, he would just let it drop, but he doesn’t. He can't. He dissects Alibaba’s words and actions until he’s confident can’t find any real rejection in them. But the real question is, is there an interest? Is Cassim the only one who’s twisted their relationship into something complicated over the years, or is Alibaba complicit as well?
Cassim tests the water, “Sorry if I stole your first kiss. I know you wanted it to be from a cute girl.”
“Y-yeah,” Alibaba laughs uneasily. He isn’t quite letting down his guard yet, still gauging Cassim’s reaction. “And you’re not cute at all. You’re the opposite of cute.”
An annoying response.
It could have very well been a rejection, but Alibaba is excellent at dodging uncomfortable conversations, so Cassim nips at it from another angle, “So? I’m not a woman.” He glances back over his shoulder, and Alibaba’s mouth is a nervous line. There’s a fear and dread in his eyes that gives Cassim confidence in his assessment, “No, you look for something else in men.”
He has seen it in the way Alibaba's eyes glitter when he talks about Sinbad from the safety of fiction. More tellingly, Cassim has seen in it how Alibaba's eyes will every so often avoid his. That something else he's looking for... Maybe he's afraid to find it.
Alibaba swallows and looks away again, turning red as a tomato. Cassim smiles goes in for the kill.
Casually, though. No sense in scaring Alibaba off or making him dig his heels in denial. Cassim runs his hand through the streams of scarves hanging before him and rattles off Sinbad’s qualities like it's a game, “Stop me if I'm wrong. You like ambition. Someone who’s a natural leader. Clever, but arrogant and kinda reckless...”
“And long hair,” Alibaba adds quietly. Cassim looks back in surprise to see Alibaba staring at him with the intensity of the desert sun. And with a flare of amusement, Cassim realizes they’re describing himself as well. Funny how that works out. Cassim was right all along.
“Long hair,” he agrees with a smirk and steps behind a curtain of translucent scarves. He pulls one across his face and peers at the blond over the sheer fabric. “Yellow eyes.” And it’s not like Cassim to be coy, but Alibaba is staring at him like a man dying of thirst, so Cassim is going to have some fun. “Looks great in red brocade and gold. Could even pass for a nobleman's son—”
“How long have you known?!” Alibaba asks—demands—stomping toward him, agitated, upset. Perfect. It's like a dam breaks between them. Cassim wills him to walk faster. “Do you like me, too…? Please tell me you're not just joking around, Cassim, please...”
Cassim must be careful with how he reels Alibaba in: the catch of a lifetime. It's a delicate situation, so he drops the scarf, puts on an exasperated, long-suffering smile, and says, “Moron. What the hell do you think?”
And Alibaba flies into his arms.
They crash into the wall behind Cassim and sink to the floor in a flurry of chiffon and hand-painted silk. Alibaba is overeager, a clumsy kisser. Cassim would bet good money that Alibaba has never kissed another person in his life. He tears away a green gauzy scarf between them and sees Alibaba’s bright golden eyes blink open. Cassim's breath catches.
Alibaba could stare right into his soul, into the murky depths of his pitch-black secrets, and see Cassim for what he truly is: unworthy. Deemed unworthy by the djinn, by the Magi, by fate itself to be at the same level as Alibaba. And yet Alibaba wants him.
It makes no sense.
Cassim lies on the floor, swathed in a mess of fabrics, still in awe of how they came to this point in their relationship. When he brushes Alibaba's cheek with his thumb, Alibaba pushes aside the bracelets on Cassim's wrist and presses kisses to the pulse beneath. He nuzzles into Cassim's palm. He looks at Cassim with a gratitude that shakes Cassim to his core. To think that he had so severely underestimated his sway on the Third Prince of Balbadd when Alibaba is his, through and through. Cassim’s heart pounds fast. He's a little heady with the knowledge.
He slides his palm to the back of Alibaba’s neck. “Shh, follow my lead,” he whispers and plants a light kiss to the corner of Alibaba’s mouth. “Do what I do.”
Alibaba is a fast learner. Alibaba wants to please. He lets Cassim pull him down deeper into the kiss, lets Cassim invade him, and when he breaks away for a breath, Cassim holds him there, with their eyes locked and foreheads touching and the air between them thick with lust.
“Hey, Alibaba,” Cassim murmurs as Alibaba nudges in for another kiss. “Alibaba, I want you right now.” Alibaba stops to look at him, confused for a moment, but he quickly understands. He turns redder than Cassim thought possible, and Cassim flashes him a devious grin, pressing his luck, “You can have me however you want afterward, but I’m going to have you first.”
Alibaba considers Cassim’s offer, and Cassim gives him all the time he needs.
It turns out not to be much. “Okay. Teach me what I should know when I'm... with you,” Alibaba says carefully, “And promise you won’t make fun of me 'cause you know... I haven't... Y'know. ”
Cassim laughs and flips them over. “Deal.”
-
Eventually, they make it to the bed from the closet, leaving a trail of clothes and jewelry on the way.
He kisses Alibaba, works him open with perfumed oils until all Alibaba murmurs is Cassim’s name. It’s music. Alibaba’s body is familiar. Sex is familiar. But Cassim doesn't know what to make of them together. He has wrestled Alibaba a thousand times. He knows Alibaba's angles and curves as well as his own, but how Alibaba’s bare chest feels against his, how Alibaba kisses him, and the gentle friction of their inner thighs—it’s foreign, and it sends shivers up his spine and down to his toes.
It's not bad. It feels safe, almost comforting. Cassim isn't used to it at all.
The red cord in Cassim's hair comes loose and falls onto the linens. Alibaba picks it up, winds it around his fingers, and kisses it. "Glad you took it," he whispers affectionately. "Smells like you now."
Cassim laughs, "Here, you can have it back." He ties the red around Alibaba's neck—loosely, gently, because Cassim wants to keep him, not kill him—and Alibaba lets him. Alibaba lets him do a lot.
Cassim’s shoulder throbs, but pleasure pushes the pain out of mind when he enters the prince.
Alibaba’s breath hitches when Cassim moves, and again when they're pressed flush against each other and Cassim's hair drapes around them, sealing them into their own little world. Alibaba clasps his hands around Cassim’s. “Ow, easy—please,” he gasps, embarrassed.
"Right..." Cassim's face is hot. They're both a little embarrassed.
Cassim rests his forehead against Alibaba's collarbone, feels the beat of Alibaba's heart beneath him, and smiles.
He gives the red cord a light tug and whispers, “Mine.”
-
The next three weeks pass by as Cassim and Alibaba reestablish the boundaries of their relationship. There’s a lot of pauses and questioning glances. How far is too far? How much is not enough? Cassim never knows. He can’t tell if what they have is real, or if Cassim is too infatuated with what Alibaba could be. And maybe he’s not giving Alibaba the push he needs to reach his full potential anymore. Maybe Alibaba is taking advantage of that reprieve.
Although, it’s hard to tell if he’s pushing Alibaba at all when Alibaba is just so damned happy the whole time. He’s been clinging to Cassim with that dopey grin on his face no matter what kind of snark Cassim throws at him. And maybe Cassim’s just overthinking everything, in spite of all the white butterflies fluttering in his chest.
“Why are you always in a bad mood?” Alibaba asks, rubbing at the crease between Cassim’s eyebrows.
“I’m not,” Cassim says, scowling. “I’m really happy right now.”
-
Alibaba looks at home in Qishan. They spend their days exploring the markets. Alibaba examines every ware with a remarkably skillful eye.
“Cassim, taste this spice! They say it’s what they roast papagoras birds with in Sindria! ”
"Do you know how far this unicorn horn came—this species is only around Imuchakk, and the engraving’s only done in one village!”
"The Kou know they can send us junk ‘cause we don’t have any other trade partners. We are not getting this kind of varnish application in our products, I can tell you that."
Cassim follows Alibaba from stall to stall and wonders where the hell Alibaba learned all this. From the library? From his trade studies with the late king? From his clandestine night visits to the city back in Balbadd? Cassim learns a million and one new things about the world in one afternoon alone, and Alibaba pushes so many mouth-watering kebabs into his hands that Cassim barely has time to smoke his cigars.
It's frustrating. This knowledgeable, clever side of Alibaba honestly just makes him wants to lead Alibaba down the darkest, narrowest alley he can find and have his way with him until the prince is too breathless to speak. Is he jealous of Alibaba? Cassim can’t tell what his feelings are anymore, but the freckles on Alibaba's shoulders are now distractingly toothsome under that mop of blond...
When they get back to Balbadd, after they overthrow Ahbmad, after Sahbmad abdicates, and after the crown is finally on Alibaba's head, Cassim is going to fuck him on the throne. He doesn't tell Alibaba, of course. It can be a surprise.
Cassim convinces Alibaba to bring the best wares he can find home to Balbadd as a standard of quality for imports and exports. Alibaba agrees pensively, as if he understands Cassim’s underlying message: remember, we’re going back to Balbadd after this. Cassim doesn't understand why he has to think about it. It should be obvious, but he tries not to pay too much mind to it. He wants to have fun, too.
"Wanna bet I can get that down to a fourth of the price?" Cassim asks deviously when he catches Alibaba eyeing a particularly stunning work of Kou lacquerware.
Alibaba smirks. "I bet you can get it down to a fifth."
Cassim has seen merchants as easy prey for so long that he even haggles with the intent to rob. By the middle of the second week, vendors see him and warn each other, “Brace yourselves, it’s the human abacus again.” But they’re all very polite to him because he’s the investor behind the desk at the mayor’s mansion.
At the end of each day, Alibaba carries his goods back to the house. Cassim usually finds a few new trinkets for Mariam and exotic candies for the kids in her neighborhood.
“Did you see Aladdin today?” Alibaba would ask.
“No. Morgiana?” responds Cassim.
And if the answer is no again, they shrug and sigh, and keep an eye out the window, quietly content in each other’s company.
One evening, Alibaba says, “When we were little, I’d dream about getting a big house like this for you, me, and Mariam. If we send for Mariam, we could live here in Qishan…”
Cassim slaps the back of Alibaba’s head.
“Eyes on the prize,” Cassim says because apparently Alibaba really needs a clear verbal reminder. Or an ultimatum. “Once we take care of business in Qishan, we go fix Balbadd.”
“R-right,” says Alibaba, but he still seems unsure.
“You promised,” Cassim reminds him. He’s tired of dragging Alibaba along. He doesn’t know what he can do to galvanize Alibaba’s resolve the way Goltas did Morgiana’s. They still have a few loose ends to tie in Qishan, and his shoulder is still days away from being travel-ready, but he’s worried. When everything’s ready, he’s worried he won’t be able to convince Alibaba to go home.
-
Cassim’s shoulder heals about as well as he expects it to. When the skin finally closes over the wound in another large scar, he stretches and works his arm to make sure it doesn’t stiffen. He’s still young, so he’ll heal. He will heal, he has to. But the thought of leading a rebellion when he’s hurt still gives him anxiety. He’s done it before. A few times, even. It was just as nerve-wracking then, too.
No one can know about this. Only Alibaba.
“Change plans so there’s no fighting,” says Alibaba, stretching Cassim’s arm up over his head. “You’re good at adapting.”
“Easier said than done,” Cassim grunts, blinking back tears. “Ow, ow, ow—okay, let go, let go!”
“I’m serious,” says Alibaba as Cassim flops back onto the bed groaning. “There has to be a way to talk things through. Ahbmad is my brother. And Sahbmad is on our side, too…”
“Sure, they’ll all cooperate,” says Cassim, massaging his shoulder, “but only if I have enough manpower to make them think they’ll die otherwise. And the longer we stay here, the more men will desert my uprising.”
Cassim has already sent messengers to both Mariam and the palace, telling them of Alibaba’s economic mission in Qishan. Between the lines, he’s telling them that he and Alibaba are alive and coming back strong.
“The only way to avoid a fight is to convince your enemy that they’ve already lost,” says Cassim.
“Or you could reason with them. Convince them with your words,” Alibaba insists. “You and I can get the aristocracy against Ahbmad if we convince them he’s no good for our economy. I bet Ahbmad will step down if he loses their support. We won’t need any fighting.”
Cassim could tell him all the reasons that won’t work, but they’re having a good day, and they’re both stubborn as mules, so he smiles. “You’re too soft, Alibaba. What did I say before?” He strokes his thumb along Alibaba’s cheek and draws him in like he always does. “The world isn’t so kind, and neither am I.”
“You can,” Alibaba protests on principle. “You used to be…”
“Shh,” Cassim hushes and kisses him. “That’s why I need you at my side. You be kind for me, and I’ll do the fighting for you.”
As for them, they don’t fight as much anymore, not when they can just tumble into bed instead. They’re compatible in that way, strangely so, no matter who controls the rhythm of that night or the nights before and after.
When Cassim sets the pace, Alibaba follows without question. Cassim can see the times he almost does say something important, when his lips part and he takes a breath, but he always stops when Cassim moves. Alibaba can’t keep up with Cassim. He lets Cassim sweep him up and push him over the edge. They end up tangled in the blankets, with their fingers interweaved, blinking stars from their eyes.
It's easier to talk then, when they're blissed out and the tension is gone. Alibaba tells him he's not ready to be king, and Cassim assures him he is and that Cassim will help him. Cassim takes all his anxieties and smooths them out. He tells Alibaba, "You're wrong, I'm right. You'll be fine as long as you have resolve." When Alibaba looks to him, as if prompting him your turn, Cassim brings his cigar to his teeth and says absolutely nothing. There's a million things he can't bring himself to tell Alibaba, and if he opens his mouth, he knows they'll all come spilling out.
It’s different when Alibaba takes the lead. He's the same in and out of bed: gentle, quick-thinking, full of bluster at the most hilarious times.
And he wants to know the story behind each of Cassim’s scars.
It’s ridiculous. Cassim has told him before that there are too many to count, and Alibaba was present for half of them anyway. The two of them have the same scratches from running around barefoot in the slums of Balbadd, from tumbling down their junkyard mountain. Cassim has at least ten from from their roughhousing alone.
“I wanna know about the others,” says Alibaba that night, and he stops right as things are getting good. Cassim reaches up to hit him, but Alibaba catches his hands and grins. He doesn’t let go. And that worries Cassim. Alibaba is one of those people who can do anything he wants with enough focus, and he is a godawful nightmare when he has the gall to go against Cassim.
“You’re gonna pay for this when I’m on top,” Cassim promises him, but it’s a weak threat. Alibaba is still inside him, and all Cassim wants is for Alibaba to grab his hips and grind into him.
Alibaba kisses a little white scar on Cassim’s thumb and says, “Anyway, when’d you get this one?”
Cassim has slept with so many cruel noblemen, but Alibaba is the worst.
“I... punched someone. His tooth broke and cut my thumb.”
And so, Cassim explains as many marks as it takes to satisfy Alibaba. It ends up feeling like a confession of his stupidest crimes.
A huge blotch of white on his left calf: “Got caught in a fire I started.” A raised line above his hip: “Stabbed by the leader of a rival gang.” A scratch across his ribs: “I tripped over a freakin’ cat while stealing pears, okay?”
But there are some that Cassim is more reluctant to reveal. A pale crack on the skin under his jaw: “Dodged an assassin years ago.” A long gash across his collarbone: “An emir took a sword to me over something I said.” A more recent scar along his inner thigh: “Don’t wanna talk about it.”
Alibaba’s fingers finally travel up to the mark Jamil’s sword left on on Cassim’s shoulder. “I should’ve done a better job of protecting you.” He stares at Cassim with those bright, radiant eyes that flash like stars in the moonlight, and it’s like he’s made up his mind about something.
“I’m…” Cassim is looking up at Prince Alibaba again. Magnificent. Almost enough to make Cassim beg Alibaba to fuck him right, but Cassim never does. He's a little angry with himself for even considering it.
“You don’t have to say anything now," Alibaba says softly, "but when we get back to Balbadd, I’ll make sure the people who’ve hurt you will receive their dues.”
Cassim has already killed them, but he doesn’t say that. It would ruin the moment. After all, he just got what he’s desperately wanted for the past three weeks, so he smiles and says, “Yeah, let’s go home.”
-
Morgiana returns to the house on the day they before they leave. Alibaba is still looking out the window for Aladdin when she enters the room.
Cassim sneaks a glance at her ankles while lighting a cigar. The metal cuffs are gone, but the marks are still there. Ugly, ugly scars. All from the same man. She probably has even more under that new cotton dress. Cassim feels a vague sense of protectiveness for her, but it’s probably just because he misses Mariam. Morgiana pouts, like she did the first time they met, and his eyes flick back up to her face again. They exchange curt nods as she walks past.
He knew she’d make a beeline for Alibaba. He made a hell of an impression on her in the dungeon, and she’s fallen for his charms whether she knows it or not.
Cassim looks out the window and drifts in and out of their conversation. Morgiana is grateful. She’s thinking of moving on with her life, maybe working for a decent wage under a new leader. Alibaba makes a few clumsy compliments and dead-end comments, and Cassim rubs the bridge of his nose in second-hand embarrassment. No wonder Alibaba has never had a girlfriend. He makes a terrible first impression on women he’s trying to impress.
“I’m going to return to my homeland someday,” she finally says. “It’s what my savior would have wanted.”
Goltas, thinks Cassim, and he takes a puff from his cigar. A last wish is a truly compelling thing.
“Savior, huh?” Cassim feels Alibaba’s eyes on him, and he turns to the two younger teenagers. So Alibaba needs a wingman after all.
“You can take a ship from Balbadd to the Dark Continent, you know. You should come with us,” Cassim says. He taps his cigar against the windowsill and points it to Alibaba. “You would be traveling with the real prince of Balbadd.”
Morgiana turns to Alibaba. Alibaba turns red. “Umm,” he says uncertainly.
Cassim waves that wishy-washy response away. “You said you were looking for a leader, right, Morgiana? You must’ve heard what’s been said about Alibaba in Qishan. Not only did he fill in Jamil’s place right away, he’s been commissioning projects in Qishan left and right. Your city’s been flourishing since he took over.”
Morgiana looks at Alibaba with a new sense of wonder. But Alibaba shrinks from her scarlet gaze. “Cassim, stop.”
“You do want her to come back to Balbadd with us, don't you?” Cassim presses.
“She should do what she wants. She’s free now,” Alibaba mumbles, looking down at his feet, and Cassim knows his plan is dead in the water. He wasn’t counting on Alibaba to reject Morgiana.
Silently, Morgiana bows to them both and walks out the door.
Cassim looks on after her and bites down on his cigar, irate. “She’s not going to leave the house, so she'd be stuck here anyway,” he says, more to himself than Alibaba because Alibaba is useless. “I don’t know what’s suddenly come over you, but I want her with us on the wagon home.”
Alibaba throws him a resentful look and says, “Why’re you talking me up like it was my doing? Everything we’ve done for Qishan was your idea.”
“Yeah, but you were the one who drafted the policies,” Cassim replies. They’ve always made up for what the other has lacked, and they’ve certainly never argued over who got credit for what before.
“I wrote them based on what you told me!”
“Because I wasn’t trained to write laws and decrees like you,” Cassim says, exasperated. It's why he couldn't do anything about the treasury's estates without Alibaba in the first place. “Don’t you see? When you’re king, you’ll have advisors like me to tell you what to do. You'll make decisions based on that and write them into laws.”
Alibaba can’t argue with that. He just doesn’t like it. He looks at Cassim with a pained expression before veering off into a completely different concern, as he is wont to do, “But why were you trying so hard to sell her on me? Sh-shouldn't you be a little more, I dunno—”
Jealous? Cassim doesn't get jealous of women, not when Alibaba falls for them so differently than he does men. And it's not as if any man alive, barring Sinbad, could captivate Alibaba more than Cassim at this point. “You do think she’s cute, don’t you?” Cassim sighs.
“So?”
Cassim could just hit him. “She was interested in you, too, idiot. If you court her, you could make a Fanalis your queen!”
Alibaba stares at him, dumbfounded. “But what about you?”
“What about me—Ohh.” Alibaba doesn’t understand what that means for their relationship. It's so adorable that Cassim laughs. He plays dumb and teases, “Alibaba, it’s much easier for me to find a wife than for you.”
And while he fully expected Alibaba to get mad and demand an explanation, he definitely didn’t expect him to tear up and start sniffling. “Cassim, are you… are you breaking up with me?”
Cassim blinks. “What’s that?”
But Alibaba is already way ahead of him, as well as himself, “I should've known this was too good to be true! I SHOULD'VE KNOWN YOU'D DO THIS! You're so popular with everyone, I should've known you'd—AND YOU DID—And now I'm left behind and... AND..." He bolts across the room and out the door, pulling at his hair and positively screeching, "WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ALONE?!”
Stunned, Cassim taps the ash from his cigar and says, “Aww, hell, Anise. He’s doing it again.”
-
Cassim walks downstairs just as Budel, the wine merchant from the caravan train, finishes unloading his latest product to the cellar. The little man brightens at the sight of him.
“Oh, Lord Cassim! So good to see you this fine evening. I noticed that you’re loading up a wagon to depart back to... Balbadd, was it? Again, let me just say what an honor it was to serve you, and I hope—”
“Is Alibaba down there?” Cassim points to the wine cellar.
“Why yes, Lord Alibaba picked an excellent place—”
“As you were.” Cassim takes his lamp and heads down the steps.
He finds Alibaba in fetal position, surrounded by barrels of wine. If Cassim were anyone else, he might have shown a little more compassion. But since he’s Cassim, he says, “C’mon, you promised your mom you’d stop doing this when you were five.”
Alibaba’s voice is thick with tears. “H-how’d you find me?”
Cassim looks around the dark cellar and says, “Closest thing to a tunnel on such short notice.”
Alibaba says nothing and continues to cry. Again, if Cassim were anyone else, he might have been a little more gentle. But since he’s Cassim, he plants his foot on Alibaba’s back and nudges him. “Don’t be such a pain, Alibaba. We’re not breaking up. I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t understand you,” Alibaba sobs, rubbing vigorously at his eyes. “You’re always a step ahead of me, and you’re always planning my steps before I even take them. A-and I never know what you're thinking 'cause you're always building walls between us!”
"I...?" Cassim doesn't know what walls he's talking about because all he has ever done is try to keep the two of them close. “I was trying to be nice.”
“By telling me to marry someone else when we’re together?”
Cassim takes a seat next to him and sets the lamp down between them. “Well, damn, Alibaba. Am I supposed to bear your children, too? You have to marry a woman if you’re going to be king. You have to have a queen who can give you an heir.” He shoots the blond a stern look. “I thought this was a given.”
“I know, but… but…” Alibaba hiccups, “What about us?”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be at your side the entire time. We’re going to be together no matter what,” Cassim replies lazily, taking a puff from his cigar. Alibaba is his. Just a few more nudges in the right direction, and they'll be good. “Look, here’s the way I see it. We don’t have to marry at the same time. As long as we have kids around the same age, they’ll be able to marry each other.”
Alibaba looks up at him. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah. We’ll be a real family by blood.” And everything terrible about Cassim’s bloodline will be purged by Alibaba’s.
Alibaba sits up slowly, chewing on the idea. Cassim lets him ease into it, until Alibaba smiles tentatively and says, “Your grandkids will be mine... We’ll be grandfathers together.”
“That’s the spirit.” Cassim wraps his good arm around Alibaba’s shoulder and pulls him into a hug. “Morgiana will make a great queen. She’s strong and loyal. She’ll protect you in ways I can’t. A good match.”
Alibaba looks at him. “And who are you gonna marry?”
“Someone smart,” says Cassim with a chuckle. “Someone who wants a big family and wants to adopt every orphan in the city.”
Alibaba finally laughs. “You’re gonna flood the palace with commoners!”
“That’ll give those nobles something to cry about.”
Alibaba leans into his arm, and they sit side by side for a while as the world moves on above them. Cassim wonders if they'll see Aladdin by the morning. He wonders if Morgiana will really leave Qishan with them after that disaster of a conversation earlier. It's not like he can make her go to Balbadd; she'd snap him in half if he tried.
When push comes to shove, Cassim doesn't really need the two. The plan was in motion without them anyway. Although, he wasn't expecting to home injured either. There are a lot of variables up in the air, and success seems to be slipping through his fingers. He has to reassess the situation when he returns to Balbadd.
“You’re not just going along with all this because it’s what I want, right?” asks Alibaba, breaking him out of his train of thought.
“What are you talking about?” Cassim blows out a mouthful of smoke, almost annoyed, but not quite. Not yet. “Just tell it to me straight.”
Alibaba watches him take another puff and fidgets with the red cord around his neck. “It's my fault that we... Cassim, are you really okay that we’re not brothers?”
“Oh,” says Cassim, and he understands at last.
Alibaba feels guilty. He feels guilty for kidnapping Cassim from Balbadd, for dragging him along in his dungeon adventure, for getting Cassim hurt. He feels guilty for ruining what they built over a lifetime because he couldn’t hide his feelings from Cassim. And he feels guilty that he lets Cassim talk him into just about anything, even if it’s morally ambiguous. Even if it means treason against his own real brother by blood.
It’s a lot of weight on Alibaba’s shoulders, more than Cassim had intended to place, because when Alibaba feels pressure, he tries to find an out. And if Cassim had spent his adolescence without Alibaba, he might have cut him loose right then and there. He might have told him to get lost because he has no resolve, and they would have fought and cried and broken each other's hearts before parting.
But Cassim needs Alibaba in more ways than one. He found this out the hard way. Alibaba isn’t only a tool with which he can make his bid for power; Cassim can’t imagine a life without him. He’s tried. It’s miserable and dark, with no safety net to catch all the black swords hanging above his head.
"Cassim?" Alibaba repeats, "Are you okay with—"
“It’s okay,” says Cassim at last, taking Alibaba’s hand. “We’re partners.”
Notes:
Wow, happy new year! I had meant to get this chapter out a couple of months ago, but real life and deadlines got in the way.
I've been looking forward to writing Cassim and Jamil's interactions, though, so this chapter has been a real treat for me. There was so much to write in general. I’m honestly just happy that I got it done. I'm also glad to finally delve into Alibaba's character and show more of his side of the story, too. You might have noticed that Cassim is a completely unreliable narrator when it comes to Alibaba, so I am super excited for events in the next chapter, when Alibaba really steps up.
Back to Balbadd! Hopefully I can fit the rest of the story into the next chapter. I guess now would be a good time to reread the Balbadd arc, if you've been rereading the earlier Magi chapters to see the similarities and and differences between canon and this AU.
(I'm on twitter now @goodnightwrite.)
Chapter 4
Summary:
In which Cassim flies too close to the sun.
Notes:
Specific warnings for this chapter: blood and violence typical in canon. Heavy emotional manipulation, unhealthy dynamics. Sex. Bondage, I guess.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Morgiana does not join them.
“Then, come find us in Balbadd,” Cassim says, but he knows it’s not the same as Alibaba saying it.
“Alibaba is right,” she replies solemnly, and he feels a surge of annoyance at that. Yes, he wanted Alibaba to shine, but not in a way that would hinder his own plans. “It’s no good if I go from one man’s custody right into another’s. I must work for myself. I must understand what it means to be free.”
Her red eyes gleam, like burnt-out embers brought back by a breeze. It’s not a bad response. She’s thought it through, probably even rehearsed it a few times before dawn. Cassim’s heart tightens and not just in disappointment, no.
He misses Mariam.
He misses his friends. He misses Balbadd, which needs him more than ever, but he doesn’t have much to bring home. Even the treasure isn’t enough, certainly not enough to calm his anger toward Alibaba, which he knows is only going to fester over their trip back across the desert. He should have more to show for the past few weeks. He wants more.
“What is enough for you, Brother? Because you’re killing yourself for it.”
Cassim turns and walks out the door.
-
Sand weaves through the cloth shielding his face and grates between his molars. It’s a sandstorm, a big one, but Alibaba doesn’t seem worried, so Cassim isn’t either. He’s not sure when he started trusting his life to Alibaba’s judgment, but it feels almost right. After all, the Magi had trusted Alibaba. Morgiana, too.
The hot desert shimmers around Alibaba like gold on gold. Irritating, but it’s such a marvelous sight that Cassim can’t look away, dazed. It’s nothing more than heatstroke, he tells himself, but he knows it’s much more.
Something remarkable is forming under Alibaba’s fair surface. He is looking more and more like a leader these days. The more Alibaba shines, the emptier Cassim feels. Yet at the same time, even if it spells nothing but ruin for Cassim, he wants a glimpse of the radiance Alibaba is heading toward. Cassim is only human after all.
Alibaba brims with potential without even knowing it. If he could see what Cassim sees in him, Alibaba would surely turn his heel on Balbadd and never look back, like Sinbad seeking his fortune across the seven seas. Deep down, Alibaba seems to know. He went to Qishan and clung to it, relishing freedom, with Cassim snipping desperately at him, “go home, go home, go home with me!”
He wonders how many more times will Alibaba hold out his hand. How long will he lift Cassim up and stand by him? How long until he sees past Cassim’s facades—until he sees the selfish, stubborn street rat underneath—until he leaves Cassim?
Cassim broods on it, preparing for the inevitable, as he has his entire life.
They say nothing to each other the first two days and nights, sitting side by side listening to the brittle road rattle their wheels. Alibaba passes Cassim a flask of water, and Cassim returns it when he’s done. The camels trod along. The storm eventually abates. They repeat their actions until night falls and Alibaba has had enough of the silence.
He turns to Cassim: “Spar with me.”
“You can’t get decent footing on this sand,” Cassim says with a scoff, but his stomach unknots itself because Alibaba is holding out an olive branch yet again, and Cassim can breathe easy once more. For the time being.
“Oh? What’s this?” Alibaba grins. “What, the lordling’s afraid of getting a little sand in his hair?”
“What did you call me?” Cassim draws his dagger, and Alibaba gives a whoop of laughter when Cassim leaps out of the wagon. The two of them circle the flames, their blades flashing in the orange light of the campfire. Alibaba assumes a royal swordplay stance, and Cassim pauses.
Cassim mirrors Alibaba.
Alibaba falters, surprised, but he recovers quickly and switches to the next stance. Cassim copies him.
“No way,” Alibaba laughs, eyes sparkling, “No way you know the whole routine!”
“Told you I learned a thing or two,” Cassim brags. “Go ahead. Try me.”
Alibaba moves away from the fire into the next stance, hesitantly, but Cassim follows. With every step, Alibaba gains more confidence—because yes, Cassim can follow his swordplay, and the blond’s movements turn into a dance. Emboldened, Cassim swings into the next stance right next to Alibaba, until they’re little more than laughter and flashes of metal under the starlight.
They complete the entire routine: side by side, daggers raised, and out of breath. It’s a moment of crystal clear perfection under the constellations above, and it’s as natural as breathing. Cassim needed this.
“Amazing… You learned everything just by watching?!” Alibaba gasps, “You didn’t even make the same mistakes I did starting out!”
“Not after seeing what Barkak did to you for screwing up,” chuckles Cassim, rubbing his shoulder. It’s a little stiff, but it’s healing all right. He’s feeling all right. And maybe everything will be all right after all.
Alibaba smiles and looks shyly at his knife. “Hey. Hey, Cassim, I have something cool to show you, too. It’s um… It’s something I’ve been working on the last few days, while you were sleeping.”
Cassim notices a strange star etched on the blade. He doesn’t remember it there before. The fire flickers before them. “Sure,” he says because what else can he say?
Alibaba takes a step back and holds the blade to his sternum with its tip skyward. He takes a deep breath and recites in a tone that’s not quite his own and not quite Prince Alibaba:
“SPIRIT OF DECORUM AND AUSTERITY, I BESEECH THEE AND THY KIN TO ACCEPT MY MAGOI AND GRANT ME GREAT POWER!”
Alibaba’s knife lights up. Cassim’s breath catches in his chest.
“COME FORTH, AMON!”
A great whirlwind of red and yellow erupts from Alibaba’s hands and blooms around them like a desert rose. It tapers away against the sky, a flock of fiery birds scattering. Cassim’s earrings are warm. He smells the smoke and flame, and it’s all so familiar, but he can’t place his finger on why. He can only watch as the colors fade into the night, as he blinks the away the blotches of white from his vision.
He turns to Alibaba. “How?”
“It was the dungeon,” Alibaba says hoarsely and sinks to his knees. “I got this power in the dungeon.” His arms are shaking, but only a little, and he looks young again, like that day when the king arrived in the slums, and Alibaba had looked up at Cassim with his big, golden eyes and asked, “Should I go with him, Cassim?”
This time, Alibaba is looking at him, and his eyes are asking, “Did I impress you, Cassim?”
Cassim sits down beside him. “You are the amazing one, Alibaba.”
“Huh—no way, no way! You think so…?” Alibaba babbles, but he’s pleased, his face flushed. “Y’know, I thought this would’ve woken you up the first night it happened, but you slept through everything. Night after night.”
“You’re kidding me.” Cassim feels a cold chill on the back of his neck. He’s unarmored. Vulnerable. “I must feel damned safe around you.”
“Yeah, so count on me a little more, huh?” Alibaba says cheerfully, sheathing his knife. “When we go back, it’s not gonna be just you against the world. You and I—we’ll figure everything out together.” He nudges into Cassim’s shoulder. “All right?”
Well, they’re not returning to Balbadd empty-handed, that’s for sure. Pleased, Cassim leans into Alibaba’s warmth and lets himself enjoy it.
“All right.”
-
Cassim smells the sea before he sees it. The salt stings at his eyes in the best possible way.
Almost home, he thinks, and Alibaba smiles at him: “We’re almost home.”
-
Balbadd is in a state of disarray, but it’s not the state Cassim left it in.
Ahbmad passed new laws while Cassim and Alibaba were away, and Kou influence only ramped up in their absence. Cassim doesn’t like it. Rumors sweep through the streets; the nobles are up to something, but the palace has been silent.
“What do you know, Cassim?” an old man asks, his gray-blind eyes still worried, so very worried.
“Prince Alibaba, please do something,” pleads a young mother. Her child is small and ill.
“Brother, are you following through with the original plan?” asks Mariam, and behind her stands the entire Fog Troupe, anonymous in the crowd but ready to take up arms at Cassim’s word.
Or is it Mariam’s now?
And will Mariam follow Cassim?
She had smiled at the trinkets Cassim dropped in her hands. She had kissed his cheeks and welcomed him home. It’s true she loves him, and she says she’ll obey him, but he knows her better. Once bitten, twice shy; they're both scorpions after all.
She wants him to move prudently. Cassim will act accordingly.
He sets his full tankard of wine down between Alibaba and himself and says, “Give us a day to see.”
The people look to them, grateful. Then, they disperse.
Alibaba and Cassim return to the palace.
-
King Sahbmad is beside himself. General Barkak stands austerely at his side. His men eye Cassim carefully. Cassim knows which are his.
“Ahbmad wishes to sell the citizens to the Kou,” Sahbmad whimpers. “And the nobility went along with it. I couldn’t do anything… I couldn’t…”
The room fades into white-hot silence as the words sink into Cassim’s heart. He doesn’t hear. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t see the pitiful man whimpering before him, no, only the pig-headed man who doesn’t belong on the throne. Cassim has worked so hard to rebuild Balbadd, and those fools at the top, already obscenely wealthy, would smash it down to steal the last few nuggets of gold in the foundations…
Alibaba speaks first, “Is there proof?”
“Yes,” says Sahbmad, “in the treasury.”
Alibaba turns to Cassim, but Cassim is already running down the hall.
Cassim is beyond fury.
Inside the treasury, Markkio is nowhere to be found, and Cassim is a one-man hurricane. He destroys the room to find what he needs: the trade documents, the receipts, the declarations, written for all to see.
Alibaba tries to calm Cassim, and Barkak orders Cassim to stand down, but Cassim snarls, “No! We go as planned. We behead the king.”
“You’re rushing,” Alibaba worries.
“I’m seizing an opportunity!” Cassim replies.
“Is everything even still set up?” says Alibaba.
“We’ll see, won’t we?”
-
In the throne room, Cassim throws the scrolls down before the King, in front of all the emirs and chamberlains, who watch him with the same fascination they’ve had since he was a boy.
“You’ve betrayed your citizens,” Cassim accuses, pointing at Ahbmad, but not with Mariam’s blade. Not yet. He keeps that hidden under his sleeve. “You’ve sold our trade, our way of life, and now our people to the Kou!” He kicks the scrolls on the floor. “This is the treaty you signed that damns us to slavery!”
“Slavery?!”
“No!”
“Truly?!”
The court murmurs in shock as if they aren’t complicit. No matter. If Cassim can condemn the King and tear a vacuum where the throne is, then all the power in the room will be up for grabs while everyone scrambles to realign themselves.
“I won’t have a slum dog barking at me. Arrest him,” Ahbmad says lightly, and the guards raise their spears.
“Soldiers, gather to me!” Cassim commands, and suddenly a third of the men split off and rally to Cassim’s side. It’s not the force he was promised, but after disappearing without a word for three months, it’s about what he planned for. It’s enough.
Ahbmad and his soldiers stares in horror, and the court falls silent, watching and waiting. Cassim’s eyes are on Sahbmad, who has taken his place next to the high king. All he needs is for Sahbmad to denounce Ahbmad and make his own claim for the throne. Sahbmad rises to his feet. Cassim watches him. The entire court watches him. Cassim urges him on, silently, yes, go!
“A-as deputy-king, I can no longer abide by your a-actions, Ahbmad,” Sahbmad Saluja says, voice shaky but still clear. Cassim nods. Just as they rehearsed months ago. Sahbmad doesn’t need to be strong. He just needs to declare his intent. Cassim will deal with Ahbmad in the skirmish.
But Sahbmad becomes aware of all the eyes on him. His voice weakens. “I don’t… It—It’s not…” He starts shrinking into himself. “I’m, I ask you to…” God help him, it’s one last sentence! Each word out of Sahbmad might as well be a tooth from his mouth.
Ahbmad sees weakness and pounces: “Sahbmad, you worthless idiot, sit back down.”
“B-but Cassim is right!” Sahbmad cries, and Cassim tenses at the sound of his name. “To enslave the people is to go against the wishes of our forefathers! It... It’s betraying Balbadd itself.”
“Cassim...?” Ahbmad says and turns to Cassim, who meets his scorn with a wrathful glower. “Sahbmad, you’re in collusion with this brat to dethrone me?! All so you can have the crown for yourself?!”
“I…” Sahbmad looks to Cassim. Cassim nods furiously, yes, of course!
“This is an assassination plot!” screeches Ahbmad. “I’ll have the both of you executed!”
The soldiers against Cassim step forward, and Alibaba finally speaks from Cassim’s side, “Stop! You're soldiers! Don’t you see what we’re fighting for? If that citizen enslavement treaty goes through, it will affect all of you, too!”
“You’re palace guards!” Ahbmad shouts, jumping to his feet, his face flushed deep with rage. “As long as you serve me, you will be safe! Don’t listen to that piece of trash—I want him executed for treason, too!”
The men look back and forth as if there’s still a decision to be made. Cassim’s patience wears down to nothing. Enough diplomacy and words. It’s finally come back to a point where all his problems can be solved by stabbing the right person, and he’s not throwing away his shot.
Gray fog gushes from his sword and mires half the room, dragging his enemies to their hands and knees.
“Subdue the king’s guards!” Cassim orders and walks through the mist, kicking aside every man who grabs at his ankles.
“Arrest him!” Ahbmad screams from the throne above the darkness. Cassim ascends the stairs. “Someone stop him!”
“Cassim!”
And someone does.
Flames erupt before Cassim, and it’s Alibaba who grabs him and says, “You can’t kill Ahbmad!”
Cassim has a good laugh at that and shakes Alibaba off, but Alibaba grabs him again.
“Cassim, he’s already lost! We have the contract, the proof of his crimes—everything!”
“No! I’ll rest easier when he’s dead! I’ll rest easier when they’re all dead! The nobles who agreed to it, the bureaucrats who helped, the guards who went against me—all of them!” Cassim snarls, but Alibaba bounds up the stairs. He draws his enchanted blade and aims it at Cassim.
“No,” Alibaba says and pierces him straight through with that righteous expression Cassim has hated since childhood.
Cassim glares back, stunned and fuming. “What are you doing?” he whispers, and it’s like the rest of the world crumbles away around them, leaving only him, Alibaba, and the sum of their differences.
He has made your life miserable. He has made my life miserable. You can become king once he's dead. You can be king, Alibaba!
“Don't do it, Cassim. Ahbmad must pay according to the law. But justice isn't up to you!”
“Ahbmad is the law. If he can sell his own citizens, then he can weasel his way out of any punishment. He is the king, and he has to die!”
“You’re demanding too much!” Alibaba retorts, “No one has to die!”
Unbelievable.
Cassim was a dead man the moment he accused the king, and naïve, remarkable Alibaba can’t see it. He talks of justice, but even fools can declare and defend laws, whether they're just or not.
What a cruel twist fate has thrown him. Every ambition Cassim has rested on Alibaba, every ambition Cassim has given up for Alibaba, every jab of jealousy, of inadequacy—it all rises to the surface, and Cassim wants to yell him down. But Alibaba has already made his stand.
“Alibaba, you are so stupid,” Cassim seethes with the resentment of a lifetime. He forces it all back down into a painful lump in his throat.
And it fucking hurts.
“Then will you kill me? After bringing me to the palace? After all these years?” Cassim has never climbed so close to the throne before. He wants to go higher. But first, he has to get past Alibaba, and Alibaba makes him vulnerable—so Cassim must harden his heart and make it unbreakable: “If you want to stop me, then you must kill me.”
Alibaba parries his attack from the high ground. Cassim blasts him with gray fog, but Alibaba cuts it with his dagger and strikes down, slashing through Mariam’s blade. Cassim stumbles back, unarmed, with a nick on his hand and the monster inside raging for blood. He grabs Alibaba’s wrist—the hand holding the magic knife—and they struggle for control of the dagger. “Stop—Cassim!”
“Do it! Kill me if you can!” Cassim lurches forward, both hands on Alibaba’s.
“Cassim, no!”
And he feels the blade plunge into him.
Alibaba cries a short, tiny sob in his ear and lets go at last. Cassim seizes him by his golden hair and shoves him—sends him sprawling down six steps. He grips Alibaba’s knife by the handle and yanks it from his side. Blood hisses from the metal. It's like holding red coals in his palm.
It’s rejecting him, searing him inside out; even his earrings burn.
Cassim looks up at Ahbmad, who stumbles back in horror. The king screams. Sahbmad, too. The nobles, the guards, the whole world shrieks at him, but it’s all muffled to his ears. It’s like he's surrounded in the thickest smoke, and the only thing he can see is Ahbmad. The only thing he can hear is his own heartbeat. The only thing that matters is…
The throne!
A burst of pain explodes in his shoulder.
It streaks up his neck and makes his ears ring. It spasms all the way to his hand. He drops Alibaba’s dagger as he falls to his knees, clutching his injured shoulder. He’s blinking lights out of his eyes when powerful arms drag him down the steps.
“No!” he struggles, “No, no, no!”
He reaches out for throne with his good arm, but it’s useless. The mist is gone, and there are too many guards who did not side with him in the revolt. He thrashes and fights until they tie him down against the floor, and when Cassim finally gets a hold of himself—when he faces reality—he sees Alibaba.
Cassim had been so careful to hide his injured shoulder from everyone, even Mariam, Zainab, and Hassan. It was only Alibaba who knew, but it was Alibaba who struck him where he was weak. He feels that chill on the back of his neck, and he recognizes too late what his instincts warned him all along: he shouldn’t have taken Alibaba's loyalty for granted.
Alibaba is first, and foremost, the Third Prince of Balbadd.
In a pool of his own blood, Cassim looks up calmly and says, “So that’s how it is, your highness.”
“Cassim…” is all Prince Alibaba can muster as he gazes down at him with the most beautiful, benevolent eyes, and suddenly Cassim hates him more than anything in the world. All the nights together in Qishan, all their promises, every drop of love Cassim carried across the years for Alibaba—it evaporates into nothing.
-
It hurts, hurts, hurts.
Cassim has his nightmares, but it’s different this time. When the black swords skewer him, he sees Alibaba sitting on the throne of Balbadd with that golden crown atop his golden head. And when Cassim casts aside his pride to beg for help, Alibaba speaks over him with the voice of Cassim’s father, “This is what you deserve, you little wretch. You’re nothing but trash.”
The world goes dark. Cassim will never ask for mercy again.
It hurts, hurts, hurts.
-
He wakes with a gasp and sits up. His entire body shakes. He tries desperately to steady himself, inhaling lungfuls of air. His teeth are chattering, he thinks he’s dying, and it takes a moment for him to pull himself together.
There’s no pain.
Not in his shoulder. Not even in his side, where Alibaba’s dagger went through.
Cassim looks around warily and nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Markkio’s mismatched eyes in the moonlight. They evaluate him in the same way they always have, amused and calculating. Cassim forces himself to stop shivering, out of sheer spite.
“My clever assistant,” Markkio says kindly, “I have just healed you of a mortal wound.”
Cassim checks and confirms, “So you have. Why?”
“King Ahbmad has gone into hiding after your gutsy attempt at a coup. King Sahbmad is hardly a king. Prince Alibaba has been arguing on your behalf against the aristocracy, which is intent on putting your head on a spike,” Markkio recounts cheerily. “Balbadd is in a state of emergency, young man, and we can’t have you dying, now can we? Not when you’re at the epicenter of it all.”
“Alibaba was the one who put an end to my plans,” Cassim says bitterly. “No thanks, I don’t need his pleas. I’ll sit this one out.”
“And is that the fate you’ve accepted? Will you undergo whatever kangaroo court the nobles deem fit to condemn you? Will you let them throw you in chains and lock you away deep in the bowels of the palace?” Cassim sulks at that, which makes Markkio smile. “You could be in there for months—years even! However long it takes to break you, and then…”
“And then they drag me out, filthy, humiliated, into the sunlight, where they will execute me in front of everybody,” Cassim finishes, positively bristling for another chance to kill… who? Ahbmad? Alibaba? If Cassim must die, then he will take someone down with him.
“If you were, however, to curse that fate…” Markkio looks at him meaningfully. “Then I have a solution.”
Cassim frowns, but he’s listening. “Oh?”
“If you were to reunite with that Black Fog Sword I gave you,” explains Markkio, “and if you were desperate enough, I believe you would be able to tap into the true power of your weapons.” He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Although…”
Cassim scowls at the hesitation. “What?”
“If you’re not worthy of the power they hold, then you will die.”
“No,” Cassim snaps because he’s sick of being unworthy, “I’m worthy. I’m worthy!”
The Banker smiles again. Cassim knows he can’t trust him, but at this point, he can’t even trust Alibaba.
And yet, while Markkio whispers into Cassim’s ear the secrets of his black metal vessel, Cassim realizes, acutely and uncomfortably, that they are in Alibaba’s bedroom.
-
Not fifteen minutes pass since Markkio left, but Cassim has already gone through every inch of the room. Was it a stroke of luck that Alibaba detained Cassim in his own chambers, or did Markkio intervene? But how would Markkio know what transpired in the treasury, when Cassim was sure he and Alibaba were alone?
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that Alibaba confiscated Cassim’s Black Fog Sword before their trip to Qishan, and Cassim—Cassim finds it. Under a loose tile, wrapped in a green jacket Alibaba had long outgrown, its glossy black shine beckons to Cassim.
Put me on.
It fits well on Cassim’s wrist, curve hugging the back of his hand like it was made for him. It was, it must have been, it’s his, and it’s perfect. Almost as good as that rush he gets when he and Alibaba are together, and he’s never going to have that again.
He holds the blade before him, remembering Markkio’s instructions.
He takes a deep breath and points it at his own heart.
One stroke, one splash of blood. One moment of true resolve is all he need, and that’s a piece of cake because Cassim has an iron will that he’s proud of.
But he only has one life.
It hasn’t been a fantastic life, but it wasn’t terrible. He grew up in the palace and learned more than he ever thought possible. He handled so many responsibilities in the treasury, and in turn, he changed Balbadd for the better. Before that, he had friends who respected and trusted him, even after he disappeared into the palace for years. They still beamed at him and called him “boss” when they reunited.
And Cassim has Mariam, who’s waiting for him to go back and tell her that he’s fixed it everything. He can’t leave Mariam alone in the world; not after everything he’s put her through. Cassim isn't that kind of man. He was raised better.
He knew kindness and generosity; first through Anise and then through Alibaba.
Alibaba, his friend, his brother, his sun, his past and future, the incarnation of every quality Cassim has ever envied and wanted in himself. Would Alibaba cry when Cassim dies before him? But if Cassim isn’t worthy of this power—and it wouldn’t be the first time Cassim has been deemed unworthy—then Cassim would die here alone without even seeing Alibaba again.
Cassim lowers his arm, staring at the blade. He sees the path toward victory clear ahead of him, but he can’t bring himself to follow through. There’s too much to lose. Cassim has so much to lose, and he wonders if Alibaba always feels like this. He wonders if this is what makes Alibaba pause when Cassim would have once charged onward…
“Brother!”
Mariam’s voice rings through him like a bell. He turns around in time to see her pigtails as she wraps her arms around him.
“Mariam,” he whispers, instinctively hugging her tight. He enjoys the moment, but then he’s confused. He pushes her away at arm’s length. “Mariam?! What are you doing here?”
“She came to see you.”
“Cassim, what were you doing?”
"Cassim, what you have done?!"
The servant girls approach with oil lamps, and he can see that Mariam is wearing their clothes. They sneaked her in through Alibaba’s tunnel.
“Brother, what were you going to do with your blade?” Mariam demands, her accusatory eyes looking so much like his that it startles him. “Were you going to end your own life?”
“No,” Cassim says immediately. “Mariam, I wouldn’t leave you—”
“No, you wouldn’t be so stupid!” Mariam cries, and Cassim can see her tears in the lamplight. “My brother is smart. He can think his way through any problem. He can talk his way out of everything.”
“Mariam, you're right,” Cassim pacifies, “You’re right.”
“He wouldn’t give up!”
“I won’t,” Cassim reassures her.
“And he’ll give me his sword as proof!” Mariam takes the Black Fog Sword from him. She pulls it right off his arm, and Cassim balks at that.
“Mariam! What if I need it?”
But Mariam is already headed to the door. “I’ll be whatever you need. I'll take care of the city.” She looks back at him over her shoulder. “The doves outside your window are mine. Send word when you must. Come up with a plan to save yourself. The Fog Troupe has your back.”
When she leaves, Cassim feels a little rattled. And proud. It finally clicks into place, and he wonders why he never realized before: Mariam has never stopped crying over him or the stupid things he does, but that’s why she intervenes.
She is a formidable ally, Mariam the Wonderful.
-
Morning arrives with Alibaba.
Flanked by two armed guards, the prince finds Cassim raiding his closet. Cassim finishes tying a silk sash around his waist and laughs, “What’s wrong, Alibaba? You look terrible.”
“A-and you’re fine,” Alibaba murmurs as Cassim sits back comfortably on a divan against the window. “You were at death’s door when I last saw you…” He reaches a hand out, but Cassim rejects it in favor of a dove pecking at the sill.
“Don’t,” he says coldly, without even looking at Alibaba. “Just tell me what I’m up against.”
Alibaba winces and retreats at Cassim’s Fog Troupe voice, but he nods and says, “The royal court… they want to execute you for treason.”
“Yeah, that happens when a coup fails.” Cassim is too tired to be anything more than bitter. “And guess who’s fault that is, your highness?”
Alibaba frowns at the coffee table between them.
“Just…” Cassim runs his fingers through his hair, and sighs, “Alibaba, you worthless royal. This is just like what happened before, when your father wanted you to be his heir. And here I thought you’d finally grown a backbone since then.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about…” Alibaba keeps his gaze down, wilting, but Cassim’s not done. He turns to Alibaba and gets angrier when he sees the sad mess of a prince before him.
“You captured a dungeon in Qishan. You liberated an entire household of slaves—You showed some fucking initiative without me for the first time in your goddamned life.” Cassim stands. The guards look at him nervously as he stalks around the table. They unsheathe their swords when he’s face to face with Alibaba. “But then I hand you kinghood on a silver platter, and you couldn't go through with it? Do I have to become a Magi, nail you to the throne, and pin the crown to your head as well?!”
Cassim remains the taller of them, so despite standing his ground, Alibaba still looks up to meet Cassim’s eyes. “I didn’t ask you for this.”
“You didn’t—” Cassim stops. He realizes his own error and laughs. “Damn it all,” he says, turning away, “I should’ve just taken it for myself.”
Some fight returns to Alibaba, and he shakes his head. “You were going to kill people! You were going to lead a mass cleansing against the nobles. I couldn’t let you do that,” Alibaba says, as if that’s the greatest crime Cassim could commit. As if Cassim hasn’t already done it in the Fog Troupe’s name. There are so many things Alibaba doesn’t know about Cassim, and if he knew…
If Alibaba knew of Cassim’s crimes, would he still let Cassim stay by his side?
“I thought I made it clear that a revolution would mean breaking a few eggs,” Cassim says quietly. “Did you think I was kidding?”
“What’s happened to you, Cassim?” Alibaba’s voice crackles. “You weren’t always like this.”
“No, I’ve just never let you see me like this,” says Cassim, and he feels a vicious little twinge of satisfaction when Alibaba blinks back tears. Cassim wants to cry, too, but he doesn't remember the last time he cried in front of Alibaba. He doesn't think he can start now.
Alibaba clears his throat and says with the formality of a stranger, “Your trial is tomorrow. I’ll be your counsel and speak for you.”
“The trial is a sham,” Cassim tells Alibaba. “And what the hell do you know of legal matters anyway? Once Ahbmad’s back and ready to pass down the sentence, I’m a dead man.”
“Ahbmad is dead.”
Cassim looks sharply over his shoulder. “What?”
Alibaba’s face is ashen, his eyes watery. “They found his body on the throne, tied with a sash that read… It had ‘The People Have Spoken’ on it. It was written in blood… It was still red, wet… It was his blood. They carved him up, they… umm.” He trails off, as if he has more to say, but he doesn’t know how. He shouldn’t have seen such a terrible corpse, especially not one of his brother. It’s going to stay with him.
Cassim gives him a cold nod. He says what they’re both thinking, “Someone snuck him back inside the palace. Sounds like an inside job.” Alibaba looks to him with suspicion. It’s such a foreign look on his face that Cassim can’t help but laugh, “Don’t look at me. I was here.”
“Oh. Thank god,” Alibaba whispers, and whatever poise he carried with him into the room flies right out. He stands there, bleary-eyed, swaying like a fragile stalk of wheat in the wind. Not a prince anymore, but just Alibaba, who Cassim promised Anise he would watch over.
After everything, against his better judgment, Cassim puts a hand on Alibaba’s nape and pulls him close. The boy cries on his shoulder. That blond tuft of hair tickles Cassim’s cheek. And Alibaba is warm as always. He is warm like afternoon sunlight in the library, and a little flutter of nostalgia alights in Cassim's chest. What he would give to be able to go back to that.
“You’re so soft,” Cassim tells him with a tiny, wry smile. “He treated you so badly, and yet you’re still crying over the fool.”
“He’s my brother, Cassim,” Alibaba murmurs into his hair. “We could’ve understood each other if there were just more time… If we just talked…”
Cassim doesn’t know what to say to that.
-
When Mariam returns later that afternoon, she says, “I killed him.”
Cassim looks up at Mariam from his seat on the bed, next to Alibaba’s sleeping form. Quiet as a shadow, she places her prize on Cassim’s lap.
He unwraps it: a long, black katar. It smells of smoke and blood, and it fits around his hand like a tailored glove. It’s his Black Fog Sword, covered in the late King Ahbmad’s blood.
“God, Mariam,” he marvels. “How?”
“He couldn’t hide from me in the city." She sits at his feet. “We smuggled the body back through the tunnel when no one was looking.” She rests her forehead against his thigh, silent for a long time as he stares at the red-soaked blade.
When she starts to weep, her pigtails shake.
“Mariam.” Cassim places his free hand on her head, but he’s at a loss for words. It’s strange. He always has words to turn the tides, to influence people, but it’s so hard to be that Cassim with Mariam. His throat is dry. His heart sinks uselessly to the bottom of his chest.
“I thought I would feel happier when I got my vengeance, after he drove me out of the palace—but nothing’s changed!” she sobs, her fists clenching his robes. “Killing him meant nothing. I’m still so angry, and now I’m even angrier that I didn’t get what I wanted!”
It sounds so familiar, but Cassim can't think on that right now. His mind is racing. Finally, things are working out in his favor. If only it were at his own expense and not Mariam’s. Never Mariam’s.
“Shh,” whispers Cassim. He wishes he could have at least taken the worst of it off her shoulders, but everything Cassim wanted to do for Mariam, she proved she could do by herself. She won’t wait on his promises forever, but he can still make them: “You’ll never have to kill again, I promise you. Everything will be fine,” Cassim soothes, “Go back to Zainab and Hassan now."
“Brother?”
“Mariam, you truly are wonderful. You saved my life.” he says, stroking her hair. “Now leave the rest to me... and him.”
They look at Alibaba, who snores lightly, with his limbs all tangled in the sheets.
-
Alibaba is gone the next morning.
When he returns, Cassim eyes the chains in his hands and hides behind a laugh, “The hell’s this? A joke?”
Alibaba is pale, very pale, but his eyes glitter in determination. “The jury demands you wear them if you’re to get your trial,” he mutters, gripping the iron shackles tight in his hands. “It’s… it’s a formality. I promise it won’t be long. Just enough to let us present our case…”
Cassim will not wear them.
Cassim will destroy Alibaba’s resolve before he puts the damned things on, so he drives his words into Alibaba’s heart like a dagger, “You’d put me in slave chains to make the aristocracy happy?” Alibaba flinches. The metal rattles in his grasp. Cassim knows Alibaba is thinking back to Morgiana, and he twists the knife, “Looks like you found your people after all, you bastard prince.”
And for several long seconds, Alibaba wavers. The guards accompanying him watch with baited breath. Cassim pretends to be calm, but he’s a mess inside, too. It’s Cassim’s worst nightmare—no, it’s every single one of Cassim’s nightmares. The monster in his heart is quiet and, for the first time, afraid.
“Cassim, why do you have to be like this?” the blond says miserably. Cassim watches Alibaba’s weary heart crack in front of him, and it feels good that Alibaba hurts as much as he does. It's what they both deserve.
“Lord Cassim, please listen to him. If you give them a reason to execute you today, what will happen to Balbadd tomorrow...?”
Alibaba and Cassim turn to the guards in surprise. No one has ever called him “Lord Cassim” here before. Cassim is simply “Cassim” in Balbadd.
He recognizes the two men. They joined his side during the coup and must have switched to the other after the skirmish, lying low in wait for Cassim to give new orders. Like Mariam is, and Zainab and Hassan as well. The whole Fog Troupe is waiting on him. Cassim has the embers of a revolution at his disposal, still smoldering but by no means extinguished. He remembers.
Every action he takes is for Balbadd and himself, and there are those who will follow him to the end, however bitter it may be—could be.
Victory is still possible, even if it hinges on Alibaba. Cassim is a gambling man after all, and he's good at stacking the odds in his favor.
He lifts one of the cuffs from Alibaba’s hands and weighs it pensively in his palm. “I want to speak for myself before judgment is passed.”
-
There was a collar, too.
Still decked in Alibaba’s finery and royal clothes, Cassim walks into the throne room with four heavy fetters on his limbs and one around his neck. It’s weighed down even further by the smug satisfaction of every nobleman in the chamber.
“There he is: the third prince’s pet.”
“It suits him. We should have thrown in a muzzle.”
“It’s true what they say. Once a wild dog, always a wild dog.”
“Ignore them,” whispers Alibaba.
Cassim smirks and growls at him. Let the aristocrats titter what they will. They’ll change their tune soon enough.
The trial goes exactly as Cassim predicted. Sahbmad, the only king left, sits rigid on the throne in a puddle of his own sweat, as if he had long faded into an imaginary world in his mind where no one is looking at him. The opposing barrister rings up one petty misdemeanor after another, along with false charges, backed by court grievances:
“He accepted bribes in exchange for treasury knowledge regarding taxes on the aristocracy.”
“Where’s the proof of that?” demands Alibaba.
“Yeah, which one of you nobles will admit to bribing me to do their dirty work against their friends?” asks Cassim.
“Extortion! He blackmailed his political rivals!”
“It was self-defense! Everyone here does it!” Alibaba defends, exasperated.
“They’re just pissed I got good at it, Alibaba,” Cassim replies conversationally with a dismissive wave. “C’mon, next charge.”
“He had sex for information and favors. It might as well be prostitution!”
Alibaba pauses uncomfortably and looks back at Cassim, who shrugs and says, “Last I checked, prostitution’s legal in Balbadd.”
And it goes on and on until the end. Enough little crimes and disrespect stack together to call for Cassim’s execution, but Alibaba fights valiantly for him. He begs for leniency on Cassim’s behalf, and Cassim is reminded of that afternoon in the marketplace when Anise flattened herself on the ground for his sake as well. Oh, that merchant had been so eager to thrash Cassim, who was nothing more than a worthless man’s worthless, thieving son, but Anise’s earnest pleas shamed him into letting Cassim go.
Cassim owes her so much more than this, and deep down, he knows that Alibaba deserves so much better. If only Cassim and Alibaba never left the slums, they could have lived and died as helpless commoners without this crushing responsibility over their country.
But no, the fate of Balbadd rests on the verdict of this trial, this mess that Cassim and Alibaba are in, and Alibaba is trying his best despite all that Cassim has done and will do.
“That’s enough,” Cassim whispers, remembering what he had said to Anise back then. It’d be easier to give up on a bad kid like me.
“No!” Alibaba says adamantly. “Cassim, tell them what you know from your years in the treasury. Tell them you were trying to protect the citizens from economic collapse! From slavery! Just… show them you’re good!”
“That means nothing to them,” says Cassim.
“Then show them what a mistake it would be to execute you!”
And had they still been children, Cassim would have granted him that. He would have done anything for Alibaba’s sake back then, bratty as he was, because Cassim was the oldest one. Cassim was the responsible one.
But it’s different now. Now, Alibaba has the power. And Cassim has plans.
“I plead guilty,” says Cassim, clearly and loudly.
“You plead…” King Sahbmad pauses, confused, “guilty…?”
“I plead guilty to creating and leading the Fog Troupe,” Cassim clarifies, and Sahbmad freezes. General Barkak and his men stare, slack jawed. Alibaba blinks slowly, shaking his head as if he can't understand the words Cassim uttered. The entire room falls silent as a mausoleum, save for the sound of jewelry clinking as everyone collectively grasps their pearls.
“Cassim, no, please,” whispers Alibaba, and Cassim smiles winsomely.
“And through the Fog Troupe, I killed the entire Maruf household,” he continues, to Alibaba’s protests, “as well as the Shar household, and the Peribanues, the Ryars—”
“Cassim, stop!” Alibaba grabs him.
“—the Zennans, the Bacboucs, the Haddars—” Cassim manages to rattle off before Alibaba drags him off the witness stand. The remaining nobles gather their wits and begin to demand retribution. It all echoes across the throne room in a terrific cacophony for his blood.
“—the Kuzes and the Fakiks, every one of them!” Cassim shouts as Alibaba leads him out of the great hall. “If I had it my way, you’d all be next!”
-
For all his show and pretty words, Alibaba still ends up dragging Cassim down the hall by the chain around his throat.
They run into the bedroom, and Alibaba slams the door shut behind them. He frantically piles furniture in front of it while Cassim watches from his perch on the divan by the window. Cassim feels a wicked thrill of satisfaction when Alibaba finally turns to him with panic in his eyes, “Why would you do that? Do you know what you’ve done?!”
“You still haven’t figured it out?”
“Not if you don’t tell me!” Alibaba pulls at the chain still in his grasp, yanking Cassim forward, but Cassim resists and stays in his spot.
“Think, Alibaba.”
But Alibaba doesn’t rise to the challenge. He falls back against the wall across the room and slides to the floor, letting his bright yellow head fall into his palms. Cassim scowls at him. Disappointing. It feels like the beginning of the end. It’s an uncomfortable silence.
Cassim slouches back into the divan, letting exhaustion claim him. He's bone-tired, his cravings gnawing at him from the inside out. He hasn't had a cigar in days; the withdrawal isn't mixing well with the strain over his pending execution. And there's another hunger inside that he can't quite place, but it's irritating, and Alibaba is at the root of it.
Alibaba is the first to speak, quietly, sharp as his blade, “Did you kill them all? Did you kill my brother Ahbmad?”
“I killed the nobles. Not your brother,” Cassim answers honestly, “but I’ll confess I did that, too, so I get what I want.”
“And what in the world is that, Cassim?” Alibaba moans into his hands. “What could you possibly get in exchange for that scene you made?”
“Either my execution.” Cassim smiles. “Or a royal pardon for my crimes.”
Alibaba runs a hand through his golden hair, now limp and oily from neglect and stress. Cassim’s willing to bet Alibaba hasn’t even slept in two days. “A pardon? That’s insane! I get your grudge against the aristocrats, I really do, but what you did was wrong. It was murder. Brother Sahbmad wouldn’t pardon you, not with the royal court glaring down at him. He wouldn’t...”
Cassim sighs and tugs at the chain Alibaba is still holding, pulling Alibaba across the room, drawing him in like always. And when the prince is within a breath’s distance, Cassim leans in and whispers in his ear, “But you would.”
Alibaba’s shoulders go slack. “No, I told you, no.” The chain falls from his hand in a harsh clatter. He understands. As he steps away, Cassim trips him, sending him backwards onto the rug.
And then, Cassim goes in for the kill.
He pins Alibaba down on the floor and bares his canines in a grin. “Make your claim for the throne and pardon me, or I die at dawn," he says. “At best, they’ll throw me in the dungeons for the rest of my life. Maybe they’ll ship me to Reim to die in their colosseums like some wretched slave.”
“Cassim, no—” The word does it, and Alibaba begins fumbling with a little key and the metal collar around Cassim's neck. Cassim grabs his hands and places them over his heart. Alibaba looks at him helplessly, his palms against Cassim’s chest—trapped—and he knows it.
“There are only two royals left, Alibaba. And you’re stronger than Sahbmad. You’re a good prince. You can protect me.” Cassim clasps Alibaba shoulders like he did years ago on the balcony. "You promised, remember?"
“It’s not so easy becoming king,” Alibaba protests weakly, but his fingers tighten around the robes Cassim is wearing. “I mean, who am I…? Some nobody from the slums…? Me? King?”
“So what if we’re street rats?” Cassim asks, letting Alibaba pull him down, until their foreheads touch. “Anybody can become king, remember? This time, it has to be you.”
“But I wouldn’t be a good king, Cassim. How do you know I'd be any better than Ahbmad or Sahbmad?” Alibaba looks up at him, eyes lidded, so tired of this conversation. “Everything you think is so incredible about me is fake. I’m fake.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just a nobody,” Alibaba says quietly, closing his eyes. “I couldn’t even conquer a dungeon by myself. It was Aladdin’s power that protected me. The fire in my knife came from the djinn Amon. I don’t have your ability to organize and command men. I’m not worthy… I can’t be king—”
Cassim slaps him. The chains on his wrist rattle across the stone.
“That’s not what makes you great!” Cassim must have said it a million times already. He says it one more time, this time with more honesty than he’s ever mustered: “You are worthy! I followed you to your mother’s home! I followed you to the palace! To Qishan! I’ve followed you my entire life, so if you’re unworthy, then I’m worthless!”
“I’ve been thinking, what if we make a republic,” Alibaba says quickly, “where there’s no kings—”
Cassim slaps him again, this time on the other cheek. “When did I ever ask for that?! Haven’t you heard a single thing I said?!”
“I’ll do anything else to save you,” groans Alibaba, covering his reddening face. “Even if we have to leave Balbadd and live in hiding for the rest of our lives, I’ll do anything else…”
“I’m not leaving Balbadd! I will die in this country, do you hear me?!”
“I don’t want you to die!” Alibaba wails, and he finally breaks down into ugly crying. “But you always get into trouble, and you don’t give a damn about your own life as long as you get yours! Even when the odds are against you… Y-you greedy, selfish bastard!”
Cassim blinks, taken aback, his hand frozen in mid-air for his next strike. But Alibaba has more to say:
“It’s not fair that you don’t care. It’s not fair that you can hold yourself hostage until I give in to whatever you want. I thought Qishan could change that. I thought if I took you out of your element, out of Balbadd, you wouldn’t be so reckless. But you just took over Qishan!" Alibaba jabs a finger into Cassim's chest, glaring up at him with equal resentment and respect. "And it was so easy for you! You even got me to help!”
“Well. Yeah, I…” Cassim doesn't have a response to that. He wasn't expecting it. He lowers his hand, disarmed by how much Alibaba has thought about him. About them. He doesn’t know what to say.
Alibaba makes him vulnerable, and Cassim hates that. Cassim has lashed out at Alibaba and hurt him for it. Badly, out of fear and his own bruised ego. This time, Cassim worries he might have finally broken him, and Cassim doesn’t want that. He just wanted Alibaba to stay by his side and to believe in what he believes. It shouldn’t be so hard. No one knows Alibaba better than Cassim. They should want the same thing.
That’s the audacity of his gambit, laid bare and heavy on Alibaba’s head like a crown. He wants to see where Alibaba’s so-called morals lead him. Between what is right by law and what Cassim says is right, does this prince stay true to his title or to Cassim?
Cassim bets on himself, all in, "You helped me because we're partners, Alibaba."
Their eyes are locked, gold on gold, and there’s a million things Cassim wants to say. Alibaba has made it clear that he has known forever exactly what kind of trash Cassim is underneath the finery: the greed, the ruthless ambition, and the rest of the monster inside his heart. But Alibaba extended his hand to Cassim regardless, and Cassim... Damn it all, but Cassim loves him for it. It’s a self-serving love, and Alibaba deserves better, but Cassim can’t help it.
He loves Alibaba because Alibaba is truly his, and has been all along.
"Am I always gonna have to keep you out of trouble, Cassim?" asks Alibaba. It's not an accusation, but an inside joke they both know is true.
Cassim feels that chill on his neck, but it’s kind of refreshing now, like liberation from some oppressive secret that has long cloistered itself within his chest. Like he’s invincible and on top of the throne—no, the world. He can say nothing wrong right now, so Cassim replies with a roguish smirk, "Who knows?"
Alibaba scoffs, “You always know.”
Cassim grins because Alibaba always does what he thinks is right. And what is right to Alibaba now—well, it's to side with Cassim.
-
They’ve flipped around, with Cassim on his back against the hard tiles. There’s still iron around his wrists, ankles, and neck because Alibaba lost the key, surely a coincidence, and Cassim sneers, “Uh huh. Whatever, just do what you want. I owe you my life, don't I?”
“Damn it, I wish you wouldn’t say it like that," Alibaba winces and stalls, as if worried about perverting their relationship even more than they already have. He wants Cassim, Cassim can tell, but more than that, it seems he wants permission that Cassim thought he already granted. They've redrawn their boundaries so many times that maybe it's good for Alibaba to ask one more time, even if he doesn't ask aloud.
But Cassim only has five things on his mind (he always has at least four), and the most important one is sex. And frankly, Cassim doesn't think they could possible be worse off, so he goads Alibaba on, allowing him in by mocking him, “Go ahead, your highness." Cassim lets his arms fall to his sides with a metallic clatter, defenseless. “Fuck me like I deserve.”
It’s been days, and they were terrible, frustrating days. Cassim would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about it at all. When Alibaba finally sinks into him, and it's hot and hurts just right, Cassim realizes with some degree self-loathing that this was exactly what he needed.
All he wants in this moment is to trust Alibaba again, and even if they can never go back to what they were, Cassim will take what he can get because it's Alibaba, and he really is the one thing Cassim can't live without. Blame his greed, his selfish love. He knows he can’t hoard Alibaba and his radiance to himself, but this is enough. It’s enough for Cassim, this desperate, angry passion that Cassim half-wants, half-owes Alibaba for all his trouble.
But when Alibaba tries to kiss him, Cassim bites, damn you, you know me too well, and you ruin me, until Alibaba withdraws with a bleeding lip. Cassim will only kiss on his own terms; Alibaba on top and trying to make peace between them does not comply, not when the disgusting clinking of chains on stone reminds Cassim of how powerless he is without Alibaba.
It wasn’t always like this. It started the day he took Alibaba’s hand and followed him to the palace. Cassim has been caged ever since, but back then, he was too young to see the shackles. If he hadn't let Alibaba pull him along, maybe things would be different...
Cassim doesn’t let himself contemplate the what-ifs, or else they’ll both cry this time.
Alibaba is gentler than he has any right to be. It’s infuriating, and it makes Cassim’s heart ache so badly that he wants to tear it out. Alibaba keeps looking down at him, unsure, like he doesn’t know where they went wrong, and maybe he can still fix them if he makes the right choice, if he says the right thing. Maybe they can go back to being all right again.
"Just go faster." Cassim lies between his teeth, "I want to get this over with as soon as possible."
"Sorry," says Alibaba contritely, and he steals a kiss when Cassim comes. Bastard.
The sex is about as great and terrible as Cassim expects. When it’s over, he pushes Alibaba off with an annoyed grunt and pulls a pin from his ponytail. He unlocks the cuffs with an ease that makes Alibaba groan, “Why couldn’t you have just done that to begin with?”
Cassim laughs, and it sounds as tired and hollow as he feels. “What, wasn't it part of the fun?” He drops the fetters on the ground. It makes an awful clatter, leaving them in a solid minute of silence like a bad aftertaste.
Then, Alibaba says, “I love you.”
And Cassim says, “Shut up.”
Alibaba sniffles miserably next to him on the floor for another five minute before Cassim punches him in the shoulder. Alibaba returns it. Cassim shoves him, and Alibaba shoves back. It turns into a weary, half-assed horizontal fight until Cassim rolls on top of Alibaba and pins his wrists to the ground. Alibaba doesn't fight back. Cassim has already won, and that puts him in a good mood.
“When you’re king,” Cassim promises cheerfully, “I’m gonna nail you on the throne.”
“But first, you’ll help me fix everything, right?” Alibaba casually hooks his legs around Cassim's waist and looks up at him with those impossibly bright eyes. Alibaba is guarded now, but also a tiny bit hopeful. Same old Alibaba, cunning in ways Cassim has only glimpsed before, but sweet as morning dew. Cassim's heart flutters a little like white butterflies, and he doesn't know why, but somehow, they've made up once more, even if not completely. Even if they have a ways to go until everything is okay again.
It feels like their confused jumble of a relationship might work out after all, and Cassim holds on to that hope. A glimmer of light in the dark.
"I'll fix everything." Cassim smiles and kisses him hard. “Don’t I always?”
-
Alibaba claims the crown and becomes the dynasty’s twenty-fourth ruler.
And he is magnificent.
“I pardon your crimes, Cassim,” Alibaba says from the high throne. “You’re a free man.”
Cassim lets the bailiff cut the rope from his wrists. A formality. He looks up at the golden king—his golden king—and he says, “So, King Alibaba has granted me a royal pardon and will spare my life by exiling me to the Central Desert. Is that how it works?”
Alibaba nods. "That is the protocol." The murmurs rise from the audience like the swell of an angry storm. Alibaba lifts his chin, prepared for whatever Cassim throws his way.
Cassim shoots him a look, let me do the talking. Alibaba nods again, this time imperceptibly so to anyone but Cassim.
Cassim makes his case, “I hear the Banker has disappeared. At this point, no one has more experience in Balbadd’s treasury than me.”
The aristocrats flare up, shouting him down.
“Embezzler!”
“Thief!”
Alibaba waves a hand at them. It’s not entirely pathetic. Already an improvement from King Sahbmad. Cassim can work with this.
“You said yourself that I am an asset to the country. I’m more connected to the citizens than anyone else in the palace,” Cassim continues, and again, the objections rise.
“Bandit! Gutter scum!”
“Fog Troop trash!”
“The redevelopment project will also tank without me. That’s something Balbadd’s people can’t afford. After promising them so much, can you imagine ripping the hope right from their hearts?” Cassim reminds them. “Why else do you think it was so easy for me to form the Fog Troupe in the first place? The people will revolt if I’m not here to oversee it.”
“And as their founder, are you saying you wouldn’t instigate a revolt yourself?” General Barkak demands from the foot of the throne.
Cassim smirks. “Ask any commoner in Balbadd, and they’ll tell you that the Fog Troupe is independent of me. It has a new leader, and they will continue what I started even if I’m gone.”
“It will mean a civil war,” Alibaba realizes. They hadn’t gone over that.
“And there’s more of them outside the palace than us within,” says Cassim. He sums it up simply, “Deny me, and you will all die.”
Check and mate. Finally, Cassim wins this stupid, dangerous game he started when he entered the royal court at age fourteen.
A dumbfounded silence falls across the room when it finally dawns on everyone that Cassim’s unwavering dedication to public service was just a front to take them all hostage. Alibaba positively glares at him from the throne, and Cassim remembers that he neglected to mention it while they were rolling around on Alibaba’s rug. Oversights do happen.
“You could have used that to defend yourself in trial,” Alibaba says quietly, exasperated. “You wouldn’t have been executed because we would have needed you alive.”
Cassim smiles at Alibaba. You know why.
You jerk. Alibaba leans forward on the throne, and there’s a glimmer of familiarity. Of perfection. He knows what Cassim is planning, but can Alibaba still trust him? Cassim wonders that, too. “What are you offering me for the good of Balbadd, Cassim?”
“A king needs an advisor,” Cassim declares, extending a hand to Alibaba. “Considering Balbadd’s current situation with its finances and citizens, you can’t do better than me as your first.”
The elites roar from their seats, decrying corruption and nepotism. The guards tighten their grasp on their spears, but some are Cassim's men. Cassim’s gaze flicks around the room casually before landing on the king, who is definitely Cassim's man. Alibaba breathes in, then out, letting the tension ease from his shoulders.
Just like that, Cassim thinks, and copies him. The shouts from the nobles pass right through them, and for a brief moment, it’s like they’re connected once more, partners in crime. Complicit in taking over a country. Saving it, if Cassim has anything to say about that.
When Alibaba lifts his scepter, the cacophony dies. Cassim knew all along that Alibaba would wear the gold of kinghood well, and he’ll do even better with Cassim whispering in his ear.
“So shall it be written, so shall it be done,” says Alibaba, using the decree passed down from his forefathers to him.
Cassim bows. He ascends the steps all the way to Alibaba’s side, smiling to a hiss of malcontent beneath them.
Notes:
Thanks for joining me (and Cassim) on this journey! I hope you enjoyed these four chapters. The story really took on a life of its own just a few weeks after I set out to write it. When I began the first draft, it had a working title of "king's advisor AU." As you can see, that narrative didn't quite pan out. All the same, it was very cathartic to write. Writing Cassim, especially, was incredibly satisfying. I'm sorry that he did not turn out to be a better person, but we sure did our best, didn't we?
I should also mention that I ended this chapter much earlier than I had originally intended. I felt the last scene was a more suitable ending in terms of the story arc that's been building up since Chapter 1. Plus, character casualties were at a minimum compared to canon! (Sorry, Ahbmad.)
With that said, there is technically a Chapter 5 in my mind, in which Cassim is King Alibaba's morally gray advisor when Sinbad, Jafar, and Masrur arrive at Balbadd with Aladdin and Morgiana. If that is something you would like to read, please leave a comment. Otherwise, farewell until we meet again! :)
Chapter 5
Summary:
In which the fate of Balbadd hinges on a rigged election. Letters are exchanged.
Notes:
The final chapter! It’s been a year since the last, and I truly thank you for your patience. This was the longest chapter to write, but it is here. Enjoy!
Some warnings for this chapter: blood and violence typical in canon. After the election are SPOILERS UP TO THE SECOND BALBADD ARC. Also, intercrural sex.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Alibaba’s voice cracks: “They want me to marry a Kou princess?”
Cassim grinds his teeth.
Even while under fire from the royal court, who were none too happy with his sudden ascent to power, Cassim dedicated exactly half a year to strengthening the country’s defenses. He’s been running in and out of the palace every day, overseeing one project or another, and it’s wearing him thin.
Alibaba, too, has been traveling around Balbadd since his coronation. The people see what Cassim sees in him, and so Cassim has faith that he will rebuild their trust in the crown. The two of them have much to show for their efforts: a strong government, a better economy, a happy citizenry… Cassim was prepared for every angle of attack.
Except a marriage treaty.
-
“Now what?”
The meeting is adjourned and the Kou messenger sent away. Cassim approaches and undraws the curtains around the throne, enclosing the two of them in quiet darkness. Alibaba is different on display than in private. He’s learned to put on a new mask in the past few months, and it’s a sharp one befitting a king. His eyes are cold, his voice brisk and austere; he is winter morning at sea.
“I can’t force a princess to marry me, Cassim.”
And yet when they’re alone, and Cassim’s voice is gentle, Alibaba slumps back and rubs the bridge of his nose, waiting. Waiting for Cassim to speak, waiting for Cassim to pull him out of the mess they barreled into hand-in-hand.
“You’re too soft.” He walks to Alibaba and leans in, close enough to feel his warmth. He cups a hand behind Alibaba’s neck, underneath that crown of gold he fought for, tooth and nail, in order to place on Alibaba’s head. “You know what I’m going to say…”
But that’s when Hassan and Zainab throw open the curtains. “Cassim, urgent message from—!” They stop mid-sentence when they see Cassim more or less climbing into Alibaba’s lap. Hassan is a perfect silhouette of tense confusion. Zainab is the first to recover. She quickly pulls the curtains back into place behind her and says, “Urgent message from Mariam.”
They stare, unabashed.
Cassim drapes an arm across Alibaba’s shoulders and squeezes haphazardly into the seat. Alibaba’s heart beats fast; Cassim can feel it against his own chest. He knows what this looks like, and since the rumors are not entirely untrue, he flashes the couple a grin. “What? You two looking to join in or something?”
“God, Cassim!” Alibaba hides his face in embarrassment. No doubt he has heard the whispers behind his back, too.
Cassim had Hassan and Zainab inducted into the royal guard the moment he gained his office, and it was the right call. They’re Cassim’s most loyal friends, and he has counseled them through countless breakups and makeups. There’s little they don’t share between the three of them. But this time, when Zainab and Hassan exchanges glances, Cassim gets the distinct impression that maybe they’ve discussed this scenario without him.
“Okay, but can Alibaba sit out a round?” asks Hassan.
Cassim kicks a shoe at them.
-
“Three men arrived in Balbadd with a king’s ransom in jewelry,” Zainab briefs Cassim as they walk down the hall. “Mariam’s scouts flagged them down. Suspicious bastards, all three of ‘em.”
“Mariam,” Cassim grunts, annoyed. “Where is that girl? I haven’t heard a thing from her in days.”
“The Fog Troupe is still intact because she runs a tight ship,” Alibaba interjects quickly from his side. “You should be proud that she’s so independent! Plus, she’s saving a you a ton of time, right?”
Cassim has to concede to that.
“Sa’id says they’re from the Central Desert,” says Hassan, offering him a cigar. “They’ve had dealings with slave traders. Maybe they know something about that Fanalis girl that you’re waiting for.”
“Morgiana.” Cassim opens the door to the Troupe’s unofficial quarters and smirks at Alibaba. “Maybe you’ll get to choose your own bride after all.”
Alibaba beams at him. “I’m holding you to that.”
Morgiana or an imperial princess. Between his lifelong experience counseling Hassan and Zainab, and a rather short but successful stint as a little matchmaker in the slums, Cassim is confident that one of those two girls will be a perfect bride for Alibaba—especially if their relationship blossoms under his care. Now, if only Mariam would let him interfere with her love life, too…
As Cassim follows Alibaba inside, an elderly Troupe leader approaches. It’s Old Karim, who oversees the northern division of the Fog Troupe. “Lord Cassim, we seemed to have run into some trouble with the ballots.” Cassim’s brows rise at the noble title.
“Sorry, Lord Cassim has a few other things to deal with today.” Alibaba smiles kindly and redirects the man to a young lieutenant in the crowd.
“Idiot.” Cassim elbows Alibaba lightly in the ribs. “Are you the one telling people to call me that?”
“Do you prefer ‘lordling?’” Alibaba asks innocently.
With a withering look, Cassim nods to the crowd of Fog Troupe men in the room. “Get lost. Royalty shouldn’t be caught in a group as infamous as the Troupe.” Alibaba sticks out his tongue impudently, and Cassim snorts at that. “What are you? Six? Get lost, brat.”
And so, blond hair disappears under a shabby scarf, and the king fades into the Troupe. Cassim grins at the little bounce in Alibaba’s steps. Alibaba is happy. Their relationship is mending. Cassim’s plans are moving forward, bit by bit. Things will be okay.
Invigorated, Cassim turns and finds a seat in the center of the room. Tariq and Sa’id lead three men through the door: one slouching giant, one average blond, and one small man with a distinctly familiar mustache. Tariq removes their blindfolds, and the moment they lay eyes on Cassim, they squawk in unison: “IT’S YOU!”
“Ah?” Cassim eyes them suspiciously. “Have we met?”
The eldest—the mustachioed man—points at him with the fury of a slighted alley cat. “You thief, you left us to die in the desert!”
Oh. The herd of bandits from Central Desert. They survived after all. Cassim sits back, amused, to the laughter of his men. “And what are you doing in my Balbadd?”
“Brother, please back down,” the middle brother mutters in dismay. “You know what they say about the Fog Troupe…” Cassim remembers his blond hair. It’s not as lustrous as Alibaba’s in the daylight.
“What are you doing in Balbadd?” Cassim says again, this time sharply.
“Ahhh, well… We ask that you look into the utmost goodness of your heart to let us, the SML Nando Brothers, join you in your great organization,” the oldest simpers so suddenly that Cassim can almost hear the treacherous little thoughts in the bandit’s head scurry like mice. Cassim isn’t concerned. This is a man he can outmaneuver in his sleep, if Cassim actually slept, that is.
“Join the Fog Troupe. Follow our rules,” he replies. “You’ll be my eyes and ears around Balbadd.”
“Yes, sir!” they agree heartily.
Cassim takes another puff from his cigar and sits back, crossing one leg over the other. “Now, there’s the matter of the treasure you were carrying with you.” He grins. “Let’s call it an initiation fee for welcoming you into our fold.”
The three scowl mightily when Sa’id brings their stolen jewelry to Cassim’s side. Seven golden pieces. Cassim only needs one look at them before he recognizes their power. He covers them. “Take it all to the treasury,” he says calmly, passing them over to a hooded man, who bows and leaves.
Cassim smirks again; Alibaba the Actor.
“Did he say the ‘treasury?’” the blond Nando brother whispers to the others. “Just how far did the Fog Troupe infiltrate the palace?”
Cassim, the royal treasurer, stands and follows the king and jewelry out the door.
-
It was a mere four years ago that he was on the other side of the desk: roughed up and unsure of his future. Now he’s behind it, wearing the treasurer’s sash, powerful, his fingers looped in exquisite rings.
And yet he’s still unsure. He clicks through the ivory stones on his abacus irritably while his assistants scribble numbers around him.
A letter lies flat on his desk. It’s from the former king Sahbmad, and it arrived yesterday. Alibaba translated its Toran contents to a cheerful message: Sinbad has left Sindria to go to Balbadd in order to discuss trade negotiations. Cassim had thought nothing of it at the time, but now it explains the sudden appearance of seven Metal Vessels, which could only belong to Sinbad, High King of Sindria.
Cassim crumples the letter and throws it away because that man is already knocking at their front door, requesting an audience with the king. With Alibaba. Damn it all. Sahbmad must have sent the messenger merely a day ahead of Sinbad’s entourage. What was the point of even exiling him to Sindria if he can’t even act as a proper spy?
Sinbad is here. The fact sinks in hard. Sinbad, Conqueror of the Seven Seas. Sinbad, Alibaba’s Childhood Hero, is here.
And Cassim has his treasure.
I trapped myself, he realizes, and the scribbling sounds like rats scratching at the walls. How will it look that we have his Metal Vessels? Will he accuse me of stealing them and use this as an excuse to twist negotiations, to declare war?
Because once a thief, always a thief, isn’t that right? Cassim knows how nobles think, and Balbadd can’t handle two foreign kings trying to control her.
“Zainab, did you hide that stuff those bandits nabbed?” Cassim says when she runs into the room, out of breath. “Wait, do you have your Crimson Fog Sword?”
“I did, deep in the palace. A-and it’s no use, Cassim,“ she says as Alibaba appears in the doorway of the treasury. “I tried my sword when they came, but the crimson fog doesn’t work on Sinbad.”
“Of course, it doesn’t,” Cassim sighs into his palms. But there’s nothing to be done.
Ill-prepared and sleep-deprived, he turns to Alibaba, whose golden eyes are electric with glee. “Cassim,” says Alibaba, “I’m bringing in Sinbad.”
-
They say since trade is so intertwined with Balbadd’s culture, it’s a given that any conversation will somehow turn to commerce. The smallest child is taught that it’s rude to talk numbers without exchanging the appropriate pleasantries:
“Calm waters today.”
“How is your family?”
“Catch anything good?”
“Balbadd has not yet resumed trade with Sindria.”
Sinbad, however, dives straight to the point. Power play, cultural differences, or just a tactless move, Cassim can’t tell, but he can see why Zainab’s red fog has no power on this man. Sinbad’s will is too strong, unbendable, and it suits his legend. On his right stands a parchment-pale man in a green headdress who eyes Cassim like a cobra waiting to strike—the one known as Ja’far. To their left is a large, scarlet-haired man who sniffs and narrows his red eyes, startlingly reminiscent of Morgiana. That must be the Fanalis Masrur, whom Sinbad rescued from Reim’s colosseum.
To Cassim’s annoyance, he and Alibaba mindlessly mirror Sinbad’s positioning as if on instinct, with Alibaba sitting at Cassim’s desk across from the other king. The Sindrians also outnumber them three to two: another disadvantage. Cassim is considering his words when Sinbad continues, “I want to help you. What can Sindria do to speed up the process?”
“You want to help Balbadd as a country… or me as the ruler?” asks Alibaba.
What a weird and wobbly way to word a question. Cassim wants to hold Alibaba’s hand, steady him, and give him strength. But he also wants to smack him on the head and tell him not to sound so damned weak. Torn, he refrains from either, and when Sinbad grants Alibaba a brilliant, reassuring smile, Cassim feels more annoyed.
Sinbad says, “King Alibaba, I believe this is the first time I am seeing you in person.” Alibaba nods hesitantly. “Your father Harun—ah, the late King Rashid, always spoke highly of you. He was my mentor in mercantilism. I owe him a debt that I would like to repay to his son.”
The monster idling in Cassim’s heart begins to stir, murmuring the little insecurities Cassim thought he had finally quashed: hide Alibaba, keep him away from Sinbad, who will seduce him because Alibaba has always admired Sinbad, and how can Cassim possibly compete with the great Conqueror of the Seven Seas, who is offering Alibaba advice from his own dead father?
Scandalous rumors aside, Cassim is nothing more, as far as anyone else is concerned. Nothing more than Alibaba’s treasurer and advisor, a childhood friend, a former brother… Sinbad, however, is yet another dazzling, powerful man who wants to take Alibaba under his wing.
Royalty, of all things. The déjà vu smarts like a slap.
“We got to this point by ourselves.” Cassim’s temper gets the best of him, and he will not be strong-armed by a mere man’s reputation. “We don’t need any help.”
Sinbad regards Cassim with a cool eye, as if he had underestimated Cassim’s sway on Alibaba and is crafting his response accordingly. “How old are you? Eighteen? I can see you’re ambitious, but you’re only a boy.”
Boy. Cassim fights back a flinch. He was a boy four years ago when he entered the palace, and he has since grown into the most well-connected man in Balbadd. His mask slips, his hurt pride shows, and Sinbad seizes the opportunity to dig in deeper.
“You’re both children. King Alibaba was the third prince—the youngest of Rashid’s three sons. He’s been on the throne for barely half a year, so let us help you.”
“We’re fine,” Cassim says through gritted teeth.
“You think ambition and luck is enough to conquer all obstacles?” Sinbad is relentless. “I was your age not that long ago. I know you think yourselves invincible, but you could gain more from my experience than from your own mistakes.”
And who is Cassim—commoner, street rat, boy—to argue against the wisdom of a king?
“Luck? Do not patronize me,” he argues all the same. Sinbad is nothing more than another aristocrat throwing his weight—another pig-headed king. “You don’t know what Alibaba and I went through to get here. You don’t know how hard we worked to rebuild Balbadd.” Cassim had to set the government ablaze, and he’d do it again to protect Balbadd. If Sinbad oversteps his place, then Cassim will make him disappear under smoke and fire as well.
Sinbad tenses. “Hey, now… Calm down.”
“Sin,” warns the man in green.
“You walk in, expecting a cut of what we saved from the rubble Ahbmad left us,” Cassim snarls as the world darkens around him. His face is hot. His ears burn. Damn Sinbad seven separate ways to hell, one for each of his goddamned items, choking on his own conceit the whole way down—Cassim just wants him to disappear.
“Cassim, stop.” Alibaba’s voice cuts through the haze of anger like a hot blade. “Give them our conditions.”
His breath catches in his throat. He looks to Alibaba, and repeats, “’Our conditions?’”
Alibaba nods, smiling broadly to Sinbad. “I wouldn’t agree to any trade negotiations without the expertise of my treasurer. I should warn you: our Cassim—he drives a hard bargain, so I hope you’re ready.”
Those confident, teasing words lift a weight off his shoulders so suddenly that Cassim feels like he’s gazing at everyone anew with a clear head. He looks away, embarrassed by his own outburst. He’s the older one, the calculating one, who has everyone wrapped around his little finger. At least, he should be. But Alibaba is bright like a beacon, and Cassim must step aside to let him shine.
“Of course. Given our nations’ history, we ought to get along well.” Sinbad beams. “Now, King Alibaba, I couldn’t help but notice that you have a Metal Vessel at your side.”
Now at ease, Alibaba pats his enchanted dagger fondly with a sheepish grin. “Yeah… But it’s nothing compared to your seven.”
Sinbad mirrors Alibaba’s smile with a rehearsed sort of charm. “That actually brings us back to another favor I must ask of you. On my way to Balbadd to rendezvous with my men here, I lost all seven of my Metal Vessels to some exceptionally sneaky thieves. Professional bandits.”
Alibaba hums an awkward note, exchanging glances with Cassim. Cassim realizes the opportunity at hand and nods. It will sound better coming from Alibaba.
Grinning, the blond turns back to Sinbad. “So, here’s a funny story,” he begins, and Cassim bites back a laugh.
-
Originally, Cassim wanted to use Sinbad’s Metal Vessels for economic and political leverage, but he and Alibaba end up exchanging them for, lacking a better term, magic sword lessons. Cassim hates to admit it, but if Alibaba is to learn how to invoke his djinn, he might as well learn from the best.
In the courtyard, Alibaba shows Sinbad the extent of his swordplay. Ja’far and Cassim observe from Cassim’s usual spot from the covered bridge, and Masrur naps on the roof above them.
Cassim’s mind is racing as usual. He doesn’t have time to watch Sinbad knock Alibaba around the ring, nor does he want to. He still needs to figure out a way to use the Kou’s marriage treaty to his advantage while keeping Alibaba happy. After all, it’s far better to marry into the empire’s power than to fight it. But Cassim must prevent them from turning Alibaba into Ahbmad—a dangling puppet king. Worst case scenario: they send a shrewd wife who is exactly Alibaba’s type. Cassim might not be able to intervene if she convinces Alibaba to give himself over to her beck and call. God. Cassim could see himself actually murdering her, and frankly, that would create a whole new problem.
Can’t things ever be easy?
“Despite the rocky start, I’d say our visit to Balbadd has proven highly beneficial,” says Ja’far suddenly, glancing over to him.
Cassim draws a mouthful of smoke from his cigar and gives the barest of a damn. “Mm-hm.”
Ja’far raises a pale eyebrow and tries again, “I’m told that you’re quite accomplished, a true rags-to-riches story like my king.”
Cassim scoffs at the shameless compliment. “None of those stories are true.”
“Whose?” Ja’far has a fake friendliness that annoys Cassim, “His or yours?”
“Between novels and rumors… Both.” Cassim turns on his heel, toward the treasury and away from Ja’far’s distractions. “I bet Sinbad told you to gain my trust and oil the hinges of our economic relationship, but don’t force yourself. I’m sick of diplomacy, but I’m not stupid. I know Sindria and Balbadd trade well together, so you’ll get your trade route eventually.”
“King Sinbad did indeed tell me to befriend you,” Ja’far allows, “but to gain an ally in you, not a pawn. We know that the Kou has been pressuring Balbadd lately, and we believe an independent Balbadd is better for Sindria’s Seven Seas Alliance. My king wishes for me to teach you how to use your Household Vessel in self-defense.”
Cassim knows it’s bait, but he stops mid-step and looks back over his shoulder anyway. “My what?”
“When King Alibaba captures a dungeon with a comrade and gains the Metal Vessel within,” says Ja’far, “that comrade may draw upon the power of the Metal Vessel through a Household Vessel.”
“I was… there with Alibaba when he got his Metal Vessel,” Cassim says slowly, “but I didn’t keep any of the treasure.”
“A Household Vessel, like a Metal Vessel, is any metal object that has a strong significance to its owner. It could be anything at all,” says Ja’far, revealing a metal dart beneath his sleeve. He slips it back in the blink of an eye, but Cassim saw how sharp it was under its red wraps. Subtle. “You could have even brought it with you into the dungeon.”
But Cassim isn’t wearing anything he wore in Qishan. “How do you even know I have one?”
“You used it,” says Ja’far, surprised. “Back in the treasury, before we began negotiations, we saw your earrings glow. The entire room filled with an oppressive black smoke until King Alibaba spoke.” He folds his arms across his chest, and Cassim’s shoulders stiffen.
Of course, the earrings. The red gold hoops Alibaba gave to Cassim years ago, that he’s still wearing, a gift Cassim had returned as a sister set in jade to Alibaba. God, no wonder rumors are flying. Even the foreigners could tell there’s something going on by their earrings alone.
“It’s an unusual method,” Ja’far continues, “but there’s potential in it. I can train you.”
“Huh.” Cassim wasn’t expecting that. Of course, he would be foolish not to accept such a good offer when Alibaba was training under Sinbad.
“What do you call it?” asks Ja’far.
Cassim glances back down to the courtyard, where Alibaba wipes the sweat off his golden brow, and he knows instantly, as if he had known all along, “Amol Taj.”
“Taj,” Ja’far repeats, amused. “‘Crown.’”
“Everything I do is for the crown,” Cassim says honestly.
-
At first, Cassim learns faster than Alibaba. When it comes to combat, Cassim has always been a quick study. Alibaba’s jealousy is a treat, complete with pouts. It’s delicious. Watching Alibaba sulk makes Cassim cocky, which in turn makes Ja’far downright ruthless. By sundown, Cassim is hopelessly tangled in miles of red string, and Alibaba is starting to look down at him in pity.
“Don’t,” Cassim warns gruffly, his face pressed onto the floor. Wordlessly, Alibaba cuts him free from the red string, but Cassim knows he’s gloating on the inside.
When it’s all said and done, and the Sindrians have roamed off to enjoy the gardens, Alibaba pulls Cassim to his feet. “Hey, Cassim,” he says. “Since you have a Household Vessel, you should know I’ll always keep my Metal Vessel close to me—so, you have my power.” His cheeks are rosy, and his eyes are dewy in the moonlight. He’s somehow awkward and charming at the same time. “I can finally protect you, even if we’re far apart.”
Cassim remembers their promise on the balcony, the buzz of aristocrats beneath them, the twinkle of stars above. The blue silk on Alibaba’s sleeves had been cool to the touch, and Cassim smiles at him—both the Alibaba from his memory and the one standing before him. “There’s no need for that, Alibaba. You promised me that you’d always be with me anyway.”
“Ahh, I guess I did…” Alibaba turns red and scrunches his nose sheepishly, “Listen, there’s something important I want to have a long talk with you about. Properly. You and me.”
Cassim hasn’t seen Alibaba look quite so vulnerable in a long time. On one hand, it’s a good sign; Alibaba is still his. On the other, it could begin a conversation Cassim is reluctant to have—that confusing, painful talk about what they are to each other. Their relationship as a whole is better left without words to describe it because if Alibaba finds them, Cassim is sure he’ll leave. No matter how much Alibaba loves him, it doesn’t change the fact that they are two very different people, and it'll wear away at that love like sand against limestone, until there’s nothing left. Until Alibaba is tired and resentful of Cassim clawing at everything good about them.
Cassim redirects, “Is this about marrying the Kou princess? Relax. I’ll still be here with you no matter what kind of person she is. We’ll figure it out.”
“It’s about Balbadd. I was talking to Sinbad during practice, and I think I have a solution…”
“I don’t want to talk about Sinbad,” Cassim says irritably.
And then a red meteorite crashes between them.
Cassim is not one who’s easily knocked down, but that takes him by surprise. When he comes to, he pushes himself up with a snarl. He sees a white dress and a familiar flash of red in the moonlight. Not a meteorite, no—
“Morgiana?!”
-
Cassim stumbles into the Fog Troupe lounge and barks orders, “Wake up! She’s taken him! Find him!” He takes some comfort in how quickly everyone scrambles to their feet without even an inkling of what’s he’s going on about.
-
“Top floor, king's suite,” says Zainab. It’s a relief to have an exact location.
Mariam’s intel officers lead them to the finest hotel in Balbadd. Cassim casts a glance about, memorizing the personnel and security out of habit. In truth, he already knows the floorplans. This building was one of the Fog Troupe’s first targets, and they had made their escape from the roof.
“Lord Treasurer, how may I help you?” The owner greets him warmly. Once a lowly janitor with an axe to grind with the original proprietor, he eagerly joined the Troupe from the very beginning.
“Seems like you’re doing well.” Cassim grins, and the man nods graciously. “Listen, my king is in the penthouse with a young lady. I’m here to pick him up.”
“You have my utmost discretion, my lord,” the man replies and produces a key.
As Cassim, Zainab, and Hassan ascend the stairs, Zainab muses thoughtfully, “When did everyone start calling you ‘lord?’”
-
With his ear pressed against the door and Ja’far tugging at his robes, King Sinbad of the Seven Seas, looks up blankly from where he’s kneeling. “Oh, if it isn’t Cassim the Treasurer.”
“Enjoying the show, majesty?” Cassim wrinkles his nose in mock disgust, although he can’t really see Alibaba and Morgiana doing anything scandalous when they’ve only had brief and perilous encounters.
Ja’far turns red. “It’s nothing untoward! This hotel is where we happen to be staying the night. We had no idea that our guest would bring King Alibaba here!”
Interesting; that means somehow, Morgiana managed to meet Sinbad on her way to Balbadd. The world is full of serendipities. Cassim glances back to Sinbad, who’s still sitting at the door. “That doesn’t explain the eavesdropping.”
“Just trying to find a lull in the conversation to enter. It’s common courtesy after all,” Sinbad assures him jovially. “Alibaba has been telling a charming story about how you met and became inseparable.”
“That blabbermouth…” Cassim turns to the double doors and kicks them open, to Sinbad’s dismay. Alibaba doesn’t even get a chance to look around before Cassim plants a foot into his back and stomps him face first into the carpet. “We’re going home.”
“And there he is…” Alibaba mumbles with a weak wave in Cassim’s general direction. Cassim looks up to see Morgiana and Aladdin staring up at him from the floor, mouths agape.
“It’s Mr. Prince!” Aladdin chirps. Then, with a little more thought, “Ah, but I guess you weren’t really a prince, so… I should call you Mr. Cassim?”
“Hello,” says Morgiana with the somber formality of an entire funerary procession.
“Cassim, stop digging your foot in my back,” says Alibaba.
“Stop telling strangers our life story,” Cassim replies, positively grinding his heel into Alibaba’s spine.
“They’re my friends,” protests Alibaba, squirming, and Cassim scowls at that.
He flips Alibaba over with a kick. “You’ve known them for less than a year.”
“Well, now they’re all caught up!”
Cassim bites his tongue. He waits a moment to cool off and then repeats, “We’re going home.”
Before he can lead Alibaba to the door, Morgiana rises to her feet, and the entire floor shudders under her footsteps. “He can stay if he wants,” she says as she stands in his way. “He’s the king after all.”
“That’s right,” says Aladdin, blissfully unaware of the darkening mood in the room. “And he said he’s gonna travel with us and capture more dungeons!”
Cassim looks at Aladdin with the patience he only reserves for Mariam and small children. And Alibaba. “Sorry, kid. He’s the king. He has to stay and look after Balbadd.”
Aladdin frowns, confused. “But can’t you do that instead of him?”
The adults in the room look at him, shocked to silence by the earnest suggestion of usurpation.
Aladdin glances about, suddenly aware of the shift. “Well, it just seemed to me from how Alibaba described everything… You’re the one in charge, and Alibaba even doesn’t wanna be king, so...”
So now, it’s not a suggestion but a confirmation.
Cassim’s grip on Alibaba’s arm tightens. Alibaba freezes next to him, as if bracing for impact.
“Amol Taj,” says Cassim, and the room fills with smoke.
-
They race down the street with Hassan and Zainab not too far behind, all of them trailing black fog behind.
“You’re such a fool, I swear you’re going to be the death of me!” Cassim scolds mercilessly as Alibaba continues to cough up a lung. “You made it sound like you’re incompetent and I’m a snake just waiting to steal the throne! In front of the Magi—the foreign king! In front of the Magi, who then told the foreign king that he thinks you’re incompetent and that I’m trying to steal the—”
“You’re overreacting!” Alibaba snaps, and Cassim stops, whirls around, and clotheslines him. Alibaba lands on his back, barely able to catch his breath before Cassim straddles him.
“Are you drunk?! “ Cassim hisses, striking Alibaba wherever he can. “You know you can’t keep secrets when you’re drunk!”
“I’m—not—drunk!” Alibaba cries, fending off Cassim while Hassan and Zainab pry them apart. “A-and you can’t just start whaling on me in the streets—not like we did when we were kids!” Alibaba rises to his feet, indigant. “I’m the king now! Remember?”
Cassim throws off Hassan’s large hands and says coldly, “Remember how you got here.”
He turns and walks back to the palace by himself with a dark mantra repeating in his head: ungrateful, ungrateful, ungrateful…
-
Later that night when Alibaba arrives at Cassim’s chambers, Cassim’s maids turn him away.
-
Markkio returns the next day.
“Balbadd is always so humid!” Cassim recognizes his voice in an instant, lowering his scroll just as Markkio walks past him across the throne room. The banker removes the veil in front of his face to greet the guest of honor, Sinbad. “Ah, legendary king of Sindria. Markkio, Balbadd’s banker.”
“It’s a pleasure,” says Sinbad with a thoughtful tilt of his head. “Have we met before?”
Cassim steps forward, determined to cut the conversation short and regain control of the royal court, but an unfamiliar dark-haired man shoves him aside, “Outta my way!” Cassim catches himself, but the scroll clatters on the ground noisily. He glares at the man in fury. Probably from northern Kou, judging by skin tone and his accent, but his black clothes edge closer to Sindrian fashion. His long, thick braid follows him like a scorpion’s tail.
“Judar?” Sinbad’s eyes widen at the sight of the stranger. “Why are you in Balbadd?”
“Allow me to introduce Lord Judar.” Markkio sweeps down in a low bow as Judar hops to his side. “The Kou Empire’s high priest.”
Sinbad’s thick brows knit in unease, and his mouth seals into a thin line. Ja’far and Masrur remain silent, but their stances shift ever so subtly to favor their weapons. Cassim looks to Alibaba on the throne, and they nod to each other: I’ve got this.
“So, you’re king, huh?” Judar turns his attention to Alibaba. “Guess that makes you the one Kougyoku’s marrying.”
“I’m not marrying a Kou princess,” says Alibaba. “And I don’t think she’d want to marry me either.”
“You do look kinda shrimpy,” says Judar in agreement.
Alibaba swallows whatever comeback he had in the back of his throat and takes the high road. “No, the princess wouldn’t want to marry me because I won’t be king for much longer.”
Everyone in the room, except the two from Kou, look to Cassim pointedly in expectation. Cassim, too, is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and, more importantly, what he did to deserve this. “What are you talking about, Alibaba?”
“I have been discussing the idea with various leaders around Balbadd since my coronation,” says Alibaba with kingly dignity. “I apologize if it meant that I was more often out of the palace than in.”
No. Cassim pales, and feels shock slowly seeping into his limbs. He feels like he’s staring at the throne room from above, and all the pieces are finally falling in place—pieces he didn’t even know were missing. Alibaba went around Balbadd without Cassim to install the notion of democracy. Alibaba.
“I was surprised when the former king of Balbadd arrived in Sindria,” says Sinbad, “but when Sahbmad told me of King Alibaba’s idea, I gave him the best counsel the Seven Seas Alliance had to offer. I have full confidence in King Alibaba’s plan of action.”
Cassim can’t read Toran. He had just taken Alibaba’s word for the contents of those letters. Sinbad didn’t just come out of the blue to talk trade—he came at Alibaba’s request.
Alibaba smiles. “Balbadd will become a republic.”
Cassim could just kill Alibaba for somehow pulling a fast one on him yet again. He’s been planning this as long as Cassim has been shoring up their defenses. That conniving bastard!
“We will hold elections this week to choose the most suitable leader for the role of Prime Minister,” says Alibaba. “The Sindrians have agreed to witness this momentous event. We extend the invitation to the Kou representatives as well.”
“This… This can’t work!” Cassim protests, glancing about to see the reactions of the nobility. Either they’re too stunned to say anything, or they’re judging the situation to see if they benefit from the reform. “Do you have any idea what a complete shift in governance means for our economic situation?!”
“Hell, he’s right,” said Judar. “Guess the hag will have to marry a Prime Minister instead.”
“Alibaba!” Cassim shouts.
“I will abdicate the throne and turn Balbadd into a republic,” Alibaba announces firmly, lifting his scepter. “So shall it be written, so shall it be done.”
When the base hits the floor, it echoes in a silent chamber.
-
Cassim doesn’t have a linear recollection of what happened after. He only remembers moments, quick words, and a crushing feeling of horror and rage settling down hard on his shoulders.
How can everyone be at peace with Alibaba’s decree? Did they all know what that idiot of a king was planning? Has Alibaba has been making a fool out of him this entire time? Truly, how could Cassim have trusted Alibaba again after he betrayed him to Ahbmad—after Alibaba put him in shackles and paraded him around the royal court like a shamed dog?
Just thinking about it sends angry, anxious prickles down Cassim’s back. He sends another bookshelf of Sinbad’s chronicles crashing onto the floor and kicks the scrolls across ground. He looks around at his work, at all the upset shelves and unraveled scrolls on the library tiles.
It feels good for about a moment. A vicious rush of satisfaction leaves him a little heady, but by the time the dust settles, an inkling of regret begins to trickle in.
He destroyed an entire archive of stories Alibaba loved. It’s a childhood of sunlit afternoons with Alibaba reading to him as he dozed in and out of a secure dreamland. Here, Cassim told Alibaba tall tales about his wild years as a gang leader. Here, they spent that one night when it was just the two of them, and Cassim was falling apart, but Alibaba was there to hold him together in that way he always does.
How easily rage gives in to despair.
If Alibaba is no longer king, then what does that make Cassim? Where does he fit if the person he gambled everything on is no longer playing the game? Does he have anything left to save him, or has he burned all his bridges with his actions in the Fog Troupe, which loves Mariam more than him? Is everyone is just waiting for him to fall before they descend on him like crows upon carrion? He thinks of the bleached white bones he and Alibaba passed in the desert.
Cassim bites down on his lip until he tastes blood. He blinks back tears. Let them try.
He refuses to be sad. He has to hold onto his anger because as long as he’s angry, he still has the strength to move forward and carve a path for himself. For Balbadd, and for stupid, stupid Alibaba as well. Fuck destiny. Fuck his in particular.
“Y’know, you really put on a show with that black rukh.”
Cassim looks over his shoulder to see Judar picking up a scroll and immediately tossing it aside, his attention already moving to the next curiosity: Cassim.
“Why are you here?” Cassim asks bitterly.
Judar smiles and takes a step into the air, above the mess of books and scrolls on the floor, and he stays in there, floating toward Cassim. A magician. No. Judar is more than that if he’s a high priest. He’s important. Powerful.
The realization hits Cassim, and the air around them turns cold as winter mist: Judar is the Kou Empire’s Magi.
Cassim walks backward into a downed shelf and falls. Judar laughs and hugs his knees, hovering over Cassim. “I’m Judar. Old man Markkio told me all about you. Said you’re my age,” Judar says, looking him up and down in a way Cassim hates. “His favorite pet project, one I get to keep.”
It’s no secret that the Kou Empire runs on slavery. Cassim remembers the way merchants eyed the poor souls on auction blocks in Qishan. Judar is staring at him in the same way. Cassim glares back. “My name is Cassim. I am nobody’s pet.”
“And you’re nobody’s favorite either~” Judar sings, rolling in a lazy midair summersault. “You don’t have a single Metal Vessel, and you’re not king, even though you’re totally stronger than the yellow-haired guy on the throne. Doesn’t that piss you off?”
It does. That old jealousy just takes flight like a hundred black moths, and although Cassim has learned to squash them instantly, Judar seems to have noticed all the same. Cassim scowls and picks himself off the floor. “So what? Balbadd isn’t gonna have a king anymore. There’s no point in getting mad.” Lies, lies, lies.
“Everything really is pointless in the end, huh?” Judar sighs, floating close enough to touch the stray locks in Cassim’s face. Cassim knocks his hand away. “That’s why life is boring. The only meaning in the world is to have fun, and you know what’s really fun?”
“I don’t care,” says Cassim, stepping over debris on his way to the door.
“War is fun,” says Judar, and that makes Cassim pause. “Don’t you think it’d be a real spectacle for the Kou Empire’s army to come in and raze Balbadd to the ground?”
Cassim looks back into the man’s wild red eyes, realizing that for a Magi, Judar is nothing at all like Aladdin. His curiosity is tainted with selfishness, his talent with apathy. Also, he’s clearly unhinged, a quality Cassim does not overlook in any interaction.
But Cassim smiles. Psychopath or not, he can work with that. “Don’t you think it’d be more fun to play the underdog?”
“Hah?” Judar tilts his head like a blackbird. “Where are you going with this?”
“I’m just saying, I bet you know firsthand how strong the Kou are, how many Metal Vessel users they’ll send, how many resources they have at their disposal,” Cassim lists them on his fingers as if he were rattling off chores to a child. “If they were to come at Balbadd, don’t you think you’d have more fun on my side, fighting the Kou and everything they can throw at us?”
Judar blinks. “Oh.” His bares a toothy grin. “See, that’s what I’ve been tellin’ Sinbad all this time! But he never wants to join me!”
Cassim smiles back. If he plays his cards just right, he might end up with two Magi on his side. “Sinbad is just too old to get us.”
-
Cassim has to hand it to Alibaba, that boy is brilliant when he has a goal.
The bureaucracy that once hindered them had processed Alibaba’s orders with ease; the king filed them behind Cassim's back weeks ago. Then, between work inside the palace and entertaining the Sindrians, Alibaba managed to keep Cassim and his palace Troupe busy for the past few days—away from Mariam’s people—all the while his own officials were setting up voting stations. He even convinced the Fog Troupe outside to spread the word that Cassim was actively involved in the process, but too busy to be the main point of contact. They should reach out to Alibaba's people, of course.
Goddamn it all, Alibaba out-Cassim’d Cassim.
They’re already set to announce the election for the evening town criers, with ballots prepared to be cast. It begins at sunrise. Everything is good to go, giving Cassim less than no time to retaliate. Remarkable. Cassim had once slapped him twice for mentioning the ridiculous notion of democratizing Balbadd, but Alibaba pulled through and fulfilled those lofty goals anyway.
Cassim was right to make him king.
But to think that Alibaba could hide such a huge feat from him. That’s what really gnaws at Cassim. They aren’t supposed to keep secrets from one another anymore, not after the trial. He certainly has nothing more left to hide from Alibaba, except the one that has nothing to do with Alibaba because he doesn't need Alibaba to know all of him. Maybe that’s why Alibaba moved forward without telling Cassim. He sees Cassim plainly for what he is: a scorpion, just like Judar.
And so, Cassim and Judar watch from the sidelines as Alibaba, Aladdin, Morgiana, and the Sindrians hurry to get the election underway.
“Y’know, it’d really help if you could prepare the funds and manage the resources, Cassim,” says Alibaba.
“I didn’t want a republic to begin with, Alibaba,” says Cassim. “Do it yourself.”
“You really have to make everything difficult, don’t you?” sighs Alibaba.
Cassim raises an eyebrow. You have no idea.
-
Cassim gets a hold of one of the ballot tickets at Mariam’s house.
“Truly, you are such a bad influence on him, Brother,” she says in wonder. He waves off her remark and looks at the leaf of paper in his hand.
[__] SAHBMAD SALUJA
[__] IBN MARUF
[____________]
“’Son of Maruf,’” he reads incredulously and turns to Mariam, who avoids his eyes. “I thought we killed the entire Maruf household last year in the Fog Troupe raids.”
“I’m sorry, Cassim... There was a guy making waves in the western district, promising big changes and rewards to all who joined his faction,” Mariam says tentatively, her voice disappearing, “I… I lost a third of the Fog Troupe to his campaign. They took the Fog Swords with them. That was him—Emir Maruf’s illegitimate son.”
“All the Black Vessels?” he demands. “And you didn’t think to tell me?!”
Cassim was there when the campaigns were running; he remembers the catchy slogans and men giving ambitious speeches while balancing on crates stacked as high as the junkyard piles he grew up in. At the time, he assumed they were for local elections and neighborhood leaders, so he thought nothing of it. If he had known it was for king; if he had only suspected what Alibaba was planning, none of this headache would be going on while the Kou are practically breathing down their necks.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, wincing, her brows furrowed. Ashamed.
Cassim doesn’t want that. He eases up, sits back, and softens his body language. She seems to take reassurance from that.
She tells Cassim, “The kind of people who were capable of wielding the Fog Swords were exactly the kind of people his message spoke to, except for me, I guess… And when I found out he was actually Emir Maruf’s secret bastard from the slums, I was going to tell you—I was going to tell you earlier, too, but Alibaba said that you were busy, and he would relay the message himself…” She fades into silence, suddenly smaller and younger than she’s been in years. "I guess my doves didn't reach you either."
He scratches the back of his head, where his hair joins into a half-ponytail, and weighs his options. “Well, this is certainly a pain in the ass. We can’t have this going on on top of everything else,” he says at last with a sigh. He points to the space beneath Maruf’s name. “All right. How about this blank spot. What is that?”
“Oh, umm—Citizens are welcome to write their own candidate,” Mariam explains, mimicking a writing motion across the sheet.
“Huh,” he says, “But only one out six commoners can read, let alone write. People are more likely to mark off one of the two candidates listed.”
“So, it’s going to be one of them who wins,” says Mariam. “What will do you?”
He looks thoughtfully between the paper and Mariam and says, “Sister, can you steal all the ballots in the city?”
“They’ve been distributed to the voting centers already, but…” Mariam gives him a sorry look that makes him feel bad, too. “Just tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll fix my mistake.”
“Make copies of all the ballots,” says Cassim, waving the sheet of paper before him, “but replace Maruf’s name with Alibaba’s.”
Mariam gapes at him. “What? And have people voting between the Saluja brothers? We might as well keep the monarchy!”
“If Alibaba thinks he can unload the power I gave him off to Sahbmad, he is dead wrong,” says Cassim, reaching for a twig of charcoal. “No one’s gonna vote for Sahbmad anyway. And if this Maruf bastard is as charismatic as you say, then he’s already run his campaign and told his people to vote for him—the second candidate. We’ll probably get a decent turnout from them before the illiterate fools realize what’s going on. As for the rest of Balbadd,” Cassim sneers, scrawling ‘Alibaba’ on the back of the ballot, “Make sure the Fog Troupe spreads his name. If all the fishmongers learn to read one word in this lifetime, it’s gonna be ‘Alibaba.’”
Mariam takes the paper solemnly and nods. “I got it.”
As she stands to leave, an explosion mars the Balbadd skyline from her window. Cassim can smell the dust and pulverized brick from three blocks away. It makes his eyes water. Mariam covers her face with a headscarf, squinting into the distance.
“What is that, Brother?”
Cassim lights a cigar. “Your cover.”
-
While Mariam and the Fog Troupe switch out the ballots, Cassim rejoins Judar in the heat of the action.
Or he would—if Judar wasn’t lying on the ground like a lifeless ragdoll. Before he fell, he caused enough of a commotion to drag Alibaba’s entire crew into the fray. His icicle javelins perforate the street, trapping Alibaba’s soldiers. Alibaba, himself, has his fire dagger unsheathed, trying to free his men as the Sindrians usher the rest to safety. Cassim can see Morgiana’s red hair near Aladdin’s blue braid, and in the middle of it all is Aladdin’s djinn Ugo. Even pierced with one of Judar’s frozen spikes, the blue giant towers over the black-clad Magi.
“What an idiot,” Cassim sighs, jogging toward them. He told Judar to create a distraction, not get himself killed. “Hold up, Aladd—”
A shadow flickers over the moon, and suddenly Judar is gone. Cassim looks up as he slows to a stop. A richly woven magic carpet billows above, carrying an entire entourage. And Judar.
“Oh my, what sort of monster is this?” a woman’s voice rings out through the night. Cassim sees her. A Kou woman draped in silk finery. “What has he done to our poor Judar? Ka Koubun, heal our priest before he dies.”
“Yes, my princess,” says the man behind her, surely her retainer. Cassim puts two and two together: she is the Kou princess sent to marry Alibaba.
Interesting turn of events. Cassim slips back into the shadows and observes.
Ugo roars at the Kou atop the carpet, and the princess smiles silkily as she removes the pin from her hair. It flashes eerily.
“SPIRIT OF SORROW AND SOLITUDE, I BESEECH THEE AND THY KIN TO ACCEPT MY MAGOI AND GRANT ME GREAT POWER!”
Her hairpin lights up, and Cassim knows what’s coming next.
“COME FORTH, VINEA!”
The air dries up. Her magic weaponizes the water around her, like how Alibaba summons fire with his own Metal Vessel. She wills the element into her hand as a sword, and it dazzles in the moonlight. With it, faster than Cassim expects, she slays Ugo.
The city trembles when he falls.
What happens next happens fast. Aladdin flies at her in rage, and her monstrous bodyguards leap down from the carpet to attack. Alibaba and Morgiana fight back, but it truly ends when Sinbad jumps in with his Metal Vessels. He destroys all her servants except the healer, and she submits as soon as he grabs her by the wrist, her face red and eyelashes fluttering. Cassim can’t deny that Sinbad deserves his title “Ladykiller of the Seven Seas.”
Shaken, all three sets of royals make proper introductions: Sindria, Kou, Balbadd. Sinbad suggests they return to the palace once they round up what remained of Alibaba’s soldiers. Cassim sees the de-escalation and slips away. While what happened was a complete surprise, at least it means Alibaba won’t have a chance to interfere with Mariam’s work.
Unnoticed, Cassim hurries back to the palace ahead of them.
-
Voting commences at dawn.
Cassim wakes up soon after that. He doesn’t even remember when he fell asleep on the couch. In Alibaba’s room. Next to Alibaba.
But Aladdin is still lying in the bed before them, unconscious.
The door creaks open and Morgiana enters with a basin of water and a fresh linen cloth. She sees Cassim and gives him a nod before wiping Aladdin’s brow. “You were there last night,” she says quietly. “I caught your scent before you left.”
Cassim massages his neck and debates pushing Alibaba off his lap. “You guys handled it fine yourselves.” He decides to let Alibaba stay where he is and sinks back against the couch with a weary yawn. “Didn’t need me.”
“But maybe you would’ve noticed when Aladdin wasn’t well,” Morgiana says. “He says you looked after him in Qishan…”
“Unlike Sinbad, I wouldn’t have known the flute was draining his life from him after the death of his djinn,” says Cassim emphatically, motioning to Aladdin. When the group arrived at the palace, Cassim met them just as Aladdin lost consciousness. Sinbad explained a great deal about Magi and magoi and magic then, all three of which are apparently different things, and most of it went over Cassim’s head.
“I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, I…” Morgiana looks aghast at her own boldness. They fall into an awkward silence. Cassim rubs his temple. He needs a cup of coffee.
Alibaba stirs at his elbow. Suddenly, he’s up and his head barely misses Cassim’s chin. “Cassim?” he asks in groggy alarm. He takes in his surroundings, confused. “You’re here, and Aladdin… He…”
“Morgiana’s taking care of him,” says Cassim, giving the bottom of Alibaba’s jaw a light tap. “You. Come with me. We need to talk.”
Hesitantly, Alibaba follows him out the room, but not without casting one last look of concern to Aladdin on the bed. When he closes the doors behind him, he turns to Cassim, eyes dark and weary. “What are you planning?” he says. “Now that the Kou princess has arrived… Cassim, she’s awful. You heard what she did to Aladdin’s friend Ugo, right?”
“What I heard was that she wasn’t pleased to find out about the election, on top of her Magi’s injuries,” says Cassim, searching his pockets for a fresh cigar. None. He clicks his tongue, annoyed. “This mess is yours. You find a way out.”
“Tell me what you’re up to. It’s not like you to just roll over and let me take the reins when something doesn’t go your way.” Alibaba folds his arms defensively across his chest. “Or did you have something to do with last night? Judar was with you the entire day yesterday, and if you’re conspiring with the Kou just to fight me over this election—”
“You think I’m the traitor when it was you who handed me over to Ahbmad?!” Cassim says incredulously.
“This again,” sighs Alibaba, “You can’t keep bringing it up whenever I suspect you of trouble. Yes, I know I’m to blame for what happened to you, but stop derailing me by making me apologize for the past. If what you’re planning is truly for the good of Balbadd’s future, then trust me as your ally.”
He speaks well these days; Cassim can’t help but admire Alibaba’s new tenacity. A little part of him wants to see how his king will take the news: “I switched your name with Ibn Maruf’s on all the ballots.”
Alibaba says nothing at first, but he looks surprised. He puts his king mask on again and asks, “Why do you want me to rule Balbadd so badly?”
Cassim holds his gaze. “I have plans, and people will follow you. Together, we are a powerful team.”
“But you want to lead, not me,” says Alibaba.
“It doesn’t change the fact that people will walk with you toward whatever future you’re headed. You could use that ability to protect Balbadd and change the world,” says Cassim. “Listen, I’m done explaining this to you. If you continue to reject my reasoning, then we will be at odds from this point on, no matter how your election goes.”
Cassim turns and walks down the hall. He can feel Alibaba’s gaze on his back, hot as the sunlight streaming through the pillars behind them.
Alibaba made his decision, and Cassim has given his answer.
-
“You’re saying there will be no change in leadership,” Princess Kougyoku says primly behind a silk sleeve, “but if that is the case, then may I ask what is the point of this election?”
“I’m indulging King Alibaba. It’s a dream of his,” Cassim says with a wry smile. He eyes Judar lying prone on the bed across the room, attended to by Kou servants. How lucky he is that he can afford to sleep through this whole debacle.
“Princess, I recommend we speak to another official,” her retainer murmurs in her ear, behind his fan. “This one doesn’t look anything like the others in the palace, in fact, he looks like one of the fishmongers on the streets…”
“I’m the royal treasurer,” says Cassim coldly, and the man flinches. Cassim sees the strange tattoo across his face and muses on who this Ka Koubun used to be before he reached this lofty position at the princess’ right hand.
“Well, then it just so happens that I am here to facilitate the obligation your country owes mine, through marriage,” says Kougyoku breezily, in the way one would comment on the weather. “The Kou Empire intends to absorb Balbadd and its debt regardless of what form of government rules it, and from then on, we shall assess and readjust Balbadd to maximize economic efficiency.”
“Although, there’s an issue with who you must marry, since the elected figurehead can be replaced with another, Princess,” whispers the retainer.
“Yes…” She looks uncertain, and Cassim begins to see a crack in the façade. He remembers how she shrieked at Sinbad with flushed cheeks when he grabbed her by the wrist. Sinbad was stern but straightforward, with a hint of paternal charm that gave the impression of reliability and strength. Cassim is younger and rougher around the edges, but if he can project a similar aura, then the princess may be more inclined to be malleable.
“Princess, Balbadd is already at maximum efficiency with our current resources,” he says, looking directly into her eyes with an earnest, honest countenance. Her gaze flicks away briefly before reengaging. He gives her the barest hint of a smile, just enough to be encouraging. “I’ll show you. Let me take you around a tour of this capital.”
“Well, I’ve already looked around a little yesterday,” she says haughtily, turning away. “There was nothing I found especially noteworthy to return to…”
“Not even the financial district?” Cassim feigns astonishment. “Come on, you saw that grand hotel, right? Diplomats from all countries stay there. That’s where King Sinbad is for the duration of his visit.”
She perks up. “King Sinbad?” Then, catching herself, she hides demurely behind her sleeve. “I suppose a gentle excursion is good for the health.”
“But Princess, I must stay to look after the lord priest,” Ka Koubun whispers frantically to her behind his fan.
“Yes, yes, please do that,” she says cheerfully, looping an arm around Cassim’s. “Don’t worry about me. I shall have a chaperone, after all.”
Ka Koubun glares at Cassim suspiciously as he leads her out the door. Cassim winks back.
-
If Cassim were still the person he was even one year ago, he would have kidnapped the princess and held her hostage for negotiations with her empire. As it stands, there are too many loose ends regarding the Kou, and Alibaba’s election throws an extra complication into everything, so Cassim makes do with kidnapping her for an afternoon.
Sinbad was out. After interrogating the hotel owner, Cassim learns that the king of Sindria went back to the palace to resume sword lessons with Alibaba. They pass a busy gardener on the way back to their carriage. Cassim brings up Alibaba’s flower crowns, and Kougyoku smiles at the idea. They two of them have a pleasant conversation in the carriage on their return trip.
It’s all very civil.
“My, my. You should keep better tabs on your kings,” Kougyoku says with a most regal grasp of passive-aggression. “And the way you spoke to the hotel owner like he was a peer would be strongly discouraged in my country. Of course, a merchant country wouldn’t respect the order of social classes… We shall have to fix that when we take the reins.”
Cassim chews the head of his cigar. Of course, he’ll stop her from doing just that. “Balbadd is nice in that anyone can rise to a better position in society. I used to be a slum brat myself.”
“How did you get to where you are today?” Kougyoku asks, her brows rising in a way that borderlines wariness and curiosity. Every inch of her is a performance, and Cassim wonders how tiring it must be. He certainly wasn’t raised that way, and neither was Alibaba. Maybe that’s why they’re outsiders in their own marble palace.
“It was Alibaba.” Cassim looks out the carriage at the marketplace rushing by. He catches sight of the gardener from the hotel running down the street with a basket of flowers and smiles to himself. If Alibaba teaches the Kou princess how to make flower crowns, would she be charmed by him? No matter how infuriating Alibaba is, even Cassim can’t bring himself to stay mad at him. “Alibaba was born to a prostitute in the slums, and I was lucky enough to be his best friend when the king came to claim him.”
“A lowborn royal,” Kougyoku murmurs behind her sleeves. Her eyes soften, and she stares down at her lap.
“Princess?” Cassim looks to her, waiting.
“I… I too, am low-born. My mother was a nameless courtesan, and I was taken to the palace as one of the king’s many heirs… I was always alone.” Her voice is faint and fragile. “I wish I could have been so lucky as to bring a friend with me, too.”
And that’s exactly the kind of information Cassim was waiting for. He smiles kindly and says, “I’ll be your friend.”
Kougyoku looks up at him, startled, her eyes the size of eggs. “Erhh—I—it’s not as if I…” She looks younger and a little like Morgiana with her red hair and large eyes. She’s a different person when she loses her princess mask. Another similarity to Alibaba. Perhaps they could be compatible after all.
“If you marry into Balbadd, you’re staying here,” Cassim says reasonably, tapping the ash from his cigar out the window. “You’ve got a lot in common with Alibaba, and yet I can tell you’ve got the backbone he doesn’t. I think we’d get along.”
She turns pink and brushes her bangs out of her eyes, but one especially long strand keeps falling back into her face. “It’s only because Ka Koubun believed in me and urged me to take my role as princess seriously.” She gives Cassim a mischievous grin. “He’s like my Cassim.”
Cassim mirrors her smile and says, “Then, he needs to tell me his secret to success. I want to make Alibaba into a Kougyoku.” She laughs in delight at that, and Cassim can tell her guard has lowered. Not to infatuation-with-Sinbad levels, perhaps, but a robust friendship can be equally rewarding. “How long have you had Ka Koubun at your side?”
“He has been with me since I was nine, so…” Kougyoku does the math in her head. “Only eight years, compared to your....”
“Oh, a lifetime,” Cassim completes her sentence as he gazes at her, thoughtfully. “So, you’re seventeen, just like Alibaba.”
“King Alibaba and I could have been a sensible match, if he weren’t so adamant about this election,” says Kougyoku with an almost wistful tone. “And then Balbadd would be in good hands for sure, under my brothers’ rule.”
“Don’t count yourself out just yet. I have plans, too,” says Cassim.
The carriage slows down and comes to a stop. Road work ahead. Cassim’s mood falls a little. They’re so close to the palace. Not to mention, it’s extremely inconvenient for construction to start right as they’re heading back. Unexpected, too. Cassim racks his brain, but for the life of him can’t remember whether this neighborhood was scheduled for work this month…
“Oh. Look, Cassim,” she says. He follows her gaze to the gardener from the hotel. “It’s those flowers we saw earlier.”
Silently, Cassim glances around. The gardener is surrounded by a few more familiar faces from the hotel. And they’re with several laborers he saw back at the marketplace, with more men approaching the carriage from the front. Cassim frowns. He was distracted and didn’t see this coming. “We’re being targeted.”
The princess allows herself a moment of surprise. Then, “Oh. I see.” She removes her hairpin and then smiles at him gamely. “Shall I dispose of them, so that we may be on our way?”
Cassim kicks the door open and jumps out. “Take prisoners. I want to know who the hell they think they are.” He offers her a hand, and she takes it. Her hairpin flashes before her feet touch the ground.
“COME FORTH, VINEA!”
Water from the air twists into her great sword: ornate, translucent, sharp. Her hands grip the hilt tight and shimmer under the sun with a marvelous coat of fish scales. Cassim hasn’t seen Alibaba magick his dagger into a sword yet, but now he wants to see what a sword made of ember and fire looks like.
“I’ll hold them down. You knock ‘em out,” says Cassim, and his earrings grow hot. “Amol—"
Black fog blooms around them like ten-ton petals—but it’s not Cassim’s Household Vessel. He feels the weight slam down on him, dropping him to his knees. Kougyoku shrieks in rage and stabs her sword into the ground to steady herself. “I won't kneel to peasants!”
Black Fog Swords. Cassim confirms when he sees their familiar form attached to the arms of the approaching men. Maruf’s bastard and his followers have come to make a show of claiming his head.
How unfortunate that Cassim has more important matters on his plate.
“Princess, there’s an underground channel beneath this street that leads to the canal we passed,” he tells Kougyoku. “You can reach it with your sword!”
Her eyes blaze with the ferocity of a hurricane, and Cassim wonders whether Judar’s a bad influence on her or if it’s the other way around. The fish scales from her hand climb up her arms to the rest of her body. Her clothes melt away. “VINEA!” she calls out and becomes the ocean incarnate, blue and glorious, her hair flowing like great waves against a clear sky. Something in Cassim’s blood leaps at the sight. His entire lineage grew up by the sea after all.
(Still, in the back of his mind he can’t help but wonder how Alibaba would look, dressed in fire and sparks.)
The ground trembles. It gives way to a geyser that punches through the lead smoke. Cassim barely keeps his breath in his chest as he tumbles in the stream, not knowing up from down. Cold claws grasp his arm and pull him out of the water, and suddenly, he’s sputtering on dry ground. He recognizes the white stone floor of the palace courtyard.
Kougyoku returns to her human form before Cassim is back on his feet. “Something tells me you didn’t want to drown an entire section of the city, so I brought us here.”
“Good call,” Cassim coughs and looks back to the great doors of the palace walls. He can hear Maruf’s faction launching their siege on the other side. The bastard has the Fog Troupe’s muscle under his control.
Cassim’s worry darts toward Mariam, but he shoves it down. Mariam is clever; Mariam is fine.
He looks to the princess, and he hastens to a run. “Follow me!”
-
As a dungeon capturer, Alibaba pales in comparison to Kougyoku, but his magic fire dagger can cut through the Fog Swords like it did Mariam’s. If they’re lucky, Sinbad is already with him. With Alibaba, Sinbad, his retainers, and Kougyoku, Cassim can easily put down a revolt. Then, he’ll find Mariam.
That is, unless Mariam finds him first.
“Brother! They took all the Fog Swords with them!” Mariam darts out from a small corridor and slips seamlessly between him and Kougyoku as they run. “They’re attacking the palace!”
“I know, we were just outside the front gates,” Cassim tells her.
“No, they’re coming in through the tunnel as well!”
“Alibaba’s tunnel?!” Cassim stumbles, stopping, his hand gripping Mariam’s shoulders. Kougyoku slides to a halt several feet away. “They know about Alibaba’s tunnel?!”
“Forgive me. One of the men who helped me carry Ahbmad back into the palace joined Maruf’s brigade without my knowing,” she whispers fretfully into his ear. “They’re going to the throne room to kill all the elites, including you!”
Cassim doesn’t have time to be annoyed at being called “elite.” Mentally, he flips through his plans until he reaches a decision. He clicks his tongue. “This is such a pain in the ass, god damn it. Mariam, go find Alibaba,” he says, taking off his treasurer’s sash and handing it to her. “This will show you’re under my orders, if anyone tries to stop you.”
“Right.” She reaches for it, but he holds on. He reaches out his other hand.
“In exchange, give me back the Fog Sword on your arm.”
-
Maruf’s bastard finds him in the courtyard.
Cassim shoots him a sardonic smile and opens his arms wide. “My friends, it’s election day. You should be in town and voting for the future of Balbadd.”
Maruf snorts scornfully and says, loud enough for his followers to hear, “Cassim, you treacherous rat. You act like a man of the people, but you’re just the king’s dog in the end.”
Some men shy away from Cassim’s gaze. They used to be Cassim’s. He recognizes every one of them, and he’s not surprised. People are similar, Cassim has found, whether they’re from noble blood or the streets: they look for who to follow.
“I replaced your name with Alibaba’s for the good of Balbadd,” Cassim replies. “How can I entrust our country to you when you couldn’t even take care of your Troupe unit?” A murmur ripples through the crowd, and Cassim smirks as Maruf’s face darkens. “You think I don’t know what happened when I stopped the raids last year?”
“You obeyed the whims of Mariam—a child!” Maruf snarls back, as if it was a worthy defense. “Now we answer to her as well?!”
“When I stopped the raids, the Fog Troupe chose to follow Mariam and rebuild Balbadd with resources I sent from the palace. But someone was always working against us,” Cassim declares, pointing his katar at Maruf. “It began in your neighborhoods—infighting, racketeering, and bullying local businesses into paying protection money! You’re the reason Balbadd began to split at the streets!”
“Those streets were under my father’s jurisdiction, and that’s how he ran them when the Maruf House controlled the district!”
“Hah! Then, it’s a good thing I stuck my knife in his greedy throat.”
Maruf screams, and he charges at Cassim. They slash at each other, smoke spilling into the air like black ink soaking parchment.
“I will be king! Not Sahbmad! Not Alibaba!”
“You were and still are a fool,” taunts Cassim. “Just like your father!”
“And you think yourself a leader, but you’re nothing but a murderer! You took everything that should have been mine!” Maruf shouts. “He would’ve come back for me just like the king did for Alibaba! I could’ve escaped that hellhole, too, but NO—none can follow Cassim into the palace and reap the riches that Cassim keeps all to himself!”
“I came back for you,” Cassim says through gritted teeth. Their blades separate with a rain of sparks and soot. “I came back for all of you! I fought to take back our gold and land! I put one of us on the throne so that we would have a voice at last—”
“You and I—we all know Alibaba was never one of us!”
Maruf shoots a pillar of black fog. Cassim dodges—aims. He punches his sword at Maruf’s face, but the bastard blocks and whirls around, black blade singing as it cuts through smoke and locks of Cassim’s hair. Maruf regains his footing, but not before Cassim seizes the moment. He catches Maruf by the arm, kicks him behind the knees, and sends him to the ground under a storm of Amol Taj. Maruf struggles, but Cassim wins.
The fight ends as quickly as it had begun, with the courtyard shrouded in dark.
“Mongrel! Scum! Son of a nameless whore and a drunk! We grew up from the same filth, but I should be where you are!” Maruf howls, trapped under the weight of Cassim’s smoke.
“It doesn’t matter where we are,” says Cassim, breathing hard.
“Then why do you get to be king’s advisor while I’m still working the streets?!” The man glares with a hatred that Cassim is startled to recognize. He has seen it in the broken mirror in his room. That budding expression of dissatisfaction with roots deep in envy and self-loathing; that bluffing arrogance fed by uncertainty and anxiety. Together, they turn into a monster that takes ahold of a man’s heart and darkens it. If Cassim is Maruf’s Alibaba, then Maruf never stood a chance because Cassim is not Alibaba. Alibaba is… To Cassim, Alibaba is…
“I know I’m only here because of Alibaba,” says Cassim at last, “but I have spent the last four years of my life protecting the people of Balbadd.”
“Liar! You have everything now! Power, prestige, money—and you took it all from me!”
“Nothing was ever promised to you!” Cassim shouts, his blood boiling. “Balbadd belongs to its people whose blood, sweat, and tears made it prosper! I just need time to bring it completely back into the hands of the people, I—”
Cassim freezes. The logic of his own words hits him like lightning:
“I need to make Balbadd a republic.”
His hands fall to his sides, and all the blood seems to drain from his body. Alibaba was right after all, and Cassim was wrong.
Cassim was wrong? From a practical viewpoint, everything Cassim argued for makes sense, but that pragmatism has choked his idealism—reason he does what he does. If he wants to make a change and save the people from a selfish elite class, then Alibaba is right. Alibaba’s heart is true. He has always been the lighthouse that Cassim so desperately seeks when he’s stranded at sea.
It’s why Cassim stuck by him for so long.
“…You took the money and disappeared into the palace. You abandoned us! The people of Balbadd—the citizens, the street rats, us! It’s not fair!”
It takes a moment for Cassim to catch up with Maruf’s words. This is no longer a conversation, he realizes as the bastard’s shouts rattle him out of his revelation. It's instigation.
Cassim says nothing as the other men side with Maruf. He's suddenly disgusted by their motivations, which he understands on a spiritual level. They’re deaf to reason. They want the splendor that Maruf promised them, whether or not they can handle the responsibility that comes with it. They don’t care. Cassim knows that they could rule as cruelly as Ahbmad, and it wouldn’t even matter as long as they get their dues.
Cassim understands because deep down, he’s like that, too. If he were angrier, afraid, desperate to rise above the grime of the slums, and too proud to back down, he would be in Maruf’s place. He would lead them with no grander plan than to seize the future and leave his past in flames.
But Cassim can see beyond the crown. He knows the precarious position Balbadd is in, intimately well, on a tightrope between the Kou and the Seven Seas Alliance: it’s marriage or a handshake. Insincere submission or uneasy diplomacy. Yes, Cassim has more important things to deal with than this fool’s campaign for power, but their Fog Swords easily outnumber his one, and Cassim doesn’t know when his reinforcements will arrive. He might be captured before then. He will be killed, or worse: used as a hostage. Cassim will not be used.
He takes a gamble, and he releases Maruf from his smoke. “Power, prestige, money? You want it so bad, but what would you do for it?” Cassim asks, lifting his Fog Sword. It’s the same as the one Maruf wears on his wrist, and he aims it at his own heart.
“The final resort…” Maruf’s words are a hoarse whisper. “You wouldn't. You’re crazy, you’ll kill yourself…”
Cassim takes a deep breath and says, “If you can’t even risk your life for your dreams, then you don’t have the resolve to rule.”
He plunges the Fog Sword into his gut.
It steals the breath right out of him, and his first instinct is to crumple and fall, but he doesn’t. He powers through the shock. He staggers and rips the blade out, feeling the heat rush from his body in red, red, red.
“Gather to me…” Cassim croaks, but that’s weak. He will be strong, and he shouts, “All of you—return to me!”
The Black Fog Swords glow viciously, thirsty for his blood. They tear themselves away from their wielders and dive toward Cassim. Cassim waits for the moment and shouts, “AMOL TAJ!”
The swords sink into the cocoon of smoke around him, and they struggle to reach Cassim. If Cassim can just hold them there for a little longer, maybe someone will save him. Someone, please save him—
“Cassim!”
His lead fog shreds asunder as a great fire blade tears through. Cassim watches Alibaba slice apart every black weapon with a giant sword pulsing into the very veins in his arms—his Metal Vessel. Alibaba finally learned how to wield his enchanted dagger, and for a delirious moment, Cassim is proud and happy for him. A rush of gratitude dims the pain. “Alibaba…”
Alibaba looks to him, his bright golden hair tussled in motion. “Cassim?!” And time slows down. It stops when their eyes meet. Cassim sees every incarnation of Alibaba he has ever known: the bruised little brat, the good prince, the adventurer, the king. He sees what Alibaba could be: great, greater, greatest. Beyond Balbadd—beyond Cassim—the world awaits Alibaba. Sparks reflect in his eyes, such worried eyes, and his teeth, which are perfect like every other inch of him, gleams as he yells, “CASSIM!”
Time swings back into reality; dark metal fragments clatter to the ground, men shout, footsteps deafen, a brawl between guards and traitors; and though it all, the pain in Cassim’s belly finally bleeds back into focus. He falls to his knees, cold. Alibaba catches him, warm like home.
Cassim barely registers the sound of Alibaba’s knife hitting the marble floor, now its normal size: the knife from his late king, his precious memento of a father he barely knew. Father, father…
“Father,” says Cassim, and the word tastes like blood. “I’m going to die like my father.”
“Shh, Cassim, please,” Alibaba begs, pressing his palm hard against the wound, “You’re always doing this, please don’t, oh god…”
“Just like him, a knife in the gut,” says Cassim, looking up at Alibaba sternly. “I did that. I killed him.”
“It’s all right, Cassim—”
“I killed my father, Alibaba,” Cassim repeats. This is the last secret he kept from Alibaba, and he needs Alibaba to know it before he dies. Cassim needs Alibaba to know all of him. “He came back, and I killed him, so he wouldn’t bother us.”
I did it for us. Mariam. Me. You. Us.
“Cassim, okay. Thank you…” Alibaba’s red-faced, tear-filled grimace is comically ugly. Cassim wants to tell him that, but he can’t find the breath to speak. If he knew that was going to be his last breath, he would have chosen something else to say, something more relevant. He would have told Alibaba he was right about the election.
The election. They were mad at each other about the election. They had fought over it. Cassim had been scheming, and Alibaba is surely still mad about that. Can they still be friends after this?
Damn.
Cassim forgot to ask.
-
“What kind of question is that?”
-
In another life, that would have been it.
But Cassim only gambles when he knows the odds are in his favor. Inside the palace, there were at least two Kou magicians who were capable of healing magic: Markkio, the banker, and Ka Koubun, Princess Kougyoku’s retainer.
When Cassim opens his eyes, he sees the latter. Or rather, he sees Judar first.
“Oy, Ink Face, he’s awake!”
Cassim hears the rustle of Kougyoku’s many skirts and Ka Koubun’s robes. He grimaces as they crowd around him. Never in a million years would he dream he’d awaken to concerned Kou faces around his bed. “Funny,” he says, and his voice cracks. “Would’ve hedged my bets on Markkio saving me.”
“The banker?” Judar plops down next to him as if they’re old friends. They might as well be; the day they met feels like a lifetime ago. “Markkio disappeared with Sinbad. It was sometime after you stabbed the fuck outta yourself. Power move, I respect that. Pretty cool, huh, Hag?”
Kougyoku sniffs huffily at the nickname. “Things were so much more peaceful while you were unconscious.”
“Princess, what are you even doing here?” Ka Koubun chides, casting Cassim a disgruntled look. “He’s indecent.”
“I have four brothers. I know what shirtless men look like,” she says haughtily, and Ka Koubun groans about improper princess behavior.
“Hey, Cassim, hey,” Judar floats over him and pokes Cassim’s bare abdomen, where the black sword sank. A lead-colored scar stretches over the wound like a spider. “Looks like you tried to invoke the Black Metal Vessel’s power yesterday...”
“Only yesterday?” Election day has ended. The votes must be tallied.
What now?
What is he going to tell Alibaba? If he had died, at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of his deeds. As much as he wants to close his eyes and disappear into thin air, he reminds himself that he is a man of action. Whatever happens now, he will handle it. He’ll figure out how to fix everything. He always does.
Cassim climbs out of bed, but his legs give way. He lands on his hands and knees, shocked, and turns to Ka Koubun. “I thought you fixed me,” he says.
The magician and the princess exchange frowns before hiding behind their sleeves, as the Kou are wont to do, Cassim has learned. “Unfortunately, due to the nature of the Black Metal Vessel, we can’t heal you completely. It has poisoned you to some extent, and that will leave lasting consequences on your health.”
“Ka Koubun did the best he could. It could have been worse,” Kougyoku explains, a sad smile on her face. “If you had gone through with the full transformation, you wouldn’t be alive now.”
“Markkio said you would’ve turned into a black djinn,” Judar says wistfully and stretches out on the bed like a large wildcat. “I’d have liked to see it!”
“At my expense, I bet.” Cassim rubs his eyes miserably, exhausted already by the news, much less by what he needs to do today. He can’t even say they tricked him because he knew what he was getting himself into. It just didn’t work out as well as he hoped. He didn’t factor in the magic. How does one ever account for magic?
Cassim looks around and grabs a robe off a nearby sofa. He’s aware of their eyes on him, and he wants to get away from them. Silently, he takes a step forward. He takes several more until he feels steady. After that, it’s only a few paces until he reaches the door and when he opens it, he finds Alibaba on the other side, hand raised to knock.
“Cassim,” he says, “you shouldn’t be up…”
Cassim managed to pull the robe half-on, but seeing Alibaba so suddenly makes his fingers slip. He drops garment, and it falls to the floor around his feet. He glances back at the Kou in the room and then at Alibaba again mutely.
He swallows everything he still needs to say, and pushes past him. “I need to bathe.”
-
Unsurprisingly, Alibaba follows him to the baths.
He takes a seat next to Cassim in the sauna, still fully clothed. Cassim looks at him, at the sweat beading on his skin and the growing discomfort of a man wearing thick layers of brocade in the hottest room in the palace. If he’s trying to make a point, he’s not making it very clearly.
“The election,” says Cassim, finally, decorum be damned, “who won?”
“They’re still tallying the votes,” Alibaba says weakly, running his hands through his damp hair. “If you were planning anything, this is the last chance you’ll get… Wow, it’s hot…” He hunches over his knees. Cassim watches a drop of sweat run down the back of his neck. It slides past a little patch of freckles. Cassim forgets when he first noticed them. He wonders how he ever missed them to begin with.
Clearing his throat, Cassim looks away to pour water over the glowing coals. “You’re right,” he says as they hiss. Alibaba turns to him with his eyebrows raised just enough to show he didn’t trust his own ears. Cassim bites his lower lip and wills himself to face Alibaba. He says, “You were right about turning Balbadd into a republic.”
Alibaba blinks a few times. The flutter of his eyelashes against his bangs, the afternoon sunlight sifting through the foggy window, the calm of it all; Cassim feels a strange sense of nostalgia.
“Wh-what made you change your mind?” asks Alibaba, and Cassim can tell he’s waiting for the “however,” the “except,” the right hook Cassim swings when he lulls naïve fools into a false sense of security.
But there’s none of that today. Today is different. Today, Cassim tries to make peace. He rubs awkwardly at his shoulder, completely healed but sometimes stubbornly rigid—not unlike the rest of him. “I remembered why I followed you my entire life.”
Alibaba’s eyes soften, and he looks at Cassim tenderly. He breathes a happy little sigh.
And he kisses Cassim for the first time in weeks.
Bold move, so unusually bold. Surprised, Cassim lets Alibaba take the lead, lets Alibaba’s hands drift past his cheeks, over his shoulders into an embrace. He pulls Cassim in deeper. When they part, Alibaba’s fingers are still buried in Cassim’s hair, and Cassim’s hands have found their way to Alibaba’s waist where they trace the silk sash and dip beneath its edge.
“Let’s get you out of this,” says Cassim.
-
They kiss lazily in the warm water of the relaxation pool. Alibaba is smooth to the touch, and Cassim slides his hands everywhere he can reach, every inch that’s always hidden beneath his royal garb, every inch that Cassim hasn’t seen in far too long.
Alibaba massages his fingers gently down Cassim’s scalp as they kiss, sending a satisfying little shiver down Cassim’s spine. His ponytail comes undone, but Alibaba ties it back up into a messy bun, and while his hands are preoccupied, Cassim nibbles down Alibaba’s earlobe to his cute freckled shoulder, and Alibaba laughs. The sound bounces off the water around them like bubbles, and Cassim pulls him in for another kiss, for a taste of that mirth.
Alibaba begins seeking each little mar on Cassim’s body again, about to play their usual game, when his fingertips brush against Cassim’s latest scar. Cassim flinches.
Alibaba looks up in alarm, and Cassim can feel the mood drain as they both gaze down at the black spider sprawling across Cassim’s belly. Cassim flattens a palm against it, and it feels strange, a little numb. Like flesh that’s no longer his.
“I got there too late. I couldn’t protect you.” Alibaba stares with actual tears in his eyes. Cassim swears this boy cries at the drop of a pin these days.
He tilts his head to the side, so Alibaba can see his earring. “You did, dumbass. The Household Vessel bought me time. It bought me enough time for you to save my life.”
Alibaba frowns, still staring at Cassim’s wound, so Cassim grabs him by the face, a handful of cheek in each palm, and he raises Alibaba’s head to look him in the eye.
“You saved me,” says Cassim. “You always save me.”
Alibaba holds back for maybe three seconds before the tears finally spill over, and they come down faster than Cassim can wipe them away. Cassim lets them fall, and he begins to recognize that they’re not tears of relief or happiness. Alibaba is genuinely sad, and it doesn’t feel right.
“Why are you crying?” asks Cassim. “I’m fine. We’re fine, aren’t we?”
“I’m so sorry,” weeps Alibaba, gripping his hands tight. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Baffled, Cassim pulls him into a hug. He doesn’t understand. They’re connected again. He doesn’t know what’s wrong. He swallows a lump in his throat, and it crumbles into something tender in his chest. This was everything he wanted, but it's terrible if Alibaba isn't happy. Alibaba always ruins everything, but...
He hasn’t felt this way about Alibaba in a very long time, and he was certain he never would again. They had drawn the line in their relationship half a year ago: king and advisor. Occasionally, something physical. It could have been simple. But they’re both so stupid, constantly toeing the line between them until it’s a mess, and neither can tell where Cassim ends and where Alibaba begins.
Alibaba’s voice rumbles lightly against his chest. “Cassim…”
Cassim sighs and bares his own throat. Alibaba presses a kiss to it. They both know it’s as close as Cassim will ever come to saying, “I love you.”
“I’m sorry,” says Alibaba against his neck, and Cassim still doesn’t know why.
-
It’s an hour before sunset, and the votes are tallied.
Alibaba sits on the throne as king for the last time in history, and Cassim stands beside him. Whispers from the aristocrats flutter about his ears.
“He looks perfectly healthy…”
“I thought he killed himself in the courtyard over this election!”
“Shh, they’re going to announce the totals!”
At the base of the throne stand Sinbad and Kougyoku, who have the final votes in hand. They face the crowd, away from the throne. Cassim can’t see their expressions, but surely they are as well-trained as their postures.
“In last place with ten percent of the nationwide votes,” Sinbad announces, his baritone clear as a bell, “is Sahbmad Saluja.” Cassim glances toward Alibaba at that. A ninety percent landslide! Cassim could almost gloat. Alibaba has no reaction.
“In second place, with thirty-one percent of the votes—” continues Kougyoku, and Cassim looks back to her in silent alarm. If Sahbmad isn’t the runner-up, then could Maruf have somehow gotten his name back in the polls? Impossible, Cassim saw him arrested! He scours his brain for who could possibly be in second place. “—Alibaba Saluja.”
“Th-thirty-one… percent?” Cassim murmurs in confusion. He looks to Alibaba, who avoids his gaze. Cassim’s heart pounds. “Only thirty percent? That leaves almost sixty left! Who has the majority?!” He takes a step toward the stairs, but Alibaba catches his wrist and holds him in place. Cassim glares back. “What have you done?”
“And the victor of Balbadd’s first election for Prime minister,” concludes Sinbad, “with fifty-nine percent of the votes…”
Alibaba smiles impishly at him, all teeth. “Wait for it.”
“Cassim.”
Slowly, Cassim turns back toward the hall, and he feels the weight of every gaze fall squarely on him. Kougyoku and Sinbad turn to the throne, each with an outstretched hand.
“Balbadd, we present your new Prime Minister—Cassim!”
Cassim.
The applause begins as loud, sarcastic claps from Judar floating near the ceiling, but it quickly gains momentum as Hassan, Zainab, and the palace division of the Fog Troupe join in. The Kou and Sindrians clap politely as well, and word must have gotten out because there’s suddenly a roar from outside.
They run to the loggia across the great hall, and when Cassim peers down, he can see the citizens flooding the palace gates, waving up at him, cheering. For him.
For Cassim.
Alibaba takes the spot next to him and surveys the courtyard. “You got what you wanted—commoners flooding the palace,” he chuckles, nudging Cassim gently with his shoulder.
Cassim can’t tear his eyes away from the people below. “What happened?”
“Mariam,” says Alibaba, handing Cassim a sheet of paper.
“Mariam,” says Cassim blankly, staring at it. It’s a ballot with both Sahbmad and Alibaba’s name neatly written at the top. Below, clumsily scribbled, was his own name: Cassim. “She taught the people how to write my name?”
“She found me on the night we met the Kou princess. She said it wasn’t right that the only candidates were the former kings of Balbadd. I told her to let the people write in who they wanted to lead them.”
Cassim looks at Alibaba, his heart heavy with feelings he can’t describe. “They picked me?”
Alibaba beams at him. “Apparently, over half the fishmongers in Balbadd wanted to learn to write one word in this lifetime, and that was ‘Cassim,’ the one who distributes wealth from the rich and mighty to his people.”
Cassim feels Alibaba’s arm around his shoulder, and he blinks back tears. It’s fucking hard this time. He turns to Alibaba, certain that the right words will find their way out of his mouth, but then he sees that Alibaba is close to crying, too. “Alibaba?”
Alibaba wipes his eyes and huffs a weak little laugh. He takes Cassim’s shoulders and turns him so that they’re face-to-face. “I’m sorry, Cassim,” he says.
“Sorry?” asks Cassim. Again?
But Alibaba lets him go, and he disappears into the throng of aristocrats, soldiers, Fog Troupe, everyone now crowding around Cassim to shake his hand. Cassim can’t see over them all, and he loses sight of Alibaba with that word echoing in his head.
Sorry.
-
Alibaba is gone.
Alibaba is gone, and Cassim doesn’t have the time to look for him while running a country. He used to, back when he ran things from the shadows, but now that he’s a figurehead, he finds so many paths he used to take blocked.
The tunnel Alibaba dug is gone. Filled in with sand and granite. Cassim looks at it from time to time and tries to figure out when Alibaba left because it could have only been through here. When did Alibaba have time to pack up his belongings? When after the election, while Cassim was entertaining everyone, did Alibaba slip out of the palace?
Alibaba has vanished, and the palace is as dark as Cassim’s dreams.
-
They’re thinking about each other.
The letters begin the week Cassim decides to renovate the library. He hasn’t stepped foot inside since the day he met Judar, and he’s examining the broken spines and torn scrolls he left when a messenger hands him the first envelope. It smells like the Sindrian spices Alibaba pointed out to him years ago in Qishan.
For a moment, he lets himself enjoy the nostalgia of that month when it was just him and Alibaba, and everything was just food, rest, and sex. It was only a year ago. Cassim feels like he’s aged ten years since then.
But Cassim is wary of letters from Sindria because Sinbad is negotiating with the Kou for Balbadd’s new status as a republic, and it’s about time for him to relay to Cassim what the Kou emperor has decided. Cassim knows he should have gone himself, but he didn’t want to leave Balbadd while it was still transitioning. Sinbad said he shouldn’t either; the culture shock with Kou royalty would have been “a diplomatic nightmare,” as he put it. Cassim didn’t argue with that.
He opens the letter and his heart skips a beat when he recognizes Alibaba’s handwriting. It hasn’t changed a bit since they were children, since Alibaba was a prince, since he became king, since four months ago when he disappeared from Balbadd. Cassim’s hands feel clammy as he reads the easygoing greetings. Alibaba recounts his adventure thus far.
After making Cassim Balbadd’s new leader, Alibaba decided to follow his dream of being an adventurer. He, Aladdin, and Morgiana left with Ja’far the next day to Sindria, where they stayed until now, awaiting Sinbad’s return from Kou. Alibaba regales Cassim with tales of Sindrian festivities and feasts. The forests are so lush and green, and nothing is more savory and mouth-watering than the spice-roasted papagoras bird—“Remember we saw this spice in Qishan?”—he wishes Cassim were there, but he thinks that time apart will do them good.
Cassim finishes the letter with his blood boiling, and he tears the paper into shreds. He kicks over a newly erected bookshelf and throws Alibaba’s favorite books out the window.
He leaves the library in a storm of resentment and fury.
Alibaba abandoned him and Balbadd for some childish whimsy in Sindria, Alibaba is stuffing his face while Cassim is left to fix the mess he started, Alibaba...
Alibaba left Cassim when Cassim thought they were finally good again.
Cassim enters his room and punches another hole in the mirror.
-
The cuts on his hands have almost completely healed when the second letter arrives.
Alibaba tells Cassim more about the food in Sindria. Cassim scans the letter and burns it with an oil lamp. He lights a cigar and leaves for a meeting to discuss matters of the state with the newly elected leaders of their parliament.
The third letter arrives, and it’s about food again. Cassim barely makes it past the second paragraph before he burns it and hops out the window onto Judar’s magic carpet. “Cassim, my man, you have no idea how shitty the stupid Ren family is acting after the emperor died,” the Magi complains, and Cassim is always happy to lend an ear to an old friend.
The fourth letter arrives, and Cassim burns it without breaking the seal. The Ren family have sent Kougyoku again, this time with reforms regarding Balbadd’s social structures. “Accept these criticisms and improve,” she says. Cassim reminds her that Sinbad has probably returned to Sindria, which is only a few days’ journey from Balbadd. She leaves without waiting for his response.
The fifth letter arrives when Cassim has worked himself to ill health. From his bedside, Mariam snatches it from him before he can burn it, and she reads it to him, “Salutations, Prime Minister Cassim. I hope this letter finds you well. Although we have had an unusual working relationship in the past, I ask that you remember me fondly and do me the favor of responding to Alibaba’s letters. He spends most of his time in the kitchens, and I fear he is unwell. Yours, Sahbmad.”
Cassim wrinkles his nose and scribbles a response, “Stop eating, fatty.”
The sixth letter arrives shortly after, and it’s also from Sahbmad: “Thank you.”
-
The Kou keep trying to control Balbadd, and Cassim keeps foiling them with excuses and nonsense. If the infrastructure isn’t at capacity for renovations, then it’s something else.
Cassim has seen their plans for social change. They look fair on paper, but Markkio’s currency strategy did, too, once upon a time ago. Cassim knows better, and he won’t let them pull the same trick on him again. Cassim picks the rules apart.
Everyone is guaranteed a livable government salary, but no one chooses their own career. There are no real social classes under Kou rule, but everyone will wear clothes that denote their status in the empire. The color white is forbidden, and that little bit hits Cassim personally because he has always worn white, ever since he was a poor child by the sea. It’s the color of wave tops and the clouds above the horizon, of fishermen’s ropes, of big wide sails and nets, and of the fog that drifts into the streets of Balbadd from the ocean. It’s what the Fog Troupe wears. It’s Balbadd.
Cassim rejects the plans over and over again. Balbadd may be in debt to the Kou, but they will not belong to the Kou.
Meanwhile, Alibaba’s letters keep coming in. Despite Cassim’s (insultingly) short replies, Alibaba continues to write his heart onto the parchment. Some are pages upon pages long. They’re not always about food.
Morgiana has made use of her own Household Vessel under Amon. Cassim wonders how many others will join them in Alibaba’s Household. Strange how they’re forming a family in such an unconventional way, but it’s the way that Sinbad did it, so Cassim isn’t surprised that Alibaba is following in his footsteps. Something about it feels right to Cassim, too.
Alibaba has been expanding his repertoire when it comes to swordsmanship, and he’s taken an apprenticeship under one of Sinbad’s generals, a Heliohapt man by the name of Sharkkan. Aladdin is being trained by a magician named Yamraiha. Alibaba wonders about the two Sindrians’ relationship. Cassim writes back, “Trust me, you don’t want to get between two idiots who can’t figure out they’re in love.” He pauses. He almost scratches it out, but decides to leave it. He adds, “Speaking of idiots in love, Zainab and Hassan are having a baby.”
Alibaba often talks at length about a boy he met who is one year younger than him and a prince of the Kou Empire: Hakuryuu. After conquering a dungeon together with him, Alibaba feels like he can’t leave Hakuryuu alone, not when he reminds him of Cassim. By description alone, Cassim can see him: a bitter boy with something to prove, hellbent on finding power. Cassim sits on his response for a few weeks.
He writes back at last, “Try not to fall in love with him since he’s obviously your type.”
-
There is a night when Cassim decides to sleep in the library, and he falls asleep thinking about Alibaba.
Cassim floats through his dreams, looking for him until he runs into Aladdin. He can’t understand what the boy is saying, but they clasp hands and search for Alibaba together. Cassim wakes up when they find him.
Shortly after, another letter from Alibaba arrives while Cassim is dictating yet another message to the Kou prince who seems to be in charge of “correcting Balbadd.” His name is Koumei. (“Kill me,” Cassim groans every time his name pops up.) He needs a much-deserved break from this guy, and so he opens Alibaba’s letter with a little more zeal than usual.
Alibaba tells Cassim he was ill for a while, but Aladdin cured him. He had woken up thinking about Cassim. Kougyoku had arrived in Sindria not long after that, and that was its own little drama. He taught her how to make flower crowns. They became friends and often talk about Cassim.
During his stay in Sindria, Alibaba also met another princess named Dunya, who hailed from Sinbad’s homeland now known as Partevia. He was a little hazy regarding their first encounter, but Cassim could deduce it was in battle. She died from self-inflicted wounds. “She did what you did, but she went a step further. I wasn’t able to stop her. I couldn’t help her,” he writes, and the words on the parchment look so helpless and fragile. Cassim can imagine Alibaba’s hands trembling as he wrote them.
Alibaba had a conversation with Sinbad not too long afterward. The conversation turned to Cassim as well, and Sinbad mentioned nostalgically that Cassim reminded him of another Partevian princess he once butted heads with. She was headstrong but brilliant, convinced of her goals and ruthlessly efficient in achieving them. Despite having these same qualities, she was the stark opposite of Cassim. Rather than fighting the rulers to give more power to the people, she was convinced that the people banded together to cause chaos, and rigid control was needed to maintain a solid nation. Cassim scowls at that, and he’s glad he never met her.
The letter concludes a little nebulously after that, as if Alibaba had all of these experiences, and he didn’t know what to make of them. Somehow, they all made him feel homesick. Cassim, Cassim, Cassim kept popping up. It reminded him of when they first arrived in the palace, and they had been separated for those first three years. Alibaba thought he was a new person then and had fallen in love with that Cassim.
Alibaba wonders if they’ll see each other differently again the next time they meet. The thought surprises Cassim. He hadn’t thought of that.
Cassim rereads the letter a few times before he sits down. It takes him an hour to write and send his response.
“Come home. I miss you, too.”
-
Instead, Alibaba sends a gaggle of salty, ragged children. Cassim doesn’t even know where Alibaba found them, and the memo that came attached to them had been irritatingly vague.
“Pirates,” Alibaba’s letter had called them. “You said you wanted to adopt kids, right?” They look at Cassim with big, bright eyes, and Cassim caves in.
They do prove themselves excellent at terrorizing the Kou officials that Koumei sends. Cassim considers himself lucky.
The leader of the group, a boy by the name of Olba, takes a shine to Cassim. When Olba waves to Cassim in the halls, the hook at the end of his right arm glints cheerfully in the sunlight. Tales of the Fog Troupe had spread to the Aktia Kingdom’s seas, where they did most of their plundering. Olba had been very keen to meet the Fog Troupe leader that sailors kept mistaking him for. Cassim has a few stories to share, and so does Olba. He’s small for his age and missing a hand, so Cassim feeds him whenever he sees him. They get along splendidly.
Cassim patiently waits for the day that Olba tells him the story of how he lost his hand, but a bit of a tragedy hits the poor kid before then: he falls head over heels in love for Mariam, the now true leader of the Fog Troupe. When Mariam, refusing to believe they’re the same age, rejects him, little Olba begs Cassim to send him away to a place where he can grow into a proper man.
Sadly, Cassim sends him and his closest friends to Sindria, where he knows Sinbad’s crew will take good care of them.
“How did you lose your hand?” Cassim asks before the boy boards the ship.
Olba flashes him an affectionate smile. “Ask Alibaba!”
-
Oddly enough, a letter from Alibaba arrives the next day, apologizing for his lapse in their correspondence.
Alibaba has spent several months training at the colosseum in Reim. He quickly assures Cassim that Sinbad didn’t sell him into slavery, and that he went to Reim of his own accord to study magoi manipulation. Cassim doesn’t understand what that means, but apparently, it’s why Alibaba’s abilities with his magic dagger weren’t on par with Kougyoku’s.
Alibaba tells Cassim of all the people he meets at the colosseum: wise but eccentric Shambal, fierce and beautiful Toto, great Garda, the SML Nando Brothers...
Cassim looks up and glances around the lounge where the rest of his Fog Troupe member are resting. Come to think of it, Cassim hasn’t seen those three around the palace in weeks. Alibaba says they jumped ship and started a hotel business in Reim. Well, good for them.
Alibaba says that he thought of Cassim again in the duel ring. He thought about their childhood together in the slums and the palace. He thought about how hard Cassim worked to protect them and how much he learned from Cassim. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he can understand Cassim again, and he says it’s because of their letters.
Cassim feels so light, it’s like he’s floating. Even though he’s the one that resisted, the letters have been a strange but intimate connection to Alibaba over the past few months. They’ve never been able to talk this thoroughly in person. They’ve never been able to fully listen to what the other was saying, but when it’s all written down in paper, and it’s the only words in weeks, their gravity deepens. Cassim cherishes each letter, and Alibaba…
Alibaba wants to thank him properly in person.
He tells Cassim that he is headed home. He’s boarding a ship tomorrow, but it will make a stop in Magnostadt first. Cassim feels his heart tighten, and reality comes crashing back down.
Magnostadt and Reim declared war on each other a day ago. The only ships sailing from Reim to Magnostadt are warships.
-
Cassim waits and waits. The Kou messengers come, but he bats them away like a cat swats at flies. Each threaten to bring more force, and Cassim waves them off impatiently.
He waits.
-
There’s no letter for weeks.
And then Alibaba comes home.
Alibaba comes home at the worst possible time because Koumei has arrived to exert his will, and he brought his big brother with him: Kouen Ren, the new Kou Emperor.
Cassim is arguing with Kou tailors when he hears that voice: “Uhh, should I come back later?”
Alibaba smiles at him from the doorway, draped in Reim’s garb with a new knife at his belt.
Cassim stares with his mouth agape. He quickly comes to his senses and shoos the Kou men out. Alibaba closes the double doors behind the men, and it’s just the two of them. Cassim waits for Alibaba to come to him, but his steps are slow, and well… damn it, Alibaba traveled hundreds of miles to Cassim, so Cassim figures he can cross those last two feet to meet Alibaba.
It's hard to say who met who halfway.
Alibaba tackles Cassim onto a divan and kisses him before he can get a word in. He presses kisses up along Cassim’s face to his hair. His clothes smell like sea spray and foreign soaps. Cassim runs his hands all over Alibaba. His body is firmer than Cassim remembers.
“Nice,” Cassim murmurs into Alibaba’s ear, reaching under the Reim robes. He squeezes Alibaba’s hard, sun-kissed thighs and slides his hands up to palm Alibaba’s ass. “Rock solid. Your training must have really paid off.”
Alibaba’s face is hot against his cheek. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Cassim chuckles into his shoulder. “It’s been too long, Alibaba.”
-
“What are you wearing?” Alibaba asks, hiking his robes up above his hips. Now that’s a sight Cassim has missed. He pushes Alibaba onto his back and hooks the blond’s knees across his good shoulder.
“Sign of good faith for my meeting with his imperial majesty,” Cassim says giving the high collar on his Kou dress a tug. “The Kou have been on my heels since you left. They want us to wear their clothes. Among other things.”
“A whole ensemble, isn’t it?” Alibaba says, watching Cassim untie his pants with hungry eyes. “Sorry I left you to deal with that…”
“Squeeze down for me,” says Cassim, and Alibaba does. Cassim bends him in half and fucks his thighs. He nips Alibaba’s earring. “Not the first time you abandoned me.”
Alibaba shivers. He grabs Cassim’s hair. “Sorry. S-sorry, I’m sorry…” He pulls Cassim’s face to his. “Forgive me?” Cassim dodges his kiss and laughs when Alibaba whines, “C’mon…!”
“Enough with the puppy eyes. You think you’re a good enough lay that I’ll forgive you every time you leave?” Cassim teases, affectionately. A little mean-spiritedly as well. They both know he isn't above holding a grudge.
Alibaba scowls and squeezes his legs tighter together. Cassim hisses at the pressure. Alibaba always feels amazing, his disheveled hair and lusty gold eyes are positively glittering, and his grip on Cassim’s hair is just perfect. “Do it, come,” says Alibaba, and Cassim fucking hates that he does on command.
“You’re the worst,” Cassim groans into his neck, and he can feel Alibaba grinning smugly to himself.
“Kiss me,” says Alibaba with the arrogance of a victor, but Cassim isn’t not going to play fair either. He releases Alibaba's legs and reaches down to the hardness between them—and squeezes.
Alibaba arches into him with a gasp, and Cassim traps his neck in the crook of his elbow. “Here’s your damn kiss,” he growls and crushes their lips together.
Alibaba whimpers as Cassim plays with him, rubbing his thighs along Cassim while Cassim slowly kisses him into oblivion. He comes when Cassim tells him to, and now they’re even, panting for breath and starry-eyed.
It feels like that day when Alibaba declared Cassim his advisor all over again, and that month in Qishan, and that night in the library when Alibaba pressed his forehead against Cassim’s. Goddamn, it might just be love.
Cassim is enjoying Alibaba’s warmth beneath him when a sharp knock on the door drags him back to reality. He ignores it, but it intrudes again, this time sharper, more urgent.
“I know, dammit! Gimme a minute!” Cassim snarls at the door. He plants his face back into Alibaba’s chest. “Goddamn, the meeting.”
“We messed up… your clothes,” Alibaba groans into his hair. “God, I’m sorry—what’re you gonna wear to see the Kou?”
Cassim says nothing. He pushes himself onto his elbows and looks down at Alibaba, who blinks up at him sleepily, his cheeks flushed, mouth parted, and looking infinitely ready for another orgasm. It takes a lot of effort for Cassim to look away. “What I usually wear, I guess.”
Alibaba watches him strip off his Kou clothes and stumble to his wardrobe. “What about… the good faith?”
"Well, now I can be honest." Cassim tugs on his regular robes and throws Alibaba a baleful look. Alibaba blinks back at him, obliviously irresistible, and Cassim just about snaps. He turns back around. “For fuck’s sake, could you make yourself decent?! I’m trying negotiate terms with one of the largest empires in the world, and you just come back and ruin everything! I had plans. I had four plans, but this just puts an arrow through all of them!”
“Okay, okay. This is my fault again,” says Alibaba with a resigned sigh, stark naked at Cassim’s side. Cassim watches mutely as Alibaba pulls on clothes from his wardrobe.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going with you,” says Alibaba, resolutely pulling on pants. “There’s two of them, so there should be two of us.”
“Pretty sure the two of them aren’t gonna show up smelling like sex,” Cassim deadpans.
“Then, we’ve got the element of surprise up our sleeves.” Alibaba grins at him. “Seriously, I’ve met Kouen. He’s not gonna know what to make of this.”
“What the fuck, Alibaba.”
And right there in the afternoon sunlight, as Cassim watches Alibaba chuckle to himself while tying a sash around his waist, he is moonstruck. Not just with Alibaba, but with life itself.
Alibaba got the freedom to see the world. He fell in love with it, but he still loved Cassim so much that he came back to Balbadd for him. And Cassim, he is finally in control of his fate. He can make it on his own without Alibaba.
They’ve gone through their lives with plans and expectations weighing down on them. Burdens from others or ones they put on themselves, it didn’t matter. It was a daunting, endless stream, but they made it through all of everything; not unscathed, but stronger. There’s still time to dream of an even better future. And suddenly, all those plans he made about who he should be, and what they should be—he realizes they could change.
They could change for the better. And they’re not even twenty yet.
Cassim freshens himself up as best he can and smiles at his reflection in his new mirror.
“Let’s go see the Kou, Partner,” he says.
Alibaba nods and holds out his hand. Cassim takes it with what feels like a heart full of light.
Notes:
Thank you so much for your kudos and wonderful comments, especially those of you who came back to comment multiple times! I had a great time reading them, and I hope you had a good read as well. If you’d like to read more from me, I started another Cassim x Alibaba fic called Silk for Steel. You can also follow me on twitter as @goodnightwrite.
There’s so many things to say about this fic, but I'll leave you with this: if you noticed any references to the Hamilton musical, they were entirely intentional. I was listening to the soundtrack while writing the majority of this fic, since I was writing about a revolutionary treasurer and all. Until next time!
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goodnight on Chapter 1 Wed 13 Jul 2022 10:38PM UTC
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Evilve (Guest) on Chapter 2 Fri 28 Oct 2016 06:37AM UTC
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goodnight on Chapter 2 Fri 28 Oct 2016 05:03PM UTC
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nocturnalboys on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Oct 2016 02:23PM UTC
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goodnight on Chapter 2 Sun 30 Oct 2016 06:25PM UTC
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Unfaithful_Fangirl on Chapter 2 Fri 04 Nov 2016 07:55AM UTC
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goodnight on Chapter 2 Fri 04 Nov 2016 05:31PM UTC
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Audrey (Guest) on Chapter 2 Fri 02 Dec 2016 06:08AM UTC
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goodnight on Chapter 2 Fri 02 Dec 2016 07:33AM UTC
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