Mahmud

It's not that I like being alone, in fact, I'm sure I'd be an extrovert were I born a normal man, yet what I am has always set me apart from others and it inclines me toward isolation.

That is until Zahra appeared in my life.

Speaking of Zahra, where is she?

"I know your secret, Mahmud," Prince Timon is the one who interrupts my silent reverie out on the balcony by myself.

"Ah, you do?" I say, not at all perturbed, I've learned to keep my cool. Once I was a stuttering fool in situations like this, but the years in the cavalry have changed me. No one would guess me a magi or accuse me of being one. Zahra and I are way too careful.

"You've got yourself a little side piece there... Luna her name is?" Timon says, nodding over toward the women's side of the banquet.

So that's where she trotted off to.

"What do you mean by a side piece?" I ask him, leaning over the railing of the balcony and gazing out toward the desert sands over the wall.

"Did you see my bride. Did you see my Shara?" Timon asks, I note his voice is slurred from too much drinking.

"She's lovely," I answer politely, but I cannot think of her the way Timon wants me to. The way every man is trained to think of women here in Kanan. Every man here doesn't know Zahra.

"Lovely?" Timon snorts, "She's a wisp of a girl who I'm sure will cry like a baby that I'm hurting her later tonight." He laughs and shakes his head as if finding this disgusting comment funny.

Suddenly I wish I was anywhere but on the balcony with him.

"My father says he has plans for you, Mahmud," Timon adds, swirling the liquid in his goblet before downing it. "Wonderful plans for you."

"What kind of plans?" I say, trying not to grit my teeth at how much I loath him. I turn from my view off the balcony to face Timon. I'm just in time to knock him out of the way of a dagger expertly thrown by a masked man in a cream colored, red-stitched tunic.

Timon screams. Actually screams. As if he were a housemaid who saw a viper and clambered up a chair. 

The assassin is not deterred, he throws another dagger, there is no time to push Timon out of its way so I knock that one away with a gust of wind I unwittingly create.

All eyes are on us because of Timon's scream too.

Dammit. Timon isn't worth outing me as a magi to the entire banquet.

It may have appeared a fluke of weather on the balcony to everyone at the banquet if the strong gust simply blew the dagger aside, but my power sends the dagger flying back in the other direction, landing it in the assassin's shoulder.

Guards flurry around the wounded assassin on all sides to stop him from throwing another dagger.

King Raman comes forward to the secured would-be assassin. Raman's face is beet red in outrage over the attempt on his son's life. "Who dares come to my banquet of peace and attack my family?" he bellows. "Bring this man to me so I may show his cowardly face to everyone here."

Two guards force the profusely bleeding man to the floor on his knees. King Raman yanks the mask from his face. The man underneath the mask has a face twisted in pain, but no one appears to recognize him.

"We will find who you're working for. You will beg for death by the time my inquisitors are through with you," Timon splutters from his fallen place on the floor. He glares up at me with wide eyes, the look on his face spikes my veins with a rush of alarm.

Timon knows I used magic.

"My son's words ring true, unless you wish to tell us your intent right here and save yourself the torture?" Raman growls.

"My intention was simple," the man spits in Timon's direction. "That worm you call a son has no right to touch an angel like Shara. She doesn't deserve to be defiled by the pompous, spoiled, son of a warmonger!"

And here I was worried about a Bandul attack.

"Who are you then?" Timon's attention leaves me entirely and he cocks his head. "Why would you care so much about what happens to Shara. None at this banquet recognize you as family?"

"I'm in love with her!" the man cries, his gaze turns to the women side of the room.

By this time the women have ventured over to see what the commotion is about, Shara herself stands among them, her face is as stone to the man's claims and to the attempt on Timon's life.

"Do you know this man, my bride?" Timon asks, his tone is tender compared to the note he'd held when talking about Shara to me earlier. Perhaps the idea that another man could be so passionately in love with her that he'd kill a prince for her, has Timon's respect for Shara rising.

"I do not," Shara says quietly, nodding toward the man in question. "I am, however, angered he tried to kill my husband."

Yet her voice does not show the anger she speaks of.

"Take him out of here, tie him to a pole in the desert and let the gods decide his fate," Raman says, his nose wrinkled in disgust at the spectacle.

"Shara!" the man cries as he's dragged away from the banquet.

The party picks up faster than one would expect after an attempted murder, the men go back to drinking and feasting, and the women whisper amongst themselves as they return to their seats.

I need to get to Zahra. The fact that I used magic so publicly has me on edge and Zahra's lively banter is the only thing that could take that edge away.

I discreetly make my way toward where the women are seated.

"Captain Mahmud," my name is said with purpose from none other than King Raman's lips. "A word in private, my boy?"