Selima studied his face as they walked. “You don’t look at all comforted,” she said. “Was our news and the merchant’s so bad?”
“That is no merchant,” Jafar said. “That’s His Highness Prince Ahmad of Ravan.”
Selima’s eyes went wide. Putting her hands up to cover her mouth, she exclaimed, “Oh no! And me unveiled! What must he think of me?”
“Oh, my lovely daughter—my lovely, modest girl. He’s got too many problems of his own to worry about unveiled commoners,” Jafar said in his gentlest voice. Carefully he recited to her what had happened in the interview—that the opening of the urn of Aeshma signaled a change in worldly Cycles and that he and Prince Ahmad were charged with finding the pieces of the Crystal of Oromasd and uniting the armies of mankind against the forces of Rimahn. He told
