The sound came before the woman did — a soft, metallic whisper that threaded through the velvet corridors like a laugh. Gold hem against marble. Tiny bells sewn into the gown chimed with each measured step. Candles dipped and bent toward the glare of the dress as if the fabric itself demanded worship.
Sultana moved as if the palace existed for the rhythm of her feet. Two maids hovered a half-step behind her, faces scrubbed and blank, palms folded to hide trembling. In Sultana's arm, swaddled like an ornament, slept a child: a small fist, a face too young to understand the bargain being made for it. She lifted him, kissed the crown of his head with theatrical tenderness, and smiled — a smile that showed no tenderness at all.
"Look at him," one maid whispered, giggling as Sultana turned. "Like a little god."
"He'll fetch good price," the other replied, voice low and practical, eyes sliding to the glint of the jewelry chest at Sultana's back. "Enough to buy three houses in the market."
Sultana's laugh was a ribbon of ice. "Enough to secure our future," she said. "Enough to remind the city who keeps the throne in this district."
From deeper in the Glided serpent mansion Nazeera heard the procession before she saw it. Thin breath hitching, she climbed the stairs like a ghost with longing in her bones. The world wanted to fold around the sound of jewels; her world was a different quiet — a crib pressed against a wall, a night still smelling of milk and fever. She had been put to bed only three hours before; she had not slept. She had not stopped listening for the lullaby of her son's small noises. And now the hush of the corridor turned to stone in her chest.
Nazeera stepped into the doorway. Her gown, once rich, hung loose; her hair had been poorly braided in the dark. Her emerald eyes — fierce and raw — landed on Sultana and the baby like a hand trying to grab a falling star.
"Sultana," she croaked, voice splitting. "Please."
Sultana paused, the tip of her slipper catching the edge of the carpet as if bored by the interruption. She looked down at Nazeera, and the smile that curled was savoring rather than kind.
"What is it, little moth?" Sultana asked, voice silky. "You look as if you haven't eaten a thought in a week."
Nazeera's knees buckled; she sank until she was on the floor and caught at Sultana's robe. Her fingers found the gold, held like a confession. "No — please. Don't take him. Don't— don't sell him. He's mine. He is mine."
A maid behind Sultana snorted softly; another covered her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes glittering with the spectacle.
Sultana's hand came down, not cruelly but with the smooth certainty of a hand that calculates. She lifted Nazeera's chin with a single finger and tilted her face upward, making the woman meet that cold gaze.
"You are asking for what you are not owed," Sultana said, soft as a coin sliding through silk. "A child is currency, Nazeera. Love is not. You know the prices this house demands. We have mouths to feed, debts to settle, enemies to bribe. The boy will be spoken for. He will ensure our place. Think of his life — think of what we can buy for him."
Tears made tracks against Nazerra's cheeks, but her mouth would not form the shape of surrender. She clawed at Sultana's sleeve, desperate, humbling herself to the only power left in the room.
"Please," she begged again, voice breaking as if each syllable were a stone. "I will do anything. I will beg, I will work—"
Sultana withdrew like a queen withdrawing her favor. Her maids stepped forward, but she shook her head and held up the child as if displaying a prize. "This," she said, "is how empires are kept. One jewel, one alliance, one husband's coin. We trade what we must. You would not see him raised half‑starved and dishonored in a house that cannot protect him."
She unfastened a small jewelry box from the crook of her elbow and snapped it open. Inside, a single necklace lay, the gem catching the candlelight and throwing it back in cold showers. Sultana let it fall into Nazeera's lap like a verdict.
"This is all we could have of him," she said, almost apologetic, as though a mother might accept a trinket for her child's life and feel whole. "Remember that when you sleep."
Nazerra's breath stopped; the necklace was a promise with a hundred sharp edges. She clutched it as if to squeeze meaning from metal, but metal does not answer.
The room narrowed. The maids shuffled away, whispering about creditors and bargains, about how the city would talk. Sultana turned on the threshold, her heels clicking like a passing sentence.
Nazeera's voice came out small, a thing of broken glass. "One day," she said, words more oath than plea, "I will take what you stole. I will take everything you have. You will not sleep in peace, Sultana. I will follow you like a shadow. I will take your jewels, your men, your power — and I will take your life."
Sultana paused only once, halfway down the corridor, and looked back over her shoulder. For a breath, something like curiosity flickered over her face, then smoothed out into the practiced inscrutability of a woman who had learned to bury storms.
"Make me a promise, Nazeera," she called, voice thrown like a stone. "When the day comes that you rise, do it with better manners. Revenge is ugly when performed hastily."
Her laugh trailed away. The corridor swallowed the sound. Nazeera remained on the floor, the necklace cold against her palm, the echo of Sultana's golden hem still ringing in her bones. She closed her eyes and let the vow settle under her ribs like a seed — small, impossible, waiting for the right weather.