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Duke of Two Cities Chapter 47
Zayin’s head throbbed. He wished, more than he’d ever wished for anything in his life, that he could wake up back home, in Al-Zhabaiye. He missed his coffee, he missed his 17th story view of the desert, he missed the smell of the cedar paneling of his building’s elevator. All these little things he missed, many of which he had not appreciated before. His head ached until the pain seeped down into his shoulders. So tense were all his muscles that even the slightest movement ached. And it was well to be tense, because his ward, the PRINCE OF AL-ZHABAIYE HIMSELF, chose to behave like a childish idiot. Now Zayin and his security team occupied the hotel’s Executive Lounge, where they had extradited the Prince from a possible attempt on his life. The Prince sat on the couch with his head in his hands, refusing to look at or speak to anyone. One of his security team had thoughtfully prepared a plate of dried fruit and cheese. The plate sat in front of the Prince, untouched. Good. Maybe the
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 48
Devon sat crosslegged on the floor, squishing his hunter’s hat for comfort. He stared at a spot of carpet, trying to drown out the sounds of the frightening-looking man screaming at Ali. Devon could piece together that the goons all worked for him—some of them were half in costume, others dressed like regular folk. A few wore golden watches. Were they thugs? If so, they weren’t like any gang members that Devon had ever seen, and New Hudson was unfortunately filled with those. These men looked too clean-cut. They didn’t have the casual swagger of the gangs he knew, and other than a little bit of rough-handling on the way to the top-floor lounge, they hadn’t been beaten. Furthermore, gang attacks usually don’t take this long, and by this point they had been sitting in the lounge for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, Ali had begun to shout at the man who kidnapped him. That was the strangest part of all of this--when Ali shouted, the man who kidnapped them listened. And so did his goons. At
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 49
Since the construction of the New Hudson Convention Center, there had never been a moment quite what Marc Abramov experienced in that Executive Lounge. Since its actual opening some twenty years prior, there had never been so many people silenced all at once with just a few short words. Time seemed to freeze and Marc’s armhairs stood straight on their ends. The VIP…more like the VVIP in fact…was expecting an answer. Why did Marc make the VIP’s brother cry?He clasped his hands and began, “Well—“ Well what? Nothing. The words caught in his throat. Something about the young man’s look—and he barely registered as a man at all—struck him with a sense of absolute terror. The VIP’s gaze encompassed his entire being, utterly and completely, as though he were no more than a fixture of the room. Marc had a sudden, curious idea that there was a sword hanging over his neck. And if he did not speak very, very carefully, that sword would drop and lop his head clean off from his body. There
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 50
It was not the strangest occurrence to ever happen, but it was one of the strangest that had ever happen to Zayin.He stood nearly speechless as Marc, a hotel functionary, sputtered and nearly fell down on his knees trying to explain to Ali how all of this had been an enormous mistake. There had been in Marc’s words, ‘a deep and serious cultural miscommunication that New Hudson Convention Center will work tirelessly to reconcile’. It was ten minutes of this kind of diplomatic nonsense, and Zayin had to admit that he was doing quite well with it. In another life, and with another passport, Marc would have made a great presenter for one of the old State Television channels. More amusing still was, for the first time since knowing him, Ali acted like a prince. This was the greatest shock. Zayin was confident in this assessment—that Ali would be easily brushed aside by his more competent cousins and tossed out of Zhabaiye public life. Cousin Sayid would place him on a farm in the middle
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 51
Things were getting out of hand. Zayin needed to think quickly; his Prince was going to start digging himself into a deep and terribly expensive hole. Yes, Ali had certain entitlements to his family’s wealth…in theory. But Ali had never tapped into his family’s wealth before—Zayin wasn’t even sure that he could. It was a poorly kept secret that more than one relative had access to Ali’s accounts…including Cousin Sayid. To his shame, Zayin was quietly praying that there was not enough left to embarrass the Prince. He never thought that he would ever wish for relatives to embezzle the Prince’s funds. Even with his Aunts and Cousin Sayid dipping into his funds, Ali’s personal wealth was enough that he could make serious trouble for himself, as well as the Kingdom. And with the stone-set fury on Ali’s face, trouble would come. Perhaps the key to solving the trouble lay in Ali’s ‘brother’. “You.” He pointed at Devon and spoke in English. “Come with me, please.”Quietly, Devon complied.
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 52
His room had been cancelled. Just like that. No warning, no notice. At the snap of Marc’s fingers, Devon had been unceremoniously tossed out of a Convention that he literally gave up his family to attend. Devon stared at Marc for a while. Then, he laughed. He laughed quietly, then he laughed loudly, cackling, until he had no more breath in him. And still he laughed. This had been, by far, the most ridiculous weekend in Devon’s entire life. He had given up his family in a moment of anger, suffered assault and insult nearly daily, only to befriend some kind of foreign royalty who, while defending his newfound friend, had sacrificed the only housing he would have for the foreseeable future. Ridiculous! His life had become a joke, some absurd and wild story written by a mad idiot. This was a weekend that would define the rest of his life, and it all had just been so unbelievably stupid. Meanwhile, Marc looked as though he were about to leap out of the Executive Lounge window from shee
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 1
Devon was fifteen minutes away from being homeless, all because of a hat. The hat was part of his Convention costume—a leather hunter’s hat with a hawk’s feather sticking out from the brim. It took him three months' worth of paychecks for that hat, custom made and fitted. It was his hat, worthy of a hunter, and along with his hunter’s vest, it was a piece of work that Devon could finally be proud of. So, of course, his sister Neveah had to steal it. She wasn’t even sneaky about it. Neveah didn’t have to be, since Devon’s room had no door—only a sad, thin sheet of fabric. Nothing prevented Neveah from waltzing into his room at her pleasure and snatching up his hat. “Neveah! What the hell is wrong with you?” From down the hall came the hoarse cry of Momma, “Devon! Don’t you talk like that to your sister!” Devon grit his teeth, calming himself with a firm bite on his lip, and stormed out into the apartment hall, towards the kitchen at the end of the hallway. There sat Momma at a
Duke of Two Cities Chapter 2
He picked the hat. It wasn’t the smartest choice Devon had ever made. It probably wasn’t even a good choice. But it was his choice, and after living a life dictated by Momma's indulgence of Neveah's every need, that he chose was reason enough. Not all of him agreed, however; there was a practical part of him screaming at the top of its voiceless lungs, What the hell are you doing? You really fixing to put yourself out on the street over a hat?! Yes. He grabbed his hat and stormed off to his room. His legs shook. He barely noticed throwing a few scraps of clothes into his gym bag—some basketball shorts, some jeans, a few shirts, socks, and underwear. Meanwhile, behind him came the voracious screaming of Momma and Neveah, though in his anger he didn’t hear what they were screaming about. “Don’t go! Don’t go!” “Get out! Get out!” Whatever they were saying disappeared into a haze of chaotic shouting. Good, he thought. It’ll be payback for all the years his own screaming went unh
Latest Chapter
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 52
His room had been cancelled. Just like that. No warning, no notice. At the snap of Marc’s fingers, Devon had been unceremoniously tossed out of a Convention that he literally gave up his family to attend. Devon stared at Marc for a while. Then, he laughed. He laughed quietly, then he laughed loudly, cackling, until he had no more breath in him. And still he laughed. This had been, by far, the most ridiculous weekend in Devon’s entire life. He had given up his family in a moment of anger, suffered assault and insult nearly daily, only to befriend some kind of foreign royalty who, while defending his newfound friend, had sacrificed the only housing he would have for the foreseeable future. Ridiculous! His life had become a joke, some absurd and wild story written by a mad idiot. This was a weekend that would define the rest of his life, and it all had just been so unbelievably stupid. Meanwhile, Marc looked as though he were about to leap out of the Executive Lounge window from shee
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 51
Things were getting out of hand. Zayin needed to think quickly; his Prince was going to start digging himself into a deep and terribly expensive hole. Yes, Ali had certain entitlements to his family’s wealth…in theory. But Ali had never tapped into his family’s wealth before—Zayin wasn’t even sure that he could. It was a poorly kept secret that more than one relative had access to Ali’s accounts…including Cousin Sayid. To his shame, Zayin was quietly praying that there was not enough left to embarrass the Prince. He never thought that he would ever wish for relatives to embezzle the Prince’s funds. Even with his Aunts and Cousin Sayid dipping into his funds, Ali’s personal wealth was enough that he could make serious trouble for himself, as well as the Kingdom. And with the stone-set fury on Ali’s face, trouble would come. Perhaps the key to solving the trouble lay in Ali’s ‘brother’. “You.” He pointed at Devon and spoke in English. “Come with me, please.”Quietly, Devon complied.
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 50
It was not the strangest occurrence to ever happen, but it was one of the strangest that had ever happen to Zayin.He stood nearly speechless as Marc, a hotel functionary, sputtered and nearly fell down on his knees trying to explain to Ali how all of this had been an enormous mistake. There had been in Marc’s words, ‘a deep and serious cultural miscommunication that New Hudson Convention Center will work tirelessly to reconcile’. It was ten minutes of this kind of diplomatic nonsense, and Zayin had to admit that he was doing quite well with it. In another life, and with another passport, Marc would have made a great presenter for one of the old State Television channels. More amusing still was, for the first time since knowing him, Ali acted like a prince. This was the greatest shock. Zayin was confident in this assessment—that Ali would be easily brushed aside by his more competent cousins and tossed out of Zhabaiye public life. Cousin Sayid would place him on a farm in the middle
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 49
Since the construction of the New Hudson Convention Center, there had never been a moment quite what Marc Abramov experienced in that Executive Lounge. Since its actual opening some twenty years prior, there had never been so many people silenced all at once with just a few short words. Time seemed to freeze and Marc’s armhairs stood straight on their ends. The VIP…more like the VVIP in fact…was expecting an answer. Why did Marc make the VIP’s brother cry?He clasped his hands and began, “Well—“ Well what? Nothing. The words caught in his throat. Something about the young man’s look—and he barely registered as a man at all—struck him with a sense of absolute terror. The VIP’s gaze encompassed his entire being, utterly and completely, as though he were no more than a fixture of the room. Marc had a sudden, curious idea that there was a sword hanging over his neck. And if he did not speak very, very carefully, that sword would drop and lop his head clean off from his body. There
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 48
Devon sat crosslegged on the floor, squishing his hunter’s hat for comfort. He stared at a spot of carpet, trying to drown out the sounds of the frightening-looking man screaming at Ali. Devon could piece together that the goons all worked for him—some of them were half in costume, others dressed like regular folk. A few wore golden watches. Were they thugs? If so, they weren’t like any gang members that Devon had ever seen, and New Hudson was unfortunately filled with those. These men looked too clean-cut. They didn’t have the casual swagger of the gangs he knew, and other than a little bit of rough-handling on the way to the top-floor lounge, they hadn’t been beaten. Furthermore, gang attacks usually don’t take this long, and by this point they had been sitting in the lounge for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, Ali had begun to shout at the man who kidnapped him. That was the strangest part of all of this--when Ali shouted, the man who kidnapped them listened. And so did his goons. At
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 47
Zayin’s head throbbed. He wished, more than he’d ever wished for anything in his life, that he could wake up back home, in Al-Zhabaiye. He missed his coffee, he missed his 17th story view of the desert, he missed the smell of the cedar paneling of his building’s elevator. All these little things he missed, many of which he had not appreciated before. His head ached until the pain seeped down into his shoulders. So tense were all his muscles that even the slightest movement ached. And it was well to be tense, because his ward, the PRINCE OF AL-ZHABAIYE HIMSELF, chose to behave like a childish idiot. Now Zayin and his security team occupied the hotel’s Executive Lounge, where they had extradited the Prince from a possible attempt on his life. The Prince sat on the couch with his head in his hands, refusing to look at or speak to anyone. One of his security team had thoughtfully prepared a plate of dried fruit and cheese. The plate sat in front of the Prince, untouched. Good. Maybe the
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 46
Far away from the chaos of New Hudson, in the Golden City of Al-Zhabai, King Ibrahim al-Zhabai stood on his private balcony, thinking of a joke. Once, the land that his Kingdom sat upon was a flat cropping of rock surrounded by a lake of sand. No trees, no oil or minerals, or any of the other resources that make a city worth building existed there. A hundred years before King Ibrahim’s time, this useless plot of land was gifted to his great-grandfather, Usman al-Zhabai, Founder of the Kingdom, as the world’s most expensive prank. It was a little known truth. Very few people beyond the deepest circle of the royal family knew this story. Not even foreign websites could publish it, for the instant they did al-Zhabai’s Ministry of Communications used every means at their disposal to take it down. Family lore said that when Founder Usman, talented and overlooked, was finally gifted the land he had worked for all his life. When the empty plot of land was finally revealed, his “benefac
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 45
It began with a push. Once again, Ali was surrounded by an angry crowd, with someone screaming at him in a language that was not his mother tongue. In Al-Zhabai, nobody would dare speak to him in such a way—even the cousins who looked upon him with contempt would never stoop to such behavior. In the moment, Ali felt the most curious sensation—that his soul was leaving his body, watching it from above. Perhaps the shock of the push had killed him, he thought. Curiously, in this dissociated state, he didn’t seem to have any feelings at all, though his body was nearly convulsing in terror. Time seemed to lose its smooth passing. Suddenly everything became terribly slow, as if the convention and everything in it was moving through thick honey. Down from above his own body, Ali gazed as Tamyra, whose face had become a terrible mask of vindictive rage. She lunged at Ali— to snatch Devon’s gift, he thought. But Tamyra’s dexterity had vanished before the heat of her own anger, and whom m
- Duke of Two Cities
Chapter 44
“Of course it would be you,” Tamyra snarled. “Who else would be so entitled? All I needed to finish my was going to finish my Warriors of the Endless Road collection was that Dashu. And you took it.”Tamyra’s face had flushed past crimson and was on its way to purpose. Her princess wand was quavering in her hand. At the slightest provocation, Devon feared she might actually use it. He held up his hands as though the wand were about to shoot lightning from its glittery points. “Look,” Devon began, “I’m sorry about your collection, but like—how are any of us supposed to know that? We can’t read minds or anything.”“You took it,” Tamyra intoned. Devon’s logic had no place amidst her anger. And there was much to be angry about—between the incident at the entrance, the horrible mess in the Fantasy writer’s panel, and now this. Just over the past two days, Ali and Devon had been a thorn in her slippers. and she had just about enough. “And it’s not enough that you have the nerve to troll in
