Galamight is often mistaken for turquoise in its finished state. In Egypt, it
is referred to as Neshmat or Heseg and it can be used for clarity of mind,
increased communication with a lover and for balancing the feminine
and masculine inner selves. However, this gemstone earns its common
name from its association with the Galafem warriors. The lady warriors
combine Galamight with spun Galafem gold in a Herculean knot to
create Chastity Belts. The belts as the name suggests are used to teach
chastity and temperance. A belt grants luck in battle, but its true power is
the adverse effect that it has on men. It causes them to lose their inner
strength and mental clarity over time. This effect is magnified for men
that the wearer finds worthy of the marriage bed. Thus, the wearer learns
the worse men have to offer and is no longer tempted by their wiles.
Jasmine finished reading the passage aloud. Then she lifted up the scroll and placed it at eye level for me. "Here's a picture of it."
It was hard to make out the details or the exact shade of blue now that I was a tiger, but I already knew it was a perfect match.
The sight of it ignited my rage again. I snarled at the page and had to dig my claws into the floor to stop myself from ripping the scroll into shreds.
"Yeah," she said darkly as she returned the scroll to the small desk.
Jasmine placed a hand on my head and began to stroke my fur. My snarling decreased a bit, partially out of gratitude. I had never truly realized just how effective her touch was at calming me. Even as a human, I had felt it.
Though I should not have needed the help. My behavior earlier had been disgraceful, uncivilized, and a bit disturbing.
"I completely agree," Jasmine said.
What?
"That's why we're not going to father's study today. I'm leaving my headpiece here and we're going to spend the day at court."
Oh right. That. Of course, she wasn't talking about my earlier loss of temper. Jasmine had no idea how feral I had been before and hopefully she would never need to know because that wasn't happening again. It was bad enough feeling like that as a tiger. Feeling that level of rage as a human was simply unacceptable.
Instead, the princess was still talking about what actually mattered: the scroll. After I had finally told the princess her headpiece was cursed earlier tonight, I had insisted that she read the scroll for herself before we dealt with my injured hands. It had taken her no time to see that the gem in the illustration matched the one on her head.
She had ripped her headpiece off and for a moment, I thought that she was going to smash it against the desk, but instead she calmly placed her headpiece down and retied her blindfold. Then she turned to me and said in a low voice crackling with suppressed anger that we needed to be sure of all the facts before we assumed anything. It was a perfectly reasonable response, unlike mine.
Between her escorting me to "Rajah's" room because we really couldn't go to hers, getting bandages and then finally treating my wounds, we had come up with a plan. For the next few days, the princess was going to interact with as many men as possible to see whether there was a noted difference in their behavior.
We agreed that it would be best to talk to the same people several times throughout the week to verify her findings. The princess wanted to be thorough. If she had her way, we would have begun as soon as my bandages were on, but by then it was nearly sunrise.
I had left the room, found a guard, and transformed back into Rajah. As a tiger, I had no bandages or injuries, so it was easy for me to return to her. Upon seeing me, the princess had taken me to the magician study and now she had explained everything.
"We have to get to the bottom of this," she said rising from her chair.
I could not agree more. We had to figure this out so I could not fall into another paralyzing animalistic fury today or ever again. My time as a tiger had obviously weakened my self-control and it was past time, I did something about it. I needed to remember that whether I was a man or beast, I was a prince. And how many times had I been told that princes did not give into base instincts like anger or fear?
Enough times to know that I should be above such things. If I wanted to remain at Jasmine's side and be a credit to her, I would have to take that lesson to heart and master my emotions once again.
That was the promise I made to myself. As of today, I, not Jasmine, would keep my anger in check. I left the study with the princess, feeling a new level of determination.
Later in the morning, Princess Jasmine dressed in her usual outfit and wore one of the headpieces she had received since Jafar had disappeared. Headpieces were one of the many tasteless gifts Prince Ali had showered her with during his time at Agrabah so she had many to choose from.
After getting dressed, the princess entered court to mingle of her own free will. Something I don't think I'd ever seen her do. I suppose things might have been different before the sultana died, but Jasmine avoided the court as much as possible. Even as a child, she had not been fond of the place and people and the feeling had been mutual.
Today, things were different. It started at breakfast, when the sultan commented on the princess's new headpiece.
"Jasmine, my dear, you're actually wearing a different headpiece today. I must say rose mosan suits you. Doesn't it, Gagan?" The sultan smiled at her and the new grand vizier of domestic policy.
I expected Grand Vizier Gagan to wheeze out a barely passable answer, but instead he said in a pleasant voice, "Yes. It is rather becoming on you, Princess."
Jasmine and I stared at him and it took a moment for Jasmine to remember herself and thank him.
Soon, the whole table had compliments for the princess, but I was still stunned. It was not rare for the sultan to praise his daughter's beauty. But Gagan?
The man was sharp and a supremely competent advisor. That was why I had insisted on his promotion, but he was also very grouchy and rarely had anything flattering to say to anyone at court, let alone an outlier like Princess Jasmine.
The princess's warm reception did not end there. Princess Jasmine was a mosan stone among rubies today. She wore her court smile well as she spoke with some of our least favorite courtiers in the palace. Their conversations were civil, sometimes even enjoyable. It was unnatural.
Every single man and even some of the women were significantly less horrendous than I remembered. One nobleman's son, Waheed Seif, who I recalled as being particularly crude and obnoxious, said to her, "Princess, I cannot tell you how relieved I am to talk to you today. I must admit you normally make me so nervous that I say the most inappropriate things."
He started to laugh so Jasmine followed suit, but it was not a joke. The man was in earnest and he wasn't the only one. Many commented on how approachable Jasmine seemed today. Nobles were more affable. Guards stood up straighter. Even the sultan seemed sharper than usual.
It was a miracle, but no, it was magic. Jafar's magic.
As the day wore on and I watched Jasmine talk to one man after another without incident, my mind went over the most distasteful interactions my princess had had with men in the last four years. There had been many, so many, especially with her suitors. How had I just accepted that every single one of those princes was unworthy?
It was too much of a coincidence. I thought about how all of her suitors had been as Jasmine often quipped: fools, lechers and domineering jerks. Not all of those princes started that way.
I could remember some that had seemed promising at first. The main one was Prince Acharia who had been so kind and thoughtful in his letters, only to be completely intolerable in person. Then there were Princes Kato and Odion. They had started out nice enough until they had turned Jasmine into a prize for the twin brothers to fight over. Even Prince Nadim had been friendly for days before his bad habits had undone him.
Jafar had orchestrated all of it. He had put a beacon on my princess's head to encourage possibly decent men to act like their worse selves around her. And as the princess had gotten older and lonelier, the headpiece's influence had only grown.
Prince Achmed had been dismissed in less than an hour. And the prince before him hadn't lasted much longer. Prince Ali had been a bit different but even he had succumbed eventually.
The only other notable exception was myself. Last night, Jasmine had left her headpiece in the magician's study and I hadn't noticed a difference when we went to my rooms. I was still the same awkward and angry person I had been in the study. And obviously as a tiger, I felt no different.
I assumed it had to be due to my own curse. Either my amulet protected me, I wasn't human enough for Jasmine's headpiece to affect me, or I just wasn't attractive enough to be affected properly.
That last option was ridiculous. I knew it was, but after a day of holding in my anger as Jasmine talked to and smiled at every young, handsome, intelligent courtier, servant, and guard in the court, I brooded over the remote possibility.
The entire situation was unacceptable. I had always assumed Jafar was sending Jasmine inferior suitors and that the ones Jasmine invited were just bad luck. I never guessed it was anything as insidious as using Jasmine's own loving nature against her to repel and corrupt the very men she most wanted to befriend.
Jafar had not just ruined her marriage prospects. He had ruined her life for years by robbing her of genuine interactions with half of the human population. Even women disliked Jasmine because of the effect she had on other men. My already socially-inept princess had been ostracized for years.
And I had stood by. I had never questioned the way things were. Like a fool, I had clung to the idea that Jasmine was mine. I had hated each and every one of those princes and was glad when they proved themselves unworthy. I had acted like Jasmine was an object that someone could steal from me.
Jasmine would despise me for having such thoughts. I despised myself. My hatred of her suitors had blinded me to the truth. All these years, I thought I had been protecting her, but she had been cursed and suffering. I had failed her and I hadn't even realized it.
It was all too much. All these thoughts were driving me mad. I was relieved when dinner ended and I could retire. The second the princess and I parted ways, I went for a swim in the ocean for a few hours, before heading to the magician's study.
There, I curled up to sleep on the stone floor at the back of the upper study. I did not want to leave anything to chance. When I next spoke to the princess, I was going to convince her that we didn't need a whole week of this.
I wanted to destroy that headpiece tonight.