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She stopped struggling. She raised her head.
And pressed her lips tightly together.
Baba and Irsa.
Shiva . . . and Tariq.
She meant something to them. And she would not disgrace their memory of her by making a scene.
Her failure was disgrace enough.
As the soldiers pushed open the doors into the dawn and Shahrzad saw her death before her, it was this last thought that thrust its final weight upon her, breaking the dam.
Shiva.
Silent tears streamed down her face, unchecked.
“Let go of me,” she rasped. “I won’t run.”
The three soldiers looked to the first. After a wordless conversation, they placed Shahrzad on her bare feet.
The grey granite pavestones felt cool to the touch, the warm rays not having seeped into their gritty surface yet. The grass on either side was blue from the silver light of an early morning sun.
For a moment, Shahrzad considered stooping to run her hands through it.
One last time.
They filed to a covered alcove, where another soldier and an older woman stood waiting. In the woman’s hand was a long piece of white linen, fluttering in an all-but-dead breeze.
A shroud.
And in the soldier’s hand . . .
A single stretch of silk cord.
The tears continued their final trek down her face, but Shahrzad refused to utter a sound. She stepped to the soldier. His arms were thick and burly.
I hope it will be quick.
Without a word, she turned around.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered so softly it might have been the wind.
Startled by his kindness, she almost looked back at her would-be murderer.
“Thank you.” An absolution.
He lifted her hair, gently, and brought the dark waves over her head—a veil, shielding her from the nameless witnesses.
The ones who already refused to see her.
The silk cord felt so soft at her throat, at first. Such an elegant way to die.
Shiva died this way.
The thought that Shiva died like this, surrounded by people who saw nothing, made the tears flow harder. Shahrzad gasped, and the cord tightened.
“Baba,” she breathed.
It cinched tighter . . . and she couldn’t stop her hands from flying to her throat.
Irsa. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.
As her fingers battled against her pride’s directive, the soldier lifted her from the ground by her neck, pulling the cord as he did.
“Tariq,” she choked.
Her chest was falling in on itself. Silver stars ringed the edges of her vision.
The pain in her chest grew. The silver stars were rimmed in black now.
And her neck was on fire.
Shiva.
The tears and the pain all but blinding her, she forced open her eyes one more time, to a curtain of dark hair; to a waterfall of black ink spilling across the last page of her life.
No.
I’m not nothing.
I was loved.
Then, from the distant reaches of her mind, she heard a commotion . . .
And the cord was released.
She fell to the ground, her body striking the granite, hard.
Sheer will to live forced air down her throat, despite the burning agony of each breath.
And someone grasped her by the shoulders and took her into his arms.
As her vision struggled to clear, the only things she saw were the amber eyes of her enemy, close to her own.
Then, with the last dram of strength she possessed—
She struck him across the face.
Another man’s hand seized her forearm, yanking it back so hard she felt something pop.
Shahrzad screamed, a harsh and anguished cry.
For the first time, she heard the caliph raise his voice.
It was followed by the sound of a fist against flesh.
“Shahrzad.” Jalal grabbed her, enveloping her in his embrace. She collapsed against him, her eyes swollen shut by tears, and the burning sensations in her arm and throat almost unbearable.
“Jalal,” she gasped.
“Delam.” He stroked the hair out of her eyes, comforting her, bringing her back from a place of nothingness.
Then he glanced behind him, to the sound of continuing commotion.
To a chorus of whimpers and fury.
“Stop it, Khalid!” he yelled. “It’s done. We have to get her inside.”
“Khalid?” Shahrzad murmured.
Jalal smiled ruefully. “Don’t hate him too much, delam . . .”
Shahrzad buried her face in Jalal’s shirt as he lifted her from the ground.
“After all, every story has a story.”
• • •
Hours later, Shahrzad sat on the edge of her bed with Despina.
At her throat was a ring of purple bruises. Her arm had been pushed back into place with a sickening sound that made her cringe in remembrance. Afterward, with Despina’s assistance, she’d bathed carefully and changed into comfortable clothes.
The entire time, Shahrzad had not uttered a single word.
Despina lifted an ivory comb to untangle Shahrzad’s still-damp hair. “Please say something.”
Shahrzad closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t in my room.” Despina’s gaze flicked toward the small door by the entrance, leading to her chamber. “I’m sorry I didn’t know . . . they were coming for you. You have every right not to trust me, but please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Obviously, there is. You might feel better if you talked about it.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
Yes, I do.
Shahrzad did not want to talk to Despina. She wanted her sister’s soothing voice and her father’s volume of poetry. She wanted Shiva’s bright smile and infectious laugh.
She wanted her own bed and a night when she could sleep without the fear of dawn.
And she wanted Tariq. She wanted to fall into his arms and feel the laughter rumble in his chest when she said something very wrong that sounded exactly right. Perhaps it was weakness, but she needed someone to take the weight off her shoulders for a moment. To ease the burden, as Tariq had done the day her mother died, when he’d found her sitting alone in the rose garden behind her house, crying.
That day, he’d held both her hands in his and said nothing. Just drawn her pain away, with the simple strength of his touch.
Tariq could do that again. He would gladly do that.
For her.
Despina was a stranger. A stranger she couldn’t trust in a world that just tried to kill her.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Despina.”
Despina nodded slowly and dragged the comb through Shahrzad’s hair. The tension against her neck hurt, but Shahrzad said nothing.
There was a knock at the door.
“May I open it?” Despina asked.
Shahrzad raised an indifferent shoulder, and Despina placed the comb in Shahrzad’s lap before she made her way to the double doors.
What can they do to me now?
When she looked past the threshold, her heart crashed into her stomach.
The Caliph of Khorasan shadowed her doorway.
Without a word, Despina exited the room, pulling the doors shut behind her.
Shahrzad stayed at the edge of the bed, fidgeting with the comb in her lap, staring down her king.
As he drew closer, she saw the mark across his face where she’d struck him. It colored his skin a deeper bronze, with a tinge of purple at his jawbone. His eyes were drawn and tired, as though he had not slept in a long while. The knuckles along his right fist were red and raw.
He returned her scrutiny, taking in the bruises at her neck, the hollows beneath her eyes, and the wary posture of her spine.
“How is your arm?” His voice was even and characteristically low.
“It hurts.”
“A great deal?”
“I’m sure it won’t kill me.”
It was a pointed jab, and Shahrzad saw it strike a chord, his careful composure falling for an instant. He strode to the foot of the bed and sat beside her. She shifted uncomfortably at his proximity.