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Khalid shoved aside the scrolls and strode to the window to his right. A marbled arch framed a midday sky above. In the garden below, lilacs bloomed, and their clean scent mingled on the breeze, blowing back into the alcove, rustling the pages strewn on his desk.
Taunting him.
He shuttered his gaze. The sight of shining black tresses across jewel-toned silk and half-lidded hazel eyes flashed back at him. Khalid latched the screens shut, but the aroma of the pale purple blossoms lingered, much to his chagrin.
Jalal took note of Khalid’s irritation. “So you have an aversion to sunlight and flowers now?”
“Just that particular flower.”
“And what has that flower done to you?”
Khalid remained resolutely silent, and Jalal’s eyes widened in understanding.
“Tell the gardeners to remove it,” Jalal suggested after a time, leaning back against the cushions.
“No.”
Smiling to himself, Jalal laced his fingers across his stomach and stared at the mosaicked alcove above. “Khalid?”
“Are you still here?”
“I’m waiting for you to confide in me.”
Khalid twisted his head to Jalal and expelled a frustrated breath.
“I can wait all day. As you so cheerfully noted, the city riots have ceased . . . for the time being.” Jalal crossed his feet at the ankles.
“Fine. I’ll leave.” Khalid walked to the doors and thrust them aside.
Jalal followed in his footsteps, like a shadow with a dubious agenda. When Jalal began whistling to the domed ceiling of blue-veined agate, the muscles in Khalid’s jaw flexed.
“We’re blood, sayyidi. I am every bit as stubborn as you. It would behoove you to confide in me because, sooner or later, you’ll feel compelled to rid yourself of my enduring nuisance.”
After they strode a few more paces down the polished corridors, Khalid glanced at Jalal. “Salim . . . wishes to visit Rey on his way back to Amardha in two weeks’ time.”
Jalal froze midstep. “That—jahkesh?” he swore. “Why?”
“It should be obvious.”
“To you. Would you care to elaborate?”
“Shahrzad.”
Jalal paused and then laughed with palpable scorn. “Of course. The Jahkesh of Parthia wants to meet Khorasan’s new calipha.”
“And he will undoubtedly bring Yasmine.”
“Marg-bahr Salim Ali el-Sharif.” Jalal drew his index finger across his throat as a warning to their impending guest. “What are you going to do?”
“Your father thinks I should send Shahrzad away while Salim is here.”
Jalal snorted.
“You disagree?” Khalid asked.
“Yes. Very much.”
Khalid stopped walking. “Why?”
Jalal swiveled to face him. “Because, if the jahkesh wants to see the future of Khorasan, I can think of nothing better than the sight of you with Shahrzad al-Khayzuran. The strength she instills in you. The utter rightness of it all.”
Khalid studied Jalal’s fiery expression. “You seem quite convinced.”
“I am. As you should be, sayyidi. Trust me. And trust in this.”
“In the rightness of it all?” A look of acerbic amusement settled across Khalid’s face.
“Yes. In her and in you.”
“Two rather unreliable people, Jalal.”
“I disagree. Shahrzad is a remarkably reliable girl. Brash and unpredictable, yes, but steadfast in her convictions. It’s true you are taxing and rather bleak, but you’ve always been reliably so.” Jalal gri
“So you would have me throw Shazi to the wolves?”
“Shazi?” Jalal’s grin widened. “Honestly, I pity the wolves.”
“Be serious for once.”
“I am. In fact, I would take the enterprise a step further. Invite all your ba
The edges of Khalid’s mouth turned upward, ever so slightly.
“My God. Are you smiling, Khalid-jan?” Jalal teased in an incredulous voice.
“Perhaps.”
The two young men continued making their way down the hallways until they passed into the main corridor, where they were joined by Khalid’s normal retinue of bodyguards. As they entered the open-air gallery, Khalid stopped short, his features darkening at the prospect before him.
Shahrzad was crossing toward the series of double doors leading to the gardens, with Despina at her side and the Rajput trailing behind her.
When she saw Khalid, she paused and pivoted on her slippered heel, gliding in his direction.
She captivated him in the way she always did, with unguarded beauty and unassuming grace. Her hair rippled behind her in shimmering waves of ebony, and her pointed chin was turned high and proud in the rays of sun streaming from above. The light gold of her mantle cloaked the deep emerald of the silk beneath it. Woven into the myriad colors of her eyes, Khalid saw the same mixture of reticence and defiance as always.
But now there was something else. A new emotion he could not place.
She wrinkled her nose at the Rajput’s looming presence, and the power behind this simple gesture pulled Khalid to her side, like sweet wine and the sound of bright laughter.
As she drew closer, the memory of last night washed over him.
The feel of her in his arms. The scent of lilac in her hair.
The futility of all else, save his lips against hers.
Of his will . . . crumbling.
“Tell me.”
“Anything.”
She opened her mouth to say something, a strangely uncertain look marring her lovely features . . .
And Khalid blew past her, without a glance in her direction.
Jalal followed him, wordlessly. Once they were out of earshot, he grabbed his cousin’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”
Khalid knocked his hand aside.
“Khalid!”
His gaze mutinous, Khalid continued striding down the corridor.
“Are you a fool?” Jalal persisted. “Did you not see her face? You wounded her!”
Khalid whirled around, seizing the front of Jalal’s qamis.
“I told you once, Captain al-Khoury: I will not discuss Shahrzad with you.”
“To hell with that, sayyidi! If you continue down this path, there won’t be much to discuss. Have you not learned your lesson yet, cousin?”
Jalal bent toward Khalid, his brown eyes harboring a cold fury.
“Was Ava not enough?” he whispered in a cruel tone.
At that, Khalid shoved Jalal back and punched him once in the jaw. His bodyguards scrambled to Khalid’s side as Jalal slid across the marble floor and wiped at his bloodied lower lip before sneering up at his king.
“Get out of my sight, Jalal,” Khalid seethed.
“Such a wizened old man in so many ways. And such a little boy in so many others.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know very little, and I still know more than you, Khalid-jan. I know love is fragile. And loving someone like you is near impossible. Like holding something shattered through a raging sandstorm. If you want her to love you, shelter her from that storm . . .”
Jalal rose to his feet, straightening the insignia of the Royal Guard at his shoulder. “And make certain that storm isn’t you.”
MEHRDAD THE BLUEBEARDED
SHAHRZAD PACED BEFORE HER BED THAT NIGHT, wearing a path in the cool white stone beneath her feet. Every step was a war between wrath and resentment, between pain and petulance.
Between the unmitigated hurt at being summarily dismissed and the unadulterated fury that it mattered so greatly to her.
How dare he do that to me?