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The first thing she noticed at the bottom was Khalid’s formal signature, composed in clear, neat script. When her eyes skimmed across the rest of the page, she rapidly discerned it was a letter—
A letter of apology, addressed to a family in Rey.
Shahrzad turned to the next piece of parchment.
It was another letter of apology. Written to another family.
As she leafed through the stack of parchment, her eyes began to swim in realization. In recognition.
These were letters of apology to the families of the girls murdered at dawn by a callous hand and a silk cord.
Each was dated. Each acknowledged Khalid’s sole responsibility. None offered any justification for the death. No excuse.
He merely apologized. In a ma
It was clear they were written with no intention of being delivered. Khalid’s words were far too personal and introspective to indicate he ever meant for any eyes to see them apart from his own. But his unabashed self-loathing cut into Shahrzad with the effectiveness of a newly honed knife.
He wrote of staring into frightened faces and tearful eyes, with the abject knowledge he was robbing families of their joy. Stealing their hearts’ blood from them, as though he had the right. As if anyone had the right.
Your child is not a notion or a whim. Your child is your greatest treasure. And you should never forgive me for what I’ve done. As I will never forgive myself.
Know that she was not afraid. When she gazed at the face of the monster sanctioning her death, she did not quail. Would that I had half her courage and a quarter of her spirit.
Last night, Roya asked for a santur. Her playing drew every guard in the corridor to her door, and I stood in the garden and listened, like the cold, unfeeling bastard I am. It was the most beautiful music I have ever heard in my life. A music that rendered all thereafter dull and colorless in its memory.
Tears began streaming down Shahrzad’s face. She turned the pages faster.
Until she found the one addressed to the family of Reza bin-Latief.
How does one begin to apologize for robbing the world of light? Words seem strangely insufficient in such a case, and yet I fall to their uselessness in my own inadequacy. Please know I will never forget Shiva. For the brief moment she stared into the face of a monster, she deigned to smile and forgive. In that smile, I sensed a strength and a depth of understanding I could never hope to fathom. It tore at what professes to be my soul. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. A thousand, thousand times. At your knees, and it will never be enough.
Shahrzad sobbed, and the sound rang out in the chamber. The parchment shook in her hands.
Khalid was responsible. Whatever the excuse, whatever the reason—he was the one. He had killed Shiva.
He had robbed Shahrzad of this light.
She had known it, all along. But now, clutching the undeniable truth between her fingers, she realized how much she had wanted it to be a lie. How much she had wanted there to be some kind of excuse. Some kind of ready scapegoat. That, somewhere along the line, she would discover it was not his fault.
Even now she knew how ridiculous it sounded.
But it was breaking her . . . slowly. The wall around her heart was crumbling, leaving behind scorched embers and bleeding wounds. Her sobs grew louder. Shahrzad wanted to hurl the leather sleeve across the room, shred its contents, and deny its pernicious truths, but she lifted the next page. And the next.
So many.
And not a single explanation.
She continued sca
Until finally, her eyes fell on the last page, and her heart faltered.
It was addressed to her, dated for that fateful sunrise with the silk cord.
Shahrzad,
I’ve failed you several times. But there was one moment I failed you beyond measure. It was the day we met. The moment I took your hand and you looked up at me, with the glory of hate in your eyes. I should have sent you home to your family. But I didn’t. There was honesty in your hatred. Fearlessness in your pain. In your honesty, I saw a reflection of myself. Or rather, of the man I longed to be. So I failed you. I didn’t stay away. Then, later, I thought if I had answers, it would be enough. I would no longer care. You would no longer matter. So I continued failing you. Continued wanting more. And now I can’t find the words to say what must be said. To convey to you the least of what I owe. When I think of you, I can’t find the air to
The letter stopped short there.
Shahrzad puzzled over it for the span of a heartbeat.
Then a conversation from their past echoed around her, like a song from a distant memory:
“And how will you know when you’ve found this elusive someone?”
“I suspect she will be like air. Like knowing how to breathe.”
The letter drifted to the floor, back to its scattered brethren. Everything around Shahrzad fell to shadow and silence. To the bitterness of knowledge and the brilliance of understanding.
In a rush, she was taken back to that awful dawn and the feel of the silk cord around her neck. She forced herself to recall each part of it—the silver light as it crept across the blue blades of grass, the mist in the early morning sun, the penitent soldier with the burly arms, and the old woman with the fluttering shroud. The fear. The anguish. The nothingness. But now, as she closed her eyes, her mind conjured a parallel world of sorrow—of a boy-king at his ebony desk writing a letter to a dying girl, with the sun ascending at his shoulder. Of this boy halting in unexpected awareness, with his hand poised over the parchment. Of him racing down the corridors, with his cousin at his heels. Bursting into a courtyard of silver and grey, punctuated by black ink and burning agony—
Wondering if he was too late.
Swallowing a tortured scream, Shahrzad threw the sleeve and its contents across the shining onyx.
Her own awareness had risen like the dawn at her back. Like a leaden sunrise veiled in a swirl of storm clouds. It was no longer enough to have answers for Shiva’s sake. Indeed, it had ceased to be about mere vengeance the moment Khalid’s lips touched hers in the alley by the souk. She had wanted there to be a reason for this madness, needed there to be a reason, so that she could be with him. So that she could be by his side, make him smile as she laughed, weave tales by lamplight, and share secrets in the dark. So that she could fall asleep in his arms and awaken to a brilliant tomorrow.
But it was too late.
He was the Mehrdad of her nightmares. She had opened the door. She had seen the bodies hanging from the walls, without explanation. Without justification.
And without one, Shahrzad knew what must be done.
Khalid had to answer for such vile deeds. Such rampant death.
Even if he was her air.
Even if she loved him beyond words.
• • •
His guards were on edge and much too close.
Their glaring torches and clattering footfall were not doing service to the torturous ache in his head. Nor were they of benefit to the fire that battled for dominion over his eyes.
When a nervous sentry dropped his sword with a noise to rouse the dead, it took all of Khalid’s willpower not to snap the young man’s arm from his shoulder.
Instead, Khalid paused in the darkened corridor and pressed his palms to his brows.