by Renee Ahdieh
Irsa started to nod, then stopped herself. “Will Shahrzad be allowed to attend?”
“I cannot see why anyone would object. Not with Tariq at her side. Nothing of import will be discussed around the fire. And everyone is rather curious about her. But, if she decides to come, it won’t be easy. All eyes will be upon her,” Rahim warned, ever the vigilant friend.
“I’ll be sure to keep her apprised. And . . . I’ll make certain nothing happens to her.” Irsa lifted her chin, meeting his gaze. Steady. Stalwart.
At least she hoped that was how she appeared. She could very well appear mad, for all she knew—sweaty-haired and clutching a scroll of curatives to her chest.
“I expected nothing less.” Again, Rahim paused in consideration of her. “Tavalodet mobarak, Irsa al-Khayzuran. May you have a hundred birthdays to come.”
“Thank you, Rahim al-Din Walad.”
He bowed with a hand to his forehead. When he straightened, he smiled that same almost-smile, as though he alone were aware of something important. “What you said earlier? You have nothing to worry about.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re better than beautiful.” Rahim took a careful breath. “You’re interesting. Never forget that.”
AS A ROSE UNFURLING
HE WOULD NEVER SAY IT. NOT EVEN AT KNIFEPOINT.
But Jalal may have been right.
The Caliph of Khorasan should not disappear for hours on end, without word or explanation.
But Khalid refused to remain at the palace, day in and day out. There were too many stories there. Ugly stories of blood and wrath and betrayal. The only places where Khalid had ever sought solace had been destroyed by the storm.
Or harbored memories he was not ready to relive yet.
At least beyond the palace walls, the stories were alive and real. Even if they were raw—even if they tore at his compunctions—he could face them.
He could fix them.
And, after a morning spent dealing with countless scrolls and tedious affairs of state, Khalid needed to see results. Something tangible he had done with his time.
Besides fending off an impending war.
Alas, it was possible he’d erred today.
The sun shone bright on the steps of the city’s library.
Too bright.
Painfully so.
As the day wore on, small distortions began to swim across his sight. His headache worsened to a near-debilitating degree. It had always been there, but the morning hours spent staring at tiny script on unending reams of parchment, followed by an afternoon of hefting hot granite down uneven steps, had not helped matters at all.
Khalid paused a moment to pull his cowl lower and wipe the sweat from his brow.
It was not mere happenstance that he had chosen to help repair the city’s oldest library. Though there were many others assisting in this undertaking, he had felt drawn to the crumbling stone structure for several days.
The place where Shahrzad’s father had worked, before her family fled Rey.
A place Shazi had loved, if her affinity for storytelling was any indication.
It was clear the building had fallen into disrepair long before the events of the storm only a week ago. The steps leading to its vaulted doorway were cracked and misaligned, the once-vivid sandstone darkened to a mottling of greys and browns.
The storm had merely brought to fruition the inevitable.
Prodded by its winds, several pillars had collapsed on themselves, falling to ruin under the weight of time and neglect. Now the main entrance to the library was completely barred by their remains.
Khalid had already sent his engineers to the site to brace the sagging rafters. Today he was working alongside several careworn laborers, forming a line to haul away the debris.
The hood of his rida’ kept him safely anonymous. For who would ever suspect the insidious Caliph of Khorasan of hauling stones before the city’s library on a sweltering summer’s day?
Khalid swore under his breath as the sweat on his palms nearly caused him to lose grip on his burden. Indeed, who would ever expect of him such a beneficent act, for it was clear he was quite ill equipped to perform meaningful labor of any sort. What good were all those endless drills with swords—all those endless lessons in supposed strategy—if he couldn’t even transport rocks from a building?
When the stone in his hands fell to the ground with a sudden thud, it missed his foot by a hairsbreadth.
Khalid swore loudly and foully and without a care.
“Watch it, boy!” A near-toothless man edged a rock past him, his sun-worn face in a perpetual snarl. “You’re liable to lose every last toe that way.”
Khalid dipped his head in wordless acknowledgment. Then he stooped to collect the stone.
His right hand was bleeding again, a gash of brilliant red across his palm. He wiped it on his black tikka sash, hoping to stanch the flow.
“You’d better clean that. And wrap it in something, before it worsens.” The toothless man pushed past him again, moving with uncanny efficiency for someone so slight. “There’s usually water in pails at the side of the building.” He nudged his chin toward the shadows.
Khalid adjusted the front of his rida’ so he could address the man without impediment. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I still don’t understand why a boy with leather sandals that fine is troubling himself with work like this.” He regarded Khalid with a critical stare.
“Perhaps I have a strange affinity for old books.”
“Perhaps.” But he looked doubtful. “In any case, clean your wound. If it festers and you perish of a fever, your rich father will not be pleased.”
With a small smile, Khalid bowed, then proceeded to the side of the building to take heed of the man’s advice.
A rabble of children played amongst pails of water. Several boys fought over a rusted tumbler perched above a questionable fount, littered with ash and debris. One enterprising young girl hovered near a large bucket, its contents fastidiously clean. Not a single twig or a smattering of dust could be seen. She glanced up at Khalid, a smile alighting her features as she took in the fine sword hanging from his hip.
“Some water on a hot day, sahib?” The bit of colorful twine around her wrist slid down her skinny arm as she held up a hollowed-out gourd.
Khalid could not help but grin back. “How much for the pail . . . and the gourd?”
“For you, sahib?” Her smile turned mischievous. “Only two dinars.”
Barely able to contain her exulting crow when Khalid handed over the coins, the girl raced into the streets, her day’s work considered done. The other children scurried after her, eager to partake in her winnings.
Though he’d been soundly fleeced, Khalid thought it money well spent.
He crouched by the pail and let the lukewarm water wash across his stiffening palm. As he splashed some onto his face, he allowed himself the luxury of lowering his hood before dipping the gourd beneath the surface and ladling water onto his head.
Khalid let it drip down into his eyes. The water stung at first, so he pressed his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose, trying to allay the burn. When he stood, he rolled back his shoulders, basking in this temporary reprieve.
“You ungrateful cur.”
There was not even a moment to process the insult before two hands grabbed Khalid by the hood of his cloak and flung him face-first against the roughhewn wall of Rey’s oldest library. His foot caught on the pail, sloshing water onto the stone.
Though his sight remained blurred, he’d recognize his cousin’s voice anywhere.
“What the hell are you doing?” Khalid demanded, struggling for breath.
Jalal wrapped a fist in Khalid’s rida’, spinning him around. “I knew you were angry with me, but I never t
hought you capable of this.” His voice was choked by rage. “Truly, I never thought you could be this vile. I suppose I should have known better. I’ve always put too much stock in family.”
Khalid blinked hard, seeking a point of sanity in the madness taking shape around him. “Step back before you make an irrevocable mistake, Captain al-Khoury.”
“There’s no one to save you, Khalid-jan,” Jalal said, with a look to shrivel a cloudless sky. “And it’s your own damned fault. No Vikram. No bodyguards. For once, we’re going to fight fair, and I’m going to give you the beating you’ve been due for over a decade, you thankless bastard.”
Though his words were clipped and precise, Jalal’s features were haggard. He still had not managed a proper shave. Weariness pooled in the shadows beneath his eyes.
Weariness tinged by fury.
“You can try, by means fair or foul,” Khalid shot back in a cool tone, despite his unsettled state. “But I insist you reveal your reason for such behavior before I soundly trounce you, as I’d like to know what I’m supposedly guilty of—beyond having the bad luck to call you cousin.”
At that, Jalal reared back and punched Khalid in the face.
Khalid had been born the son of a king. An eighth-generation al-Rashid. As such, it was only the third time in his life anyone had ever struck him with such unmitigated force. With such visceral hatred.
First his father. Then Shahrzad.
And now Jalal.
Khalid reeled to the ground, his fingers clawing at the dirt. Blood thundered in his brow, excruciating in its force. The chained beast in his head bayed, thrashing about, its claws raking across his eyeballs.
Still, Khalid pushed himself up to his knees . . .
And launched into Jalal’s torso.
They landed in the dirt like two angry schoolboys, in a jumble of arms and legs and clumsy scabbards. Jalal lobbed a fist in Khalid’s direction, even while struggling to right himself. It glanced off Khalid’s jaw. In response, Khalid shoved the side of his cousin’s face into the dirt and pressed a knee to Jalal’s stomach. He managed to land several unforgiving blows to Jalal’s head and chest before Jalal kicked him off, spitting a mouthful of blood and elbowing Khalid without mercy near his brow once—
Then twice more.
A crowd of curious onlookers had begun to gather, surely wondering what had prompted two well-dressed young men to come to such wicked fisticuffs.
Khalid clutched his skull, trying to crush away the agony. Needles of light cut the edges of his vision. Stabbed his temples. Enraged by his cousin’s inexplicably brutal attack, he rolled to standing and reached for his shamshir.
Jalal’s eyes went wide. Then, without a second thought, he scrambled to his feet and unsheathed his scimitar. “Draw!” A line of crimson dripped down his chin.
Khalid’s fingers tightened around the hilt. Yet he refused to unsheathe his sword.
Refused to engage a loved one in a battle of lethal force.
“Do it, you coward!” Dirt marred one side of Jalal’s face, coating his skin in an eerie dash of glittering dust.
Even from where he stood—even in a silence fraught by nerves—Khalid could see a suspicious mist forming over Jalal’s eyes.
It iced the blood in his veins.
“You think I can’t beat you?” Jalal strode closer, brandishing his scimitar. “Or is this guilt? Finally a show of guilt for someone besides yourself?”
“Guilt for what?” Khalid took in a ragged breath, fighting to maintain his preserve. “What did I do?”
The silence stretched inexorably thin.
Jalal licked his bleeding lip. “You never did forgive me for sending her away, did you?” His voice was hoarse, scratched. Defeated. “For asking that boy to take her with him?”
At that, Khalid’s hand dropped from his shamshir. Though this was a far cry from explaining his cousin’s behavior, at least they were no longer on the cusp of disaster.
“I told you there was nothing to forgive. And I meant it.”
“Then why did you do it?” Jalal’s sword fell to his side, but his face remained knotted by anger.
“What are you talking about?” Any more of these continued vagaries, and it would be a struggle for Khalid to keep his temper.
Jalal considered Khalid, clearly searching for signs of artifice.
“Despina.”
Everything around Khalid stilled. Even the very air around him swirled to a sudden halt.
“You sent her away,” Jalal whispered, his tone hollow. “After I confided in you. You must have known of whom I was speaking. Or my father must have asked you to send her away. And you did it. Without question.” He took a slow step forward. Then another. “In the end, family is nothing to you. I . . . am nothing to you.”
Something flared in Khalid at these words. “I never—”
Jalal’s eyes darkened to a muddy haze. “Don’t start lying to me. Not now.”
“I’m not. I would never lie to you.”
“Then it’s a coincidence?” He cast Khalid an arch glance. “That—mere days after I tell you I want to marry the girl carrying my child—she’s sent away from the palace, without explanation?”
“I didn’t send her away. She asked to leave.” The truth in its entirety stood poised on the tip of Khalid’s tongue. He wanted to tell his cousin what had happened. But now the circumstances seemed so . . . odd. Now that Khalid knew what had transpired—and the true identity of Jalal’s love—Despina’s hasty marriage to Vikram appeared more than a little suspicious.
More than a little convenient.
Especially for a girl so versed in secrets and lies.
Khalid made another quick study of Jalal al-Khoury’s face.
At the poorly hidden pain marring his cousin’s features.
He would not risk causing Jalal any further pain. Not until he had answers.
Not until he knew what Despina was hiding.
Khalid closed the distance between them and placed a tentative hand on Jalal’s shoulder. “Especially if I’d known your true feelings, I would never have sent Despina away. Even if Uncle Aref had made such a request, I would not have done so. Jalal—”
“Why not?” Jalal’s lips thinned, his eyes going chillingly blank. “I sent away the girl you love. So it stands to reason that you would send away the girl I love as punishment. You’ve always had a bad temper. I just never knew you possessed such a mind for revenge as well.”
At that, Khalid felt his temper rise in a hot spike. “I do not possess a mind for revenge.”
Perhaps he had in the past. But he didn’t now. Not anymore.
Not since Shahrzad.
The pain on Jalal’s face dissolved in a scoff of disbelief. “It appears you’re more like your father than I thought.”
“I am nothing like my father.” Though he fought to keep his temper at bay, Khalid’s fingers balled into fists. “I thought you knew that. You’ve spent most of your life trying to convince me of it.”
“And you’ve spent most of yours trying to convince me otherwise. Congratulations. You’ve finally succeeded.” Jalal clapped with pejorative slowness, the hilt of his scimitar caught between his hands. “What was it you used to say in moments of poetic fancy? ‘We are as a rose unfurling, becoming more clearly ourselves?’” he jeered, his anger making him reckless. His anguish making him foolish. “You lost something you love. I suppose you thought it only fitting that I lose something I love. Unfortunately in this case, I lost two things—an entire family.”
His accusation hung in the small space between them, bitter and broken in tone.
Though no less harsh for its brokenness.
No less effective.
Khalid knew Jalal spoke from a place beyond reason. Still, he could not ignore the sharp stab each of his words inflicted upon him . . . and
the responding desire to return his cousin’s efforts with some spite of his own.
After all, if he was to be accused of monstrous behavior irrespective of proof, should he not rise to the occasion?
Khalid cut his eyes, peering down his nose at Jalal. “If she left you, it is not my fault,” he said, in that softly condescending manner his cousin so despised. “If you loved her, it was your responsibility to marry her. Your responsibility to care for her. Your responsibility to tell her you loved her.”
Laughter rolled from Jalal’s lips, the sound as caustic as vinegar.
“As you told Shazi?”
Four more stabs. Each so effective.
“She knows how I feel.” Despite the cool efficiency of his retort, the air was leached from around Khalid once more, and his fists drew even tighter against his sides.
“And now, so do I. Keep watch over your shadow, Khalid-jan. Because, for the first time in eighteen years, I won’t be there to watch it for you.”
THE FIRE
THERE WAS FAR TOO MUCH ANGER IN THE AIR. FAR too much hatred.
Such emotions made it difficult to think rationally. Not that actual sense seemed of import to any of the brash fools present.
Omar al-Sadiq frowned at the gathering of men in his tent.
Frowned and remained silent.
Their war council was not going well. It was clear there was too much at stake for all involved.
Nevertheless, Omar listened as Reza bin-Latief shared reports about the boy-king of Khorasan. His peculiar disappearances. And the sorry state of his ravaged kingdom.
Many of the caliph’s Royal Guards had died the night of the terrible storm. A large portion of his standing army had either perished or fled Rey. Now Khalid Ibn al-Rashid was calling on his bannermen to help rebuild and refortify the city.
Rey—and its ruler—were vulnerable.
At this revelation, a collective outcry arose from many of the young men present.
“Now is the time. We must strike at the heart of Khorasan!”
“Kill the bastard while he is weak!”