by Renee Ahdieh
Yasmine sucked in a breath, and Shahrzad could not help but glance her way. The Princess of Parthia aimed a look of warning at her.
Behind it Shahrzad saw a flash of sympathy.
“Easy?” Salim began, the word bursting from a caustic round of laughter. “Do you think this has been easy? Nothing about this has been easy. It has been years in the making. Years spent watching that sullen boy flout me at every turn. Years spent watching him deny my daughter!” A fist crashed beside his plate. “The only thing that saved him from being called bastard was his uncanny resemblance to his father.”
Though Shahrzad caught the second look of caution Yasmine threw her way, she ignored it. “That and the fact that you were afraid of him.”
Jahandar gripped her wrist beneath the table.
A rush of anger swelled across Salim’s face. “I have never been afraid of him.”
“You lie as your spiteful daughter lies.” Shahrzad smiled. “You’ve always been afraid of him.”
“Shahrzad!” Jahandar exclaimed, finally electing to speak out.
Only to side with Shahrzad’s enemy.
“Baba, say nothing more.”
“Daughter, you have defied me—”
At that, Shahrzad tore her arm from his grasp. “And you have brought me here against my will, to be used as a pawn by these despicable liars!”
“I thought to bring you here to negotiate a truce. To help ease these wounds!”
“To help whom?” Shahrzad accused. “For it seems as though the only person you sought to help was yourself!”
The color rose in Jahandar’s face, first in a flush of red. Then in a wash of white.
He looked away.
But he did not deny it.
“How does it feel, Shahrzad al-Khayzuran?” Despina said in a melodious voice. “To be treated as a slave? To be the servant of people who see themselves as above you, when you know in your heart that you are the same?”
“Ask your father,” Shahrzad retorted.
“I’d rather ask your husband. When I next see him . . . kneeling at my feet.”
Without hesitation, Shahrzad splashed the remainder of her wine in Despina’s face.
The guards rushed at her, hauling her to her feet and dragging her from the table.
“Where is my sister?” Shahrzad screamed. “Where is Vikram? What have you done with them?”
Despina wiped her chin with the edge of a linen napkin, utterly calm. “If she wants so badly to see her former bodyguard, then take her to him. And leave her there to rot.”
Jahandar sat rigid at the table, burying his face in his shaking hands. He did not even glance her way as Shahrzad continued hurling obscenities into the air.
The guards dragged her through the lamplit halls. After a time, Shahrzad put up little resistance. For they meant to shame her as they hauled her along, like the carcass of a dying beast. And she would not give them the satisfaction. The arched corridors took on an even more garish look as she passed beneath their jewel-inlaid alcoves, going deeper into the sandstone palace. The scent of smoke from the guards’ torches caught in Shahrzad’s throat, causing her eyes to water.
They dragged her down a series of winding stone stairwells until they progressed into the underbelly of the palace, where the dank cold and the stench of decay took on a life of its own. Where it grew thick upon the walls as it seeped its way through the cracks.
The cells of the palace’s prison were barred by large iron grates, shaped into crooked half-moons. The ceilings were low and the floors were covered in dingy straw. Mold saturated the space, musty and thick. At every other cell a single torch lit the lichen-covered walls, barely offering any light.
The scar-faced, leering guard from earlier yanked Shahrzad against a wet stone wall. Its uneven surface rammed into the small of her back, jostling her injured shoulder and ripping a gasp from her throat.
“Not so silver-tongued now, are you?” he said, his sour breath hot against her skin.
Shahrzad punched him in the stomach.
“Bitch!”
Another guard lifted her off the ground as though to shield her from any resulting blows. Her eyes connected with his, and for a moment Shahrzad thought she saw a flash of panic. The first guard doubled over, clutching his middle and hurling curses her way. Then he straightened and came for her again, his face contorted with rage.
The second guard put a hand on his arm, worry etched across his forehead. “Be careful. I won’t be fed to the crows in pieces. If the bastard boy-king discovers we’ve harmed her—”
“The bastard boy-king will never know. Especially after we’ve decimated his army and left his carcass to rot in the sands.” He shot a disdainful glance at the smaller guard. “Unless you believe we are on the losing side?”
The smaller guard shook his head. And looked away.
“Besides,” the first guard continued, “I won’t harm her.” With a wicked grin, he returned his attention to Shahrzad. “Not now, at least.”
“Touch me again and the crows will be the least of your worries,” she said.
He took her by the hair. “I doubt that very much.” The guard pulled her closer. He yanked a hooked dagger from his sash. “Don’t worry. I’ll save the lasting damage for some other night.”
With that, the guard sliced through Shahrzad’s braid at the shoulder.
A shower of seed pearls crashed to the cold stone floor.
THE TIGER AND THE FALCON
KHALID WAS EXHAUSTED.
He had not properly rested since his return from the desert late last night.
Upon Khalid’s arrival, the shahrban had railed at him for quite some time. Khalid had let him, until he’d been forced to remind his uncle that he was under no obligation to report his whereabouts to anyone.
As he was in fact the Caliph of Khorasan.
After stating this, Khalid had promptly walked away.
Only to be accosted by Jalal within his antechamber.
His cousin, too, had been furious.
“I thought you were dead,” Jalal had said without a single word of welcome.
“Would that not have pleased you, to a degree?” Khalid had replied. “It’s much easier to hate a memory. I would know.”
It was spiteful, without a doubt. But Khalid had always possessed a particular knack for spite. It was one of his many darker gifts. One of the numerous gifts passed down to him, father to son.
Jalal had called him a foul name before pushing past him into the darkness.
Khalid had thought to go after him. Had thought to apologize.
But it was no use.
He’d tried for weeks to repair the damage. Tried to mend what had been broken between them that afternoon near the steps of the library. Alas, Jalal’s heart had been lost the day Despina had vanished into the desert beyond the city’s gates. And a lost heart was a dire thing, indeed. Especially since his cousin had never experienced true heartache before. Jalal al-Khoury had lived a life where precious little had been denied him. A boy who’d been blessed with a mother to love him from infancy into adulthood. A father who had always been at his side in support. For though it could be said Aref al-Khoury was a bit standoffish, he’d always loved his son and been quietly generous in showing it.
Indeed, Jalal had been denied very little throughout the course of his twenty years. His biggest loss in life had been the loss of his best friend.
The loss of Khalid’s brother, Hassan.
Last night, after Jalal had stalked away into the cold corridors of the palace, Khalid had briefly recalled the time when Jalal had come to him after Hassan had died in battle. When Jalal had tried to find a common ground between them in shared loss.
Yet another time Khalid had retreated to the shadows, far from anyone and anything, even as a boy.
He’d spent so long concealing all from those closest to him that—even now—he did not know how to bring things to light. How to mend matters with Jalal. For Khalid had only begun to feel what it meant to live outside the darkness.
This morning, Khalid had told his uncle, the shahrban, the events of the last few days. But he was still uncertain as to whether the curse was truly broken. For he was not one to believe in things without proof.
No. Only time would provide Khalid with that solace.
He had slept again last night. A fitful, restless sort of sleep. The kind that did not lend itself to dreams. But Khalid wanted to hope dreams would come in time.
Wanted to cling to the hope of dreams.
Alas, reality brought Khalid back to his covered alcove. Back to his ebony desk. Back to a teetering pile of scrolls, detailing the requests collected in his absence. He needed to work through at least a few before he could return to the desert for Shahrzad.
Just when Khalid had decided he could not possibly parse another page, a resounding knock struck at the doors.
“Yes?” Khalid looked up.
His uncle strode inside. As usual, it was difficult to read much in his expression. A family trait. In nearly all the men. Save for Jalal. And Hassan. Hassan had smiled a great deal. Especially at his younger brother.
Khalid raised his brows in question.
“Sayyidi?” his uncle began without stopping in his paces. “The captain of the guard has detained a rather—interesting party in the palace courtyard.”
“Interesting?” Khalid leaned against one arm of his settee. “How so?”
“A Badawi sheikh wishes to speak with you. He rides with a small host at his back . . .” The shahrban hesitated. “And he is in the company of someone I’d advise you to avoid speaking with at all cost.”
Khalid stood from his desk, letting loose a flood of scrolls to the floor. “Who is it?”
“The son of the emir Nasir al-Ziyad rides at his side.”
At that, Khalid moved past his uncle without pausing for breath.
“Bring them to the royal audience hall immediately.”
“Have you ever seen a room this large?” Rahim whispered as he gazed in awe at the diagonally patterned floor of black-and-white tile.
“Pick your jaw off the ground,” Tariq said through gritted teeth.
Omar laughed loudly, and the sound echoed high into the ceiling, bouncing off the marble walls. All around them, intricate reliefs depicting warriors vanquishing their foes and winged women with hair streaming in the wind lined the cool stone surfaces. At the base of every column were two-headed lions with iron torches protruding from their roaring mouths.
Though the room appeared grand at first glance, Tariq could see chinks in its elegant armor—a crack through one wall, many small fissures through another—
The last remaining vestiges of the Great Storm.
It was a grand room, to be sure. But it was a room with a story to it.
At one end of the vast space was a raised dais with a low settee at its center. Behind it were a set of immense staircases shaped like open arms.
Tariq moved toward the raised dais, with Rahim and Omar in tow.
He’d seen this room before. The last time Tariq had been in it had been the night of a magnificent celebration, filled with food and drink and music and dance. The night the Caliph of Khorasan had introduced his new calipha to every nobleman in the kingdom.
Tariq recalled the moment they’d appeared at the bottom of the open-armed staircases, hand in hand. As though each were but an extension of the other.
He should have known then. Should have seen with his heart and not just with his eyes.
Tariq started from his remembrance when the caliph descended those same open-arm staircases in a sudden rush. This time, the caliph did not make a show of his entrance. He moved swiftly and without ceremony. Behind him followed the Shahrban of Rey, along with the captain of the Royal Guard.
“Why are you here?” The boy-king did not stand on even a semblance of formality.
A part of Tariq liked him a bit more for it. But only a little bit.
The shahrban flicked a glance toward Omar before drifting past Rahim and then back to Tariq. “Sayyidi, perhaps we should—”
“Shahrzad is gone,” Tariq said in the same unceremonious tone.
The captain of the guard immediately reached for the front of Tariq’s rida’. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you to keep her safe, you feckless—”
Without warning, Rahim’s scimitar flew from its sheath, slicing toward the captain of the guard’s throat. The shahrban tossed a sharp command into the shadows as he withdrew his own weapon.
Omar remained still, taking in the converging mayhem with an unnervingly agreeable expression upon his face.
“Enough!” the caliph said sharply. The command echoed through the hall.
The guards drew back as one.
Tariq nodded at Rahim, who dropped his sword at the same moment the captain of the guard released the front of Tariq’s rida’.
“We are not beginning on a promising note, my friend,” Omar said to Tariq with a slow shake of his head. “But I do see what you mean about the young caliph. He is not a man of many words.” His eyes gleamed in the light of the lion torch to his right. “But he appears to be a man of the right ones.”
The caliph let his eyes linger on Omar. Though he said nothing, unspoken questions abounded in his piercing study.
“I am Omar al-Sadiq.” Omar stepped forward. “And I’ve been told you are a man worthy of earning my trust.”
“By whom?” the caliph said.
“By Tariq, of course.” Omar’s smile was wide and gap-toothed.
A brow crooked into the caliph’s forehead. “Did he use those words?”
“No. But it was implied in our conversation. In his choice.” He paused. “And I believe he has chosen well, at last.”
The caliph’s eyes shifted to Tariq.
“You see, despite all your differences, the White Falcon has chosen you,” Omar explained. “Thus, we are here to fight alongside you. It would be a great honor for you to earn my trust, as I quite like your wife and do not wish to see her come to harm.”
The caliph’s features hardened. Tariq watched his hands curl at his sides.
“Shahrzad has been taken to the seat of Parthia,” Omar continued. “To the sultan in Amardha.” Both the shahrban and the captain of the guard stiffened at the words, though the caliph remained still, his expression carved from stone. “I believe she was taken by hired mercenaries. Men contracted by Tariq’s uncle Reza bin-Latief and funded by a sultan who wishes to see you fall from your throne.” Omar tilted his head to one side. “So I ask you again—can I trust you?”
A small moment passed in which silenced engulfed the space. “What is it you seek by trusting me, Omar al-Sadiq?” the caliph replied softly. His knuckles had gone white.
Tariq knew the caliph was seeking a trust of his own. For Khalid Ibn al-Rashid did not yet know how to gauge the Badawi sheikh.
“The lesser of two evils,” Omar replied without pause.
“That’s a rather unflattering overture.”
“I wish I had the occasion to offer better.” Omar grinned. “For I have spent time in your wife’s company, and she is delightful. Moreover, she seems to have faith in you. Now it appears Tariq has faith in you. So I would like to follow suit. If you will leave my people in peace—and protect the lands on which we thrive—I will ride at your side.”
The caliph considered this before glancing at Tariq. “You would turn your back on your uncle?”
Tariq’s jaw clenched tight. “My uncle has lost sight of what it is I fight for. And I”—his lips caught on the words—“I am not certain I ever knew what it was I meant to fight for. But Omar speaks true; if U
ncle Reza has taken Shahrzad against her will, then you are indeed the lesser of two evils.”
The caliph nodded. “I cannot rally all of my bannermen in time. But I can send word to those nearby, and—” He stopped in consideration, looking to Tariq once more. “Do you know of the Fire Temple in the mountains by the sea?”
“I am not familiar with it.”
Rahim stepped forward. “I know of it.”
Again, the caliph nodded, this time to Rahim. “Would you send a message there for me through your falcon?” He looked to Tariq.
Though puzzled, Tariq agreed to the request. “Yes. May I ask why?”
“I know someone there who might be willing to help.”
THE BURNING BANYAN TREE
SHAHRZAD LEANED AGAINST THE COLD STONE WALL. A constant trickle of murky water passed by her slippered foot. The heavy chains around her wrists and ankles clinked with the smallest of movements.
She did not know how much time had passed.
Days perhaps.
It was impossible to tell, as not even a sliver of light seeped into the space.
The water in the filthy cup left by the grate was brackish. Even the smell of it turned her stomach. The bread beside it was stale and dry. She ate only enough to conserve her strength.
Her father had come to visit her twice. To beg her to apologize.
To see reason. To work alongside the sultan to achieve a lasting peace.
To surrender.
Both times, Shahrzad had turned her back on him. Had willed herself smaller, wishing she could disappear for just a moment, so she would not have to face him.
So she would not have to admit how he’d betrayed all she held dear.
Shahrzad knew she had betrayed her father by stealing his book, but a book was not the same thing as a life. Not the same thing as a future.
And with this book her father had taken so many lives that night in Rey. So many futures.
Now Shahrzad remained in near darkness. The single torch two cells over rarely wavered light in her direction.
At first, the guards had come to check on her regularly. To toy with her. To threaten her. To hurl intimations of unforgivable acts her way.