‘The juniya.’ He said the word as most people said her name, with a soft inflection on the ‘j’, so it was more like ‘sh’.
‘Juniya,’ she repeated, listening as at least two of them began to sing back and forth.
‘They’re native to this forest. In our most ancient texts they are spoken of, depicted in some of the first scrolls of the land. But they exist only here, in the trees that surround the palace.’
‘I can’t believe how verdant the land is here.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s like the foot of the mountains.’
‘That’s where the water comes from.’
‘The moat around the palace?’
‘And in my private hall,’ he agreed, reminding her of the little stream that flowed through that magical place he’d taken her to when first she’d arrived at the palace—had that only been earlier on this same day? ‘There’s an underground cavern that reaches the whole way; the river travels through it. In ancient times, it was used to send spies into Taquul,’ he said with a tight smile she could just make out. They continued to walk once more, and eventually the canopy grew less apparent, light from the stars and moon reaching them, so she could see his face more clearly.
‘But not any more?’
‘It’s more closely guarded on the other side.’ He laughed. ‘And our own guards do the same,’ he added, perhaps wondering if she might take the information back to her brother, to use it as a tactical strength against him. The thought brought a soft sigh to her lips.
‘Even now in peace?’ she prompted him.
‘Always.’ The words vibrated with the depth of his seriousness. ‘The water runs underground to the palace, the heart of our government. We will protect it with our lives.’
A shiver ran down her spine, his passion igniting something inside her.
‘The war went on for a long time. It’s only natural to think like that.’
‘You consider yourself immune from the effects of it?’
She lifted her slender shoulders. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time in New York. In truth, I’ve always felt I straddled two worlds, with one foot in my Taquul heritage and another in my mother’s America. That isn’t to say I feel the connection to my people any less, nor that I don’t see the seriousness of the war, but I see it—at times—with something akin to an outsider’s perspective.’
He reached out and grabbed an overhanging leaf, running his fingertips over it before handing it to Johara. She took it, lifting it her nose and inhaling gratefully. The smell was sweet and intoxicating. ‘With an outsider’s clarity, perhaps,’ he said darkly.
It jolted her gaze to his face. ‘You think I have greater clarity than you in this matter?’
He stopped walking, his expression tight. ‘I think war has become a way of life,’ he said with a nod. ‘Like you said. Those habits will die hard.’
‘It’s ironic,’ she murmured softly, ‘that you remind me of him, in many ways.’
He braced. ‘Who?’
‘My brother.’
His expression was forbidding. ‘I’m not sure I appreciate that.’
‘I didn’t expect you would, but it’s true. I think it’s probably an important thing to remember in war. You were the one who said that—we’re more alike than we are different.’
‘I was speaking generally.’
She shrugged once more. ‘And I’m speaking specifically.’
‘Don’t.’ He shook his head, his eyes locked to hers. ‘Don’t compare me to him.’
‘He’s my brother,’ she reminded him. ‘You can stand here with me, showing me this incredible place—’ she gestured beyond her ‘—but you can’t even speak his name?’
Amir stiffened. ‘Believe me, Johara, I am conscious, every minute we’re together, of who you are and what my being here with you means. You think I don’t feel that I am, right this second, betraying my parents’ memory?’
She sucked in a jagged breath, pain lancing her at the fact he could perceive anything to do with her as a betrayal of his parents. She spun away from him, looking back towards the palace. It was too far to see. She knew it would be there, beyond the enormous trees, glowing like a golden beacon. But it was no beacon, really. Not for her. The pain would be impossible to escape so long as she was here in Ishkana.
Her voice wobbled. ‘I think you’re honouring their memory by striving for peace. I think they’d be proud of you.’
His breath was ragged, filling the air behind her. His hand curved around her wrist, spinning her gently back to face him. ‘Perhaps,’ he agreed. ‘But that doesn’t make this any easier.’
His face showed the burden of his thoughts, the weight of his grief. She looked at him for several seconds and then went to pull her wrist away. He didn’t release her.
‘You are a Qadir,’ he said darkly, as if reminding himself.
She lifted her chin, fixing him with a determined glance. ‘And you are a Haddad. What’s your point?’
‘When my parents died, I could not show how I felt. I was twelve years old—still a child—but, here in Ishkana, old enough to become Sheikh. My life changed in a thousand ways. There was no time to grieve, to mourn, to process the loss of my parents. We were at war.’ His thumb began to pad the flesh of her inner wrist, rhythmically, softly, but almost as though he didn’t realise he was doing it.
‘I used to fall asleep at night with only one thought to comfort me.’
A lump had formed in her throat, making it difficult to swallow. ‘What was that?’
‘That I would hate the Qadirs and what they had done for the rest of my life.’ His eyes seemed to probe hers, his expression tense—his whole body, in fact, radiated with tension.
‘You were twelve.’ The words came out as a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘Of course you were angry.’
‘Not angry,’ he corrected. ‘I was calm. Resolute. Determined.’ When he breathed, his chest moved, brushing her.
‘And yet you’ve signed a peace treaty.’
‘For as much as I hate your family, I love my country and its people. For them I will always do what is best.’
Her heart felt as though it were bursting into a thousand pieces. Her stomach hurt. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ She dropped her gaze to his chest, unable to bear his scrutiny for a moment longer. ‘My uncle was imprisoned by my family after his despicable action—where he still languishes, at my brother’s behest. He had no support from my parents, my brother, and certainly not from me. Our war was an economic one, a war of sanctions rather than violence.’ She tilted her head, willing his defiance. ‘Oh, there are the renegades on the borders and of course the military posturing that seems to go hand in hand with war, but to stoop to something so violent and...and...wrong as assassinating your parents? That was my uncle’s madness, Amir. If you are to hate anyone—and I cannot stress enough how futile and damaging that kind of hatred is—but if you insist on hating anyone, have it be Johar. Not every single person who shares his surname. Not me.’
He groaned, low and deep in his throat. ‘What you say makes perfect sense.’
‘And yet you don’t agree?’ Her words sounded bleak.
‘I don’t want to agree.’
She lifted her eyes back to his. ‘Why not?’
‘Because this ancient hatred I feel is the only thing that’s been stopping me from doing what I wanted to do the second you arrived at the palace this morning.’
Her heart stopped racing. It thudded to a slow stop. ‘Which is?’
His eyes dropped to her lips. ‘I want to kiss you, Johara.’
Her heart stammered.
‘I want to claim your mouth with mine. I want to lace my fingers through your hair and hold your head still so I can taste every piece of you, bit by bit, until you are moaning and begging me, surrendering to me completely as you did in the maz
e.’
Her knees were knocking together wildly, her stomach filled with a kaleidoscope of butterflies.
‘I want to strip these clothes from your body and make love to you right here, with only this ancient forest to bear witness to whatever madness this is.’
She could barely breathe, let alone form words. ‘Would that be so bad?’
His eyes closed, as if it were the worst thing she could have said. ‘The first time was a mistake, but I didn’t know who you were then.’
‘Now you do, and you still want me,’ she challenged softly, aware she was walking on the edge of a precipice, so close to tumbling over.
He swore softly in one of the dialects of his people. ‘You deserve better than this. Better than for a man who can offer you nothing, wanting you for your body.’
She didn’t—couldn’t—respond to that.
‘I can offer you nothing,’ he reiterated. ‘No future, no friendship beyond what is expected of us in our position. I cannot—will not—form any relationship that might jeopardise what I owe my people.’
‘Damn it, Amir, I have no intention of doing anything to hurt your people...’
‘Caring for you would compromise my ability to rule. There are lines here we cannot cross.’
She swallowed, the words he spoke so difficult to comprehend and yet, at the same time, on an instinctive level, they made an awful kind of sense. Amir had been running this country since he was twelve years old. His life was impossible for Johara to understand. But she knew about duty and sacrifice; she had seen both these traits ingrained into her brother, she understood how his country would always come first.
And it wasn’t that he perceived her as a threat to the country. Not Johara, as a woman. Johara as a Qadir, as a member of the Taquul royal family. It was symbolic. The peace was new. His people would take time to accept it, to trust it, and if news of an affair between Amir and Johara were to break, it could threaten everything by stirring up strong negative feelings in response. Retaliation could occur.
The war had been too costly, especially on the border.
She closed her eyes and nodded, a sad shift of her head, because the futility of it all felt onerous and cumbersome.
‘I don’t hate you, Amir.’ She pulled her hand out of his and this time he let her. Her flesh screamed in agony, begging to be back in his grip. Her stomach looped again and again. ‘But you’re right. I deserve better than to be the scapegoat for all the pain you’ve suffered in your life.’ She straightened her spine and looked beyond him. ‘Shall we go back to the palace now? I think I’ve seen enough for tonight.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE SUN WAS UNRELENTING, the sands from the deserts stirred into a frenzy and reaching them even here, on the outskirts of the city where one of the oldest libraries stood in existence. He’d had this added to the itinerary days before she arrived. Memories of the maze had been running thick and fast through his mind. The pride with which she’d spoken of her work with childhood literacy had been impossible to forget—her eyes had sparkled like diamonds when she’d discussed the initiative she’d put together.
He knew she’d find the library itself beautiful—the building was very old, the books, parchments, scrolls, tapestries and stone walls contained within dated back thousands of years, but more than that, there were the spaces that had been built in the last fifteen years, during his reign, specifically to make books and reading more accessible to the youth of Ishkana.
This was the last stop on what had been a day filled with formal events. So much polite meeting and greeting, smiling, posing for photographs, and all the while Johara’s features had never shown a hint of strain or discomfort. Not at the proximity to a man who had been, as she claimed, using her as a ‘scapegoat’. Nor in exhaustion from the heat, nor after hours on her feet in dainty high heels that must surely pinch.
Even now, she listened with a rapt expression on her face as his Minister for the Arts explained how the library spaces worked.
Impatience coursed through Amir’s veins. He no longer wanted to stand to the side as she was shown through the library. He wished everyone to leave, so that it was just Johara and him, so that Amir could tell her what he’d hoped when he’d had the rooms built, so that he could tell her his favourite memories of being here in this building. Even when he was a boy, it had been one of his most delighted-in haunts.
‘What an incredible programme,’ she said, almost wistfully, running a finger over the bottom of a windowsill. Beyond them, the classroom was full of children—some of the poorest of Ishkana. Buses were sent each morning to various districts, a bell loudly proclaiming its arrival, giving all children who wished it a chance to get on board.
‘We are working towards universal education,’ Amir found himself saying, moving closer, half closing the Minister for the Arts from the conversation and drawing Johara’s eyes to his. It was only then that a sense of reserve entered her expression—just a hint of caution in the depths of her eyes but enough for him to see it and recognise it. ‘It was a passion of my father’s.’ He took a step down the marble corridor, urging her to follow him. It was impossible not to remember the group that followed them—staff, servants, media—and yet he found himself tuning them out, thinking only of Johara as they walked.
‘Education?’ she prompted, falling into step beside him.
‘Yes. The benefits to the whole country can’t be underestimated.’
‘I agree,’ she said, almost wistfully.
‘This is the state library,’ he continued. ‘So we were limited in the scope of what we could achieve. Naturally there is much here that is protected from too much public access—the oldest texts are stored on the second and third floors and kept out of the way of children.’ His smile was genuine.
She nodded. ‘Naturally.’
‘This is just an example of what we’re prioritising, and serves only the inner-city children. Beyond this, we’ve built twenty-seven libraries in the last decade, starting in the poorest regional communities and working our way up. The libraries aren’t just for books, though. There are computers and tablets, lessons in how to use both, and for the children, six days per week, classes are offered. Book hiring is incentivised, with small tax breaks offered to regular borrowers.’
She gasped. ‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes. Really.’
‘What an incredible initiative.’
He lifted his shoulders. ‘Reading is a habit that brings with it many benefits.’
She seemed to miss her step a little. He reached out and put a hand under her elbow, purely to steady her, but the sparks that shot through him warned him from making such a stupid mistake—particularly in public.
‘You must feel likewise to have established your childhood literacy initiative?’
‘Yes.’ Her smile was more natural. She casually pulled her arm away, putting a little more distance between them.
‘You enjoy reading?’
She kept her eyes straight ahead, and didn’t answer. Instead, after a moment, they came to the opening of a large room, this one filled with straight desks at which students could study during term time, and dark wooden walls filled with reference texts.
‘What a lovely room.’
He wondered if she was changing the subject intentionally, but let it go. There would be time later to ask her again—he wasn’t sure why it mattered, only it felt as if she was hiding something from him and he didn’t want that. He wanted to know...everything.
The thought almost made him miss a step, for how unwelcome it was.
Why? What was the point? He didn’t want to analyse it, he knew only that his instincts were pushing him towards her, not away, and he could no longer tell what was right or wrong.
The rest of the library tour took forty-five minutes. At the end of it, he paused, with one look keeping the rest of their contin
gent at a distance, leading her away separately. ‘Would you like to see what’s upstairs?’
‘The ancient texts?’
He dipped his head.
‘I...would have thought they were too precious to share with someone like me.’
His stomach tightened. Because she was a Qadir? Why wouldn’t she feel like that, particularly after the things he’d said the night before? ‘They are not something we routinely display to foreign guests.’ He deliberately appeared to misunderstand her. ‘But would you like to see them?’
Her breath grew louder, her eyes uncertain. He could feel a battle raging within her, the same kind of battle that was being fought inside him. ‘I would,’ she said, finally, not meeting his eyes.
Without a response to her, he spun on his heel and stalked to the group. He addressed only Ahmed, giving brief instructions that the motorcade should wait twenty minutes—that he and the Princess were not to be disturbed.
It was a break from protocol, but nothing he couldn’t explain later.
Before he could see the look of disapproval on Ahmed’s face, Amir walked Johara towards a bank of elevators, pressing a button that immediately summoned a carriage. The doors swished open and he waited for her to step inside before joining her and pressing a gold button. Even the elevators were very old, built at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It chugged slowly, and he tried not to pay attention to how close they stood in the confines of the infrastructure.
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