by Lynn, Sophia
He shot her a look of intense love and longing, and then a cab stopped for his raised hand. She could see in his eyes that he wanted nothing more than to be in her embrace again, but then he shook his head slightly, got into the cab and was gone.
Standing on the streets of one of the most populous and busy cities in the world, Penny had suddenly never felt more alone. The daisies she had just bought felt strangely heavy in her arms, and she realized she should head home.
Automatically, she made her way to the tiny corner store close to her apartment to pick up a sandwich and a drink, her standard fare before she had met Ziyad. It struck her how strange it felt to do something that she had done so often before. It was like a dream was over, or as if she had slipped back into the real world after having been in Wonderland.
She shook her head hard. What she had with Ziyad was real. She knew it. She felt it.
All she had to do was wait until he returned for her.
Chapter Ten
On the long flight to Najma, Ziyad felt as if he were traveling with a cloud of darkness hanging over him. At first, gazing out the window and looking out over the world below, he wondered if it was death. He knew his father was frail and had been surviving on nothing more than stubbornness and pride for years, if not for decades.
His father hadn't been a young man when Ziyad was born, even if Ziyad remembered him as an oak when he was a little boy. He had been healthy until he wasn't, and now the idea of him being on death's door was like a pail of cold water dumped suddenly on Ziyad's head.
However, after the first hour, Ziyad realized the darkness hovering around him wasn't about fear of death at all. Qasim was not a man who ran from the reality of any situation. Instead, he had been preparing Ziyad for the position of sheikh since Ziyad was a young man, showing him what he did, how he did it, how to rule and how to be both strong and compassionate.
But over the last few years, it had felt like they never did anything but fight, until Ziyad had started spending more time out of the emirate than in it.
No, as sad as the situation was, there was a core of calm to Ziyad that he had never felt before, and he knew that in many ways it was his father's doing. Qasim had done his duty by both his son and his country, and there was nothing in Ziyad that was afraid or upset.
The plane cut through the night sky, and slowly Ziyad realized what that darkness was. He figured it out when he kept glancing at the seat next to him, when he started to speak, to smile, and realized there was nothing beside him but plain air. He was alone, but that shouldn't have been strange. He had been alone in some way, shape or form for his entire life. He had always been a bit of a lone wolf, and generally he preferred it. The women he had been with before had always been distractions, people who would come and go with a certain interchangeable ease, and he never missed them much more than he missed a certain type of food he was very fond of or a type of music he enjoyed but didn't love.
Penny was different. Somehow, despite everything that was working against him, she had appeared out of nowhere and changed the way he lived his life forever. Things were sharply divided between “before Penny” and “after Penny,” and there was nothing he could do to change it. He wasn't sure he even wanted to.
Penny had broken his life open, and somehow, with just a gentle smile and a sharp retort, she had shown him what life could be and what he was missing. He didn't understand it, but it was true. He was a man who had dated some of the most beautiful women on the continent, and then there was this one small woman, red-haired, clever and sweet with gold flecks in her bright green eyes, and she just blew them all out of the water.
He thought about how hurried their last moments had been, and a part of his brain longed to go back and do them over.
She had said she loved him.
He knew she was new to intimacy, but there was nothing in him that told him it was a young girl's fancy or false expectation. Penny was stubborn to a fault, but she had never been anything less than utterly truthful. If she said she loved him, then that was the truth, regardless of what else was said. She loved him, and only now that he was winging his way towards his future, some would say his destiny, he knew that he loved her as well.
Ziyad flinched slightly. She had given him the greatest gift a woman could give a man, but he had offered her nothing in return.
He had flown away and left her with nothing.
He shook his head. No matter how much he would have given to have her here, holding his hand, smiling that small and lovely smile, he knew that Najma would have been wretched for her. He loved his country, but while things were certainly improving internally, Najma was still quite conservative when it came to foreigners. Najma had never bowed down to imperialist invaders the way that other neighboring countries had, and it was a source of incredible pride. Oil made Najma wealthy beyond belief, but it was an ancient pride and arrogance that held the spines of its citizens straight, that would have made them proud if they only had their mountains and their deserts and their oases.
No, the Najma politics would have eaten Penny alive, and he couldn't have borne that. He didn't know what would happen when his ascension to power was complete, but there had to be a way to bring Penny to the country as his lover. Perhaps even as his wife.
The moment he thought that, the image struck him. The people of Najma did not marry in white. Instead, brides were gowned in deepest black, and their dresses were embroidered with silken black thread. Around her neck, a noble bride wore pearls, a woman related to the sheikh wore rubies, and the woman who was to marry the sheikh himself wore emeralds. The thought of Penny wearing gems that matched her peerless eyes on her wedding day made something in Ziyad's chest swell with emotion.
He closed his hands into fists.
He would get through this. He would take his place, and then he would find his bella.
***
FOR A SHORT while after Ziyad left, Penny wondered whether she regretted telling him she was in love with him, and then she decided that she didn’t. Despite the sad situation in which those words had been first uttered, there was still something magical about them, something that felt at once incredibly grounded and incredibly freeing.
They were, she decided, the best thing to say if they were true, and she did not regret saying it to Ziyad at all.
She thought of him frequently over the next few days, wondering whether he was safe, whether his father had recovered, if his father had slipped into death calmly and without pain. She wondered what Ziyad would be like when he returned, if he would be haunted or simply sad. She told herself that she was prepared for whatever needed to happen.
At first, she thought she simply missed him so much that she was making herself sick. She felt tired all the time, and it felt like at any moment she could simply fall over and nap. She continued to work at the school, but she could tell that though no one else had noticed the difference, something essential wasn't there for her any longer.
After work, Penny sat by herself at the fountain, holding a small, forgotten pastry that served as her dinner in her hand, and tried to send her thoughts and feelings to Ziyad so far away. Sometimes, it felt as if she conjured him so clearly that she would open her eyes and find him there, smiling at her, his hand reaching up to touch her cheek with the utmost gentleness.
He didn't text or call, but that was to be assumed given the nature of his sudden departure. She sent him one or two texts, but after that, she kept her peace. She remembered her own mother's funeral where things had been so intense.
At night, she stepped out onto the roof of her apartment building. The Rome sky was pink with light pollution, but she could make out the faintest stars, which she knew were the brightest in the night sky. She hadn't wished for very much in her life since her mother died, but she wished now.
She wished that everything would be all right for Ziyad, and that he would come to her.
***
ZIYAD KEPT HIS face perfectly still as he dropped t
hree handfuls of soil over his father's shrouded body. The sheikhs of Najma had always lived lavishly, but there was a long tradition of simple burials in a family graveyard. In accordance with their customs, Sheikh Qasim had been shrouded in three pieces of long white cotton and placed on his side, his head facing the east.
Hearing the dry earth fall on the white-shrouded body was something that Ziyad thought he would hear in his mind for a very long time. It was dull, and at the same time, he could feel an echo of it in his heart where he carried all the things he and his father should have said to each other.
He had made it back in time to speak with his father at the end. The doctor had said Qasim was no longer consistently lucid, but when he came to the old man's bedside, Qasim's dark eyes, formerly shrouded with pain, were clear.
"My son," he said roughly. "My son has returned..."
Ziyad, who had thought himself prepared, abruptly realized he was not, and the words he should have said over the past few years crowded into his throat. When he took his father's hand, it shocked him how much bonier it was, how much of his father had somehow seemed to simply vanish.
"We did not agree," Qasim said with difficulty. "But we agreed on the important...things. Protect the country. Be proud. Know your own way."
"Yes, yes, Father," Ziyad had said, his voice feeling like it had been choked out of him. "Of course..."
Qasim's eyes clouded over then, and Ziyad wondered ever after if there had been something satisfied on the old man's face, as if he had delivered the message he had to deliver and was thus at peace. He held his father's hand until the old man died, and even then, he did not let go.
"Sire, would it please you to step back?"
The words came from one of the grave diggers standing respectfully to one side. Ziyad's family, none of whom he knew tremendously well, were behind them, and Ziyad could feel their eyes on him.
"Of course," he said, his voice harsher than he thought it would be. He stepped back so that the gravediggers could do their job. The grave itself was simple, but over the next few weeks, he would see to it that a marble marker would be placed over it. Then it would be over in truth.
When the gravediggers were finished and walked away, the family finally started to make its way back to the palace. The air was subdued, but there was something almost relieved about it. Qasim was a man who had been respected if not always loved, and no one had wanted to see him suffer the way he had suffered towards the end.
More than one aunt squeezed Ziyad’s arm and told him to come to her if he had any troubles, and several of his great uncles and second cousins wanted to offer him courage and strength.
He accepted their wishes with good grace, but all he could think was that he would be able to see Penny soon. Her bright hair, her lovely smile, her grace and her kindness, they would soothe the powerful loneliness in his heart. He could explain who he was to her, tell her that it had not been a deception to avoid telling her he was the son of a sheikh, but rather that it was simply so wonderful not to have to pretend, to know that she wanted him for himself alone. She was a forgiving woman, he knew it, and perhaps she would be angry or even grieved. But after that, perhaps they could find out what was to become of them.
He had hung on to the thought of Penny throughout the last few days, but as he greeted his relatives, prepared his speech for the grieving nation and gave interview after interview, he realized that his grip was slipping.
"And it is uncommon for a sheikh your age to come to the throne without a sheikha," said one reporter. "Does that mean that you will take a bride when the mourning period is over?"
He had brushed the man off, but the question returned over and over again, in a number of different costumes and intents. His relatives brought it up, and so did almost everyone who interviewed him. The utter certainty of him marrying a girl from the nobility of Najma or at least a girl from the Emirates was such a given that he realized with a cold chill that he would never be able to bring Penny here.
He had grown up in Najma, but then he’d left for almost four years. He had been away for so long, and now he could look at it with fresh eyes. They would tear Penny to bits here, and he had no idea how a soul as sweet and sensitive as hers could survive.
He held on to her for as long as he could, and then reluctantly, with a feeling that a stone had rolled into the spot where his heart was supposed to be, he did what he had to do.
He wrote out the documentation with as steady a hand as he could, and he gave it to Altair to administer. His father's assistant, eschewing the generous pension that Ziyad had offered, had stayed on, and now he gave Ziyad a measured look that bore something of approval in it.
Ziyad didn't care. All that mattered now was Penny being safe and happy, and he was very much aware that she would be neither of those things if she came to Najma.
***
ZIYAD HAD BEEN gone for almost three weeks, and Penny told herself to be patient. She knew the force of the attraction between them. Sometimes, it felt as if it was a truly magnetic feeling, as if she could simply start walking one day and find her way to him without any directions at all.
She wished she could get over feeling this tired. It was perhaps vain, but when he returned, she didn't want to be a skinny little ghost of herself. She wanted his dark eyes to open wide, and she wanted nothing more than to make him smile and forget his grief for at least a little bit.
That day was a crisp and clear one with just a little bit of unaccustomed chill in the air. The native Romans were cursing the cold, but to Penny, who had spent most of the winters of her young life in sub-zero temperatures, it simply felt like a wonderful excuse to put on a sweater.
After she finished up at the school, she started to walk, inevitably ending up back at the fountain where they had met so often. It was so beautiful that it felt almost like a movie. He certainly didn't know that she was coming to the fountain so regularly. It would be ridiculous for him to come here before she knew he was in Rome. Still, a small, secretly romantic part of her wanted nothing more than to see him across the square, to run towards him and be wrapped up in his embrace again, to know that everything was all right.
Of course it didn't happen, and after she ate her pastry, she shook her head, stuck her hands in her pockets and started for home.
Penny didn't notice the man waiting for her on the steps up to her building until she had nearly walked past him, but then he stepped forward.
"Miss Penny Bright?"
She jumped a little, taking a closer look at the man. He was Middle Eastern, tall with a rather hawk-like aspect. He was well-dressed for the neighborhood in a pressed charcoal suit, and he had a trimmed mustache that looked nearly military in its sharpness.
"Y-yes?" she asked, and then she immediately wondered if she should have answered him. Was this some kind of scam? Was he going to do something horrible to her?
She started to back away towards the front door, but the man held up his hands.
"Nothing to be afraid of, Miss Bright, I assure you. I am not going to harm you. I am here at the behest of Sheikh Ziyad Abdul-Azir."
For a moment, she wasn't sure who he was talking about.
"Excuse me, did you say 'sheikh'?" she asked in disbelief.
There was a moment of sympathy that fluttered over the man's face, and he nodded.
"I am afraid so," he said, and she only had a moment to wonder at his phrasing before he glanced up and down the street.
"If you do not want to have a strange man in your apartment--which is a wise precaution--would you object to stepping perhaps into that small cafe across the way? What I have to say to you likely shouldn't be said in the middle of the street."
Penny bit her lip for a moment. Alarm bells were going off in her head, but she had no idea what they meant. She could not sense any danger from this man. He had startled her, but he knew her name, and it sounded like he knew Ziyad as well. But...sheikh? What could that mean? Where was Ziyad himself?
"Not at that cafe," she said. "What about the bakery there? They have tables and booths around back."
He inclined his head politely, not the least put off by her suspicions. "Very well, Miss Bright."
They walked to the bakery, Penny keeping a careful eye on the man in case her instincts had been wrong after all. He was a perfect gentleman, buying them both horn-shaped cream pastries and having the server bring them to the table so she could see that he hadn't tampered with them.
"I wish all of my assignments came with pastry this good," he joked, but Penny couldn't summon up more than a wan smile at his joke. She had noticed too that her smiles had felt harder and harder to come by since Ziyad left for Najma.
The man sighed. "I suppose I better get to business. Miss Bright, my name is Rasim Altair, and I was the personal secretary and friend of the late Sheikh Qasim Abdul-Azir. After some thought and negotiation, I have remained on as the personal secretary of Sheikh Ziyad Abdul-Azir."
"Sheikh...are you telling me that Ziyad is...is the ruler of a country?"
He inclined his head gracefully. "Yes, Miss Bright, of the emirate of Najma, specifically. His father died a short while ago--"
Though she was expecting it, Penny made a soft noise of distress, and Altair looked up at her in surprise.
"Miss Bright?"
"He must have been so hurt," she said softly, blushing a little. "I'm sorry. I know he and his father weren't close, but when he spoke of him, there was always such respect in his voice."
Something in Altair seemed to thaw then, and his slight smile was a little more gentle. "Yes, that is a good thing to hear. But with the death of Sheikh Qasim Abdul-Azir, Sheikh Ziyad has stepped up to take his proper place as the ruler of the emirate."
She shook her head. "I don't understand. It seems like a strange dream. How could the man I...that I knew be the sheikh of an emirate?"
Altair shrugged. "Sheikh Ziyad has always been a man who kept his own counsel, even when he was mostly living in Najma. Perhaps he simply felt it was safer for you, or perhaps he wished to keep a few things to himself."