“Are you done?” she asked. “We ought to get going soon.”
“With the dramatics? Never.”
She gave him a pointed look.
“Before we go, you’re going to need to change,” he pressed. “That outfit is much too distracting.”
Durkhanai raised a brow. She could have sworn she saw Asfandyar ears turn the same pink as her blouse.
“To the public, of course,” he stuttered, clearing his throat. “Pink silk? It’s a sure way to be found out.”
She bit back a smile.
“Go on!” he insisted. “I’ll meet you in the library in ten minutes.” Asfandyar put his hands on her shoulders and steered her toward the door.
“Acha! Kya hai? I’m going,” she said.
But his hands did feel lovely on her shoulders, especially through the very thin silk. She was beginning to appreciate her night attire much more.
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. It must be the late hour. Her thoughts were getting out of hand.
When she reached her room to look for something to wear, she realized she had nothing that wasn’t absurd or ridiculous attire for clandestine night outings. How inconvenient.
After rummaging around for some time, she finally found a cotton lawn sleeping outfit, but even that had chikankari embroidery on it. She slipped the chaadar across her head. At least she was able to find a woolen loi. The thick shawl would cover her mostly. She put on her riding shoes and headed out, but not before checking her braid to ensure she looked as beautiful as she always did.
“Hai Allah, you take forever,” Asfandyar said, when she entered the library.
“Am I at least less distracting now?”
Asfandyar didn’t respond, just shook his head at her.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We haven’t much time before fajr, when the villagers will be awake. What was your plan of escape?”
She had one, but it included using the secret passageways that connected from her room. She wasn’t stupid enough to show Asfandyar, and he must have realized something along those lines.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Meet me by the stables.”
She raised a quizzical brow. “How will you get out of here?”
His response was a cocky grin. “Spy, remember?”
How infuriating. “Asaman se uth’reho? Why do you walk around like you’re God’s gift to mankind?”
“You think I’m God’s gift to mankind?” he responded, brows raised, clearly pleased.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you are. You do,” she clarified.
He shot her a wide grin, unconvinced. “See you on the other side,” he said with a wink.
As she made her way through the passageways, Durkhanai knew this was all a bad idea. It was dangerous to be going out at all, and thricefold as dangerous to be going out with Asfandyar.
Especially if she was caught. Firstly, she couldn’t be caught with a man in the middle of the night. Secondly, her people hated the ambassadors—any foreigners—and if she was seen with one, it would be doubly worse.
But she needed the help and he was willing and—she trusted him. She didn’t know why, but she did. It was a gut feeling.
Perhaps he really could help her—beyond just the medicine, but with finding out who was behind the summit attack. Time was ticking, and she was so caught up with checking in on her people and trying to quell their discontent that she’d hardly had any time to continue her investigation. After all. the attempts she had made on her own to investigate had come to nothing, and he himself had admitted he could use her help, too. This might be a good way to show him her gestures were sincere.
She knew the Badshah was searching vehemently, but he was preoccupied with the borders and the Lugham Empire. And the Wali was busy negotiating with the ambassadors and trying to buy more time. It was up to Durkhanai to exonerate her land, whether her grandparents realized she was capable of that or not.
But she seriously doubted herself when she tripped on a branch, snapping it loudly in half, and Asfandyar shot her a withering glance.
“Do be a little louder, Shehzadi,” Asfandyar whispered. He offered her his hand, and she pushed it aside.
“Go to hell,” she hissed back.
“But then what would you do without me?” he replied cheerily.
“Be immensely happy.”
“You break my heart,” he said, holding both hands to his heart, wincing dramatically.
“Uff, taubah!”
She tripped again and swore. This time when Asfandyar offered his hand, she took it. As he grabbed her hand, she saw his gaze catch on the family crest ring she always wore on her third finger. He seemed to recognize it for an instant, then his face was masked yet again.
This was the second time.
Before she could wonder, Asfandyar pulled her along. He was as strong as the river’s current, and they began the hike down the mountain in comfortable silence.
When they arrived, the village was quiet. Thankfully, the nights hadn’t gotten so hot quite yet, so the people were soundly asleep inside. In the more humid nights, the people pulled their charpai outside, sleeping under the open sky. Tonight, the courtyards were empty.
“How do you want to do this?” Asfandyar asked.
Durkhanai smiled. “With grace,” she said. “Watch and learn, spy.”
Durkhanai recalled which homes held the ill and went to the one closest by. Most of the village structures were open-doored, which made her work simpler.
Silent as a mouse, she slipped into the kitchen area, which was separate from the main structure of the home. She pulled a small vial from her satchel and set it down beside the ghara, the clay pot used to store water. It was the first place people visited in the morning
From the smaller purse inside the satchel, Durkhanai pulled out a rolled piece of paper. It held the instructions for the medicine and a little note signed, from a friend.
Heart beating quickly, she slipped out.
“See?” Durkhanai whispered, going back to where Asfandyar was waiting on the street.
She was euphoric off of not getting caught and what she had accomplished, the good she was spreading. It felt like a splendid game.
“That was the good work of a spy,” Asfandyar admitted, impressed.
“I don’t know what I am,” she said offhandedly, laughing just a little.
“You’re amazing, that’s what you are,” he said in earnest. “Knowing just who needs the medicine and coming out to personally deliver it to each of them . . . I confess, when I first caught you in the cupboard, I assumed you’d pass medicine vials to a messenger to deliver. But what you are doing . . . it is amazing.”
“That I am,” she agreed, flipping her hair.
So they went on. Durkhanai recalled which homes needed medicine, and she slipped little medicine vials into their kitchens while Asfandyar stood watch. They worked in easy silence, a quick and nimble system. It wasn’t long before they ran out of medicine.
The time was getting close to fajr, when the people would wake to pray before dawn. They had to get back before anybody noticed their absences and before anybody could see them arriving.
They began the hike up, both lightheaded from exhaustion and giddy from what they had accomplished.
As they grew closer to the palace, they neared a wide, gaping amphitheater built into the mountain. In the moonlight, the empty seats shone as if waiting to be filled. The dirt at the base was smoothed clean, yet it was so easy to imagine a lion bursting forth, it’s roar echoing through the mountains.
“Is this where tribunals are held?” Asfandyar asked.
“Yes,” she replied. Though she didn’t say so, she knew from her grandparents’ stories over the years that the massive arena was centrally located to the surrounding villages for good reason. There could be no spectacle without the presence of thousands.
“You don’t find the idea entirely uncivilized?” he asked. “It is why people call th
e Marghazari barbaric, after all.”
“It is our tradition,” she replied. She did not take offense. She knew her people could be brutal and exuberant, perhaps steeped in old traditions some people occasionally argued should have been shed decades ago, but they were strong and fierce and true. They were hers.
The trial by tribunal was one of the traditions that had given the Marghazari people their notoriety.
The rules of the tribunal were simple: the accused was brought before two doors, completely identical. The accused was then given a choice to decide his own fate: to pick the door. Behind one door was a cruel lion. Behind the other was a kind lady, or a kind man, whichever the accused preferred.
If the accused was guilty, the lion would rip him to shreds. If the accused was innocent, he was to marry the lady.
Perhaps to outsiders, it seemed uncouth and unreasonable, but to them, it was tradition and truth.
“Besides,” she said, the hint of a smile on her face. “Are we not a barbaric people?”
He tucked a stray curl behind her ear, his voice low as he said, “I dare say you are.”
He was too close. He seemed to realize the same moment she did. He took a step back.
“Your hair smells like coconut oil,” Asfandyar remarked, wrinkling his nose. “It’s horrid.”
The moment was broken.
“Excuse me?” she balked. She opened her hair from its braid and tossed it in front of his face. Asfandyar pretended to gag, and they both laughed.
“Aren’t you tired?” Durkhanai asked him, yawning. He was wide awake.
“I don’t sleep much,” he admitted nonchalantly.
“Why not?”
He paused, maybe because nobody ever asked, or maybe because he was wondering if he should tell the truth or lie. “I have nightmares.”
She frowned. “Why do you have nightmares?”
He let out a sigh-laugh, so she laughed, too, brows knitted in confusion.
“What?” she asked. “You can’t offer such a response and not expect curiosity in return.”
He ran a hand through his hair and kept it there, his fingers twisted at the roots. All the mirth vanished from his mien: he was nearly about to cry. Her heart knocked against her chest as he said, voice broken, “My best friend passed away when I was seventeen. So I have nightmares about her.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
And she didn’t know what else to say. How truly awful and wretched. With one glance at him, one would never guess: he was always smiling and laughing, teasing and playful.
“Life is lived through love and loss.”
“That it is.” She hadn’t expected him to shift from banter to meditation so seamlessly, but it was genuine.
Perhaps it was the night or the fatigue, but she felt open around him, a cloudless sky.
“Thank you, by the way,” she told him. “For coming along and helping me. It was honorable of you to help people who aren’t your own. Perhaps an alliance with you wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Was that a compliment?” he asked, mouth agape with fake shock. She shoved his arm lightly.
“A half compliment,” she responded. “Don’t get ahead of yourself in flattery.”
“Still,” he responded, holding his hands to his heart. “A half compliment from the princess. I shall cherish this memory for all of time.” But then he added quietly, “Truly, princess, the honor was mine. And besides, all the people of this world are my own, regardless of tribe.”
Durkhanai’s heart felt full as the soil after rain, flowers on the verge of blooming. She had never spoken thus with a man, and perhaps it should have felt more awkward or intimate or strange, even, but Durkhanai just felt at ease.
Comfortable.
They arrived back at the palace.
“Well, good night,” she said, though neither made any moves to leave.
Asfandyar smiled and bowed dramatically. “Good night, princess,” he exaggerated.
Durkhanai tried her best to give him a straight face, but she couldn’t hold it. She giggled, then giggled again. He was laughing now, too, and she couldn’t seem to stop. “Shh!” she said through her laughter, waving her hands to quiet him. “Everyone’s asleep!”
And before she could stop herself, she bridged the space between them and covered his mouth with her hand. Asfandyar’s laughter slowly fizzled out against her palm. He stilled, and she realized just how close they were.
Durkhanai swallowed.
They were much too close to be appropriate, even if she hadn’t been a princess and he a foreign ambassador. She was close enough to see the long eyelashes framing his hooded eyes, each curl that unfurled from beneath his pakol.
Durkhanai dropped her hand, but couldn’t seem to move away, despite knowing she should. This close, she had to look up at him, and he was gazing down at her. He was heavenly warm against the cool night, the space between them a perfect cocoon.
One more second, she told herself.
She took a deep breath.
And stepped back.
Durkhanai cleared her throat, biting her lip. She looked up at the stars, away from Asfandyar, intent on distracting herself from the burning on her hand where his mouth had been.
The night sky was awake: throbbing and pulsing with a thousand glittering stars. It took her breath away, frightened her with the grandeur. It seemed impossible, like a dream thing come alive, a being on its own. An angel, a monster, something that would swallow her whole, and she would let it, willingly, gladly, if only to catch the glimmer of beauty for a second later.
This is what is meant to be mesmerized, astounded. This was brilliance made real, a thousand diamonds shimmering in the black velvet cloak of night, crystal and clear.
“Look,” she whispered, tilting her head further back as if to drink the night sky. “It’s breathtaking.”
“Indeed, it is,” he said. But when she looked, he was staring at her with a soft expression. She bit her lip, nervous all of a sudden. She expected him to look away, flushed, but as usual, he had no shame whatsoever. Besharam.
“What?” she asked. She had meant to sound irritated but the question came out softer than she intended. She bit her lip.
His lips curved in a half smile, but he said nothing, just kept staring. She felt like he was stripping her bare with just his gaze, though it never traveled past her eyes. The blacks of his eyes were glistening like the night sky.
“What?” she said again, though this time she couldn’t quite keep the quiver from her lips.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head and smiling.
She wanted to devour the smile from his lips with her own.
“I agree,” she said, cutting off her thoughts. She cleared her throat. “We should work together to find out who was behind the summit attack.” She swallowed. “So you can go home and we can both go on with our lives. Allies?”
She put her hand out to shake, and he did. His fingers brushed against her palm. A shiver ran down her spine. Asfandyar lifted her hand to his lips.
“You should rest,” he said, kissing her palm. “Sweet dreams.”
He turned and went, and she was left standing there, watching him go.
Chapter Ten
The next day, Durkhanai felt more settled than she had in weeks. Though she was tired from being out for most of the night, there was satisfaction that came from doing good work. And now, her mind was clear enough to consider investigating who was behind the summit attack.
After breakfast, Durkhanai went to find Asfandyar. However, on the way, she ran into another.
“Shehzadi Durkhanai, I’m glad to have found you,” Rashid said, smiling sweetly at her. “May I join you?”
When she nodded, he matched his strides to hers. “I wished to speak with you about a most curious matter. Last night, it seems medicine was distributed in a village. Some sort of guardian angel placed them in the homes of the ill, along with instructions.
I was wondering if you knew anything about it?”
Rashid looked at her with wonder. He was thinking it might have been her. She could divulge the secret to him and earn his favor, strengthening their bond from acquaintance into friendship.
As princess, it was Durkhanai’s duty to always think of her people first.
But she couldn’t help but think about last night, how fresh it still was in her mind.
The stars in Asfandyar’s eyes.
She saw him as clearly as though he were right there. She wished to reach out, to hold a hand to his face as she had the night prior, feel his beard against her palm.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts.
“That is wonderful news!” she said to Rashid, forcing surprise into her voice. “But I must confess, I know nothing about it. Perhaps a local physician expended their own resources to do so.”
Disappointment flashed across Rashid’s face.
“So . . . it was not you?”
Durkhanai released a little laugh. “How I wish it was, but I’m afraid I was asleep here in the palace. Surely you would not expect a princess to sneak into the night like a miscreant, handing out medicine?”
“No, I suppose I would not,” Rashid said. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Durkhanai did not want him to ask too many questions, to be too curious. She could not have Dhadi finding out she was the so-called “guardian angel.”
“I must go, now,” Durkhanai said, touching his arm. “But I hope to see you again soon.”
She walked away from Rashid and toward another. Asfandyar was in the courtyard, staring at his reflection in a fountain. He stood so still, staring. She wondered what he saw. She nearly asked, but the moment she approached, the pensive, sad expression he wore was swiftly exchanged for one of amusement.
“Shehzadi Durkhanai, to what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked, smirking.
“Ambassador,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. She reminded herself that the only reason she was working with Asfandyar was so that he could leave; it was a necessity.
And once he was gone, she could focus on Rashid more. Her inevitable engagement.
“You look well,” he said, looking her up and down. “I take it you got a good night’s rest?”
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