“No, Dhadi, I’m sorry,” Durkhanai said quickly. “I didn’t mean to offend you—”
“But you have,” Dhadi said. Her eyes hardened. “It is time you learned to be queen, Durkhanai. A true queen. We are tired of waiting.”
Couldn’t they see she was trying? Growing, learning . . . but how could they expect her to be a true queen when they did not treat her as such?
“You are tired of waiting?” Durkhanai asked, feeling angry again. “Yet you have told me nothing about the alliance with the Kebzu Kingdom! You cannot expect me to be content tending to domestic affairs with no knowledge of our international relations and political schemes.”
Dhadi smiled wryly. “I am sure Asfandyar told you about that. Here you come with your accusations once more.”
“But why? What of loyalty?” Durkhanai asked. “Country? Are these not the codes that dictate our culture?”
The tribes were obligated to protect their own lands, not others. And the Kebzu Kingdom had conquered and killed their brethren in the past, how could the Badshah ally himself with one of his enemies, shedding his people’s blood for another nation?
“This is necessary,” the Badshah explained. “To rid us of the Luhgum Empire once and for all.”
And all Durkhanai saw in her grandfather's countenance was the boy of fourteen who had seen his brothers and fathers killed. How it had molded his entire being, sanded and chiseled him down to one purpose, one thought—revenge. He could not see past his own hypocrisy.
“But at what cost?” Durkhanai argued. “At what cost?”
All of their people were dying.
“Whatever the cost,” the Badshah told her. “Whatever the cost for the greater good. When I am long gone, I wish for your children and your children’s children to live in a world without war. These lives now for the lives of the future. Don’t you understand? Can you not see?”
“I do, but, Agha-Jaan, this is too much,” she said. “Just as the attack on the summit was too much. Was it really you who alerted the Kebzu Kingdom of the summit meeting?”
“I assume Asfandyar told you this, as well?”
“Yes,” Durkhanai replied. “Is it true? And that show of the Kebzu soldier at the fiftieth-year celebration was a lie?”
The Badshah sighed.
“Janaan, there is much you do not understand,” he replied. “Perhaps we have kept too much from you, but only because you still have such a naive perspective, which is only being confirmed now. Yes, the Kebzu soldier’s confession was a lie. But a necessary one to avoid war within our zillas. We cannot handle a triple-frontier war, not now, not when we are so close!”
She knew it.
“As for the summit attack,” he continued. “I never told the Kebzu Kingdom to attack the summit. I merely informed them of the summit, clearly stating that we were not participating, so they did not have to worry. I did not tell them the location or the date—that, their spies must have gathered on their own.”
“Besides, Allah has a way of making things work out. Now see with the summit attack—while it was a tragedy, it was also a blessing, for if the other zillas had unified, they would have been strong enough to wage war against us,” Dhadi explained. “Which would have been costly, especially when we are sending all our resources to the frontier against the Luhgam Empires. Especially when we are so close.”
They had everything planned out, everything explained. All the answers at the ready, calmly explaining things to her as though she was a child still.
Was there anything she had ever known?
No. She didn’t even know herself anymore.
Perhaps her grandparents were right: perhaps she had been bewitched. She felt hollow. Empty. Alone.
“Why are you telling me this now?” Durkhanai asked. Her voice was quiet, deflated.
“So you understand what it means to be Badshah,” Agha-Jaan replied, taking her hand. “Sometimes you must swallow the bitter peel to access the sweet fruit inside. You must let whatever you think you feel for Asfandyar go. You must know there is no future for you and him.”
“No,” Durkhanai said, voice hard. She was full of grief, everything crumbled to dust, heart frozen, but she would fight them on this. “You did not hold Rukhsana-sahiba to trial when she poisoned our people,” she said. “You cannot hold Asfandyar to trial for a lesser crime.”
Durkhanai couldn’t bear seeing Asfandyar sent to trial. Even if she was absurdly angry with him, even if she doubted him, and he had a long way to go before she would trust him again, she didn’t want to see him torn apart by a lion or married off to another.
Despite everything, she was his, as he was hers. She would not give up so easily.
“We will not allow for that boy to ruin you,” Dhadi snapped. “You are to be the Badshah. You must focus on your duties and your people. They would never accept a foreigner. Already, the people are doubting you due to your association with him. What good is a Shehzadi if she is not loved by her people?”
Durkhanai understood, of course she understood.
Logically, he wasn’t good for her. Long-term, perhaps it would lead to nowhere but heartbreak, worse that it already had. It was selfish, her love for him, and made her like her father, who abandoned everything for his own conceited reasons.
But she couldn’t erase how she felt. Despite everything, at least there was somebody who didn't shy away from her thorns, somebody who saw her strengths and her weaknesses and understood her.
Someone who didn’t coddle her and took in seriously and pushed her to be better. She liked who she was with him. He made her better. The people would see that, wouldn’t they?
Did she not know her people? Better than Agha-Jaan or even Dhadi? It was Durkhanai who visited them, Durkhanai who played with the children. It was Durkhanai who distributed medicine, Durkhanai who quelled their qualms.
She was a queen, whether her grandparents saw it or not. She would not be cast aside.
“You cannot claim I am not beloved by the people,” Durkhanai said, voice strong. “You cannot. Not when I have been intimately involved in their lives for years whereas you hardly visit, and even then, just to pass by and remind the people of your presence. You may wear the crown but it is my face the people recognize. Not yours.”
“Perhaps,” Agha-Jaan said. “But the decision still lies in the crown.”
“Which is why you must decide carefully,” Durkhanai told her grandparents. “Won’t a tribunal result in the war we have so delicately tried to avoid? Jardum will not be pleased.”
“That is of no consequence, now,” the Badshah said, shaking his head. “The other tribes have no quarrels with Marghazar, and Jardum is not strong enough to wage a war on its own. Besides, they will hardly go to war over an irrelevant ambassador who shouldn’t have forgotten his place.”
“Cancel the tribunal,” she insisted again. “Punish him some other way; negotiate something with Jardum. This is barbaric—holding a man to trial for his feelings.”
“He has beguiled you away from your senses,” the Badshah said, voice hard. “He tricked you into doubting your own blood, distracted and fooled you, yet you still fight for him. He is to be held to tribunal for sorcery, not only his feelings for you.”
“No!” Durkhanai cried. “He hasn’t done anything! Let him go.”
“Word has already been given,” the Badshah told her. “It is too late.”
“You are the Badshah!” she argued, angry. “You can do whatever you please. You could cancel this tribunal, if you wished it. Just as you said, the decision lies with the crown.”
“You are right,” the Badhshah replied. “But I do not wish it. I wish for that man to be held accountable for his deeds. Only then will you be safe.”
“Why do you hate him so?” she cried. Her grandparents exchanged a glance that said she would never understand, and she recalled how the Badshah had called Asfandyar a servant all those months ago, how the Wali had done the same all those years ago.
“It is not the Prophet’s way,” she added. “It is a sin.”
Agha-Jaan shook his head.
“Of course we do not blame him for his color,” he said. “But he is a foreigner.”
“You cannot detest a man for being a foreigner either!”
“That is enough!” Agha-Jaan snapped. Durkhanai jolted. “We will not be lectured at by a child.”
“He is a liar and a spy,” Dhadi added. “He used you and beguiled you from your senses. Surely, you must see that. You must.”
She saw it all, but she could not bear to see him go to trial.
“Agha-Jaan, please,” Durkhanai pleaded. “Cancel the tribunal. Send him far away. I’ll never see him again. Just please don’t force his fate thus.”
“Sending people away has done us no good,” Agha-Jaan replied, shaking his head. “Wakdar was sent away, and look at what it has brought us.”
“This is different!” Durkhanai argued, on the verge of tears. She didn’t know how to make them understand. “Please, we can trust him. He’ll go far away, he’ll never return. He’ll forget about me and Marghazar and everything. He’ll disappear, like a ghost. In a few months we won’t even remember his name.”
“Janaan, do not be a fool,” Dhadi replied, voice clipped. “What has trusting him gotten you thus far?” She shook her head. “No, we cannot trust him. For your sake, I wish we could, but I am sure he is a spy for Wakdar.” Despite Durkhanai keeping it from them, her grandparents had deduced as much. “He is intent on causing our ruination, and we cannot allow that. If he is guilty, he will die. If he is innocent, he will be married and live here, where we can watch his every move.”
“Dhadi—” Durkhanai tried again, but the Wali held up a hand.
“Enough,” she said. “You must be a shehzadi, at this moment. Think of your people and what would become of them if we let Asfandyar go, and he and Wakdar were to return. If they were to incite chaos. With all that is already happening, your people need you to be a strong princess. To place them above yourself. Think of your people.”
Durkhanai wanted to cry out in frustration, but she held her tongue. She understood her grandparents’ perspective, understood all that they were saying, and she understood Asfandyar’s perspective, as well, and to an extent, her father’s, but wasn’t there a middle that could be reached?
To the Wali and the Badshah, there wasn’t.
She was defeated—for now.
But defeated she would not remain.
“I know it is difficult, now,” Dhadi said, kissing Durkhanai’s cheek. “But one day you will understand. When you are the ruler, you will understand, janaan, you will.”
She said nothing, just stood to leave. Already, ideas were forming in her mind, how to regroup and conquer this subject from another perspective.
“Where are you going?” Agha-Jaan asked, worried.
“To Zarmina’s room,” she replied, trying to keep the bite from her tone.
She needed to speak with her.
“She won’t be there,” Dhadi replied.
Durkhanai was filled with dread, and somehow, she already knew why. But she still asked, heart hammering, throat closing.
“Why?”
“Zarmina has been selected to be the lady of the trial.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Zarmina’s Tale
Zarmina didn’t expect everything to happen so suddenly, truly.
Before she knew it, Saifullah had come to her saying that Asfandyar had been taken for trial. Then, she had been taken away to the suite of the lady for the trial.
They had blindfolded her on the way there, and when they’d removed the blindfold, she was in a lushly decorated room with no windows. The suite door was unlocked, but when she reached the end of the hall, the main door was locked.
There was no exit.
Zarmina sat alone in the suite now, clean and fresh from a rose-water bath. She tried to find some way to call Durkhanai to her, but it was forbidden to interact with anybody, not until after the trial this evening.
Zarmina rose, pacing around the room as her wet hair soaked into her shirt. Usually, the trials took place a fortnight after the accusation, but in this case, she knew the sooner the better.
Once Asfandyar was dead, her dear cousin would be safe.
Zarmina had known, since the very beginning, that Asfandyar was a spy for her Taya, Wakdar. They needed her to debase Durkhanai to lead to an easier transition of power when Wakdar came.
But of course Durkhanai had not heeded Zarmina’s warnings. She had not merely been distracted and debased. She had fallen in love.
It was all Zarmina wished for her dear cousin—love and happiness—but she could not bear for it to be with him. Not when she knew that Asfandyar had caused her Taya Wakdar so much pain by causing Naina’s death. Not when she knew that Asfandyar did not truly care for Durkhanai and was only using her.
His feelings for her were false, while poor Durkhanai’s feelings were true.
Zarmina could recognize it in her cousin’s shining blue-green eyes, could recognize it in her sighs and her smiles: she was in love. Zarmina had hoped what Durkhanai felt for Asfandyar was merely pyaar or ishq, but she knew now that it was mohabbat, and that was a thing that would not be easily extricated.
Not only was it love, but it was true love, the kind that brought out the best in her cousin, made her burn brighter. Zarmina had witnessed Durkhanai morph from a petulant, spoiled princess into an insightful, thoughtful queen.
And the object of her affections did not deserve her.
How Zarmina wished it had not come to this. But her grandparents had left her no choice.
Durkhanai thought she knew everything, understood things so clearly, but her grandparents merely fed her enough information to keep her satisfied, serving her pretty little half-truths, while the meat of the situation stayed revealed.
Zarmina had only known because of Saifullah. There were no secrets between them, so she had known about the treacherous Kebzu alliance. All this, the Badshah had hid from Durkhanai. He did not trust her, not truly.
Zarmina couldn’t bear to see her cousin so underestimated by her grandparents, and in truth, Zarmina had considered telling her everything many times, but she could not diverge from her mother and Taya Wakdar’s plans.
It was nearly time. Everything would soon fall into place. And Durkhanai would be safe once more.
Now, the city waited.
Zarmina sat at the vanity. She brushed her long hair in methodical strokes, counting down from one hundred, then counting down again. Outside her suite, she knew the lion cages of all the lands would be searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from which only the fiercest monster would be selected for the arena.
Ordinarily, the royal family never procured the lady for the trial, but in this case, Saifullah and Zarmina had both insisted. Her grandparents—not knowing Zarmina and her brother were working with Wakdar—relented.
In the rare chance that Asfandyar survived, his marriage to Zarmina would guarantee that Durkhanai would not interfere. She would never ruin the matrimony of her beloved cousin.
Pushing her hair aside, Zarmina fingered the beautiful gold jewelry laid out for her, her fingers pricking at the sharp corners. She pulled her hand away before she drew blood.
Of course, everybody knew by now what the accused had been charged with. He had loved the princess, and neither he, she, nor anyone else thought of denying the fact.
But the Badshah would not allow any facts to interfere with the workings of the tribunal, in which he took great delight and satisfaction. The barbarism had seeped deeply into her grandfather.
Zarmina’s gaze went to the clothes set out for the tria
l: an ornate red wedding outfit with gold embroidery. This was not how she imagined she would prepare for her wedding. Ironically, Zarmina was in the same place her mother had been in, so many years ago. Sitting as the lady with a personal interest in the outcome of the tribunal.
But while her mother had prayed for the man’s innocence, Zarmina was praying for his guilt.
And truly, Zarmina had only agreed for one reason: to save Durkhanai.
She had a plan.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Durkhanai took measured breaths, pacing her room.
Why would Zarmina agree to this? Was it to spite her? Did Zarmina harbor secret feelings toward Asfandyar? No matter how impossible the thought was, jealousy bristled inside of her.
But no, she would not jump to conclusions, not until she had spoken to Zarmina.
But the lady of the trial was always held in seclusion, unreachable. How would Durkhanai reach her? Luckily, Durkhanai knew in which part of the palace the lady was kept. It was knowledge only she and her grandparents knew.
But how would she get through?
She sat down, forcing herself to still and think clearly. She ran through different scenarios in her mind, gauging the outcomes. She could order the guards to let her in, but word would surely reach her grandparents, and they would not be happy. They would further be convinced that Asfandyar had bewitched her. Why else would she go to such extremes to speak to the lady of the trial, if not to sabotage it?
No, Durkhanai would need to think of something else.
She would sneak in, dressed as a maid—but her face was too easily recognizable.
She could bribe them? No. Their allegiance was to the Badshah.
Sleeping ointment? No, again. They would be too confused when they woke. It would be too suspicious.
She would need something more.
Then, something turned in her mind. A bud, blooming into shape. Durkhanai smiled.
She went to her dressing room. She discarded her shawl and simple clothes. Maids helped her dress. She adjusted her crown atop her dupatta, her chudiyan clinking together on her arms. She straightened her back, lifted her chin.
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