The Lady or the Lion

  As she exited her room, she grabbed a little pouch, then began making her way to the lowest levels of the palace, a floor very few even knew existed. It was deep within the mountain and impossible to reach without the specific directions from within the palace. This level was where they kept most of the gold, jewels, important documents, and other invaluable objects.

  It was where they hid the lady’s suite.

  Durkhanai walked to the room, smiling at the guards who stood there. They were young, just as she suspected they would be, because protecting the lady wasn’t the most vital job down there.

  The younger they were, the easier to fool.

  When they saw Durkhanai approaching, they lowered their heads in respect.

  “Shehzadi,” they said.

  “Good morning,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I know the lady isn’t meant to be interacting with anyone, but as it is my beloved cousin, I have some . . . personal things for her.”

  Durkhanai held up the bag as evidence.

  “And what would be inside?” one guard asked. “We can deliver it to her.”

  “I’d much rather deliver it myself, thank you,” she said. Without waiting, she moved toward the door. Confidence was key.

  They did not move to open it but exchanged a wary glance. Durkhanai narrowed her eyes at them. Her voice harshened with petulance. “What exactly is the problem?”

  “Apologies, Shehzadi, but we have been given express instructions not to let anyone through,” one guard said. “If the Badshah found out . . .”

  “If the Badshah found out you were stopping me from seeing my beloved cousin on the eve of her wedding I assure you, he would not be happy,” Durkhanai said, eyes hard. “I believe what he would be is furious, especially considering I have personal items to deliver. As I already said. And I do hate to repeat myself.”

  The guards were visibly starting to sweat. “Perhaps, if we could see what was inside . . .” The younger guard started to reach for her bag.

  “How dare you!” Durkhanai snatched the bag tightly in her hand. “To even think of going through my belongings!”

  “No, no, Shehzadi! That was not our intent at all,” the older guard said, hitting the younger guard. “It is only . . . we were told not to—”

  “And I’ll be sure not to tell them you let me in,” Durkhanai said. “Your other option, of course, is that I tell them you did let me in, to which I am sure you can gauge the reaction. Your decision, boys.”

  The two guards exchanged a glance, then begrudgingly stepped aside. They opened the doors for her, and she sauntered in. Durkhanai smiled.

  “My sincerest thanks to you brave men,” she said. They closed the door behind her.

  She walked down the corridor, past doors for maids and baths, making her way to the largest room. Durkhanai released an anxious breath, not knowing what would await her on the other side of that door.

  Finally, Durkhanai opened it.

  “Durkhanai!” Zarmina cried, seeing her. “I knew you would come. Only you can do the impossible.”

  She hopped off the bed, running to the door to meet her.

  “Zarmina, so much has happened,” Durkhanai said, voice catching.

  “Why did you stray so far?” Zarmina asked her. Suddenly a hard look covered Zarmina’s countenance. Almost as though Zarmina remembered everything in that moment.

  “I didn’t realize,” Durkhanai replied, voice soft. “Zarmina—”

  “I told you,” Zarmina interjected, voice full of spite. “And now look where we are. You, debased, and me, with the chances of marrying a man I detest.”

  “Zarmina, why would you do this?” Durkhanai asked, heart hurting. “If he is innocent and you marry him—”

  Durkhanai couldn’t finish the thought. It filled her with jealousy and betrayal, hot and sticky.

  “Don’t you see?” Zarmina seethed. “You drove me to this! How else would you realize the severity of what you’ve done!”

  Zarmina chose this. Durkhanai had thought it had been her grandparents’ idea, as a means to punish her, but Zarmina had chosen this. There would be no persuading her, now.

  “How could you?” Durkhanai asked.

  “How could I?” Zarmina repeated. “Dear cousin, how could you?”

  Durkhanai turned her cheek, but Zarmina stood in front of her, her hands on Durkhanai’s shoulders. “How could you have been so blind? He is our enemy.”

  “He is not. You do not know him,” Durkhanai insisted, but she wasn’t so sure. Zarmina shook her head sadly.

  “He has been our enemy since the moment he stepped foot into this palace,” she said. “You just cannot see. Love blinds you. In more ways than one.”

  “No,” Durkhanai insisted. “Zarmina, I had come hoping to convince you from being the lady, hoping we could somehow work together to get Agha-Jaan to stop all of this. But now I see you are as determined as I am, though on the opposing side.”

  “I wish it were not so,” Zarmina replied. “But yes, I am. You cannot persuade me from this. The trial must happen. It is for your own good. Only then can things be righted.”

  “But why you as the lady? Royalty is always exempt from being chosen.”

  “Saifullah chose this,” Zarmina said. “I came to agree with him. It’s the only way for you to cease your incessant adoration of the man you have forsaken us for.”

  “Zarmina, do not say such things,” Durkhanai said, taking her cousins’ hands. “I would never forsake you. You must know that.”

  “I do now, looking into your eyes,” Zarmina replied. “But you have been so far . . .”

  “I’m sorry.” Durkhanai hugged her cousin. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Durkhanai blew out the candle in her heart, allowing the final flame to sputter out in her fist. She didn’t know who she was apologizing to anymore, but Zarmina held her close. They were caught in the crossfire, both pierced.

  Durkhanai’s mind was spinning. She did not know yet what she would do next.

  Before she could consider her next move, sudden calm fell over Zarmina’s features. She wiped her tears and nearly smiled as she put her hand on Durkhanai cheek, wiping away her tears as well.

  “I know, janaan,” she said, voice strong, “that you will do the right thing, in the end. You will do right by me, by your family, by your people: by all of us. Which is why I agreed to this—so you could stop it.”

  Zarmina leaned forward and whispered in Durkhanai’s ear which room she, the lady, would be in: the left or the right.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Wakdar’s Tale

  The night his daughter was born, Wakdar Miangul ran.

  While his wife recovered, he ran far and fast. He loved his wife, and he loved his child, but that night he saw neither of them—it would have crushed his resolve, made things all the more difficult. If he had seen her, he would never have been able to leave.

  And it was dishonorable, truly, to run as he was, but he had no choice left.

  If he stayed, he would know no peace until he had slaughtered his parents for what they had done.

  The blood was still fresh in his memory, the sight of his best friend being torn apart by the cruelest of lions. Wakdar and Yaqut had been inseparable since birth, and their friendship had grown as Wakdar learned his princely duties and Yaqut rose in the ranks until he became the lead general.

  Their friendship had seen happy years and sad ones, long years and short ones. It had lasted through Yaqut falling in love with Wakdar’s sister, Nazo, and lasted even still when Nazo was married off to another for political gain.

  The bond between Wakdar and Yaqut had lacked only blood, which they would have happily spilled for one another.

  What their friendship had not survived was the tribunal.

  Despite Yaqut’s innocence, the door had opened to reveal a lion.

  After Wakdar found out from Nazo that the trial had been rigged, he was overcome with rage. His pious father, always going on about the san
ctity of the trial, had replaced the lady with a lion. Yaqut didn’t stand a chance.

  Wakdar swore to exact his revenge, to avenge his murdered best friend.

  But how could he?

  Against his own parents, the Badshah of Marghazar and the Wali of S’vat, the most powerful people in all the tribal lands? How easy it would be for him to slip into their rooms in the dead of the night. A quick slit to each of their throats.

  Painless, soundless. Wakdar could manage it too easily.

  But no matter how wretched Ghazan and Bazira Miangul were, they were his blood, and there was nothing more sacred than blood.

  He would not raise his sword against them.

  So he had to leave. It was the only way.

  He waited until his wife’s labor pains began, waited for the marble palace to be in a frenzy, until he could slip away. He couldn’t bear to leave his child or his wife, but it had to be done. He had no choice.

  He would send for them when he could—he had enough allies to manage it. He knew his daughter would be cared for until then, until he returned for her.

  Wakdar had to leave. He couldn’t live with the murder of his best friend, who had been like a brother to him. Moreover, Wakdar could not live with who his father was becoming, a man blinded by his vendetta against the Luhgam Empire.

  But his parents knew him too well.

  “Don’t be a fool,” his father said the night he caught Wakdar in the midst of escape, harsh face ablaze by moonlight. “Go back to you daughter and wife.”

  “Kill me if you must,” Wakdar replied, resolute. “But I will not return.”

  So they were stuck, neither party willing to break the sacred bond between them.

  “Beta, please don’t do this,” his mother pleaded, tears in her eyes. “Do not leave your family.”

  “I have made up my mind,” Wakdar replied, turning to leave. “Khudafiz.”

  Anger flashed across his mother’s face, and for a moment, he did not recognize her. “If you leave now, do not think we will spare your wife,” Bazira declared. “Her relation to this family will be severed entirely.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Wakdar had replied, ignoring his mother’s dramatics. He kept walking. It was this, perhaps, that had forced her to swear to it.

  “I swear to Allah I will,” his mother said, voice steel.

  His mother would never break an oath made to Allah, Wakdar knew. But he had sworn to Allah as well that if he stayed, he would kill his parents for what they had done.

  So he was faced with a fatal choice: his wife or his parents?

  In the end, there was nothing more sacred than blood.

  “Never return,” Ghazan ordered. “From this day forth, our blood has split. You are our son no longer.”

  They had let him go. Wakdar knew, deep down, they couldn’t raise a sword against their own son, just as he couldn’t raise a sword against them. Despite the hatred between them, they were blood. Neither could expunge one another from their veins.

  Or at least, he had thought.

  Until halfway through the journey across the mountains, when men cloaked in black had attacked him. They were the trained assassins of court. Wakdar recognized their fight.

  He slaughtered them and left, leaving his heart in pieces along the path as he did. He worried for his wife, for his child, but he repeated to himself over and over that they wouldn’t actually go through with killing his beloved wife, that they wouldn’t have the heart to orphan their beloved grandchild, his daughter, the future Badshah of Marghazar now that he was leaving. Wakdar managed to convince himself enough to leave.

  But his mother was a woman of her word.

  Thus, his wife was killed that night, as he ran.

  He heard later that he had died as well, both poisoned apparently. His heart had ached for his daughter, then, but he couldn’t send for her, yet.

  His parents knew him too well and had hidden her away, someplace impenetrable, someplace unknown. He had a guess, but he did not have the resources to go to her, so he had sent her a teddy bear, hoping for then, it would be enough.

  Slowly, he built his life up again from the ashes. He gained asylum in Jardum and reconnected with an old friend—General Afridi. He made connections with the Wali of Jardum, who knew the advantages of having the supposed dead Miangul heir as an ally, a man who knew all of Marghazar’s workings and secrets.

  As the years passed, Wakdar considered many times returning home: exacting his revenge, being united with his daughter. Despite everything—Yaqut’s slaughter, the attempt on his own life, his wife’s murder—Wakdar could not raise sword against his parents.

  Perhaps it was cowardice or selfishness, but his blood would not be erased.

  So his life continued on.

  Slowly, his anger faded, like a snake shedding its old skin, replaced by the new. Wakdar slowly built his connections, built his life. He had another daughter, a jewel among jewels. She became his jaan, his very soul. She was loved by him above all humanity.

  In the end, it was her blood that erased his parents’.

  His daughter, the most precious of precious things, with a heart spun of gold—slaughtered.

  When that cursed Black boy brought his daughter’s corpse to him, it took all of Wakdar’s strength not to kill Asfandyar on the spot. Instead, Wakdar took the crying seventeen-year-old boy and infused him with his rage, infused him with his vengeance.

  He drafted a plan. And Asfandyar became his pawn.

  Nazo, his beloved sister, who had kept contact with him all those years, was the first to align with him. She was still bitter from Yaqut’s slaughter. Her marriage to another had not erased her love for Yaqut. She was still filled with spite, so many years later, as were her children, who were meant to inherit nothing from the Badshah.

  And Wakdar knew the Badshah’s greed for victory would be his downfall. It would be all too easy to exact his revenge, but he needed to be patient, precise.

  So Wakdar waited, biding his time, holding onto the memories of his best friend, his first wife, his daughter. Some days, the grief threatened to take him as well, take him to his beloved, but he resisted—he persisted.

  Until, finally, it was time.

  He had waited eighteen years—patiently, quietly. But finally, the time was ripe: Asfandyar had sent him the evidence needed to prove that Marghazar was behind the summit attack. With it, Wakdar could convince the other zillas’ leaders to join him in war.

  The time had come for the crown prince to return home, to claim what was rightfully his: his land, his daughter, and mostly importantly—his revenge.

  The blood had emptied from his body. Instead, war was thrumming through his veins.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Once upon a time, in a very olden time, there lived a semi-barbaric king.

  He was the Badshah of Marghazar, a king of kings, with an authority untrammeled by those in his lands. No one had the temerity to question his ways, and half the time, this was acceptable. He was only semi-barbaric, as you recall, and the barbarism showed its way mainly in exuberant fancy. The Badshah, given to self-communing, turned his fancies into facts with only the consultation of he and himself.

  One such manifestation of his was the public arena. Built into the mountains, below the marble palace, an amphitheater was made for the entirety of the capital city of Safed-Mahal. It was there that those accused of crimes that warranted public interest went to trial.

  The rules of the game were simple: the accused was brought before two doors, completely identical. They masked entirely what was held behind them, and the accused was then given a choice to decide his own fate. Behind one door was a lion, the cruelest that could be procured. Behind the other was a lady, the most kind that could be found.

  If the accused was guilty, the lion would rip him to shreds. If the accused was innocent, he was to marry the lady. Instant punishment, instant reward—what better judgment than that made by the Lord?

  The appoin
ted hour arrived.

  The people gathered from all across the mountain, great throngs piling into the galleries of the arena, until all the seats were filled, and the overflowing crowds amassed themselves outside the amphitheater walls.

  The Badshah sat in his place, the Wali on one side of him and the Shehzadi on the other. In the rows beneath them sat the Badshah’s court: his family and the nobles and the ambassadors, who had extended their stay to witness the final fate of one of their own. They sat directly opposite the two doors, those fateful and those fatal portals, so hideous in their sameness.

  All was ready.

  The signal was given.

  From beneath the royal party, a door opened to reveal the lover of the Shehzadi. Tall, beautiful, strong, his appearance elicited a low hum of admiration and anxiety from the audience.

  As the young man advanced into the arena, he turned to bow to the king, as was custom, but he did not think at all of that royal personage. Instead, his eyes were fixed upon the Shehzadi, who sat beside her grandfather.

  Had it not been for the barbarism in her nature, perhaps the lady would not have come to witness such a horrid event. But the Shehzadi’s fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on such an occasion.

  From the instant the decree had gone forth to seize her lover to trial, she hadn’t spent a second thinking of anything but this event and all the events that had preceded it.

  The Shehzadi had done what no other had done—she had possessed herself of the secret of the doors.

  And she couldn’t stand her options.

  The hot-blooded and semi-barbaric princess: she felt her soul burning beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost him, that much she already knew. But what of his fate?

  Durkhanai loved him. Despite everything, the truth deep within her core would not be shaken. She loved him with an intensity that had enough of barbarism in it to make it immense and strong.