by Cate Rowan
Kuramos nodded at his guards and they made as if to swing the doors shut behind her—but Varene, still outside the room, didn’t move from the corridor. She crossed her arms and gave the sultan a withering stare.
“NOW, Healer.”
Despite her resolve, she twitched at his roar. Grudgingly, she trod forward ten feet and stopped just inside the opulent room. The doors thudded behind her and the breeze of their closure whooshed through her skirts.
Kuramos scowled at the mutinous Healer for long seconds, frustration splintering his self-control. He slammed his hand on the golden arm of his throne. “Why must you defy me at every turn?” And always in public view?
She threw her hands in the air. “All I did was show up here, and suddenly you’re shouting orders at me again—”
“You eyed Firoz like you were a trapped rabbit,” he snapped. “I tried to rescue you. Did I mistake your intentions? Did you want to dally with him?”
“Dally?” The word leapt from her mouth, open in shock, and hung between them.
Damn. Where had that come from? He looked away, annoyed with himself.
She refolded her arms across her breasts and paced toward him down the long runner. “Who was the man in crimson?”
He scowled at her. Why did she want to know about him? “My brother-in-law.”
“From which wife?” she drawled.
Why would that matter? He shifted restlessly on the throne. “Sulya.”
She stopped at the edge of the dais and raised her chin. “Well, thank you for wanting to rescue me. Even if your method had as much subtlety as a herd of stampeding fydds.” She glanced back toward the doors. “Why do you dislike him?”
“He’s a devious opportunist who’d like nothing more than to plant his backside—or his nephew’s—on this throne.” And he looked at you.
Once more, she eyed the doors speculatively. As if thinking of Firoz. Kuramos’s hands fisted. I’ll rip his womanizing limbs from his torso. “Why are you here, Varene?”
“Oh, are we back to first names again? Very well, Kuramos.”
He rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Idu, spare me from angry women.”
“I’m sure you have plenty of experience with them,” she retorted.
His mouth twitched. True, Sulya was a master of the snide remark, and Zahlia could pitch an impressive fit when piqued, but none of his wives had a pout that creased the skin between her brows with a charming divot or made her taut lips so alluring.
To be fair, he couldn’t blame Firoz for noticing her, especially after the fiasco of her first time in this room. But he’d still have to kill Firoz for eying her.
Slowly, he rose from the throne and moved to the edge of the dais, gazing at her ripe mouth.
She drew back and raised a warning hand, then her pink tongue licked her full lips. “I’m not through being angry yet.”
A wicked grin warmed him as he stalked her. “Then I suppose I’ll have to work that out of you. Somehow.”
She darted around him, just out of reach, and ended up on the dais. She stared at the throne for a moment as if surprised at where she’d landed, then sat demurely on the step. Her skirts settled gracefully around her.
His smile broadened. “I like when you stop running.”
“Kuramos…” She clasped her hands around her knees. “I discovered the cause of the illness.”
With one blink, adrenaline surged through him and kisses scattered from his mind. He braced into a fighter’s stance, ready for whatever he’d need to do to obliterate the source. “Tell me.”
She related how the birds’ illnesses had combined and turned lethal. As she laid out the evidence, his knees threatened to sag.
“You see?” Her fingers flexed, digging into her legs, and she leaned toward him. “It wasn’t a curse. Just a horrible natural accident.” She gazed up at him, her eyes going velvet-soft. “Now there’s no need for that dagger.”
He rolled his head back to stare at the vaulted ceiling, wanting to pierce through it to the unfathomable gods above. “All those deaths,” he said on a ragged breath. “They died because of an errant bird and a shipment of fowl for the kitchens. Oh Dabir, Dabir…”
He sank to the dais beside her. The souls of the dead howled through his mind. “I could have prevented it. Sited the fowlery away from the palace, re-clipped the parrot’s wings myself, never have given the damned bird to my daughter in the first place—”
“No, stop. How could you know?” She took his frozen hands in hers. “It was tragic, yes, but a fluke. Not your fault. An accident, Kuramos.”
In the silence that followed, Varene ached for the grief behind his tightly shut eyes. She reached up and slowly brushed a lock of hair from his forehead.
If only she could take his pain into herself and soothe him. Heal his torn heart the way she could a body. Why was her Healing limited to the physical, while the worst pain was not?
“Hear me,” she whispered. “You rule an entire nation. You bear the weight of it on your shoulders. But as broad and capable as those shoulders are, no man can prevent all the ills of the world.” Her fingers squeezed his. “Just as no Healer can cure all the ailments.”
Moments passed, then he lifted her palm to his lips. Her breath caught as he closed his eyes and reverently kissed its sensitive center, then lowered his forehead to rest against their entwined hands. “Varene, they say Kismet never sleeps. That He is continuously plotting the fates of those in his care. Whatever compassion came to his mind to bring you here, I thank Him for it. And for you.” When he raised his gaze to hers, all sound and sight was lost to her, but for his emerald eyes.
Then he relinquished her hand and stood, leaving her tingling in his absence.
He clamped his palm to the back of his neck and paced before the throne. “Maybe you’re right. Perhaps She has forgiven my actions after all.”
“Naaz?” she asked, still dazed. She certainly hoped he wasn’t talking about one of his wives.
At his distracted nod, she tucked her hands into her lap. “Will you tell me now what you thought had so offended her?”
A wry smile twisted his lips as he walked. “If She has chosen in her grace to overlook it, I think I’ll keep it sheltered, too.”
“Fair enough. But if it had been a curse…I’m not sure I understand why your suicide would have appeased Her.” Or how you could love and worship a deity who would seek your death.
He gave a half-shrug, setting his pearl earring swinging. “Vengeance is a duty of god and mortal. As Naaz’s descendant, I know it well. The goddess and the gods aren’t known for their restraint or their amity, any more than are the humans in their shadow.”
“Her descendant—is that the lore of Kad? That those of the sultan’s line are offspring of the gods?”
After a sideways glance at her, he chuckled. “A patronizing way to put it. Do your sovereigns not claim divine descent?”
“No.”
“Ah.” He gave her a superior smile, eyes twinkling.
She laughed, enjoying how his beautiful gaze reminded her of Mishka. “And which of your divinely descended children shall rule your realm after you?”
The humor between them vanished like vapor. A bleakness settled on his face as he again took her side on the dais. “I’ve had eight children, Varene. Only three remain, and none is yet fit to rule Kad.”
Her gaze dropped, and she nodded. “Burhan seems a fine boy.”
“He is.” But he said nothing more.
Her brows drew together in thought. “Then Mishka is the next possibility, yes?”
“You sound like my courtiers, trying to discern my intentions.” He shook his head. “She’s unsuitable for the throne.” He leaned back and stretched his long, muscular legs in front of him.
“And if she were not a daughter, but a son, would she still be unsuitable?”
“She is who she is, and I’m glad of that. But it would be doubly difficult for her to bear the weight of rule because
of her sex.”
“Why? Do you think her shoulders too frail for the responsibility? Good leadership, even by a woman, might change some minds. And perhaps prevent future riots,” she added dryly.
“Kad isn’t a game, Varene.” Annoyance sparked in his voice. “We can’t just try things out and see if they’ll work, and simply start over if they don’t. My people depend on the sultan to protect and lead them. To do what is best for the realm. There’s no room for experiments or error.”
She thrust her chin forward. “Of course they depend on their sultan, as well they should. But a person’s gender shouldn’t be the only reason to exclude her from training for that throne.” Frowning, she looked across the room at the doors. “After all, Qiara of Teganne was born and bred to reign—” She halted her tongue and eyed him uncertainly. Of all things, to mention Qiara, whom Kuramos had kidnapped…and wooed…
His gaze became hooded. “If I were to name my daughter as my heir, she would be doubly a target. Everyone in my House is at risk, but a daughter who seeks to rule…” Mouth settling into a grim line, he shook his head. “Kad values tradition. It would be cruel to cast Mishka to the jackals that way, to risk her precious life for the sake of change, for a cause.” He dismissed the idea with a gesture. “In any case, I don’t think that’s where her gifts lie.”
“How would you know,” she said dryly, “unless she were given the chance to hone those gifts toward sovereignty?”
The thoughtful expression on his face sank away, replaced by the impassivity of solid stone. “I may be many things, Healer, and have many failings, both as a sultan and as a man. But I know my children—and their own abilities and foibles.”
She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Sorry. I have no right—”
“No, you don’t.” He sighed. “But you’re still learning about my family, about Kad, and you’re curious. I understand. Still, Mishka’s life will be hard enough. When she’s grown, she’ll be married for a political alliance that will strengthen our family’s hold on the throne—just as I’ve done, six times now. And marriage will be much more difficult for her. If her bridegroom has other wives already, he’ll have to divorce them, since the honor of a daughter of the sultan demands she be a First Wife. And then, by Kaddite law and custom, any children of his divorced wives become illegitimate. I’ll seek hard for a groom who is unmarried, but she must wed an important and powerful man—and they tend to accumulate wives.” He looked away and scowled. “She’ll likely have instant enemies.”
Horrified, she stared at him. “That’s what Mishka’s life will be? She’ll become chattel, a bribe to some other family for continued alliances—and it may cost her very life?”
His scowl deepened and he leaned away from her. “She’ll do her part to secure the throne for its rightful line, just as my sons will. They, too, will have to marry well.”
By “well,” he meant a Kaddite with blue blood in her veins—someone very unlike herself. Resentment simmered up. “But a marriage is all Mishka will have, unlike your sons, who have a chance at the throne. Are women so less valued here?”
“Is marriage so less valued in Teganne?” he snapped, rising from the dais to face her. “She’ll have an education as befits a child of the Royal House, and then must do her part to secure her House and her bloodline. My elder brother was the Crown Prince, and I wanted a lifetime of freedom and wealth with few of the encumbrances of rule. Things don’t always happen as we wish.”
She blinked and stared up at him. She’d never considered that he hadn’t been born to lead; sovereignty seemed the core of who he was. “What happened to your brother?”
“Assassinated when I was twenty-two. My younger brothers followed him into Naaz’s sleep soon after.” He lifted his gaze to the Leonine Throne above her. “It is a hard life, Varene. There are perquisites.” He glanced around at the silks and gilded flourishes of the room. “But death is a high price.”
He stared again at the throne, brooding, then held out his hand to her. “I tire of this room. Come. Have dinner with me in my quarters.”
Food. She clasped her belly. “I’m starving, actually.” She’d left her lunch tray at Maitri’s before she’d had a chance to eat.
But should she go with him to his quarters? It sounded all too…tempting. She eyed his powerful fingers and extended palm, open and waiting for hers to clasp them.
“We’ll break bread together,” he said. “And celebrate your hard-won triumph.”
She recalled standing before him as he’d poised the dagger at his chest. “I fight to save lives,” she’d argued, “not to see them end. I strive against death.” So many times over the decades, she had fought that almighty enemy. Kuramos, of all people, understood her victory, as well as the agony of the battle.
And perhaps along with the illness, she’d helped to slay some of Kuramos’s demons. She took his hand.
Varene and the sultan walked silently to his quarters. Though it pained her, she slipped her hand from his. He didn’t comment, which somehow disappointed her.
Don’t be stupid, she told herself. But as they entered his rooms, stopping only for Kuramos to request a meal for them both, her second guesses were already overtaking her first ones. Anticipation tingled in her blood and all her senses tuned to the man beside her—a man forbidden to her by her own morality. Going to the lion’s lair was the epitome of masochistic temptation.
The dagger of Ayaaz gleamed in its brackets on the wall, eliciting her uncomfortable glance. She turned her scuffed ring absently with her thumb and crossed the room to stare out the waist-high arch overlooking his garden.
“That ring,” he said at last, following her. “Who gave it to you?”
She peered up at his inquisitive eyes. For a moment, she considered lying and telling him she’d bought it herself. Instead, she shrugged and said, “It was a long time ago.”
“You don’t wear it on the marriage finger.” Though his words were a statement, the question was clear.
She returned her gaze to the garden. “No, I don’t.” She sensed the small hesitation in his breathing.
He tried again. “Have you no man waiting for you back in Teganne?”
Findar had never waited for her. No one ever had. As for the ring… “No.”
“You realize I find that hard to understand.” He stepped closer, and her body warmed as if he were the sun.
So seek the shade, Varene. “There was a man. In Teganne.” A rose outside the arch quivered in the breeze.
He tensed in her peripheral vision, his taut body at odds with his quiet voice. “Oh?”
“Death won him.”
“I’m sorry.” He leaned his forearms on the top of the wall and folded his hands together. Roses in saffron and cranberry hues sent fragrance aloft to mix with jasmine. The last of the afternoon sun slanted its rays into the garden, bathing the bushes and blossoms in a warm light. Fountains murmured in the hush.
The jewel of his ring, the sapphire lion’s eye, flashed at her. “What does your ring mean?”
He cocked his finger up and surveyed it. “It’s the symbol of my sultanate, handed down from father to son for generations.” He paused. “And it is my wedding ring.”
She merely nodded. Too many things might rush from her mouth. She yearned to reach for his ring and slide it off his finger. To turn him into a free man—neither a sultan nor a husband.
A discreet knock at the door heralded the arrival of their meal, and Kuramos pointed into the garden at a low stone table inlaid with tiles in azure and ebony. “Would you mind if we ate there?”
“That would be wonderful.”
Five servants entered bearing trays, and her eyes widened in amazement as she took stock of all they carried. “I may be hungry, but we couldn’t eat all that even if we were hollow!”
Kuramos chuckled. “A meal fit for a sultan and his guest.”
They seated themselves on silken cushions at the table and surveyed the feast: keb
abs of spiced swine and tomatoes, oven-hot pitas, rice with almonds and dates. Mango chunks and grapes piled high in a silver bowl while honeyed dumplings nestled together for dessert. She closed her eyes and sniffed the aromas in delight.
“I’m glad this pleases you.” His sensual growl tickled her spine.
“Pleases?” Mischievously, she looked at him through her lashes. “If this tastes as good as it smells, I may have to admit your divinity after all.”
The look he gave her sizzled with unspoken words: There are so many more ways I could prove that to you, Varene. In your bed, in my hammam, right here in the garden…
She dropped her gaze and popped a grape into her mouth. Dumb, Varene. Don’t tempt the lion in his own den. But her body vibrated with a delicious tension.
They ate together, amusing themselves with small talk about the palace residents and the food. The bliss of her taste buds only inflamed the cravings of her other senses. Surreptitiously, she studied the rich timbre of his voice, the fine onyx hairs sprinkled down his arms, the play of light across his bare shoulders and muscled chest.
She swallowed one last bite of juicy mango, aware deep in every nerve that he was watching and savoring the sight of her.
“Dusk will come soon,” he said. “Shall we walk in my garden?”
She rose from her pillow and ambled with him, reaching out now and then to touch a bud or smell a blossom. The air cooled and dimmed around them and crickets began to sing in the hollows.
Her thumb moved against her ring, twisting it around her finger. The night felt intimate. Dangerous. Her conscience battled her avid senses for a topic that wouldn’t lead to her downfall. “This thing you did…to anger your goddess.” Her thumb rubbed the worn silver. “Would you do it again?”
He gave a long sigh. “I’ve asked myself that, time and again. It is one of the hardest things to accept.” His head tilted up and he gazed at the faint traces of stars. “The answer is yes.”
“Even after fearing you and your family were cursed?”