Tariq swiveled back toward the boy-king, a series of lines creasing his sun-drenched forehead. “He seems very quiet.”
“He is quiet. But a man much wiser than I once said that the smartest men are the silent ones . . .”
Tariq waited, barely managing to conceal his growing contempt.
Captain al-Khoury leaned closer. “Because they hear everything.”
“It’s an interesting notion,” Tariq mused. “Who said it?”
Captain al-Khoury smirked with cool deliberation. “Khalid.” Then he strode to the boy-king’s side.
When the Sultan of Parthia arrived, the group of men began making their way down the corridors toward an open-air gallery ten times the size of the one at Taleqan. On one end of the gallery was a series of arched double doors leading to the beginnings of a lush, tree-lined garden.
As the men traversed this course, they crossed paths with Shahrzad. She was walking through another set of double doors with an attractive young handmaiden and the same menacing brute of a bodyguard from last night.
Tariq’s chest hollowed at the sight of her.
She grew more beautiful with each passing moment, as though life in this palace of cold, polished stone suited her. Today, her garments of silver and rose made her black hair and bronze skin appear even more stunning than usual. He much preferred this to her showy garb of last night, even though she’d dazzled every man in the room with her blue sapphires and black silk.
But then, she dazzled Tariq always.
The assemblage of men paused to greet the calipha, and the bastard from Parthia stepped forward to make his own particular effort.
Tariq fought back the urge to react. To lash out.
Thankfully, Captain al-Khoury moved in Shahrzad’s direction, and Tariq disliked him a little less for it.
Until the boy-king stopped his cousin, with a single motion of his hand.
Infuriated, Tariq’s eyes shot to his target.
A hint of emotion flashed across the boy-king’s face.
Pride?
The Sultan of Parthia glided before Shahrzad, charm oozing from him like a wasting disease. “Good morning, my lady! I trust you had a nice evening.”
Shahrzad bowed. “I did, my lord. And you?”
He nodded. “A very nice evening. My daughter tells me she had a lovely conversation with you and was glad to have made your acquaintance.”
“I did enjoy my conversation with Yasmine, my lord. It was—enlightening.”
“I believe she used the very same word, my lady.”
“I find that rather appropriate, my lord. Given our exchange.”
“As silver-tongued as a viper.” He laughed. “Tell me, my lady, do you ever miss a moment to strike?”
Shahrzad smiled, and it was brilliant and biting, all at once. “I fear that would be unwise, my lord. Especially in a den of snakes.”
The sultan shook his head, his amusement too lasting to be real.
“You must visit us in Parthia, for our snakes have far less occasion to strike. Yasmine and I insist upon it. The next time Khalid comes to Amardha, you must join him so we can return your hospitality.”
“It would be an honor, my lord.” Shahrzad dipped her head, her fingertips grazing her brow.
The sultan turned back to the boy-king, a disconcerting gleam in his eye.
“Truly, nephew. She is a treasure. See that you keep her safe.” Only a fool would have missed the implied threat dripping from his every word.
Yet the weak boy-king said nothing—did nothing—even though Tariq longed to assail the bastard from Parthia with both fists. And an axe.
Silent men are the wisest?
Tariq fumed to himself and folded his arms across his chest.
The boy-king strode to Shahrzad. He stopped an arm’s length in front of her and, yet again, said nothing. He regarded her in silence with his strange orange-gold eyes. After a moment, he started to smile, and Shahrzad nodded once, almost indiscernibly.
The hollow in Tariq’s chest deepened further.
Shahrzad and the boy-king shared an understanding that did not require words.
The boy-king bowed low before his calipha, with a hand to his forehead. As he straightened, he shifted his palm over his heart and walked away. The group trailed behind him, paying their respects to Shahrzad as they passed. When Tariq paused before her, she averted her eyes, her cheeks pink and her fists clenched in the folds of her silver cloak.
It was in that instant Tariq remembered his uncle’s words the first night he and Rahim had arrived in Rey, covered in dust and exhausted from two days of hard traveling:
The city is rife with speculation. Namely, that the caliph must be in love with his new bride.
Tariq quickened his pace as the assemblage gathered in the first portion of a multitiered garden full of flowering trees and an elaborate aviary of colorful songbirds.
The boy-king kept glancing over his shoulder at his palace as they descended into each subsequent tier.
Finally, Captain al-Khoury announced, in a voice far beyond the scope of normal conversation, “Sayyidi, I do believe you left something rather important in the Grand Portico.”
The boy-king narrowed his strange eyes at his cousin.
“Perhaps you should attend to it and join us later for the hunt.” Captain al-Khoury’s obnoxious grin grew even wider.
The boy-king glanced over his shoulder once more. Then he pivoted in a faultless motion, offering murmured apologies as he cut through the crowd.
Tariq knew, without a doubt, that he was on his way to Shahrzad. As did all the noblemen remaining. Their caliph had barely disappeared from view before the conversation turned raucous. The less scrupulous began taking bets as to how long it would be before Khorasan had a new heir to the throne.
The Sultan of Parthia listened with a ready ear . . . and a disparaging eye.
Tariq grinned—through waves of rage and torment. After a time, he could no longer abide it. He turned on his heel.
“Where are you going?” Captain al-Khoury asked.
Tariq thought quickly. “I left my mankalah in my chamber.”
“I believe we can find one for you.”
Tariq shook his head with an apologetic smile. “Zoraya is a temperamental bird—a creature of habit. Tell me where to meet you, and the guard can show me the way.”
Captain al-Khoury’s gaze darted across Tariq’s face. “The horses will be saddled and waiting at the promenade by the royal stables.”
Tariq nodded and motioned to a guard off to the side.
“Tariq Imran al-Ziyad?”
“Yes, Captain al-Khoury?”
“Is that particular mankalah really of such import?”
Tariq grinned, his silver eyes bright. “It is if I intend to win.”
• • •
Shahrzad paused before the calligraphy, studying the intricate dips and delicate flourishes in each of the artist’s brushstrokes. The many colors of the ink swirled across the parchment, giving life to the words on the page.
Above her, streams of gauzy light spilled through the dome of the Grand Portico from windows around a sunburst of silver and gold. The gilded rays stretched across the dome to nine cornices forming a halo of shelves that connected columns of sienna marble from the ceiling to the floor.
“This one is completely unreadable,” Despina complained, staring over Shahrzad’s shoulder.
“I think it’s another love poem.” Shahrzad smiled.
“What is the purpose behind learning to write so beautifully if no one can decipher your words?”
“It’s an expression of feeling. I suppose this is how the poem made the artist feel.”
“So this poem rendered him illiterate?”
Shahrzad laughed, and the lyrical sound carried up into the dome, bouncing from the cornices back to the stone at their feet.
“You laugh very loud—as if you are the only one in the world,” Despina commented.
S
hahrzad wrinkled her nose. “That’s funny. My sister says something very similar.”
“I assume it makes little difference to you.”
“Why? You’d prefer I stop?” she teased.
“No,” Khalid said, as he strode into the Grand Portico. “I would not.”
“Sayyidi.” Despina bowed.
He nodded at her. “I cannot speak for Despina. But you do laugh too loud. And I hope you never stop.”
Despina tucked her chin to her chest and smiled as she hurried out of the Grand Portico without a word.
Shahrzad stared up at Khalid, warring with a resurgence of emotions. Her throat tightened, and the anger threatened to pour from her in a storm of words he did not deserve to hear.
Because he did not deserve to know her deepest thoughts. Her truest desires.
How much she cared for him. And how little it should matter.
May your secrets give you solace, Khalid Ibn al-Rashid.
For I won’t.
Shahrzad lifted her chin and turned to leave.
Khalid snared her elbow as she passed him.
“I knocked at your door last night,” he began.
Her heart shuddered to a stop. “I was tired.” She refused to look his way.
“And angry with me,” he said softly.
Shahrzad glared at him over her shoulder.
He studied her features. “No. Irate.”
“Let go of me.”
Khalid released her arm. “I understand why. I was remiss in not telling you about Yasmine. I apologize. It won’t happen again.”
“Remiss?” Shahrzad faced him with a caustic laugh. “Remiss?”
“I—”
“Do you know how foolish I looked? How foolish I felt?”
Khalid sighed. “She wanted to hurt you, and it troubles me to see how successful she was.”
“How successful she was? You miserable, unfeeling ass! You think I’m angry because of what she did? Because she danced for you? My God, Khalid, how can you be so intelligent and so inexcusably dense in the same instant?”
He flinched. “Shahrzad—”
“This has nothing to do with her. You hurt me, Khalid Ibn al-Rashid. The secrets—the locked doors I will never be given keys to—they wound me,” she shouted. “Time and again, you wound me and walk away!”
Her pain followed the same course as her laughter, striking against the cornices above and back to the marble at their feet.
Khalid listened to its echo and closed his eyes with a grimace. When he opened them again, he reached for Shahrzad.
She drew back.
I will not cry. Not for you.
Undeterred, Khalid grasped her wrists in each of his hands and lifted her palms to his face. “Strike out at me if you wish, Shazi. Do whatever you will. But don’t inflict the selfsame wound; don’t leave.”
He placed her hands on either side of his jaw, skimming his fingertips down her arms while awaiting her judgment.
Shahrzad stood frozen, a mask of ice and stone between her palms.
When she did nothing, Khalid brushed back the hair from her face with a touch that soothed and burned all at once.
“I’m sorry, joonam. For the secrets. For the locked doors. For everything. I promise to tell you one day. But not yet. Trust that some secrets are safer behind lock and key,” he said quietly.
Joonam. He’d called her that before. My everything.
As on the night she’d told the tale of Tala and Mehrdad, why did it have such a ring of truth to it?
“I—” She bit her lower lip in an effort to keep it still. To stop the fount of words longing to spring forth.
Longing to confess the yearnings of a capricious heart.
“Forgive me, a thousand times over, for wounding you.” He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.
I’m lost to him. I can’t ignore it any longer.
Shahrzad closed her eyes in defeat and slid her palms to his chest. Then she reached behind him in an embrace of sandalwood and sun. Khalid wrapped both his arms around Shahrzad, and they stood together under the dome of the Grand Portico, with the indecipherable art of love poems giving silent testament.
• • •
The hollow in his chest was nothing now.
He would gladly go back to that, if it meant never having to witness this sight again.
When Tariq first entered the vestibule leading into the Grand Portico, he thought he was in the wrong place. It was so quiet. There was no way Shahrzad could be here.
Then, when he rounded the corner, he saw the reason for the silence.
It stopped him like a dagger hurled through the air.
The boy-king was holding Shahrzad in his arms. Placing a gentle kiss on her brow.
And Shahrzad was leaning into his embrace.
Tariq watched as she shifted her slender fingers to the boy-king’s back and drew him closer, resting her cheek against his chest as a weary traveler to the bole of a tree.
The worst part of it all—the part that took the very breath from Tariq’s body—was the unguarded look of peace on her face.
As though this was right. As though she wanted nothing more.
Shahrzad was in love with Shiva’s murderer.
The guard behind him deliberately made noise. Apparently, he did not care to learn the consequences of eavesdropping on the Caliph of Khorasan.
From the distant shadows to Tariq’s right, Shahrzad’s mammoth bodyguard twisted into view, flashing a silver blade and a guise of punishing promise.
But the thing that truly gave Tariq pause was the reaction of the boy-king.
The supposed aging camel.
At the first hint of an unforeseen threat, he pulled Shahrzad behind him. He shielded her in a menacing stance augmented by the metallic rasp of his shamshir, which he held steady in his right hand, with the blade pointed to the floor—
Poised to attack.
The boy-king’s usually expressionless face was drawn and tight, with signs of barely leashed fury rippling along his jaw. His eyes blazed like molten rock, livid and single-minded in their purpose.
Shahrzad grabbed the boy-king’s shoulder.
“Khalid!” she cried. “What are you doing?”
He did not waver.
Now Tariq understood Shahrzad’s plea from last night.
This was not a bored, dispassionate king who sent his wife to fight his battles.
This was definitely something more.
Something Tariq needed time to consider.
And time . . . to rip out his heart, in kind.
Tariq grinned, running his fingers through his hair.
“Are we not meeting here for the hunt?” he asked.
• • •
Khalid regarded Nasir al-Ziyad’s son with mounting irritation.
The boy’s explanation for his intrusion into the Grand Portico was absurd. His stupidity had nearly cost him his life.
Under normal circumstances, Khalid would not have reacted in such a manner, but Salim Ali el-Sharif was in Rey. Just this morning, he had stood in the open-air gallery of Khalid’s palace and made veiled threats against Shahrzad. Khalid had expected as much, but it did not affect him any less to bear witness to it.
Ignoring any threat from the Sultan of Parthia, no matter how inconsequential, had always proved to be unwise.
Khalid did not know who this foolish boy was or where his allegiances might lie. Yesterday, such matters were not of pressing import. Yesterday, the boy was but a mild nuisance. The only reason he had sparked Khalid’s interest at all was because of the way he’d looked at Shahrzad today. It was not in the manner most men appreciate a beautiful woman. Most men appreciated beauty with an emphasis on form.
The vast majority of Khalid’s guests were mindful of such behavior. The ones who didn’t were of note, but they had reputations to match—morally reprehensible men with lascivious eyes that latched on to anything in their general vicinity.
Tariq Imra
n al-Ziyad did not linger on Shahrzad with the eye of man appreciating form.
What Shahrzad had to say mattered to the boy. As did the thoughts behind her words.
Khalid walked beside Nasir al-Ziyad’s son down the stairs into the next tier of gardens as they made their way to the stables. His guards trailed close behind them.
“Please permit me to apologize again, sayyidi.” The boy adjusted his mankalah with another sheepish grin.
Khalid continued through the garden, glancing sideways at the boy.
“Rest assured, I’ve noted the difference between a portico and a promenade, sayyidi.”
“It would have served me better had you known that today,” Khalid muttered.
The boy laughed, and the sound was rich. An easy laugh that inspired others to take part. “Thank you for not cutting me to ribbons, sayyidi.”
“Thank the queen. Had I been alone, things might have gone differently.”
The boy’s assertive gait faltered a step. “May I congratulate you, sayyidi? The queen—you seem well suited to each other.”
An ever-increasing nuisance. Khalid halted and faced the boy.
He was half a hand taller than Khalid and broad in the shoulder. It needled Khalid to look up at such a fool. “Shahrzad is a difficult girl, and I am a monster. I suppose that makes for a good match.”
The boy’s pale eyes flared at Khalid’s words.
“You’re offended.” Khalid watched his features intently. “By which part?”
“By—all of it, sayyidi.”
The boy was not a gifted liar. The mild nuisance was now a full-blown concern.
When the boy attempted to crack the awkward silence with another charming smile, Khalid proceeded down the path.
“Are you married, Tariq Imran al-Ziyad?”
“No, sayyidi. But I plan on marrying soon.”
“Then you are engaged.”
“Yes, sayyidi. To a girl I’ve loved for many years.”
The boy appeared to be telling the truth.
“Which is why I congratulated you earlier. It is a great gift to find lasting love—one that gives for every bit it takes,” the boy stated with unusual conviction.
It was the first interesting thing the boy had contributed to their conversation. And it did not sit well with Khalid.