His face had become more worn and haggard as he spoke.
“Everything changed when Ava found out she was pregnant. Her entire demeanor shifted. She began to smile again. Began planning for a future. I thought all would be well and, like a fool, I was glad for it.”
Khalid closed his eyes for a moment before he continued.
“We lost the baby a few weeks later. Ava was inconsolable. She stayed in her room for days on end, eating only enough to survive. I would visit her, and she would refuse to speak with me. But she was never angry. Always just sad, with eyes that tore at my soul. One night when I came to see her, she finally sat up in bed and engaged me in conversation. She asked me if I loved her. I nodded because I couldn’t bring myself to lie outright. Then she asked me to say it. Just once, because I’d never said it. Her eyes were destroying me—such dark wells of sadness. So I lied. I said the words . . . and she smiled at me.”
He shuddered, pressing their joined hands to his forehead.
“It was the last thing I ever said to her. A lie. The worst kind of lie—the kind shrouded in good intentions. The kind cowards use to justify their weakness. I didn’t sleep well that night. Something about our exchange unnerved me. The next morning, I went to her room. When no one answered the door, I pushed it open. Her bed was empty. I called out for her, and still I heard nothing.”
Khalid paused, his features caught in a storm of remembrance.
“I found her on her balcony with a silk cord about her throat. She was cold and alone. Gone. I don’t remember much else about that morning. All I could think was how she’d died alone, with no one to offer her solace, no one to grant her comfort. No one who cared. Not even her husband.”
Shahrzad’s eyes burned with unshed tears.
“After we laid her to rest, I received an invitation from her father to meet at his home. Out of guilt and a desire to show her family a measure of respect, I went to see him, against the counsel of those around me. They did not know what her father could possibly want to discuss with me in private. But I dismissed their concerns.” Khalid took a deep breath. “Though they were right to have them.”
He withdrew his hand from hers and fell to silence.
“Khalid—”
“One hundred lives for the one you took. One life to one dawn. Should you fail but a single morn, I shall take from you your dreams. I shall take from you your city. And I shall take from you these lives, a thousandfold.”
Shahrzad listened to him recite these words from memory, his eyes adrift in their meaning.
And realization crashed down on her, like lightning to a crag on a mountaintop.
“A curse?” she whispered. “Ava’s father—cursed you?”
“He gave his life to this curse. Before my eyes, he ran a dagger through his heart, paying for the magic with his own blood. To punish me for what I had done to his daughter. For my rampant disregard of his greatest treasure. He wanted to make sure that others would know his pain. That others would despise me as he did. He ordered me to destroy the lives of one hundred families in Rey. To marry their daughters and offer them to the dawn, just like Ava. To take away their promise of a future. And leave them without answers. Without hope. With nothing but hate to keep them alive.”
Shahrzad brushed away the hot tears coursing down her cheeks.
Shiva.
“I refused to comply at first. Even after we realized he’d sold his soul to the darkest magic to enact this curse, even after nights without sleep, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t begin such a cycle of death and destruction. Then the rains ceased. The wells dried up. And the riverbeds vanished. The people of Rey fell to sickness and starvation. They started to die. And I began to understand.”
“I shall take from you your city,” Shahrzad murmured, recalling the devastating drought that had destroyed the crops during the last harvesting season.
He nodded. “And I shall take from you these lives, a thousandfold.”
Here it was. At long last. An explanation.
A reason for such senseless death.
Why do I not feel any better?
Shahrzad studied Khalid’s profile in the dim light of the lamp above as he continued staring at the floor.
“How many dawns are left?” she asked.
“Not many.”
“And what if—what if we fail to comply?”
“I don’t know.” His posture indicated an invisible weight and its foregone conclusion.
“But—it rained. It’s rained several times in the two months I’ve been at the palace. Perhaps the curse has weakened.”
He turned to look at her with a sad half smile. “If that is the case, there is little else I would ask of heaven.”
A gnawing sense of awareness began to tug at her core. “Khalid, what if—”
“No. Do not ask what you are about to ask.” His voice was harsh and laced with warning.
Her heart tripped about in her chest, matching pace with her newfound fear. “Then you have not even considered—”
“No. I will not consider it.” He reached for her with both hands, framing her chin between his palms. “There is no situation in which I will consider it.”
She shook her head, though her shoulders trembled and her nails dug into her palms. “You are ridiculous, Khalid Ibn al-Rashid. I am just one girl. You are the Caliph of Khorasan, and you have a responsibility to a kingdom.”
“If you are just one girl, I am just one boy.”
Shahrzad closed her eyes, unable to hold the fierce light in his gaze.
“Did you hear what I said, Shahrzad al-Khayzuran?”
When she refused to respond, she felt his lips brush across her forehead.
“Look at me,” Khalid said, so soft and so close that it washed across her skin in warm assurances and cool desperation.
She opened her eyes.
He rested his brow against hers. “Just one boy and one girl.”
Shahrzad forced a pained smile. “If that is the case, there is little else I would ask of heaven.”
Khalid pulled her back against the cushion and wrapped his arms around her. She pressed her cheek to his chest.
And they held each other in stillness until a silver dawn broke across the horizon.
OBLIVION
KHALID STUDIED THE PLANS LAID OUT ON THE DESK before him.
The new system of aqueducts directing freshwater from a nearby lake into the city’s underground cisterns would be a costly, time-consuming endeavor. His advisors had counseled against such an undertaking for these and a slew of other reasons.
Understandable.
As they were not concerned about an impending drought.
Khalid ran his hand across the parchment, scanning the carefully wrought lines and meticulous lettering of Rey’s brightest scholars and engineers.
Such great minds at his disposal. Such vast intelligence at his fingertips.
He was the Caliph of Khorasan. The supposed King of Kings. He commanded a renowned force of soldiers and, for twelve years, he’d trained with some of the best warriors in the kingdom. Twelve years spent honing his craft to become one of the finest swordsmen in Rey. Many considered him a sound strategist as well.
Yet, with all these seeming attributes, he was still powerless to protect what mattered—
His people.
His queen.
He could not reconcile the two. Not without a sacrifice beyond the scope of consideration.
Khalid reflected on the consequences of such selfish behavior. How his unwillingness to consider the life of one girl against so many others would be construed. Would be judged.
Many young girls had already given their lives to this curse. Had died because of Khalid’s failure to notice the profound suffering in his first wife. His failure to care.
What right had he to decide whose life was more valuable? Who was he, after all?
A boy-king of eighteen. A cold, unfeeling bastard.
A monster.
&nbs
p; He closed his eyes. His hands curled into fists above the parchment.
He would not let the whims of one grief-stricken lunatic dictate his actions any longer.
He would decide. Even if it was abominably selfish. Even if he was judged and punished for it, into eternity.
He would never be a man who failed to care again. He would fight to protect what mattered to him, at all cost.
Save the one thing that mattered most.
Khalid signed the decree to begin construction on the new system of aqueducts. He set it aside and proceeded to the next order of business. As he reviewed the document, the doors to the alcove swung open without a word of warning, and his cousin burst through the entrance.
Khalid’s eyebrows rose at this brash display. When his uncle followed a moment later, wearing an expression even more grim than usual, Khalid inhaled and leaned back against the cushions.
The look on Jalal’s face was . . . unsettling.
“I assume this is important.” Khalid focused his attention on his cousin.
When Jalal said nothing, Khalid sat up.
“Sayyidi—” his uncle began.
“There must be an explanation.” Jalal’s voice faltered as his knuckles clenched white around the battered scroll in his left palm.
“Jalal-jan—”
“Please, Father,” Jalal rasped over his shoulder. “Let me speak!”
Khalid stood up. “What are you talking about?”
“Promise me you’ll give her a chance to explain. I’ve never known you to break your word. Promise me.”
“Give him the report.” His uncle edged closer to Jalal with a weary, yet determined set to his jaw.
“Not until he promises.” Jalal’s insistence bordered on manic.
Khalid strode from behind his desk, his posture rigid. “I am not promising anything until you tell me what this is about.”
Jalal hesitated.
“Captain al-Khoury?”
“Shazi . . . and that boy.” It was a broken whisper.
An icy fist wrapped around Khalid’s throat. Yet he reached out a steady hand. “Give me the report.”
“Promise me, Khalid.”
“I’m not certain why you think I owe you a promise on her behalf.” His voice was unwavering, despite the chilling vise.
“Then promise her.”
“What I promise Shahrzad is none of your business. Give me the report.”
Jalal exhaled slowly before handing him the scroll. As Khalid unfurled it, a dark weight settled across his chest, like a portent of doom seeking lasting refuge.
He scanned the missive once. The words registered in a far corner of his mind. Khalid’s eyes drifted to the top of the parchment again.
And again.
“I’m sorry, Khalid-jan.” His uncle was kind. “So very sorry. Even I started to believe—wanted to believe—that she was something more.”
Jalal shook his head and moved toward Khalid. “She is. Please give her a chance to explain.”
“Leave,” Khalid commanded quietly.
“Don’t let your fear and your distrust ruin this.”
His uncle took Jalal by the shoulder.
“She loves you!” Jalal continued, his tone heedless. “This is not what it seems. Maybe it began as something else, but I would bet my life on what it is now. She loves you. Please don’t fall to hate. You are not your father. You are so much more. She is so much more.”
Khalid turned his back on his cousin, crumpling the scroll in his palm.
And the portent of doom unleashed itself on his body, darkening everything in its path—
Destroying an already condemned soul.
• • •
Shahrzad stood at the railing of her balcony, staring up at a sea of winking stars across a soft indigo sky.
She could not bring herself to be alone in her room. Though no traces of carnage remained, it was too soon to lounge within its dimly lit confines, surrounded by the ghosts of skulking shadows.
Shahrzad sighed as she watched a beam of starlight dart across a corner of darkest blue.
She had spent the day wandering the gardens on her own, choosing to forgo Despina’s company in order to contemplate the many revelations of the night before without the distractions of the world around her.
Alas, the truth was not as enlightening as she had hoped.
Instead, it was desolate and ugly and cloaked in even more cruelty than she could have imagined.
Her best friend had been murdered for the sake of revenge—a disgusting, twisted revenge inflicted by a crazed man who had lost his child to an unfortunate turn of events. And he, in turn, had chosen to punish others for his pain.
He had punished Khalid for it.
And Khalid had punished the people of Rey.
Shahrzad took a deep breath.
Everything had spiraled down an endless black well because of one man’s torment.
She studied her hands against the cool stone railing.
That same desire for revenge had brought her to this palace. Had driven her to hate the boy-king she’d blamed for such suffering.
And now here she was, standing on an abyss.
Khalid was still responsible for Shiva’s death. He had given the order. He had sat at his desk and written a letter to Shiva’s family while a soldier cinched the air from her body with a silk cord. He had not stopped them from killing her, as he had with Shahrzad. He had allowed it to happen.
Nothing about the facts had changed.
Yet the picture looked different.
Because Shahrzad knew why. Even though it was horrifying and beyond the realm of possibility, a part of her understood that he’d had little choice.
And that one day, he might be forced to make the same decision about her.
The groan of the doors to her chamber drew her attention. Shahrzad tightened the laces of her shamla and spun from the balcony. She walked into the center of her room. Tapers of warmly scented ambergris were glowing in the corner.
Khalid stood before the entrance, his profile concealed in part by shadow.
She smiled hesitantly.
He remained as still as a statue.
Her brow furrowed. “Hello?” Her voice sounded strange, even to her—more of a question than a welcome.
“Hello.” It was severe and forbidding, hearkening back to a time when stories by lamplight were all they shared. All she could hope to share.
It threw Shahrzad against a wall of ice. “Is something wrong?”
He moved from the darkness toward her.
Something was definitely wrong.
But, though his features were cold and distant, his tiger-eyes rippled with pure emotion.
“Khalid?” Her pulse skipped a beat.
He exhaled with unremitting care. “How long?”
“What?”
He took another step toward her. “How long have you been in love with Tariq Imran al-Ziyad?”
A gasp escaped her before she could stop it. Her heart careened about in her chest, and she felt her knees start to give.
Lie. Lie to him.
The tiger-eyes continued haunting her . . . watching, waiting.
Knowing.
Afraid?
“Since the summer I turned twelve.” Her voice broke.
He clenched his fists and twisted back to the darkness.
“I can explain!” Shahrzad reached for him. “I—”
When he turned around, the words died on her lips.
In his right hand was a dagger.
She backed away in horror.
His gaze stayed fixed on the marble at her feet. “Behind the ebony chest in my room is a door with a large brass ring. The handle is unusual. You have to turn it three times to the right, two times to the left, and three more times to the right before it will open. The staircase leads to an underground passage that will take you directly to the stables. Take my horse. His name is Ardeshir.”
Shahrzad’s confusion overro
de her panic. “I don’t—”
“Here.” He unsheathed the dagger and handed it to her.
She shook her head, continuing to back away.
“Take it.” He pressed the hilt into her palm.
“I don’t understand.”
“Vikram is waiting outside. He’ll take you to my chamber. No one will stop you. Take Ardeshir . . . and go.” Khalid spoke in a voice barely over a whisper.
Shahrzad clenched the hilt of the dagger, her brow lined, and her heart thundering in her chest—
And then Khalid sank to his knees before her.
“What—what are you doing?” she gasped. “I—”
“Shiva bin-Latief.” He said her name with the reverence of a prayer, his head bowed and his eyes closed in shameless deference.
All the air left Shahrzad’s body in a single rush of comprehension. She swayed unsteady on her feet before she fell to the floor with the dagger’s hilt clutched tight in her hand.
“Get up,” he said quietly.
Her chest heaved.
“Get up, Shahrzad al-Khayzuran. You kneel before no one. Least of all me.”
“Khalid—”
“Do what you came to do. You owe me no explanation. I deserve none.”
Shahrzad released a choked sob, and Khalid grabbed her by the arms.
“Get up.” His tone was gentle but firm.
“I can’t.”
“You can. For Shiva. You are boundless. There is nothing you can’t do.”
“I can’t do this!”
“You can.”
“No.” She shook her head, staving off the tears.
“Do it. You owe me nothing. I am nothing.”
How can you say that? You are . . .
Shahrzad shook her head harder. Her grip on the dagger loosened.
“Shahrzad al-Khayzuran!” The muscles in his jaw constricted. “You are not weak. You are not indecisive. You are strong. Fierce. Capable beyond measure.”
She swallowed, steeling herself, searching for a thread of hate, for a dram of rage, for . . . anything.