A SILK CORD AND A SUNRISE
THE SHAHRBAN OF REY SUSPECTS I MIGHT HARM the king.
Shahrzad listened to Despina’s incessant chatter as they spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in the warm waters of the palace’s newest addition, commenting where it was appropriate and jesting where it was not.
But her mind refused to allow her a moment’s respite.
What if he says something to the caliph?
How much does he know? How did he find out?
Now, many hours later, she sat on her bed in a darkened chamber . . .
Back at the beginning.
Staring at doors and fending away demons.
She was dressed in wide silk trowsers and a fitted top stained a deep violet color, with thick straps that banded over each shoulder. The necklace and thin chain at her waist contained amethysts surrounded by tiny, pale pink diamonds.
At her ears and along her brow were large teardrops of purple and gold. Her waist-length hair hung in shining waves down her back.
Shahrzad willed the doors to open with the force of her unflinching stare. Met by the same stoic silence as always, she rose from the bed and began pacing.
He’s usually here by now.
Unwilling and incapable of leaving her fate in the hands of others, she walked to the doors and pulled one open.
The Rajput turned in place, his hand resting on the hilt of his talwar.
Shahrzad felt the fear leech its way onto her heart . . . felt it tug at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
“Do you—do you know if . . .” she tried.
She gritted her teeth.
“Is he coming?” she asked.
The Rajput merely stared down at her, a lethal statue of muscle and menace.
“Can you tell me where he is?” she demanded, the tenor of her voice clearly
trying to compensate for her waning courage.
At this, Shahrzad saw the tiniest flicker of a response in his dark-as-night
gaze.
Pity?
He . . . pities me?
She slammed the door shut and leaned against it, her chest starting to heave.
No.
She stifled a sob.
Enough. That’s enough.
Shahrzad stood upright and walked, with her head high, to the bed. She fell back onto the silken pillows, her eyes still trained on the doors.
“He’ll come,” she said into the darkness.
I know it.
As she clung to this last thread of hope, two words kept resonating in her mind, taunting her . . . plaguing her with a meaning she should not see.
These two words from a boy who was less than nothing.
These two words that gave her the will to fight off the demons: My queen.
• • •
The groan of the doors opening brought Shahrzad out of a restless half sleep.
And the light of pure dawn streaming through the wooden screens shot her to her feet.
Standing at the threshold were four soldiers.
Shahrzad straightened her rumpled clothing and cleared her throat.
“Is it not customary to knock first?”
They all looked past her without answering. Their eyes bore an air of grim detachment.
Shahrzad clasped her hands behind her back, forcing herself to stand up straight. “What are you doing here?”
Without a word, the soldier in front stepped into the room and moved toward Shahrzad, still looking to a spot beyond her . . .
As though she had ceased to exist.
Her heart. Her heart.
“I asked you a question!”
The soldier took hold of her shoulder. When Shahrzad reached up to smack his hand away, he trapped her wrist and grasped tightly.
“Don’t—touch me!”
The soldier nodded to his subordinates, and another grim-faced dragoon seized her by the arm.
The blood flew through her body, soaring on a mixture of terror and rage.
“Stop!”
They began to drag her from the room.
When she tried to wrench free and kick at them, they merely lifted her off the floor as though she were trussed-up game, caught for sport.
“Where is the caliph?” she cried.
Stop! Do not beg.
“I want to speak to the caliph!”
Not a single one of the soldiers even paused to glance at her.
“Listen to me!” she screamed. “Please!”
They continued half carrying, half dragging her struggling form down the marble halls of the palace.
The servants they passed averted their gazes.
They all knew. Just as the soldiers knew.
There was nothing to see.
It was then Shahrzad realized the inescapable truth.
She was nothing. She meant nothing.
To the soldiers. To the servants.
She stopped struggling. She raised her head.
And pressed her lips tightly together.
Baba and Irsa.
Shiva . . . and Tariq.
She meant something to them. And she would not disgrace their memory of
her by making a scene.
Her failure was disgrace enough.
As the soldiers pushed open the doors into the dawn and Shahrzad saw her death before her, it was this last thought that thrust its final weight upon her,
breaking the dam.
Shiva.
Silent tears streamed down her face, unchecked.
“Let go of me,” she rasped. “I won’t run.”
The three soldiers looked to the first. After a wordless conversation, they placed Shahrzad on her bare feet.
The grey granite pavestones felt cool to the touch, the warm rays not having seeped into their gritty surface yet. The grass on either side was blue from the silver light of an early morning sun.
For a moment, Shahrzad considered stooping to run her hands through it.
One last time.
They filed to a covered alcove, where another soldier and an older woman stood waiting. In the woman’s hand was a long piece of white linen, fluttering in
an all-but-dead breeze.
A shroud.
And in the soldier’s hand . . .
A single stretch of silk cord.
The tears continued their final trek down her face, but Shahrzad refused to utter a sound. She stepped to the soldier. His arms were thick and burly.
I hope it will be quick.
Without a word, she turned around.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered so softly it might have been the wind.
Startled by his kindness, she almost looked back at her would-be murderer.
“Thank you.” An absolution.
He lifted her hair, gently, and brought the dark waves over her head—a veil, shielding her from the nameless witnesses.
The ones who already refused to see her.
The silk cord felt so soft at her throat, at first. Such an elegant way to die.
Shiva died this way.
The thought that Shiva died like this, surrounded by people who saw nothing, made the tears flow harder. Shahrzad gasped, and the cord tightened.
“Baba,” she breathed.
It cinched tighter . . . and she couldn’t stop her hands from flying to her
throat.
Irsa. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.
As her fingers battled against her pride’s directive, the soldier lifted her from the ground by her neck, pulling the cord as he did.
“Tariq,” she choked.
Her chest was falling in on itself. Silver stars ringed the edges of her vision.
The pain in her chest grew. The silver stars were rimmed in black now.
And her neck was on fire.
Shiva.
The tears and the pain all but blinding her, she forced open her eyes one more time, to a curtain of dark hair; to a waterfall of black ink spilling across the last
page of her life.
No.
I’m not nothing.
I was loved.
Then, from the distant reaches of her mind, she heard a commotion . . .
And the cord was released.
She fell to the ground, her body striking the granite, hard.
Sheer will to live forced air down her throat, despite the burning agony of each breath.
And someone grasped her by the shoulders and took her into his arms.
As her vision struggled to clear, the only things she saw were the amber eyes of her enemy, close to her own.
Then, with the last dram of strength she possessed— She struck him across the face.
Another man’s hand seized her forearm, yanking it back so hard she felt something pop.
Shahrzad screamed, a harsh and anguished cry.
For the first time, she heard the caliph raise his voice.
It was followed by the sound of a fist against flesh.
“Shahrzad.” Jalal grabbed her, enveloping her in his embrace. She collapsed against him, her eyes swollen shut by tears, and the burning sensations in her
arm and throat almost unbearable.
“Jalal,” she gasped.
“Delam.” He stroked the hair out of her eyes, comforting her, bringing her back from a place of nothingness.
Then he glanced behind him, to the sound of continuing commotion.
To a chorus of whimpers and fury.
“Stop it, Khalid!” he yelled. “It’s done. We have to get her inside.”
“Khalid?” Shahrzad murmured.
Jalal smiled ruefully. “Don’t hate him too much, delam . . .”
Shahrzad buried her face in Jalal’s shirt as he lifted her from the ground.
“After all, every story has a story.”
• • •
Hours later, Shahrzad sat on the edge of her bed with Despina.
At her throat was a ring of purple bruises. Her arm had been pushed back into place with a sickening sound that made her cringe in remembrance. Afterward, with Despina’s assistance, she’d bathed carefully and changed into comfortable clothes.
The entire time, Shahrzad had not uttered a single word.
Despina lifted an ivory comb to untangle Shahrzad’s still-damp hair. “Please
say something.”
Shahrzad closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t in my room.” Despina’s gaze flicked toward the small door by the entrance, leading to her chamber. “I’m sorry I didn’t know . . . they were coming for you. You have every right not to trust me, but please talk to
me.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Obviously, there is. You might feel better if you talked about it.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
Yes, I do.
Shahrzad did not want to talk to Despina. She wanted her sister’s soothing voice and her father’s volume of poetry. She wanted Shiva’s bright smile and infectious laugh.
She wanted her own bed and a night when she could sleep without the fear of dawn.
And she wanted Tariq. She wanted to fall into his arms and feel the laughter rumble in his chest when she said something very wrong that sounded exactly right. Perhaps it was weakness, but she needed someone to take the weight off her shoulders for a moment. To ease the burden, as Tariq had done the day her mother died, when he’d found her sitting alone in the rose garden behind her house, crying.
That day, he’d held both her hands in his and said nothing. Just drawn her pain away, with the simple strength of his touch.
Tariq could do that again. He would gladly do that.
For her.
Despina was a stranger. A stranger she couldn’t trust in a world that just tried to kill her.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Despina.”
Despina nodded slowly and dragged the comb through Shahrzad’s hair. The tension against her neck hurt, but Shahrzad said nothing.
There was a knock at the door.
“May I open it?” Despina asked.
Shahrzad raised an indifferent shoulder, and Despina placed the comb in Shahrzad’s lap before she made her way to the double doors.
What can they do to me now?
When she looked past the threshold, her heart crashed into her stomach.
The Caliph of Khorasan shadowed her doorway.
Without a word, Despina exited the room, pulling the doors shut behind her.
Shahrzad stayed at the edge of the bed, fidgeting with the comb in her lap, staring down her king.
As he drew closer, she saw the mark across his face where she’d struck him.
It colored his skin a deeper bronze, with a tinge of purple at his jawbone. His eyes were drawn and tired, as though he had not slept in a long while. The knuckles along his right fist were red and raw.
He returned her scrutiny, taking in the bruises at her neck, the hollows beneath her eyes, and the wary posture of her spine.
“How is your arm?” His voice was even and characteristically low.
“It hurts.”
“A great deal?”
“I’m sure it won’t kill me.”
It was a pointed jab, and Shahrzad saw it strike a chord, his careful composure falling for an instant. He strode to the foot of the bed and sat beside her. She shifted uncomfortably at his proximity.
“Shahrzad—”
“What do you want?”
He paused. “To make amends for what I’ve done.”
Shahrzad expelled a caustic breath and looked him in the eye.
“You will never be able to make amends for what you’ve done.”
He studied her. “That may be the first truly honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
She laughed bitterly. “I told you, you aren’t that gifted at reading people. I may have lied once or twice in my day, but I have never lied to you.”
It was the truth.
His chest rose and fell in steady consideration. Then he reached up and brushed aside her hair. With great care, he touched the slender column of her throat.
Unnerved by the obvious concern on his face, Shahrzad drew back.
“That hurts, too.” She pushed his hands away.
Flustered, she snatched the comb from her lap so she could finish untangling
her hair—
And grimaced with pain.
Her arm.
“Do you need help?” he asked.
“No. I do not.”
He sighed. “I—”
“If I need help, I’ll wait for Despina. In any case, I do not need your help.”
When she moved to stand, he caught her waist and pulled her back against him.
“Please, Shahrzad.” He spoke into her still-damp hair. “Let me make amends.”
The hammering in her chest grew as he wrapped his other arm around her,
holding her close.
Don’t.
“There are no excuses for what happened this morning. I want you to—”
“Where were you?” Shahrzad tried to control the tremor in her voice.
“Not where I should have been.”
“This morning and last night.”
His breath fanned on her skin as he bent toward her ear. “This morning, I was not where I should have been. Last night, I was not where I wanted to be.”
Shahrzad tilted her face upward, and her eyes grew wide at what she saw.
His hands tightened at her waist. He lowered his head and pressed his brow to hers, his touch as soft and gentle as a whisper.
“My Mountain of Adamant.”
She felt herself leaning into him, bowing into his caress. He smelled of sandalwood and sunlight. Strange that she’d never noticed before—that in her desire to distance herself from him, she had not detected something so simple and yet so marked as a scent.
She inhaled, letting the clean fragrance clear her thoughts.
As he placed his palm against the side of her face, Shahrzad realized
something horrifying.
She wanted to kiss him.
No.
It was one thing to return his kiss; she’d been prepared for that. But it was another thing entirely to want his kiss . . . another thing entirely to desire his affections. To melt into the arms of Shiva’s killer at the first sign of adversity.
Weak.
She sat up in disgust, destroying the moment in a single action. “If you want to make amends, I will think of a way.”
And it will not involve you touching me.
He withdrew his hands. “Good.”
“Are there any rules?”
“Does everything have to be a game?” he said in the barest shred of a
whisper.
“Are there rules, sayyidi?”
“The only rule is that I have to be able to grant your request.”
“You’re the Caliph of Khorasan. The King of Kings. Is there a request you cannot grant?”
His face darkened. “I am just a man, Shahrzad.”
She stood up and faced him. “Then be a man who makes amends. You tried to have me killed this morning. Consider yourself lucky I have not tried to return
the favor.”
Yet.
He rose to his feet, more than a head taller than Shahrzad. The veil of dispassion had returned, and it deepened the lines, as always.
“I’m sorry.”
“Pitiful. But a start, nevertheless.”
His tiger-eyes softened, almost imperceptibly. He bowed his head. Then he
made his way to the door.
“Shahrzad?”
“Yes, sayyidi?”
“I’m leaving for Amardha this afternoon.”
Shahrzad waited.
“I’ll be gone for a week. No one will bother you. Jalal will be in charge of your security. Should you need anything, go to him.”
She nodded.
He stopped himself once more. “I meant what I said to General al-Khoury the
day I introduced you.”
The day he called me his queen.
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
He paused. “It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.”
“My queen.” He bowed again before he left, his fingertips to his brow.
Shahrzad closed her eyes tight, falling against the bed as soon as the doors
shut behind him.
Shiva, what do I do now?
