AVA
SHAHRZAD DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF THE scene unfolding before her.
The strange old man garbed in white did not walk with the gait of a normal person. He did not blink, nor did he appear to breathe.
And he was studying her with such piercing intent that it twisted her stomach into a coil of knots.
“Sayyidi,” the strange man repeated, shifting closer to Khalid.
Without a word, Khalid bowed his head. The man raised his palms beside Khalid’s temples. Then he closed his eyes. Shahrzad felt the air in the room still.
A peculiar sensation settled around her heart, sliding chills down her back.
When the strange man opened his eyes once more, they glowed white, like the blinding center of a flame. Between his hands, a warm, red-orange fireburst spread around the entirety of Khalid’s brow.
The peculiar feeling in her chest flared, and Shahrzad smothered a gasp. It reminded her of that afternoon last week . . . with the floating carpet.
The circle of light around Khalid’s head pulsed yellow, flashing brighter before spiraling up into the darkness. Then it retracted back into the old man’s clawed hands.
And the sensation around her heart disappeared.
Khalid exhaled carefully. His shoulders rolled forward, and the tension began easing from his body.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the man, his voice parched and raw.
Shahrzad gazed up at this strange wielder of magic. Again, he was staring down at her with an oddly discerning expression.
“Thank you,” Shahrzad reiterated, at a loss.
The old man frowned, his unblinking eyes awash with discomfort. “Sayyidi —”
“Your counsel is always appreciated. I’m aware of your concerns,” Khalid
interrupted in a quiet tone.
The old man paused. “It’s getting worse. And it will only continue to
progress in this fashion.”
“Again, I understand.”
“Forgive my insolence, sayyidi, but you do not. I warned you before, and now my worst fears are coming to fruition. You cannot maintain this farce for much longer. If you do not find a way to sleep—”
“Please.” Khalid rose to his feet.
The old man drifted back and bowed with preternatural grace.
“Again, I thank you.” Khalid returned the bow and raised his hand to his forehead in respect.
“Do not thank me, sayyidi,” the old man replied as he floated to the ebony doors. “My service is to the hope for a great king. See that you grant him the chance to prove me right.” He grasped a bronze handle, stopping to glance at Shahrzad once more before disappearing into the darkness, leaving them alone.
Khalid eased onto the edge of the bed, his eyes bloodshot and his features holding fast to traces of strain.
Shahrzad sat down next to him. She said nothing for a time, and the air grew thick, laden with their unspoken thoughts.
Then he turned his head toward her. “Before—”
“You can’t sleep?” she interjected in a small voice.
He inhaled through his nose. “No.”
“Why?”
Khalid bent forward, his black hair grazing his forehead.
She reached for his hand. “Tell me.”
He peered sideways at her, and his look of misery robbed her of breath.
Shahrzad wrapped both her hands around one of his. “Please, Khalid.”
He nodded once. “Before I start, I need you to know how sorry I am.”
Her pulse wavered. “For what?”
“For everything. But mostly for what I’m about to tell you.”
“I don’t—”
“It’s a burden, Shazi,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “This secret is an encumbrance I never wanted for you. Once you know it, it can’t be taken back.
Whatever happens, its cold certainty will remain with you. The fear, the worry, the guilt—they become yours.”
Shahrzad inhaled carefully. “I won’t say I understand, because I don’t. But if it’s your burden—if it causes you to suffer—I wish to know.”
Khalid studied the stretch of black onyx before him. “Her name was Ava.”
“Ava?”
“My first wife. I married her not long after I turned seventeen. It was an arranged marriage. One I arranged to avoid what I considered a far worse fate.
How wrong I was.”
Khalid laced his fingers through hers.
“I was never meant to rule Khorasan. My brother, Hassan, was raised to take the throne. When he died in battle, it was too late for my father to rectify the years he had spent punishing me for my mother’s perceived transgressions.
There was no relationship between us—nothing but memories of blood and dreams of retribution. Upon his death, I was as unprepared to rule as any boy filled with hate would be. As you once said—I was predictable. Predictably angry. Predictably jaded.”
Shahrzad watched Khalid’s weary eyes fade in recollection.
“I was also determined to be everything my father despised in a king. Before he died, he had wanted me to marry Yasmine—to unite the kingdoms of Khorasan and Parthia. Following his death, his advisors continued to push for the match. Even Uncle Aref felt it was a wise, albeit unfortunate, decision. I was adamant in my refusal—to the point where I dismissed my father’s remaining advisors and sought my own counsel.”
Shahrzad’s features tightened. “You despise Yasmine that much?”
Khalid shook his head. “Yasmine is not without her merits, but I never felt real affection for her. More than that, I could not willingly join my family with that of Salim Ali el-Sharif. When my mother was alive, he treated her like a rich man’s whore, and he never failed to exploit any opportunity to speak ill of her after her death. Even as a boy, I remember longing for the day when I would be strong enough to punish him for the things he said.” A corner of his lips quirked upward in bitter amusement.
“Revenge isn’t what you expected, is it?” Shahrzad asked quietly.
“No. It’s not. And it never will be. Revenge won’t replace what I’ve lost.”
Shahrzad swallowed, looking away. “Salim must have been very angry about your refusal to marry Yasmine.”
“I never refused. It never went that far. When the pressure to marry Yasmine grew—to embolden the ties between our kingdoms and solidify my weak stance as a young caliph—I decided the best way to avoid the insult of an outright refusal was to marry someone else. Ava was from a good family in Rey, and she was kind and smart. Once we were married, I tried to be attentive, but it was difficult. I still had many things to learn about being a king, and I didn’t know how to be a husband. Like me, Ava was not the type to readily share her thoughts and feelings, and the moments we spent with each other often drifted to silence. She started to grow distant . . . and sad. Yet I still did not invest the time
necessary to learn the reasons. After a few months of marriage, she had withdrawn a great deal, and our interaction was rather limited. In truth, the awkwardness made me even less inclined to seek her out. On the rare occasions I tried to speak with her, she always appeared elsewhere—lost in a world I never sought to understand.”
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.
