The Rose and the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn) (22 page)

“Forget?” Irritation began to gather at the bridge of her nose.

“At the same time you make me remember.”

“You’re confusing me, Rahim al-Din Walad.” Irsa crossed her arms as though that would conceal the sudden
thrum
of her heart.

Grinning, he scrubbed a palm over his tightly marcelled curls,
knocking loose a shower of sand. “I should want to say a great many things to you, Irsa al-Khayzuran. I should want to thank you for saving me today. To thank you for saving my best friend. But”—Rahim took a slow step toward her—“that’s not what I want to do.”

“What—what do you want to do?” she breathed.

Another step. Too close and yet still so far away. “I want to ask you something.”

“Then ask it.” The warm scent of linseed oil and oranges reached out to Irsa, beckoning her even closer. Asking her to stay.

When Rahim swallowed, the heavy knot in his throat rose and fell.

“May I kiss you?”

“Why are you asking permission?” Irsa murmured. “Doesn’t that—ruin the moment?”

“No.” He smiled, but its edges wavered with a deeper meaning. “Because it’s not just a kiss.”

“Why is that?”

“Because when I kiss you, I want yours to be the first . . . and last lips I ever kiss.”

“Oh,” she said for the second time. For the last time.

It was a sigh and an acknowledgment, all at once.

“So”—Rahim reached up to push the hair back from her face—“may I kiss you, Irsa al-Khayzuran?”

Her heart stopped, then started anew, faster and more fervent than ever before.

“Yes.”

His face solemn, Rahim bent toward her, tipping her nose
upward with his. She felt him tremble as he brushed a tentative kiss to the furrow of her lips, so soft at first. Then he settled his mouth fully against hers, and Irsa finally understood.

Understood what it meant to feel at home wherever you were. To feel as though you belonged in any moment, at any place, in any time.

Because at that moment, with the press of Rahim’s lips to hers, with the touch of his tongue sending wildfire through her veins, she knew she would always be home here.

With this boy. In this moment. In this time.

And that her heart would never be lonely again.

Tariq had wandered the whole of the Badawi camp twice. Both treks had been completed in a trance. All the while, his emotions had been a flurry of remorse and resentment. Of anger and anguish.

He did not know what to do.

The last thing Tariq had ever wanted to see was the girl he loved more than anything fall beneath his arrow. Fall to the blindness of his own rage.

And Tariq had watched. He’d watched all of it.

He’d been unable to turn away.

Because it was his fault.

Tariq had realized it the moment he’d released the arrow. The instant he’d loosed it from the sinew.

He’d wanted to take it back.

Of course Shahrzad had leapt to save the boy-king. She had always been one to give all to those she loved. Just as she’d been
willing to risk all to avenge Shiva. In the end, it should have surprised no one—least of all Tariq—that Shahrzad had reached for the Caliph of Khorasan without a second thought.

But Tariq had not counted on the boy-king acting in kind. He’d not counted on him putting his life before hers. Without a moment’s hesitation.

Yet Tariq had watched him move to shield her with his own body.

Just as Tariq would have done.

Tariq knew then—as he’d known when he’d read the letter Shahrzad kept tucked in her cloak—that this was not an ordinary love born of a passing fancy.

In truth, Tariq had known even then that he could not win. That this was not a battle to be won.

Only a fool would have continued to think otherwise.

Yet Tariq had chosen to be a fool.

And he knew it now, with a cold, unwavering kind of certainty. The same kind of certainty he’d felt beneath the Grand Portico when he’d first realized Shahrzad loved the boy-king. He’d ignored the truth that fateful afternoon. But now, despite all Tariq’s rash dreaming, all his desperate thoughts that, one day, if Shahrzad and the boy-king were parted from each other long enough . . . Tariq knew his wishes would never come to pass.

Shahrzad would never return to Taleqan with him.

For she no longer belonged there.

She belonged in a palace of marble and stone. A queen, in her own right. With a boy-king who loved her, as she loved him. The boy-king she’d turned to tonight, at all times. First when
the arrow had struck her, then when she’d been in immeasurable pain, and even when the question of a hot blade against her skin had been suggested in hushed tones—

Shahrzad had sought the solace of only one person.

It ached. It tore at every selfish part of Tariq’s soul. It ripped in two every memory of the years they’d shared together. Every day he’d waited for her to return. To see that they were meant for each other.

To realize the boy-king meant nothing.

Shahrzad and the Caliph of Khorasan had been together for only a few months. Apart for less than that. Yet each was willing to die for the other.

While Tariq had been willing to kill the boy-king, at nothing more than a glance.

How had their lives descended to this?

Love for hate, in the mere blink of an eye.

Again, the memory of Shahrzad crumpling beneath his arrow flew to the forefront of his mind. Tariq shuddered to a stop. In that moment, he’d made a thousand careless promises to a thousand faceless gods.

Among these promises, he recalled one that burned with a sudden, shining fervency:
If you let her live, I’ll do anything you ask.

A heedless promise made as Tariq had hurled his bow aside and raced toward Shahrzad, unconcerned with anything beyond the girl lying before him.

Unconcerned with all—even the lasting memory of his own hatred.

Tariq paused before his tent. He had to speak with the
boy-king—the caliph. He had to understand what it was Shahrzad understood. To know what she saw in Khalid Ibn al-Rashid. For a monster could not love as the Caliph of Khorasan loved. Could never care for Shahrzad with the tenderness Tariq had witnessed tonight.

Of that, he was certain.

His resolve hardening, Tariq ducked within his tent.

Irsa was inside, sitting next to Shahrzad’s motionless figure, a single taper casting a golden glow through the yawning darkness.

The caliph was nowhere to be found.

“Tariq.” Irsa glanced about nervously.

“Where is he?”

“He went to wash not long ago.” Irsa unfurled to her feet. “I just gave Shahrzad some tea to help her sleep.” She continued to look about with obvious unease while rubbing her shoulder. “I don’t think it’s wise for you to remain here. Khal—the caliph will likely return soon . . .” She trailed off, her meaning as clear as the intention behind it.

Though Tariq knew she meant well in warning him, he ignored it. “She’s asleep, then?”

Irsa nodded.

Stifling a weary sigh, Tariq crouched beside his raised bed pallet—the bed pallet Shahrzad now occupied, her chin tucked into his pillow, her wound covered in poultices. Irsa knelt across from him, her eyes fraught with a mixture of pity and frustration.

After a time, Tariq met her gaze. “I’m so sorry this happened, Cricket. Please believe me when I say I never meant for any of this to occur.”

“I know you didn’t. But I am not the one who deserves to hear your apology,” Irsa said quietly.

“I know.”

“If you know, I think it would be wise for you to take the knowledge and act upon it in the future.” With that, Irsa reached for the packets of herbs she’d used to brew Shahrzad’s tea and stepped aside.

Tariq took hold of Shahrzad’s hand. He wove his fingers through hers. The skin of her palm was soft, save for the calluses he recognized from her years of training in archery. The years he’d spent training alongside her. Encouraging her to defy the odds. To be more than the wife everyone expected her to be. To command attention wherever she went, as only she could. As only she had, from the day Tariq realized there was—and would be—only one girl in the world for him.

Only one. Always.

Even though Tariq knew it was wrong, he brushed a thumb across her forefinger. He knew he would never again have a chance to touch her like this. But he wanted to.

One last time.

“I’m so sorry, Shazi-
jan
,” he murmured. “God, if I could change that moment, I would not have done it, not for the world. I would take a thousand arrows for you.” Tariq bent his head closer to hers. “When I thought you were dead, there was nothing I wanted more than to take it back. I’m so sorry, my love. I can’t swallow my hatred as you can. I’m not like you. But I can swear I will listen to you next time. No matter how distasteful I find your words to be. I will listen, Shazi.”

Tariq rose to standing, then stooped to kiss her temple. “I swear on my life, you will never be hurt by me again,” he said in her ear as he brushed aside a wayward curl.

A muted yelp from the corner jostled him straight. Tariq turned. Irsa al-Khayzuran’s face was frozen in a mask of fright. Her eyes were locked on the entrance of the tent.

Where the Caliph of Khorasan stood by the open tent flap—

Watching him.

Tariq could find nothing in his expression. Not a hint of emotion. Not the slightest sign of awareness he’d heard a single word. The caliph waited a beat before walking inside. Once he’d made certain his face was concealed beneath his
rida’
, he gathered Tariq’s recurve bow and quiver of arrows in unhurried silence.

Then waited by the entrance.

Without a word, Tariq followed him out into the desert. The caliph paused to hand him his bow and arrows before striding twenty paces away.

As calm as the eye of a storm, the caliph withdrew his
shamshir
and twisted it in two.

“Three arrows,” he began in a voice that managed to carry over the distance, though Tariq could not detect any sentiment behind the words. “Three shots, Tariq Imran al-Ziyad. There is no one here to stop you. No one here to defend me. I’ll give you three arrows. Three chances to finish what you started by the well.”

“Why three?” Tariq mirrored the caliph’s impassive tone as he shifted his quiver onto his shoulder.

“One for your cousin.” The caliph thrust a sword into the sand before him, its jeweled hilt swaying in the moonlight. He flourished the other in a glittering sweep. “One for your aunt. And one for your love.”

Tariq returned his fixed stare.

Even from this distance, the caliph’s strange eyes possessed an otherworldly glow. “But when you fail—and you will fail—you will never again repeat what I just saw.”

“Then you are jealous?” Tariq called out, loud enough to echo across the cool sands.

A thin stream of pale purple clouds drifted above, moving too fast for comfort, yet too slow to convey anything of significance.

Tomorrow’s storm would come without warning. If at all.

“Jealousy is a childish, petty emotion.” The caliph switched the single
shamshir
to his left hand in a single, fluid motion. “I don’t feel jealousy. I feel rage.”

Tariq waited a beat. The boy-king’s words were in stark contrast to his actions. Was this finally a weakness? Finally something that made him seem less like a monster and more like a man?

“Do you worry about me, Khalid Ibn al-Rashid?”

The caliph hesitated, and that said more than words ever could. “There was a time I did. But the fact that you waited until Shahrzad slept to touch her shows me you know she would not approve. You will not disrespect her in such a manner again. Nor will you disrespect me.”

Tariq let his recurve bow dangle by his feet. “I did not do it to disrespect her. I am not trying to win her back.” He took a measured breath. “I know I’ve—lost.”

The single
shamshir
flashed through the air once more. “Yet you still wish to kill me.” It was not a question.

But Tariq chose to answer it, all the same. “Of course.”

“Then here’s your chance.”

“It’s not much of a chance, since you say I will lose.”

“You will.” The caliph wrenched the other
shamshir
from the sand and brandished both swords. “For you’re a fool if you think I would choose to fight a battle I could not win.”

“Is that why you have yet to meet me on the battlefield, you arrogant bastard?”

The caliph’s mouth slid into a wry smile. “Partly.”

“And what are the other reasons?” Tariq removed an arrow from his quiver.

“Because I do not yet know my enemy, Tariq Imran al-Ziyad. And, unlike you, I do not willingly fight the unknown.”

“I know who you are,” Tariq ground out.

“No. You think you know who I am.”

“Perhaps you should endeavor to change my mind.”

“Perhaps I should.” Again, the caliph turned his swords in elegant arcs. “You have three arrows. Aim true.”

Tariq inhaled. He nocked the arrow to the sinew. Then pulled back.

He should aim for the bastard’s heart. For, despite the boy-king’s pompous effrontery, no man could escape three arrows, fired in rapid succession. Perhaps he could dodge one. Knock aside the second with a well-timed swing of a sword.