Aisha thought again of his frantic heartbeat. His uncalloused hands. The man before her was not a warrior. He was a pacifist. And in protecting him, she had potentially broken him.
She set a hand on his shoulder. The prince startled and looked up.
“You lied to me.” She frowned. “You’re not okay.”
“No,” the prince said. “No, I’m not. I just—” He took a deep, shaking breath. “I just killed a man.”
Looking at his crumpled, teary expression, it occurred to Aisha she had stopped mourning her victims long ago. A small, muted pang ran through her chest. “If it makes you feel any better, I was the one who swung the sword.”
Mazen laughed softly, dejectedly. “Right. Because I’m an incompetent coward.”
Coward. There was that word again, the one she had hurled at him in the tavern. Evidently, it had done more damage than she had anticipated. She had not realized it was possible for the son of a politician to be so sensitive.
But then, long ago, she had lived her life without armor too.
“We all start as cowards.”
Mazen’s expression fell. Aisha set a hand on his cheek before he could turn away, guiding his gaze back to hers. “We’re all afraid, Prince. The only difference between a hero and a coward is that one forgets their fear and fights, while the other succumbs to it and flees.” Something released in her at the words, though she couldn’t say what it was. “Your fear of death does not make you weak. Only human.”
The prince, for once, was completely quiet. He stared at her with wide eyes.
Aisha released his shoulder with a sigh. He was the one on the verge of tears, so why did she suddenly feel so vulnerable? “I should not have made that word into a weapon,” she mumbled. “I was wrong about you. If you were truly a coward, you’d have left me and fled.”
The prince swallowed. His eyes were glassy.
“You can cry all you like after this is over. But right now, I need you.”
The prince managed a weak nod. Aisha turned and continued down the corridor. She was relieved to be able to turn away from this conversation, except—there was still one thing she needed to say. A word that had been on the tip of her tongue since he rescued her.
“Prince?”
“Yes?”
“Shukran.” It was only a single word, but it eased her heart.
She angled her head slightly, enough to catch the prince’s returning smile. “Afwan.”
It was barely a conversation at all, and yet it somehow felt like the first time they’d spoken. Not as a thief and a prince, but as Aisha and Mazen.
Perhaps that was why their conversation flowed easier afterward and why, when they returned to their wandering and the prince asked her about Imad’s grudge against Omar, she answered him truthfully. She confirmed that Imad had been one of the sultan’s forty thieves and that, after Shafia had died and the title of king was bequeathed to Omar, Imad had worked for the prince. But their camaraderie had been brief.
“Omar’s first and last order for the sultan’s thieves was to capture a priceless relic.” She hesitated, knowing Mazen would not appreciate this next truth. “They tracked it down to a Bedouin campsite and cut through the entire tribe to get to it.”
The prince stared at her in horror. “But why?”
“The jinn-king relics are a secret. Omar did not want rumors to spread.” Aisha flinched. It sounded like a flimsy excuse even to her own ears. “Their efforts were for nothing, in the end. They died at the hands of a mysterious jinn, and only Imad survived to tell the tale. He returned to Madinne and blamed Omar for his comrades’ deaths. Then, because he’s a haughty fool, he challenged your brother to a duel and lost.”
Mazen frowned. “So his hands…”
“An injury from the duel.” She paused at a bend in the corridor. When she ascertained that what lay on the other side was just another empty hall, she beckoned Mazen to follow. “The sultan punished Imad for his insult by banishing him,” she continued. “And Omar had no choice but to start again.”
This part of the story she knew well, for it was when she had entered the narrative. “He chose forty of us by his own hand, and we have served him since.” She paused, her gaze falling on a series of intricate diamond patterns that unspooled across the wall’s cracked surface like golden thread. “I was there when Omar and Imad fought,” she said. “Your brother and I ran into each other on Madinne’s streets; he recruited me before Imad returned.”