Every day, Kamran prayed for rain.
The empire of Ardunia was not officially at war—not yet—but peace, too, Kamran had learned, was maintained at a bloody price.
“Your Highness.” Hazan’s tentative voice startled the prince, returning him to the present moment. “Forgive me. I spoke thoughtlessly.”
Kamran looked up.
The details of the hall in which he stood came suddenly into sharp focus: glossy marble floors, towering jade columns, soaring opalescent ceilings. He felt the worn, leather hilt of his sword against his palm, growing all the while incrementally aware of the musculature of his body, the dense weight he carried always and seldom considered: the heaviness in his arms, the heft of his legs. He forced himself to return the sword to its scabbard, briefly closing his eyes. He smelled rosewater and fresh rice; a servant bustled past carrying a copper tray laden with tea things.
How long had he been lost in his own thoughts?
Kamran had grown anxious and distracted of late. The recent swell of Tulanian spies discovered on Ardunian land had done little for his sleep; alone it would’ve been a disturbing enough discovery, but this intelligence was compounded by his own myriad worries, for not only did the prince fear for their reservoirs, but he’d seen things on his recent tour of duty that continued to unnerve him.
The future seemed dim, and his role in it, bleak.
As was expected, the prince sent his grandfather frequent updates while away. His most recent letter had been rife with news of Tulan, whose small empire became only bolder as the days went on. Rumors of discord and political maneuvering grew louder each day, and despite the tenuous peace between the two empires, Kamran suspected war might soon be inevitable.
His return to the capital the week prior was for two reasons only: first, after completing a perilous water journey, he’d had to replenish the central cisterns that fed the others throughout the empire, and then deliver his troops safely home. Second, and more simply: his grandfather had asked it of him.
In response to Kamran’s many concerns, the prince had been instructed to return to Setar. For a respite, his grandfather had said. An innocuous enough request, one Kamran knew to be quite irregular.
The prince had been restored to the palace for a week now, and every day he grew only more unsettled. Even after seven days home the king had yet to respond directly to his note, and Kamran had grown restless without a mission, without his soldiers. He was just then listening to Hazan articulate these same thoughts, allowing that this very restlessness was—
“—perhaps the only plausible explanation for your actions this morning.”
Yes. Kamran could at least agree that he was eager to return to work. He would need to leave again, he realized.
Soon.
“I grow tired of this conversation,” the prince said curtly. “Do assist me in welcoming its swift conclusion and tell me what it is you require. I must be on my way.”
Hazan hesitated. “Yes, sire, of course, but— Do you not wish to know what has become of the child?”
“What child?”
“The boy, of course. The one whose blood stains your hands even now.”
Kamran stiffened, his anger sparking suddenly back to life. It took little, he realized, to rekindle a fire that only dulled, but never died. “I would not.”
“But it might comfort you to know that he is not yet dead.”
“Comfort me?”
“You seem distressed, Your Highness, and I—”
Kamran took a step forward, his eyes flashing. He studied Hazan closely: the broken slope of his nose, his cropped ash-blond hair. Hazan’s skin was so densely freckled one could scarcely see his eyebrows; he’d been bullied mercilessly as a child for what seemed a myriad of reasons, tragic in all ways save one: it was Hazan’s suffering that had conjured their first introduction. The day Kamran defended the illegitimate child of a courtier was the same day that nobby-kneed child pledged fealty to the young prince.
Even then, Kamran had tried to look away. He’d tried valiantly to ignore the affairs deemed beneath him, but he could not manage it.
He could not manage it still.
“You forget yourself, minister,” Kamran said softly. “I would encourage you now to get to your point.”
Hazan bowed his head. “Your grandfather is waiting to see you. You are expected in his rooms at once.”
Kamran briefly froze, his eyes closing. “I see. You were not exaggerating your frustration, then.”
“No, sire.”
Kamran opened his eyes. In the distance, a kaleidoscope of colors bedimmed, then brightened. Soft murmurs of conversation carried over to him, the gentle footfalls of scurrying servants, a blur of snodas. He’d never paid much attention to it; the centuries-old uniform. Now every time he saw one he would think of that accursed servant girl. Spy. He nearly snapped his neck just to clear the thought. “What, pray, does the king want from me?”