Alizeh took a deep, steadying breath. It had been a long and circuitous path to this moment, and she would not fritter it away.
She knocked on the door once more, a bit harder this time—and this time, it opened immediately.
“Yes, girl, I heard you the first time,” Mrs. Sana said irritably. “Get inside, then.”
“Good evening, ma’am, I was j— Oh,” Alizeh said, and startled. Something like a pebble had struck her against the cheek. She looked up, searching the clear sky for hail.
“Well? Come on, then,” Mrs. Sana was saying, waving her forward. “It’s cold as death out there and you’re letting all the heat out.”
“Yes, of course. I beg your pardon, ma’am.” Alizeh quickly crossed the threshold, but instinct bade her look back at the last moment, her eyes searching the dark.
She was rewarded.
Before her eyes burned a single, disembodied prick of light. In a flash it moved, striking her again on the cheek.
Oh.
Not hail, then, but a firefly! Was it the same as before? What were the odds that she should be found by two different fireflies in such a short window of time? Very low, she considered.
And there—
Her eyes widened. Just there, in the tall hedge. Was that a flutter of movement?
Alizeh turned to ask the firefly a question and promptly froze, lips parted around the shape of the interrogative.
She could scarcely believe it.
The fickle creature had disappeared for the second time. Frustrated, Alizeh returned her gaze to the shadows, trying again to see through veils of darkness.
This time, she saw nothing.
“If I have to tell you to get inside one more time, girl, I’ll simply push you out the door and be done with it.”
Alizeh started, then scrambled without delay across the threshold, stifling a shudder as a rush of warmth gathered around her frozen body.
“Forgive me, ma’am— I just thought I saw—”
A glowering Mrs. Sana pushed past her and slammed the door shut, nearly snapping off Alizeh’s fingers in the process.
“Yes?” the housekeeper demanded. “What did you see?”
“Nothing,” Alizeh said quickly, pulling the carpet bag up into her arms. “Forgive me. Do let us begin.”
Twenty
NIGHT HAD COME TOO QUICKLY.
Kamran lay sprawled across his bed in nothing but a scowl, crimson sheets tangling around his limbs. His eyes were open, staring into the middle distance, his body slack as if submerged in a bath of blood.
He cut a dramatic figure.
The sea of dark red silk that enveloped him served to compliment the bronze tones of his skin. The golden glow of the artfully arranged lamps further sculpted the contours of his body, depicting him more as statue than sentient being. But then Kamran would not have noticed such things even had he cared to try.
He had not chosen these sheets. Nor the lamps.
He’d not chosen the clothes in his wardrobe, or the furnishings in his room. All he owned that were truly his were his swords, which he’d forged himself, and which he carried with him always.
All else in his life was an inheritance.
Every cup, every jewel, every buckle and boot came with a price, an expectation. A legacy. Kamran hadn’t been asked to choose; instead, he’d been ordered to obey, which had never before struck him as particularly cruel, for his was not such a difficult life. He had struggles, certainly, but Kamran owned no proclivity for fairy tales. He wasn’t so deluded as to imagine he might be happier as a peasant, nor did he dream of living a humble life with a woman of common stock and weak intelligence.
His was a life he’d never before questioned, for it had never before constrained him. He’d wanted for nothing, and as a result deigned not to lower himself to the experience of desire, for desire was the pastime of poorer men, men whose only weapons against the world’s cruelty were their imaginations.
Kamran desired nothing.
He cared little for food, for it had always been abundant. He looked upon material objects with contempt, for nothing was rare or uncommon. Gold, jewels, the most singular objects on earth—had he cared even a little he’d need only tell Hazan, and all that he wanted would be procured. But what were such trifles worth? Who did he hope to impress with baubles and trinkets?
No one.
He detested conversation, for there was always an abundance of callers, endless invitations, doubtless hundreds of thousands—if not millions—across the empire who wished to speak with him.
Women—
Women, he desired least of all. For what appeal was there in an arrangement with no uncertainty? Every eligible woman he’d ever met would happily have him even had they found him eminently unworthy.