“I want very much,” he said softly, “to tell you what I am thinking now, but you will no doubt think I exaggerate, even if I swear it to be true.”
Alizeh wanted to laugh. “Do you not think it a kind of cheat, sire, to make such a declaration when you know full well I will insist upon your confession? Does it not seem unfair to you to place the burden of interest entirely on my shoulders?”
There was a beat of silence then, during which Alizeh imagined she could feel his surprise.
“I fear you’ve mistaken me for a different sort of person,” he said quietly. “I displaced no burden. I do not fear the repercussions of honesty.”
“No?” Now she was nervous.
“No.”
“Oh,” she said, the word a breath.
The prince closed the narrow gap between them until they were dangerously close—so close she suspected she’d need only to tilt up her chin and their lips would touch.
She could not calm her heart.
“You have consumed my thoughts since the moment I met you,” he said to her. “I feel now, in your presence, entirely strange. I think I might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again.”
Once more, the nosta flashed warm against Alizeh’s skin, proof that only terrified her heart into a gallop, sent a flood of feeling through her body. She felt disoriented, hyperaware, and still confused; only dimly cognizant of another world waiting for her; of danger and urgency waiting, waiting for her to surface.
“Tell me your name,” he whispered.
Slowly, very slowly, Alizeh touched her fingers to his waist, anchored herself to his body. She heard his soft intake of breath.
“Why?” she asked.
He hesitated, briefly, before he said, “I begin to fear you’ve done me irreparable damage. I should like to know who to blame.”
“Irreparable damage? Surely now you are exaggerating.”
“I only wish I were.”
“If that is true, sire, then it is best we part as anonymous friends, so as to spare each other further harm.”
“Friends?” he said, dismayed. “If your intention was to wound me, know you have succeeded.”
“You’re right.” She grinned. “We have no hope even of friendship. Best to simply say our goodbyes. Shall we shake hands?”
“Oh, now you really do wound me.”
“Never fear, Your Highness. This brief interlude will be relegated to a graveyard populated by all manner of half-forgotten memories.”
He laughed, briefly, at that, but there was little mirth in it. “Do you take pleasure in torturing me with this drivel?”
“A bit, yes.”
“Well, I’m pleased to know I’ve rendered a service, at least.”
She was still smiling. “Farewell,” she whispered. “Our time together has come to an end. We will never again meet. Our worlds will never again collide.”
“Don’t say that,” he said, suddenly serious. His hand moved to her waist, traveled up the curve of her rib cage. “Say anything but that.”
Alizeh was no longer smiling. Her heart was beating so hard she thought it might bruise. “What shall I say, then?”
“Your name. I want to hear it from your lips.”
She took a breath. Released it slowly.
“My name,” she said, “is Alizeh. I am Alizeh of Saam, the daughter of Siavosh and Kiana. Though you may know me better as the lost queen of Arya.”
He stiffened at that, went silent.
Finally he moved, one hand capturing her face, his thumb grazing her cheek in a fleeting moment, there and gone again. His voice was a whisper when he said, “Do you wish to know my name, too, Your Majesty?”
“Kamran,” she said softly. “I already know who you are.”
She was unprepared when he kissed her, for the darkness had denied her a warning before their lips met, before he claimed her mouth with a need that stole from her an anguished sound, a faint cry that shocked her.
She felt his desperation as he touched her, as he kissed her in every passing second with a need greater than the one before, inspiring in her a response she could not fathom into words. She only breathed him in, drew the fragrance of his skin into her blood, the darkly floral scent striking her mind like an opiate. He drew his hands down her body with an unconcealed longing she returned in equal measure; one she’d not even known herself to possess. She didn’t even think before she reached for him, twining her arms around his neck; she pushed her hands through the silk of his hair and he went briefly solid, then kissed her so deeply she tasted him, heat and sugar, over and over. Every inch of her skin was suddenly so fraught with sensation she could hardly move.