Heir to a Desert Legacy - By Maisey Yates Page 0,48

able to do what must be done. He cannot want. He cannot need. He cannot love. I had to be retrained. And I was, quite effectively.”

“How?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

“Conditioning. When I gave in to a want, I was given pain in return. When I responded to the pain, more pain was administered. Until eventually, I learned to show nothing.”

“No...Sayid, surely your parents wouldn’t have allowed such a thing.”

“My parents didn’t raise me. My uncle did. And while it is easy to sit here and be horrified by the method, I cannot deny that in the end it saved my life. I would never have survived being a prisoner of war if not for that training. And if it had taken root a little stronger, I never would have been taken captive in the first place.”

“Tell me,” she said.

He wanted to. He wasn’t sure why. “We were passing through a heavily forested area on our way to the enemy encampment to rescue men who had already been taken. Ours was meant to be a covert mission. No loss of life on either side if it could be helped. Alik Vasin was the tactical mastermind behind it, and Alik’s intelligence never fails.”

“What happened?”

“I failed. Because I saw two soldiers attempting to rape a woman and I moved out of hiding to stop them.”

“And did you?”

“It was the last thing either of them did,” he said, his tone grim. He didn’t regret what he’d done to those men. He never would.

“Then what happened?”

“We were spotted. And many of my men were killed. More taken captive, including myself.”

“Did the woman...did she escape?”

He nodded slowly. “She did.”

“You did what you had to do. You did what any decent man would do.”

“But I am not meant to be a decent man, habibti, I’m meant to be a soldier. I have to look at the big picture. Take action that causes the least damage, and I did not do that. Because of feeling.”

She shook her head. “You had to.”

“I should not have.”

“I’m sure that woman doesn’t think so.”

“And what about the women whose husbands didn’t come home to them because of that decision? What about them?”

Chloe looked down. “I don’t know.”

“That is my life, Chloe. The decisions I have to make. That is why I had to be made stronger, to be made into a man who acted logically, not emotionally.”

“But what about what you want?”

“I don’t even know what it might be.”

“But you must have a goal...a place you see yourself going.”

“I have always expected death on the battlefield. That Rashid should die first...that never entered my mind. That was my place. Not his. Never his.”

“But you’re a person, too, Sayid. A man.”

“I’m a symbol,” he said. “In much the same way my brother was, in much the same way Aden will be. But what I symbolize is different. I’m not the figurehead. I’m not the heart. I can have no weakness. I’m the strength. The merciless retribution. The protection. Beneath that, there is nothing. I am those things, and if I ever fail in it, my country will fail.”

She looked into his eyes, into the voice, and she trembled. He was saying, with utter conviction, that what he was, all he was, was the man she had seen so far. That he was a machine, a tool, used to carry out the will of the country, of the people.

And in that moment, she saw the truth of it. Because there was nothing deeper in his eyes.

But there was the kiss. The kiss in the hall. The heat it had generated. And before that, there was the anger. It was there. She had to believe it was there.

“There is little merit to feeling, Chloe, you know that better than anyone. The temptation is there, of course it is. Because while not feeling cuts out pain, it also robs you of beauty. But look at the pain it can cause. Look at what it did to your home. To your parents.”

She nodded slowly. “I know...I...”

“Six years ago, on that mission, I was taken as a prisoner of war. They held me for a year, before Alik Vasin was able to find me and lead the rescue that saved my life. I was tortured. For three hundred and sixty-five days. Every day. In an attempt to break me. In an attempt to learn the secrets of Attar. An attempt to break Attar. The only thing that saved me, the only thing that kept me intact