The Rose & the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn #2) - Renee Ahdieh Page 0,5
both sides of the table. They stopped on Tariq.
His broad shoulders were rigid; his chiseled jaw was tight. He exhaled through his nose and lifted his gaze to hers.
“She is,” Tariq agreed in a resigned voice.
The old man quirked his head at Shahrzad. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble, beautiful one.”
Despite the reassuring hand Irsa placed atop hers, Shahrzad’s ire rose like embers being stoked to flame.
Aware she lacked grace in that moment, Shahrzad chose to say nothing. She rolled her tongue in her mouth. Pinched her lower lip between her teeth.
I am a guest here. I cannot behave as I desire.
No matter how angry and alone I may feel.
The old man smiled again. Ever wider. Ever more gap-toothed.
Infuriating.
“Are you worth it?”
Shahrzad cleared her throat. “Pardon?” she said, keeping tight rein on her emotions.
The boy with the ice-fire eyes watched with the rapt attention of a hawk.
“Are you worth all this trouble, beautiful one?” the old man repeated in maddening singsong.
Irsa wrapped a pleading hand around Shahrzad’s fingers, cold sweat slicking her palm.
Shahrzad could not risk her sister’s safety. Not in a camp filled with unknowns. Unknowns who could just as soon as toss her family into the desert for an errant word. Or slit their throats at a misread glance. No. Shahrzad could not put her father’s dubious health in jeopardy. Not for all the world.
She smiled slowly, taking time to subdue her fury. “I think beauty is rarely worth the trouble.” Shahrzad gripped Irsa’s hand tighter in sisterly solidarity. “But I am worth a great deal more than what you see.” Her tone was airy despite the veiled rebuke.
Without hesitation, the old man threw back his head and laughed. “To be sure!” His face shone with merriment. “Welcome to my home, Shahrzad al-Khayzuran. I am Omar al-Sadiq, and you are my guest. While within these borders, you will always be treated as such. But bear in mind: a calipha in silk or a beggar in the street makes no difference to me. Welcome.” He dipped his head and brushed his fingertips along his brow with a broad flourish.
Shahrzad released a pent-up breath. It escaped her in a rush of air, taking with it the tension from her shoulders and stomach. Her grin stretching farther, Shahrzad bowed in return, touching her right hand to her forehead.
Shiva’s father watched their exchange with a blank expression, his elbows folded against the table’s weathered edge. “Shazi-jan,” he began in a somber tone.
He caught her just as Shahrzad reached for a piece of barbari. “Yes, Uncle Reza?” She lifted her brows in question, her hand hovering above the breadbasket.
Reza’s features turned pensive. “I’m very glad you are here—that you are safe.”
“Thank you. I’m very grateful to everyone for keeping my family safe. And for taking such excellent care of Baba.”
He nodded, then leaned forward, steepling his hands beneath his chin. “Of course. Your family has always been my family. As mine has always been yours.”
“Yes,” Shahrzad said quietly. “It has.”
“So,” Reza said, lines of consternation bracketing his mouth, “it pains me greatly to ask you this—as I thought you might have been remiss when you arrived last night—but I have swallowed your insult for as long as I can endure it.”
Shahrzad’s entire body froze, her fingers still poised above the bread. The tension renewed its grip on her body, guilt coiling around her stomach with snakelike savagery.
“Shahrzad . . .” Reza bin-Latief’s voice had lost any hint of kindness; any warmth in the man she’d considered a second father was gone. “Why are you sitting at this table—breaking bread with me—wearing the ring of the boy who murdered my daughter?”
It was a cutting accusation.
It sliced through the crowd like a scythe through a sea of grain.
Shahrzad’s fingers pressed tight over the standard of the two crossed swords. Tight enough to cause pain.
She blinked once. Twice.
Tariq cleared his throat. The sound echoed through the sudden stillness. “Uncle—Uncle Reza—”
No. She could not let Tariq save her. Not again.
Never again.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” she said, her mouth dry.
But she wasn’t. Not for this. She was sorry for a hundred things. A thousand things.
An entire city of untendered apologies.
But she would never be sorry for this.
“Don’t be sorry, Shahrzad,” Reza continued in the same cold voice. The voice of a stranger. “Decide.”
Mumbling her regrets, Shahrzad pushed to her feet.
She didn’t stop to think. Clinging to the remains of her dignity, she stumbled away from the table and into the blazing desert sun. Her sandals caught