The Rose & the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn #2) - Renee Ahdieh Page 0,76
Shahrzad’s tea and stepped aside.
Tariq took hold of Shahrzad’s hand. He wove his fingers through hers. The skin of her palm was soft, save for the calluses he recognized from her years of training in archery. The years he’d spent training alongside her. Encouraging her to defy the odds. To be more than the wife everyone expected her to be. To command attention wherever she went, as only she could. As only she had, from the day Tariq realized there was—and would be—only one girl in the world for him.
Only one. Always.
Even though Tariq knew it was wrong, he brushed a thumb across her forefinger. He knew he would never again have a chance to touch her like this. But he wanted to.
One last time.
“I’m so sorry, Shazi-jan,” he murmured. “God, if I could change that moment, I would not have done it, not for the world. I would take a thousand arrows for you.” Tariq bent his head closer to hers. “When I thought you were dead, there was nothing I wanted more than to take it back. I’m so sorry, my love. I can’t swallow my hatred as you can. I’m not like you. But I can swear I will listen to you next time. No matter how distasteful I find your words to be. I will listen, Shazi.”
Tariq rose to standing, then stooped to kiss her temple. “I swear on my life, you will never be hurt by me again,” he said in her ear as he brushed aside a wayward curl.
A muted yelp from the corner jostled him straight. Tariq turned. Irsa al-Khayzuran’s face was frozen in a mask of fright. Her eyes were locked on the entrance of the tent.
Where the Caliph of Khorasan stood by the open tent flap—
Watching him.
Tariq could find nothing in his expression. Not a hint of emotion. Not the slightest sign of awareness he’d heard a single word. The caliph waited a beat before walking inside. Once he’d made certain his face was concealed beneath his rida’, he gathered Tariq’s recurve bow and quiver of arrows in unhurried silence.
Then waited by the entrance.
Without a word, Tariq followed him out into the desert. The caliph paused to hand him his bow and arrows before striding twenty paces away.
As calm as the eye of a storm, the caliph withdrew his shamshir and twisted it in two.
“Three arrows,” he began in a voice that managed to carry over the distance, though Tariq could not detect any sentiment behind the words. “Three shots, Tariq Imran al-Ziyad. There is no one here to stop you. No one here to defend me. I’ll give you three arrows. Three chances to finish what you started by the well.”
“Why three?” Tariq mirrored the caliph’s impassive tone as he shifted his quiver onto his shoulder.
“One for your cousin.” The caliph thrust a sword into the sand before him, its jeweled hilt swaying in the moonlight. He flourished the other in a glittering sweep. “One for your aunt. And one for your love.”
Tariq returned his fixed stare.
Even from this distance, the caliph’s strange eyes possessed an otherworldly glow. “But when you fail—and you will fail—you will never again repeat what I just saw.”
“Then you are jealous?” Tariq called out, loud enough to echo across the cool sands.
A thin stream of pale purple clouds drifted above, moving too fast for comfort, yet too slow to convey anything of significance.
Tomorrow’s storm would come without warning. If at all.
“Jealousy is a childish, petty emotion.” The caliph switched the single shamshir to his left hand in a single, fluid motion. “I don’t feel jealousy. I feel rage.”
Tariq waited a beat. The boy-king’s words were in stark contrast to his actions. Was this finally a weakness? Finally something that made him seem less like a monster and more like a man?
“Do you worry about me, Khalid Ibn al-Rashid?”
The caliph hesitated, and that said more than words ever could. “There was a time I did. But the fact that you waited until Shahrzad slept to touch her shows me you know she would not approve. You will not disrespect her in such a manner again. Nor will you disrespect me.”
Tariq let his recurve bow dangle by his feet. “I did not do it to disrespect her. I am not trying to win her back.” He took a measured breath. “I know I’ve—lost.”
The single shamshir flashed through the air once more. “Yet you still wish to kill me.” It was not a question.