burn. “Do not—”
“Until you can learn to let go of your hatred, you will always love yourself more.”
Laughter burst from Tariq’s lips, dark and scathing in tone. “Can you honestly claim not to hate me?”
The caliph paused. “No. I do not hate you. But I deeply resent your past, more than I can put to words.” He restored his blades to a single sword and began pacing toward him. “Do you know how many times I could have killed you, Tariq Imran al-Ziyad? How many times I’ve wished, in the blackest reaches of my soul, that you were no more? I’ve known who you were—who your family was—for a long time. My father would have killed you simply for looking at Shahrzad the way you do. For myself, I would have killed you. But for her, I didn’t.” He sheathed his sword with a quick snap. “And I never would have, but for the events of tonight,” he said, almost as an afterthought.
Tariq clenched a hand around his bow-grip, taking the caliph’s confession into consideration. As difficult as it was for Tariq to admit, he did not believe the caliph to be lying. For he did not seem prone to deceit. Which put to question many other suspicions Tariq had long harbored against him. Suspicions that had long begged for answers.
Tariq’s hatred could no longer remain festering in their shadow.
“Why did you murder my cousin?” he asked in a terse voice.
“Because I thought I didn’t have a choice,” the caliph responded with care. “I believed it was taken from me by a man who wished for me to suffer as he suffered. A man who sought to”—he took a halting breath—“curse me for my heedlessness. To curse the families of Rey with the deaths of their daughters each dawn. And in so doing, the man cursed the whole of Khorasan.” A trace of anguish flickered across the caliph’s gaze—an anguish that hinted at an untold amount of suffering. He answered as though he expected to answer for many years to come. As though he knew no answer would ever be sufficient.
“A . . . curse? You killed my cousin because of a curse?” Incredulity flared through Tariq. His eyes grew wide, blurring his sight to all around him for an instant.
“I was wrong to believe I didn’t have a choice,” the caliph said quietly, continuing to make his way toward Tariq. “So very wrong. And I can never right this wrong. Nor can I right the wrongs to your family. But I can promise to make amends, if you will grant me the chance.”
Tariq gritted his teeth. Despite this revelation—despite the realization that this must have been what Shazi had been trying to tell him all along—the caliph’s answer was truly not an answer. It was merely a string of hollow reassurances.
Nothing of substance.
“Your promises are but empty words,” Tariq shot back. “Said all too late.”
“My promises are not empty words.” The caliph stopped a body’s length away from him. “Though a promise means little without a measure of trust.”
Tariq’s jaw set. “The sheikh of this camp once told me trust is not a thing given; it is a thing earned. You have not yet earned mine.”
The caliph’s mouth curved into a reticent smile. “I think I’d like to meet this sheikh.”
A spell of awkward silence passed before Tariq responded, his words equally reticent. “Though I’m loath to admit it, I suspect he’d like you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He likes a good love story.” Tariq sighed resignedly.
“I’m not yet certain if this is a good love story.”
At this quiet pronouncement, Tariq caught sight of a vulnerability buried deep beneath the arrogance. More of the man behind the monster.
Tariq paused to consider the boy-king he’d so long despised. So long wanted to see die a thousand slow deaths at his willing and eager hands.
For the second time, Tariq saw the hint of something . . . more.
Not something he liked. Perhaps not something he could ever like.
But perhaps something he no longer hated.
“For your sake, it had better be a good love story,” he whispered.
At that, the Caliph of Khorasan bowed to Tariq Imran al-Ziyad, a hand to his brow.
After a moment, with the slightest twinge behind his heart—
Tariq returned the gesture.
AWRY
WHEN SHAHRZAD AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING, IT was with a spinning head and a leaden shoulder. Her tongue felt thick and heavy, and every muscle in her body ached.
But she was warm. Warmer than she could ever remember being.
For the