call it falling, would we? If it wasn’t overwhelming, we might say we stepped into it. Or slid into it, maybe. But everyone knows falling can only end one of two ways. Either you stick the landing or you don’t, and either way, it’s probably going to hurt.”
That word echoed in his chest. In his head. It beat in him like a pulse.
Like a drum.
“I have spent my life in service to this country,” he threw at her. Then his hands were on her again, somehow, holding her close. The look in her eyes was killing him. She was killing him, as surely as if she wielded a sword or gun. When all she was doing was looking back at him as if she already knew all the noise and clamor inside of him. As if she heard that same drum. “My entire life, everything I have learned and everything I became, I’ve done so to better serve and rule this kingdom. And not merely rule from afar, as so many do. I put my body into the fires of war to protect my people. I always will. This is who I am.”
“Of course it is,” she said softly. “No one doubts you are a great king, Tarek. How could they?”
“What you’re asking me to do is—”
But he couldn’t finish.
And all the while the drums grew louder.
“I’m asking you to love me,” Anya said, but she didn’t sound anguished. She sounded resolute. “I’m asking you to let me love you. I’m asking you to let us build a family, but not because it’s our duty. Not only because of that and not only because we intend to raise them in your family’s tradition, but because we want them to really understand what a family is.”
“Anya...” he gritted out.
“You’re right that I never mentioned protection,” she said, and to his astonishment, she smiled. How could she smile when he was being torn asunder where he stood? “I didn’t even think of it and I used to give lectures on the topic. How could I possibly have failed to think about something so important?”
She shook her head, still smiling. Still wrecking him without even seeming to try.
Tarek tried to gather himself, but it was no use.
“I’ll tell you why,” Anya continued. “Despite some reports, I didn’t lose my mind in that cell. If anything, it clarified my life for me. And then there you were, with your hand outstretched, and I knew.”
He shook his head at that as if he could ward it off—push her away—but even as he did, he held her close.
“I couldn’t admit it to myself,” she told him. “I didn’t have the words. But I knew, Tarek. And I think that every choice I made that day was in service to this. Us. To building the family we were always meant to be.”
“Anya. Habibti.”
But she didn’t stop. “I don’t want a family like the one I already have, Tarek. I don’t want the coldness, the contempt. I think it’s possible that my father knew how to love a long time ago, but I don’t think it’s in him any longer. I don’t ever want a child of mine to feel the way that I have, all these years. And I don’t believe that the man you are—the King you are—would tolerate treating his own child the way you saw my father treat me. You leaped to my defense. How could you visit that upon your own?”
He didn’t understand what was happening in him. The earthquake that was ripping him open when he could see that the palms behind her stood tall.
“My mother warned against this,” he managed to get out. “She was never involved in the harem’s squabbles, because she wasn’t emotional. She thought that it made her a better queen that she did not love my father and I have always agreed. The less emotion, the better. But I neglected to guard against other kinds of love. I was reckless enough to love my brother so blindly I overlooked his flaws, and nearly died for that folly. I want no more emotion in my life, Anya. None.”
“Your brother is a coward and a snake. He’s precisely where he belongs, and you put him there. And loved him enough to let him live.”
“It was an act of mercy, nothing more.”
“Tarek. What is mercy if not love?”
He wanted to shout at her. He wanted to shout down the trees. He wanted to wrestle the stars, and beat them into