The Rose & the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn #2) - Renee Ahdieh Page 0,27

coins, the girl raced into the streets, her day’s work considered done. The other children scurried after her, eager to partake in her winnings.

Though he’d been soundly fleeced, Khalid thought it money well spent.

He crouched by the pail and let the lukewarm water wash across his stiffening palm. As he splashed some onto his face, he allowed himself the luxury of lowering his hood before dipping the gourd beneath the surface and ladling water onto his head.

Khalid let it drip down into his eyes. The water stung at first, so he pressed his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose, trying to allay the burn. When he stood, he rolled back his shoulders, basking in this temporary reprieve.

“You ungrateful cur.”

There was not even a moment to process the insult before two hands grabbed Khalid by the hood of his cloak and flung him face-first against the roughhewn wall of Rey’s oldest library. His foot caught on the pail, sloshing water onto the stone.

Though his sight remained blurred, he’d recognize his cousin’s voice anywhere.

“What the hell are you doing?” Khalid demanded, struggling for breath.

Jalal wrapped a fist in Khalid’s rida’, spinning him around. “I knew you were angry with me, but I never thought you capable of this.” His voice was choked by rage. “Truly, I never thought you could be this vile. I suppose I should have known better. I’ve always put too much stock in family.”

Khalid blinked hard, seeking a point of sanity in the madness taking shape around him. “Step back before you make an irrevocable mistake, Captain al-Khoury.”

“There’s no one to save you, Khalid-jan,” Jalal said, with a look to shrivel a cloudless sky. “And it’s your own damned fault. No Vikram. No bodyguards. For once, we’re going to fight fair, and I’m going to give you the beating you’ve been due for over a decade, you thankless bastard.”

Though his words were clipped and precise, Jalal’s features were haggard. He still had not managed a proper shave. Weariness pooled in the shadows beneath his eyes.

Weariness tinged by fury.

“You can try, by means fair or foul,” Khalid shot back in a cool tone, despite his unsettled state. “But I insist you reveal your reason for such behavior before I soundly trounce you, as I’d like to know what I’m supposedly guilty of—beyond having the bad luck to call you cousin.”

At that, Jalal reared back and punched Khalid in the face.

Khalid had been born the son of a king. An eighth-generation al-Rashid. As such, it was only the third time in his life anyone had ever struck him with such unmitigated force. With such visceral hatred.

First his father. Then Shahrzad.

And now Jalal.

Khalid reeled to the ground, his fingers clawing at the dirt. Blood thundered in his brow, excruciating in its force. The chained beast in his head bayed, thrashing about, its claws raking across his eyeballs.

Still, Khalid pushed himself up to his knees . . .

And launched into Jalal’s torso.

They landed in the dirt like two angry schoolboys, in a jumble of arms and legs and clumsy scabbards. Jalal lobbed a fist in Khalid’s direction, even while struggling to right himself. It glanced off Khalid’s jaw. In response, Khalid shoved the side of his cousin’s face into the dirt and pressed a knee to Jalal’s stomach. He managed to land several unforgiving blows to Jalal’s head and chest before Jalal kicked him off, spitting a mouthful of blood and elbowing Khalid without mercy near his brow once—

Then twice more.

A crowd of curious onlookers had begun to gather, surely wondering what had prompted two well-dressed young men to come to such wicked fisticuffs.

Khalid clutched his skull, trying to crush away the agony. Needles of light cut the edges of his vision. Stabbed his temples. Enraged by his cousin’s inexplicably brutal attack, he rolled to standing and reached for his shamshir.

Jalal’s eyes went wide. Then, without a second thought, he scrambled to his feet and unsheathed his scimitar. “Draw!” A line of crimson dripped down his chin.

Khalid’s fingers tightened around the hilt. Yet he refused to unsheathe his sword.

Refused to engage a loved one in a battle of lethal force.

“Do it, you coward!” Dirt marred one side of Jalal’s face, coating his skin in an eerie dash of glittering dust.

Even from where he stood—even in a silence fraught by nerves—Khalid could see a suspicious mist forming over Jalal’s eyes.

It iced the blood in his veins.

“You think I can’t beat you?” Jalal strode closer, brandishing his scimitar. “Or is this