Shihab laughed and closed the space between them, cutting Sahayl off with a kiss, ignoring the pain flaring up in his face, along his sides, and in his right leg. He sank his hands into the hair he'd been dying to touch from the start, taking advantage of Sahayl's surprise to deepen the kiss, tasting Dark Spice and the almond pastries he knew were Sahayl's favorite.
"Shadowfire…" Sahayl whispered when Shihab finally let them breathe. Those gold, gold eyes watched him intently. So dark, where Bahadur's were so pale; it was a fascinating contrast. "Is this really what you want?"
"He's been scheming for a while," Isra said, rolling his eyes. "You'd better just give in, though he'll be impossible to live with." He made a face at Shihab. "I wonder if it ever occurs to you, brat, that maybe not everyone agrees with what you scheme up."
"Why wouldn't they?" Shihab said, nipping at Sahayl's lips, then winking at Isra. "Don't I always turn out to be right? The four of us belong together, and I can think of much worse than being a member of our Prince's harem."
"Four of us?" Sahayl asked, blinking.
"Four of us," Shihab said, and laughed - ignoring the pain - at the way Sahayl and Bahadur carefully did not look at each other.
"Your father is going to kill you," Isra said.
Shihab grinned. "He's not allowed to touch me now, so there."
Twenty One
Sahayl surveyed the men gathered before. Zulfiqar and the Cobra he'd brought were perhaps the only ones who did not look furious about their presence in the courtroom.
That this was necessary depressed him. He could understand bickering, even the occasional brawl. After so many years of constant war, it was ridiculous to think it would simply stop. But to purposely, viciously beat a man for no reason?
It was the one thing he could not forgive.
"These are the ones who beat you, Shihab?"
"Yes, my Prince," Shihab said quietly but firmly from where he sat beside Sahayl's throne.
Isra sat on the opposite side…so like Shah and his men, it was disconcerting to be the one in the throne now… Bahadur stood just two steps down from the rise upon which the throne sat, looming in that way he had over the malcontent crowd.
"Brothers," Sahayl, addressing the prisoners, "Sons of the Desert. Give me one good reason I should not execute you all." He kept his expression blank as his word rippled through them, the prisoners looking to their Sheiks for reassurance. But even the Scorpion Sheik, obviously displeased with Sahayl's words, said nothing to reassure his men. "None? Have you any reasons to offer for doing what you did?"
"Heathen," a Scorpion bit out. "Just look at him."
Sahayl eyed the man coldly. "He is no heathen, and even if he were I made it clear he was under my protection. You've broken many laws in harming him and for what? What did you accomplish?"
There was no reply.
Zulfiqar stirred. "They have acted stupidly, Highness. One would think they had sand in place of brains, and while I am a firm believer in the laws that keep the Desert from outright mayhem - I feel perhaps execution would be extreme for this first offense. They were foolish and rash. I will support whatever punishment you exact, but I repeat that I think execution would be extreme."
Sahayl nodded. "I agree - though if this happens again I will not stay my hand in that respect." He looked at each of the offenders in turn. "Sons of the Desert, I have decided perhaps it would behoove you to leave the Desert for a time. You are banished from the Sands for a period of five years - one for each mark you have left that will never fade." The faint slash across Shihab's forehead, another down one thigh, across his left forearm, and two across his ribs. From rings, jewelry, where Shihab had encountered rough, sharp bits of broken stone.
There was a brief moment of stunned silence, and then everyone but Cobra exploded into protests, shouts of outrage. "You cannot do that," the Scorpion Sheik said. "I was willing to let you punish them, as it was your man who was harmed, but to banish them from the Desert is going too far."
"Too far?" Sahayl repeated. "Need I read you the laws? You seem to keep forgetting, Scorpion, that I am in charge - both a Prince with every right to the Desert, and the one who controls the Broken Palace. You should be grateful I am not killing him."
"I would rather die than go live with heathens for five years! Even for five days," a Scorpion declared, rising to his feet and struggling against the ropes that bound his arms behind his back. "I am a Son of the Lady of the Sands."
"Then you should have acted as the Lady bid you, instead of beating a single man with four companions," Sahayl replied. "Is that the act of brave and noble sons of the Desert?" He cut them off with a sharp motion and answered his own question. "No, it is not. It is the behavior of cowards. I will not tolerate it. You are banished. Tomorrow morning you will be escorted to the border of Tavamara, and from there escorted to the royal palace. My brother will decided what suits you best. If you commit a single wrong while you are there, my brother will punish you as he sees fit - and that includes execution. Remember that when you think to do what you should not - that if you commit a wrong too great, you will die in Tavamara and not in the arms of the Lady of the Sands."
The men fell silent.
"Have you anything to say, my Sheiks?"
It was Zulfiqar who broke the silence first. "The sentence is fair, Highness."
A moment later Fox nodded as well. "As you will, Highness. My men will heed the sentence."
Scorpion remained silent for several more minutes, but just as Sahayl started to press him, he gave a curt nod. "As you say…Highness."
"Then let them pack and say their farewells. I will trust you, my Sheiks, to ensure they do not try to flee." He motioned them away. "You are free to go. Report to the northern border of the city at dawn."
"Highness," Zulfiqar replied, and hauled his man to his feet, rapidly departing the courtroom.
The other two Sheiks were quick to do the same.
Shihab looked at Sahayl in amazement. "Banishment? And you've already worked it out with Shah? I thought we had trouble getting messages to him."
Sahayl smiled. "I did not have the ability to use desert falcons before. Jabbar has been most helpful in the matter of relaying messages."
Isra smirked.
"Oh, be quiet," Shihab muttered, obviously annoyed with himself for not having figured it out.
"How did you think of banishment? That was clever. It may even prove useful later, if they don't waste all their time hating it."
Sahayl sighed. "We can only hope they are not that foolish. Only the Lady and time can say.
I hope you are content, shadowfire. As the one hurt, you had the right to demand their deaths."
"Of course not," Shihab said. "I'm alive and will be well with a few more days of rest. As the Cobra Sheik said - mostly they were just stupid. They were all young men….surely not more than twenty or so." He made a face. "Which just goes to show how weak I really am."
"Hardly weak, my shadowfire," Sahayl said with a faint smile. "Five to one is difficult odds for any unarmed man. I think perhaps only Bahadur might have come out of that one the winner." He smiled as Bahadur chuckled and came to sit with them.
"I think those Scorpions would have proved troublesome, my Prince," Bahadur replied. He reached out to trace the bruise on Shihab's cheek. "The Lady spared you broken bones, little shadowfire. That one Scorpion looked as though he could have accomplished the deed with little effort. I am surprised he did not put up a fight over the manner. From the look in his eye, he does not consider matters satisfactorily concluded."
Shihab snorted. "He's being banished, warhorse. I can see where that would displease him."
"That is not what I meant and you know it, brat," Bahadur replied.
Sahayl frowned pensively. "Scorpion is already under watch - no doubt they're aware of some of the watchers, but they are not aware of all of them." He smiled briefly, proudly.
"Ghost is not called so simply because we inhabit the Broken Palace."
"So when are you planning on leaving, Sahayl?" Shihab asked.
"We are pulling out tomorrow. Isra will be going with Noor in your place."
Shihab made a face. "I'm going to go out of my mind just waiting here for everyone and doing absolutely nothing."
"Knowing you, shadowfire," Sahayl said teasingly, "you will find plenty of mischief to cause. I ask only that you stay in bed while you do it."
Shihab grinned and stood up, moving carefully to sit on the armrest of Sahayl's seat. "What happens if I get out of bed? Do I get punished, hmm? What sort of punishment are we discussing?"
Chuckling, Sahayl said nothing, merely shook his head and stood up, fingers tugging lightly at Shihab's hair. "Behave."
"Never" Shihab snagged his robe and yanked him back, tugging him down for a kiss. "Where are you going?"
Sahayl's levity faded as he stood up, eyes sliding away, fastened on something only he could see. "There is…something I must do. I have been putting it off. If we are here for another day, I should…" He sighed softly. "I should be back by dark. If I'm not, no doubt I was dragged away to attend to something." Smiling faintly, he turned and strode from the room before they could get more questions in.
Outside the smile turned into a pensive frown and he slowly made his way through the palace, dodging everyone he could, to a room at the farthest end of the palace. Once it had merely been a storeroom, but Ghost had long ago converted it to its present purpose.
The room had been expanded in size, and filled with myriad shelves. On those shelves were all the most recent dead. Eventually, when the fighting stopped for a time, they would hold the ceremony to honor the dead and then return the ashes to the Desert.
Sahayl stopped in front of the only urn in the room that bore than simple family markers - the urn that marked a Sheik. Larger, made of gold and set with a ruby that was the stone always wore by Sheiks and Amirs. Later it would be set in a room of commemoration alongside all the other Ghost Sheiks, so that all would remember Hashim and his place in Ghost's history.
But what was that place? He had earned Ghost more enemies than friends, something which was not necessarily bad but which the rest of Ghost had secretly disagreed with. Hashim had been known for his brutality, the way he crushed all those who stood in his way.
Even his wife and son.
Sahayl stared at the carefully carved name, unable to recall anything but the moment he'd realized his father was dead - the first thing he'd felt had been relief. It was a terrible, shameful thing. Hashim had been his father above all else, he should not have been glad he was dead.
"Do you miss him?" Isra asked softly as he drew up beside Sahayl, idly brushing back strands of his fine, black hair, blue eyes intent on Sahayl. "I don't think I would."
"I…" Sahayl struggled for what to say. He'd intended to do this alone, had thought he needed to do it alone, but now that Isra was here…maybe alone was the very last thing he'd wanted or needed. "I don't know. He was my father."
"He was your father so you should?" Isra snorted softly. "I never knew my parents. The things I heard about my mother were seldom nice and Witcher told me our father was even worse. I certainly don't miss them, and if my mother is still alive I have no desire to see her. I don't owe anything to people who should have been there for me but weren't. Your father…certainly doesn't deserve the torment you're obviously going through."
Sahayl said nothing, Isra's words tumbling around in his head. "He wasn't always bad."
"Neither was my mother," Isra replied.
"I…" Sahayl reached out to touch the ruby set into the urn, but stopped at the last moment at the sight of the gold signet on his finger where the Ghost Sheik ring should be. Zulfiqar had said his father would be proud…
…But if Hashim were still alive, he never would have agreed to let other Tribes into the Broken Palace. He would have refused to let Sahayl go to Tavamara for help…and if Sahayl had defied him, he likely would not have survived Hashim's beating upon his return.
Nor would he have been able to return a Prince.
Even assuming he had managed everything, Hashim wouldn't have been proud - he would have pleased with the sudden increase in his own power, would have used it towards his own ends.
So it was better, in the end, that Hashim was dead. He had control of Ghost, Wafai, Noor, and Kahlil were able to fully exercise their own authority, were finally flourishing as they should have always been able to…he was a Prince, was helping the Desert.
Everything was better with Hashim dead.
Sahayl curled his hand into a fist. His chest ached, felt tight.
"You really do miss him, don't you?"
"I just…" Sahayl fell silent again, afraid he wouldn't be able to finish the sentence. He gasped as Isra suddenly wrapped around him, held him tight, head resting in the hollow of his shoulder so that he could feel Isra's breath on his skin. "Saa, desert rose…I just wanted him not to hate me."
Isra laughed softly, warm against Sahayl's throat. "No one could hate you, Sahayl. I should know. I tried rather hard to hate you and look where I am now. My impression of Hashim is that if he'd hated you, he would have simply killed you. Or cast you out, like my father did my mother. He kept you Amir - that has to count for something."
"He had no other sons and was too proud to name someone outside the family as Amir. It is as simple as that." He'd thought it meant something more, once, but pride had driven almost everything Hashim did. Pride had demanded he somehow mold - beat - his son into his image. Or, failing that, into submission.
A soft sigh broke into his thoughts. "Sahayl…has anyone ever told you that you think too much? My honored uncle loves to rail at me for never thinking enough - you are the exact opposite. Too complicated. Hashim died fighting, and you have gone from being Ghost Sheik to Desert Prince in a matter of weeks. Something to be proud of, and he would be proud of that. So stop standing around in this gloomy room already and come keep Shihab from trying to make me play taaki again because I swear to the Lady I will shove every last tile down his throat-"