Her fingers curled around the sash of her robe as if it were a lifeline. ‘Were you looking for me?’
‘No.’ He spoke harshly. He had to. There was no time for hope now. It was too late; it had always been too late. He swallowed down all the words he wanted to say, the professions, the promises. Pointless. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, and backed a step away.
‘Aarif…’ There was so much hunger and need in that voice, that one word. His name. So much striving and hope and desperation. If she spoke again, Aarif knew he would break. He would lose control, and he would take her into his arms and damn the consequences. To them all.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, and his voice broke; he heard it, felt it and knew that something inside him was breaking too, cracking apart and tearing him asunder and there was nothing he could do about it. Shaking his head, he turned and walked hurriedly away.
The moon was a pale sickle of silver in the sky when Kalila crept out of her bedroom. It was well after midnight, and the palace had settled softly into sleep.
The darkness felt like a living thing, soft and velvety, wrapping her in anonymity as she crept along the corridor. Her palms were slick and her heart was beating so loudly she felt it roaring in her ears, seeming to echo through the endless hallway as she made her way to Aarif’s bedroom.
The idea had come to her that afternoon, when she’d seen a palace servant tidying a bedroom upstairs. She’d stopped the young girl and asked her where Prince Aarif’s bedroom was, as she had something to return to him.
The little maid had been shocked at such a question, but Kalila was too desperate and determined to care. She’d stared her down, and finally the girl had stammered that the prince’s bedroom was down the hallway, the last door on the left.
‘Thank you,’ Kalila said coolly, and moved away, her heart pounding, her face flushed in triumph.
All that remained was waiting…waiting through an endless dinner with a dozen faceless guests, rounds of toasts to Kalila and the still-absent Zakari, meaningless chit-chat with visiting dignitaries. She couldn’t even remember what she said as she passed by one important official or royal after another, her eyes resting with the barest interest on Prince Sebastian, heir to the Aristan throne and, it would seem, Zakari’s competition.
Aarif kept his distance throughout the whole meal, so she did not even meet his eyes once. She pushed the angry edge of despair this caused away, refused to acknowledge it. Tonight. She still had tonight.
It was all she had.
When the dinner was finally over, there was yet more waiting to be endured as Juhanah and the other women prepared her for bed, giggling and offering knowing smiles and sly winks that simply bounced off Kalila.
‘So romantic! Like a fairy tale, Princess. You shan’t see the king until your wedding day…but you know how handsome he is!’
Kalila had let the comments, the jokes and sighs, the winks and nods, wash over her. She was beyond it now. All she cared about was seeing Aarif. All she had left, her last desperate throw of the dice, was to find him and see him tonight.
She kept one hand along the wall, guiding her footsteps, as she inched her way down the dark corridor. If someone found her, what would she say? How could she explain?
Kalila could only pray that no one would.
At one point she heard low voices, masculine voices of unknown guests, and she pressed against the wall, grateful for the darkness. The men didn’t come down the corridor, but moved on, to another wing of the palace. Kalila breathed a slow, silent sigh of relief.
In the darkness that one hallway seemed to go on for ever, an endless succession of doors like a circle of Dante’s Inferno.
She continued to inch forward until finally—finally—she came to the last door on the left. Aarif’s door.
Her fingers curled slickly around the doorknob and, breathing a final prayer of supplication and hope, she turned it.
The door swung silently on its hinges; the room, Kalila saw, was swathed in darkness. The windowed doors that led to a terraced balcony were flung open to the night, and she could hear the chirring of cicadas from outside.
Her eyes, already used to the darkness, swept the room and saw within seconds that it was empty. The bed sheets were tousled, but no form lay there. The en suite bathroom, Kalila saw, was also dark.
Disappointment fell on her like a suffocating blanket, extinguishing the faint flickers of hope she’d been sustaining all afternoon, since she’d hatched this plan.
A crazy plan, a pointless one. It hadn’t worked.
She stood there for a moment, uncertain, not wanting to leave, unable to bear it. She could wait, she supposed, for Aarif to return, yet what if a servant came? What if he returned and he wasn’t alone?
Kalila nibbled at her lower lip and as she stood there, waiting, hesitating, still hoping despite the swamping disappointment. Her choice was made for her.
‘Kalila!’ Aarif stood in the doorway to the balcony, and even in the darkness Kalila saw the shock, the disapproval etched on his face. Yet she was too relieved and happy to care.
‘Aarif!’ She stepped in the room and closed the door, leaving them both in the darkness, the moon the only light.
‘What are you doing here?’
Kalila swallowed; she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Aarif. He wore loose, linen trousers and no shirt; his chest was lean and brown and gloriously bare. She wanted to touch it, to feel his hot skin against hers. She craved that connection, needed that intimacy.
Aarif waited, his body tense, and Kalila swallowed and forced her gaze away from his chest. ‘I needed to speak to you.’
Aarif shook his head, his arms folded. ‘There is nothing to say.’
‘This is our last chance to talk before I am wed,’ Kalila said, trying to keep her voice level. ‘Don’t you think there might be something to say?’
Aarif was silent for a long moment, and then he sighed. He pulled on a shirt discarded on a chair and turned on a table lamp, bathing the room with its simple, masculine furnishings and spartan design in a warm glow. ‘Very well. If you feel there is more to say, say it. Then you must go—and quickly, before your presence here is discovered.’
Kalila swallowed again. She’d hoped for a better reception than this. This was like talking to a blank face, a brick wall. How could she convince Aarif to listen? To
hear
?
How could she even know what to say?
‘I’ve been thinking and thinking these last few days,’ she began, and was ashamed to hear the telltale wobble in her voice. She lifted her chin, strengthened her spirit. ‘I have to believe, Aarif, that there are more choices available to us than you’re willing to consider.’
He raised one eyebrow, coldly sceptical. ‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’ Her nails dug into her palms; she longed to wipe that cool, cynical smile off his face, strip his armour so he was as bare and vulnerable as she was. ‘I realised today that Zakari has made no effort to contact me,’ she said, her voice stilted, awkward. Why were the words so hard to find? ‘And it made me wonder if perhaps he has as little interest in marrying me as I have in marrying him.’
She stopped, waited for Aarif to say something, for the light to dawn, the wonderful realisation.
Maybe there’s a chance for us after all
. But he did nothing, said nothing, just kept looking at her with that blank, bored indifference.
Kalila wanted to scream. Why was she bothering? Why
was she laying herself open to this, to him, when he looked as if he couldn’t wait for her to leave?
Had she been wrong?
‘Maybe if we spoke to Zakari,’ she forced herself to continue, ‘he would realise there is no need to marry me. And…’ She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t ask Aarif to marry her, not when he was like this. The raw humiliation was too much, too deep. ‘Aarif, please,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t look at me like that. Like you don’t care, when you told me you did. I’m
trying
—’ Her voice broke and she gulped back a sob, for she knew if she started to cry, she wouldn’t be able to stop. She’d bawl and howl for all her disappointed dreams, and she couldn’t afford that now. ‘Do you love me?’ she finally managed, her voice coming out in a gasp as she struggled to force the tears down, and finally succeeded.
Aarif didn’t answer. A muscle beat in his jaw, and something darkened in his eyes. He was a man, Kalila realised, at war with himself, with his very nature. Duty versus desire. Honour versus love.
‘Do you?’ she asked again, and there was both challenge and need in her voice.
‘It doesn’t
matter
,’ he bit out. He turned away, raking one hand through his hair in frustration. ‘Kalila, don’t you see? I tried to tell you before. It doesn’t matter what I feel, what I want—’
‘Why not?’ Her voice rose in a cry, and when Aarif swung around, his look a warning, she knew just how dangerous it was for her to be here, to be heard. ‘Aarif, why not?’ she asked again, her voice quiet. Reasonable. ‘Why don’t your feelings matter? Who said they couldn’t?’
‘I did,’ he replied flatly. ‘I told you before, Kalila. My life is not my own, and it hasn’t been since that day…’ His throat worked, and he shook his head. ‘I will not dishonour my brother by claiming for my own what is rightfully his—’
‘You’re talking about
me,
’ Kalila interjected in a furious
whisper. ‘Me, a body, a human being with a heart and brain and soul. I’m not a possession—not yours, not Zakari’s.’
‘You agreed to this marriage—’
‘Yes, and I will stand by and say my vows
if need be
. But maybe I don’t need to, Aarif! Maybe Zakari would be relieved to find a way out of marriage to me, and still save the alliance between our countries. Why is it not possible? Or are you too afraid to hope, to believe that there could be something good for us? For you?’
Aarif didn’t speak, he just shook his head, his eyes stormy and dark. Kalila took a step forward, her hands held out in supplication.
‘You warned me that night—the night we were as one—that I thought I was in love with you. And perhaps then I fooled myself with fairy tales, because I wanted to believe. I wanted to be rescued. But I don’t want that any more, Aarif, and I know you well enough to know you aren’t something out of a fairy tale and you aren’t going to rescue me. I want to shape my own destiny, my own identity, and the only way I know of doing that is by loving you.’
‘No—’
‘Yes.’ She was strong now, made strong by her love for him. ‘I love you. Not like a child, or a silly girl who believes in foolish stories, but as a woman. I love the man you are, a man who believes in honour and duty and sacrifice. A man who can make me smile, and who reads silly mysteries.’ Kalila was gratified to see the faintest flicker of a smile pass over Aarif like a beneficent shadow, and she continued. ‘I love you, and I think you love me. Am I wrong?’
The silence was endless, mortifying. Kalila held his gaze and waited; she had nothing more to lose, and that was almost a good feeling. A strong one.
‘No,’ Aarif finally said, softly. ‘You are not wrong.’
The rush of sweet relief made her dizzy, and she had to reach out to grab the back of a chair to steady herself, give
her the strength to continue. ‘Then that’s not something to take lightly, Aarif. That’s not something people find every day, or even ever. And yet you’re about to throw it away, without even talking to your brother—’
‘Don’t you realise,’ Aarif cut her off, anguish tearing his voice, ‘how impossible your request is? If I tell Zakari I love you, Kalila, he is put in an impossible position. It is worse than what you or I must tell him already, which is that I stole your innocence.’
‘It wasn’t
stealing
—’
‘It was! Whether you think it or not, I was the one who should have turned away that night, I was the one who should have known to stop. But I couldn’t.’ There was such a hopeless despair in Aarif’s voice that Kalila wanted to weep. ‘God help me, I couldn’t. I wanted you, I needed you, and I pushed everything else aside.’ His eyes held hers with bleak honesty as he finished quietly, ‘I found something in your arms I’ve never had anywhere else, and I shall not find it again.’
‘It doesn’t have to be this way—’
‘Our choices have been made for us. ‘It is written’, is it not?’ He smiled, but there was no humour or happiness in the gesture, only despair. ‘Kalila, take comfort if you can in knowing I love you. But you are better off with Zakari—I destroy everything I go near. At least with him you will be queen.’
‘I don’t want to be queen!’ Her voice echoed through the room, but Kalila was too furious to care. ‘I want
you
. Aarif, you cannot live your life as a punishment for what happened before. Zafir is dead, but it is not your fault—’
‘Don’t.’ The word was quiet, lethal. Kalila knew she was treading on treacherous ground, yet this was at the heart of the matter, the poisonous root, and it had to be plucked. There was no future, no healing or happiness, until this terrible memory was made whole.
‘It wasn’t your fault he died,’ she said quietly. ‘You were responsible for him, it is true, but you didn’t kidnap him. You
didn’t give yourself a bullet wound, you didn’t do any of the things that led to his death. You must let it go.’
Aarif was silent, yet Kalila could feel the energy—the anger—pulsating from him, through the room. ‘You think I don’t know that?’ he finally asked. ‘You think I don’t remind myself of it every day? Do you think my parents, my brothers and sisters, have not told me the same many times before?’ His voice was pitched low, yet it throbbed with a desperate intensity. ‘Do you think it
matters
?’
‘It should—’ Kalila whispered, and he shook his head, the motion savage.
‘Do you know what I dream of? That nightmare you once rescued me from? I dream of Zafir. He is calling for me, me, not Kaliq, not anyone else. He’s begging me, pleading. “Save me,” he says. “Save me, Aarif.”’ His voice broke on his own name before he hardened his tone once more. ‘He looked to me to rescue him. I hear him in my dreams, and his voice grows fainter and fainter, and then I am underwater, and I can hear nothing at all. I can do nothing. I am like a dead man.’