Each group of four was dressed in the same outfit, with the colors of each group’s attire a variation in deeper shades of the same cream and beige colors. By the time she looked back before they reached the main palace floor, the formation of the queue and the gradation in colors from lightest right behind her to the deepest at the end of it left her in no doubt.
They were her bridal procession.
She heard Laylah groaning. “Oh, man. I feel like a peacock!”
Aliyah looked down at her dress of deep reds and oranges. “And I feel like a fire breathing dragon. Someone should have told us what the color scheme was going to be.”
“By someone,” Laylah put in, in case Johara missed it, which in her condition, she
had,
“we mean your groom, who’s going to pay big-time for deciding your bridal procession outfits based on the dress he picked for you, and leaving us in the dark. Or I should say, in Technicolor.”
“Years from now,” Aliyah groaned, “your children are going to look at your wedding album and ask you why their aunties were perched on your sides looking like parrots.”
“You’re actually the splash of color bringing all this to life.” They both gave her yeah,
sure,
looks and she insisted, “I could never carry off those colors, and Shaheen knew it. But your brand of vivid beauty should never be subjected to anything less fiery and vital. And that is my professional opinion. I would never pick anything but bold, vibrant colors for either of you. And I can’t wait to design you some outfits that only you can do justice!”
“I always thought I’d like you if I got to know you. I was wrong.” Laylah hugged her exuberantly. “I’m going to
love
you.”
Aliyah hugged her on the other side. “I already do. It’s enough to feel how much you love Shaheen.”
Johara met Aliyah’s eyes and realized that was why Aliyah had decided she was innocent of stealing the jewels. As a woman in love herself, Aliyah had recognized that Johara would rather die than cause Shaheen heartache or harm.
Feeling her tears welling, she distracted herself by focusing on her surroundings. She wasn’t going to Shaheen with red eyes and streaked makeup.
Soon, the splendor she was rushing through occupied her focus for real—the palace she’d considered home, where she’d lived for most of her childhood, the best part of her life.
It was growing up here that had fanned the flames of the artistic tendencies she’d inherited from her parents. Moving from the plain practicality of New Jersey to this wonderland of embellishments and exoticness and grandeur blended from Persian, Ottoman and Mughal influences had fired her imagination from her first day here.
The palace had taken thousands of artisans and craftsmen three decades to finish in the mid-seventeenth century, and it had always felt to her as if the accumulation of history resonated in its halls, inhabited it walls. As much as the ancient bloodlines with all their trials and triumphs coursed through Shaheen’s and his family’s veins and stamped their bearing and characters, each inch of this place had been maintained as a testament to Zohayd’s greatness and the prosperity of its ruling house.
But all that would be for nothing if the jewels were not found. If she couldn’t figure out who’d forged them…
“We’re here!”
“Here” was before the doors to the ceremony hall where the bridal parade had been held for Shaheen. Though it had been agony to be there that night, she’d still felt the wonder of being there again.
As a child she hadn’t been allowed to attend royal functions held there. But when all was quiet, Shaheen had taken her there as frequently as she wished, to stay as long as she wanted, having the place all to herself to draw each corner of it, each inlay detail, each pierce work, each calligraphy panel.
The octagonal hall had always felt as if all the greatness, purpose and philosophy of the palace’s design converged there. It was the palace hub, gracefully enclosed by its central marble one-hundred-foot wide and high dome, its walls spread with intricate, geometric shapes, its eight soaring arches defining its space at ground level, each crowned by a second arch midway up the wall with the upper arches forming balconies. It was from those that she’d learned her best lessons of drawing perspective.
A few dozen feet from the hall’s soaring double doors, which were heavily worked in embossed bronze, gold and silver Zohaydan motifs, the music became louder. The quartertone-dominated Zohaydan music with its Indian, Turkish and Arabian influences and exotic instrumental arrangement and rhythm swept through the air, riding the fumes and scents of incense.
Then four footmen in black outfits embroidered with gold thread pulled back the massive doors by their circular knobs.
She stumbled to a stop, everything falling away.
She’d thought the ceremony would be a damage-control affair that would boil down to two purposes—the king’s to publicize their so-called secret marriage, and theirs, to get her hands on the fake jewels. But this…this…
She hadn’t, couldn’t have expected
this.
She moved again, propelled by the momentum of her companions across a threshold that felt as if it opened into another realm. Into a scene lifted right out of the most lavish of
One Thousand and One Nights.
From every arch hung rows of incense burners and flaming torches, against every wall rested miraculous arrangements of white and golden roses among backgrounds of lush foliage. Each pillar was wrapped in bronze satin that rained silver tassels and was worked heavily in gold patterns. Sparkling gold dust covered the marble floor. Everything shimmered under the ambient light like Midas’s vault, among the swirling sweetness of
ood,
musk and amber fumes.
And studding the scene were far more than the two thousand people who’d populated the first and only ceremony she’d attended here. A mind-boggling assortment, from those dressed in the latest exclusive fashions to those who did look as if they’d just stepped out of
Arabian Nights.
Her feverish eyes made erratic stops as she recognized faces. King Atef and King Kamal, sitting on a platform to one side on thronelike seats. Dozens of highest-order international political figures and celebrities. Queen Sondoss and Shaheen’s half brothers, Haidar and Jalal, among probably every other adult Aal Shalaan and their relatives.
The only one she couldn’t see was Shaheen.
Shaheen…he’d done all this. For her. But when? How? Where was he? She couldn’t be here, face all this, without him… “Johara! Breathe!”
She gulped a breath at Laylah’s prodding. Then another.
“
Stop.
You’ve hyperventilating,” Aliyah exclaimed.
She forced herself to regulate her breathing. She could just see the headlines if she fainted.
Pregnant Aal Shalaan Bride Passes Out At Wedding Ceremony.
Her vision had cleared and her steps had firmed when the openly gawking crowd parted to stand on two sides as she and her procession made their way through. She felt she was treading the insubstantial ground of a dream as the thunder of clapping rose and the music, which she realized issued from an extensive live ensemble, began the distinctive percussive melody of the most popular Zohaydan wedding song, the one that called everyone to come wonder at the bride’s splendor and her groom’s phenomenal luck. By the time Aliyah and Laylah were singing along, she was floating on auto.
Then she saw her father.
He was mounting three gold-satin covered steps to a gold-satin-covered platform at the epicenter of the hall. She’d chosen him to act as her proxy, the one who would put his hand in Shaheen’s during the ritual. She’d thought they’d all sit down and it would be over in minutes. Now it seemed his role included taking her to her groom with all the ceremony of this carefully choreographed piece.
She’d seen him for minutes last night with Shaheen and the king and only to tell him of the situation. To say he’d been shocked would be the understatement of the century.
He now waited for her, the litheness of his figure accentuated in a tight-fitting bronze silk tunic and pants, his chest heavy with the shining and colorful medals of honor and distinction he’d received throughout his service, his broad shoulders bearing the tags of the highest rank he’d quit. She felt Aliyah and Laylah fall behind as she climbed the steps, each diverging on one side of the platform to lead a portion of her procession to form a circle around it. As she reached the top, her father took her hands in his, his earlier shock replaced by lingering bewilderment tinged by guarded joy.
But it was the apology that lurked in the depths of his black eyes that made her pull him to her in a fierce hug.
He let out a ragged breath as his arms trembled around her. “I’m sorry I was so absorbed in my own problems I didn’t notice what was going on with you. Is that why you felt you couldn’t tell me? You thought I couldn’t be there for you?”
Mortification rose inside her. She wasn’t letting him in on more than he could think. She hugged him tighter. “
No.
If it concerns only me, I will always let you in, Daddy.”
“But it concerned Shaheen, too, and you were protecting him.” She nodded into his shoulder. He sighed, pulled back to look at her, his eyes level with hers. “You love him?” She nodded again, knew she didn’t have to say how much or for how long. It was there in her eyes. “Then this is the best thing that ever happened to me, to see you marry the man you love. I can’t think of a better man for you, or a better man, period. I do think Shaheen is the best of all the princes. And you know how highly I think of them all.”
“Even me, Berj? You think highly of me?” Johara jerked as Amjad descended on her and father’s tête-à-tête, clamping her father’s shoulder and tugging him under his, looking down into his startled eyes, his radiating that ruthless shrewdness and uncanny emerald fire. “Now, where could I have possibly gone wrong?”
“Crown Prince Amjad…” Her father looked totally confused. “I meant no offense…”
“Oh, don’t apologize to him, Dad.” Johara glared up into Amjad’s merciless teasing, trying to gauge if he was going to do more than tease, all but baring her teeth, warning him off.
“My impending sister-in-law has spoken.” Amjad did that thing he did so well, looking one in the eye and talking about them in third person, sidelining them. “Seems you’ve been granted license to offend, Berj. And I hope you’ll also reconsider your high opinion. We wouldn’t want to give me a good name, now would we?”
As her father smiled like someone who’d just walked into the middle of a conversation and was too embarrassed to ask what it was about, Amjad’s eyes traveled down the mind-boggling simulation of the pure gold cascading choker necklace, encrusted in two hundred fifty carats of diamonds ranging from pure ice to golden yellow, that covered her from high on her neck to the edge of her décolleté. “So which, in your opinion, is the
real
Pride of Zohayd, Berj? Your daughter or this?”
He touched the necklace. She stamped her foot on top of his.
Amjad didn’t even wince as her high heel jammed between his bones, his only response an intensifying of the bedeviling in his eyes. The tug of war had been subtle enough to go unnoticed by all, so her father almost jerked in shock when Amjad threw his head back on a guffaw as if out of the blue. The sound was so predatory it would have scared her if she weren’t so furious.
She was about to hiss to Amjad that she wasn’t above making a more overt retaliation if he dared renege on their deal when a storm of murmurs mushroomed, drowning out the music and her intentions.
As the crowd turned in a wave toward the new focus of attention, she knew. It was Shaheen.
“Grandstander,” Amjad murmured. Then he bent to deliver his next words in her ears. “Enjoy. But not so much that you forget what this is all about.”
“And don’t
you
forget my special forces gathered right outside this hall.”
Harres had materialized on her other side. He gave her a bolstering smile and Amjad a subtle tug, making him fall back, gesturing for her and Berj to precede them.
The moment their quartet descended from the other side of the platform, the lights dimmed, until the hall was dipped in darkness with only a spotlight following her procession, focused on her. She couldn’t see anything beyond her next step.
Her stampeding heart shifted into higher gear. She could feel that she was moving deeper into Shaheen’s orbit, felt his eyes on her, caressing her, loving her.
And though she couldn’t see him, she opened herself, letting him see everything inside her. Along with all of her that he knew he had, she gave him her gratitude that he hadn’t let this be a rushed apology of a ceremony. Even if she was dying of embarrassment, would have preferred something far more private and far, far less extravagant, she knew this was his way of shouting to the world his pride of being hers the loudest he could.
And she knew it was already causing untold damages.
She’d noted the pointed absence of all the tribes they’d been negotiating with. She could only surmise the worst.
But for now, he was giving her more miracles by the moment. And she would take them all and treasure each forever.