AT FIRST, ALIZEH THOUGHT SHE was dreaming.
Her head felt lush and heavy, mellowed by the honeyed sounds and
scents of daybreak. It seemed as if people were speaking to her, but it was difficult to distinguish voices from the trills of chatty birds and the distant roar of moving water, and she was too distracted besides. Delicious sunlight warmed the wool of her cloak, a cool breeze coaxing her hood to rise and fall against her face. Her lips curved into a smile as her eyes slit open, a blur of amorphous forms crystallizing into an astonishment of color above her: vivid leaves of towering trees embroidered like lacework across a
cloudless sky; a trio of bright red finches shooting through it all like fireworks. Alizeh made a gentle sound of contentment before closing her eyes again.
“No, miss – please stay awake –”
“She appears to be smiling,” came a familiar, feminine voice. “Perhaps she chose to sleep outside?”
“If that’s true, why does she seem incapable of waking?”
Alizeh giggled. It sounded almost as if her Ardunian friends were here – Omid and Miss Huda and even Deen. This was a possibility so absurd it
seemed a stretch even for a dream. She rolled onto her side, blades of grass tickling her nose as her oversized hood fell forward and obscured her face entirely, plunging her back into a glimmering darkness. She drew in
lungfuls of the damp soil and sweet air, delighting in the ineffable magic of dew. Oh it was heavenly here, wherever she was. The dream was generous, too, the confluence of so many things she loved – the serenity of nature, the soundscapes of early morning, the ebullient hues of life – with none of the ominous shadows that so often ruled over her in slumber. Alizeh thought
she might sleep indefinitely, if only given the opportunity to stay right here. “Your Majesty.”
Alizeh startled at the strong voice. Her mind, which had not yet met the moment, was a step behind her heart, now pounding against her chest.
Overwhelming intuition demanded she pay attention, but Alizeh could not place the speaker, even as she accepted he was important.
“Your Majesty.” Again, but gently now. “Why are you lying on the ground?” The surprising weight of a hand landed atop her cloaked head. “Are you in danger? Have you been hurt?”
Then, like a key turning in a lock, she fit the voice to a name.
With a gasp Alizeh tore open her eyes, the action resulting in a magnified impression of grass, blades adorned by pearls of dew, and punished not only by the searing burn behind her lids but also by the bleak realization she wasn’t dreaming. Her pulse racing, she perceived at once that this was not the landscape of fantasy, but the hard ground of reality, upon which she lay limp and disoriented. A shadow shifted, blotting the heat of the sun, and she shivered, the aches in her body awakening. The longer she held her eyes open the worse her head throbbed and her neck smarted; even some aspect of her face felt heavy with pain. Too soon the lift became too much, and her eyes fluttered shut once more.
It was when she felt the warm hand retreat from her head that she panicked, worrying she’d gotten it wrong, that this person was in fact a stranger, that her hopes were too wild to be realized. She summoned her strength, licked her parched lips, and compelled herself to whisper his name.
“Hazan?” A beat.
Then, softly, “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Alizeh thought she felt her heart stop. “Is it possible?” she breathed. “Are you really here?”
She did not imagine the tenderness, the faint surprise in his voice when he said, “I am really here.”
The nosta flared to life against her sternum.
All this time, her fear and guilt over Hazan’s fate had been trapped in a bauble of sentiment inside her, and the sudden compression of her chest shattered the delicately held emotion, wresting a terrible sob from her throat. She forced herself to turn over, lying flat on her back as she clapped a shaking hand over her mouth, hot tears curving toward her temples.
Desperate for visual proof, she forced her eyes open again, her hands fumbling against the ground. When she turned an inch and saw him kneeling in the grass beside her, she was overcome.
She fell back against the earth and shook her head, over and over. She couldn’t believe he was alive. Hazan, who was peerless in his loyalty to her, who’d gifted her the rare nosta that had saved her in a thousand ways from harm, who’d risked his life over and over for her safety.
She thought he’d been killed.
And now he was here? He’d come for her once again?
In all these years since her parents’ death – years of screaming
loneliness – she’d lost hope of ever finding another trustworthy soul. Yet Hazan had come to her without demands or expectations, parting veils of night to fall on one knee before her, setting into motion what might’ve been the great escape of her life. There was no one she felt safer with, and she’d done nothing to deserve his kindness.
He’d simply put his faith in her.
Blindly she grasped for his hand and pressed it between her palms, hardly able to see through her own tears to the mirrored emotion in his eyes. With great effort she swallowed, releasing him only to wipe at her face with trembling fingers. She fought to sit upright.
He moved at once to help, shifting her into a seated position. Her hood fell back as she lifted her head, and he stiffened at the reveal, his eyes widening as he looked her over. She felt an inexplicable tremor of alarm move through his body, but she struggled to connect to the feeling. Her mind was still so murky she could focus only on one thing at a time, and right now, she was having a hard time believing her eyes.
Hazan looked the same.
A bit fatigued around the edges but the same: hale, uninjured. His hazel eyes were more brown than green in this light, an unruly lock of his ash- blond hair slipping over his forehead, grazing the slope of his broken nose. Alizeh had never seen him from such close proximity, and she was struck by the reminder that he was almost entirely freckled – a feature that, were it not for the iron of his eyes, would’ve made him look rather young. Hazan was not traditionally handsome, and yet his features were singular, his gaze alive always with feeling, his air of self-assurance so potent it moved with him like a second shadow.
She lifted her hands to his face, taking his lightly scruffed cheeks into her palms. He startled at the contact, the sudden movement of his chest betraying his reaction better than his eyes, which remained steady as she studied him. She couldn’t explain her need to touch him, to know that he was real.
A single tear, the last of them, slid down her cheek.
“Hazan,” she said softly. “How are you here? I thought he’d killed you.” In response, Hazan only shook his head, his eyes flaring with panic.
“Your Majesty,” he whispered. “You are gravely injured.” This statement surprised her.
Absently, Alizeh patted herself down as if to locate the source of this injury, first lifting a hand to her hair, which had hours ago come loose of its pins and adornments. The glossy bulk of her curls were trapped beneath the weight of her cloak, shorter sprigs springing free, dancing into her eyes. She frowned as she looked about herself, trying to ascertain where she was and how she’d arrived here, memories of the previous day and night coming back to her messily and out of order. Gently, she drew fingers along her face, wincing when she felt the welt of some fresh contusion along her cheekbone.
“Oh,” she gasped, fighting a grimace. “Do you mean this? I don’t know where –”
The words held in her throat, eyes widening in shock as she noticed, for the first time, the four looming figures planted just beyond Hazan’s head.
Alizeh didn’t know whether to recoil or rejoice.
Her mind had awakened enough, at least, to perceive that the scene was all wrong. Delighted as she was to see Miss Huda and Omid and Deen – all three of whom lifted hands in muted hellos – their presence here made no sense.
Finally she turned her gaze to the last of them, the most forbidding of the four standing just apart from the others. The crown prince of Ardunia
was striking even in stillness, his gleaming sable hair and honeyed skin both novel and familiar to her.
Alizeh felt a quickening low in her stomach as she met his eyes, surprised to discover how much she’d forgotten about him in so short a time. He looked regal in the glow of a newborn sun, his expression
inscrutable as he studied her, his mouth set in a grim line. She couldn’t be sure whether it was the fatigue of her mind, but Kamran’s face appeared different, one of his eyes glinting gold in the burgeoning light, the other as dark as it ever was.
Heavens, but he was devastatingly handsome.
He made no movement, no effort to reach her. He only studied her quietly from afar, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, the other curled around the strap at his chest, which connected to the quiver of arrows peeking out from behind his shoulder. It took Alizeh longer than usual to
piece things together as she stared at him, but in labored seconds she gathered the threads of an explanation for his arrival – for the stoic, unflinching expression on his face – and when she did, she felt suddenly wide awake.
Mere days had passed since King Zaal had been murdered at Cyrus’s hand – since the revered Diviners were slaughtered – and Kamran was no doubt dealing with chaos of extraordinary proportions back in Ardunia. He could have no business arriving, uninvited, at the Tulanian palace lest he was interested in one thing.
Revenge.
Alizeh drew a sharp breath, and Kamran’s eyes narrowed. It was as if they’d communicated everything in those two movements. She could see now that he was not exactly pleased to see her, and in her head she tore through the tumult of the last thirty-six hours to recall the specifics of their
parting, remembering, with an ache, the blaze of betrayal she’d seen printed upon his face before she left.
And yet –
Surely all that was sorted? Kamran must’ve forgiven Hazan’s secret
efforts to help her escape Ardunia – for why else would the two young men have reunited? Why else would Hazan still be alive?
Her mind spinning once more, she returned her eyes to Hazan, who was looking at her with something like compassion.
“Fear not, Your Highness. I’ll not allow you to come to harm.”
Alizeh drew back. “Come to harm? You mean the prince has come to harm me?”
“In truth,” Hazan said after a moment, “I don’t believe him capable.” This was not reassurance.
Alizeh was unsettled anew, the revelation so confusing she struggled even to speak. “I don’t – I don’t understand – What reason could he –”
She was distracted by movement in the distance and lifted her head to discover Kamran coming toward them in swift strides, his face as impassive as ever. Alizeh shrank back reflexively at Kamran’s approach, tensing even as she devoured the sight of him.
No, her eyes had not deceived her: his face was altered.
Something like a strike of lightning had bisected his left eye, splitting open a narrow, chaotic vein of gold along his skin, the peculiar striation glittering under the sun. His affected iris was now an inhuman color, the transformation somehow only heightening his beauty – rendering him otherworldly, and not a little terrifying.
“Your Majesty,” came Hazan’s low, urgent voice. Alizeh turned back to him, her pulse refusing to calm.
“Forgive me, but I must ask you quickly: Have you consented to marry the king of Tulan?”
