‘Don’t touch me!’ she shouted at them.
Aisha was too broken to shout at anyone. Too numb. She barely noticed the hand on her shoulder. She was faintly aware of Lilah still clinging to her waist and her brother’s wailing, though it sounded distant due to the ringing in her ears.
The driver climbed up atop the carriage and gathered the reins as the family was ushered inside. The door closed half a second before it lurched forwards. Zara sat opposite her sisters, and her eyes locked with Aisha’s. Neither of them knew what to do next, what to say to their siblings, or how to help their father, who was curled up on the carriage floor, gripping his hair as though he meant to tear it from his scalp.
The girls jumped when a figure appeared at the window of the moving carriage. A boy, maybe fifteen years old. Holding tightly to the door with one hand, he extended the other. In it was their mother’s crown. Zara reached out and took it, her eyes meeting the boy’s. Then, without saying anything, he let go of the door and disappeared from sight. They never heard his feet hit the ground, because the pounding of hooves drowned everything else out.
Everything except the crying.
‘Mama.’ Lilah spoke the word into Aisha’s tear-soaked robe.
Aisha gathered her sister close as feeling returned to her fingers. But with the return of feeling came the return of emotion. It seemed to hit her all at once, knocking the air from her lungs as it arrived. She pressed her eyes closed when it turned to nausea.
Another sob from Lilah. ‘Mama.’
Mama.
Chapter 1
The sound of hooves approaching on the stone roadway drew the sisters to the balcony. They rarely received visitors, and they were all keen for a glimpse of the Crown Prince of Gruisea.
‘Which one is he?’ Lilah asked, looking between the faces of the men, now visible.
Aisha was also having difficulty distinguishing the young royal from his guards. They were all dressed in the same cream thobes with matching headscarves. It seemed they weren’t taking any chances with the holy warriors along the borders, who were now roaming the city as though it belonged to them.
‘I think that’s him on the left,’ Yasmin said over the top of her cat’s head. Her other cat sat beside her foot like a guard dog.
Aisha narrowed her gaze. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because he looks the most miserable.’
Aisha pinched her.
‘Ow.’
‘It’s true,’ Safiya said behind them, arms crossed and feigning disinterest. ‘Everyone knows Gruisea’s royal family is the dullest in the empire.’ She was against the plan to place Lilah in his path. If she had her way, none of them would ever leave Khorasan Palace. But that wasn’t the world they lived in. An unwed princess in the Slevaborg empire was a wasted opportunity. Smart alliances were the only path to survival. Even King Hamza of Gruisea knew that. It was why he wed his only daughter to the Crown Prince of Kuzebet the day she had come of age.
Prince Tariq had not risked crossing the sea and entering Avanid for a few pleasantries and a cup of tea. Trade was the word being passed around court. The Emperor had Gruisea’s limestone mines in a chokehold. But there was a second reason he had come in person.
The prince was on the hunt for a future queen.
Aisha snuck a glance at Lilah, who was peering over the guardrail. She was everything one could want in a queen: smart, graceful, loyal, charismatic, intuitive. And her beauty would bring any man to his knees. She was the ultimate bait for any prince.
‘Is he here?’ Omar shouted as he leapt out onto the balcony.
Safiya caught him mid-leap. ‘If Zara sees you running on the balcony’—she wrestled him into a secure hold—‘she’ll blame us.’
Being the eldest, Zara was burdened with the responsibility of worrying about everyone in the family. She had only been eleven when she took on the role of mother to five children. Plus, she had to look out for the current king while protecting the future king.
Zara was the closest thing Avanid had to a queen.
‘I can climb down from here,’ Omar said, looking up at Safiya. ‘I’ve done it before.’
Safiya clamped a hand over his mouth in response.
He was twelve years old with five older sisters. Some boys might call that hell, but Omar enjoyed being the youngest and the only boy. He wasn’t fussed about the king part—yet.
The prince had been the queen’s parting gift to Avanid before her execution. Five daughters, three miscarriages, and a stillborn son whom she had held for two days. Then Omar arrived—early, true to his character. Healthy despite his small size. He only got a year with her and no memories to show for it.
