The words burned. Arwa’s skin crawled.
“Princess,” Arwa murmured. Deferential.
Jihan looked back at the hall, a smile still playing upon her mouth.
“Go, then,” she said. “Rest well, Lady Arwa. I have a celebration to return to.”
Then she was gone, back into the light and pomp, leaving Arwa alone to clutch at the lattice, her mind whirling, stomach knotted with fear and with fury.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She walked across the bridge, over water black as the night sky above it, and through the doors and gates that enclosed the women’s quarters of Akhtar’s palace. Guardswomen opened the doors, unbarring the way. Arwa did not look at them. She focused on simply striding forward.
Rage and feeling. That was all she was, and all she could think of. Her skin, her bones, ached with it.
Instead of returning to her own room, she made her way out to the gardens, not caring if she was seen. And who was here to see her anyway? Only a handful of elders, too infirm to attend the celebration; only guards and maidservants who saw and knew everything regardless.
She should not have been there. She should have calmed herself, collected herself, remembered the training her mother had given her. She’d known the trick of locking away her feelings once. She should have gone directly to her own room and remained there until morning, breathing through the fury until she could not feel it any longer.
But Arwa had offered herself to service, body and soul. She had held out her palm and asked Zahir to make a tool of her. Her cheeks burned at the memory. Her insides knotted. Foolish. Foolish.
It was the shame that compelled her to keep on walking and make her way down the dark staircase into Zahir’s workroom. He was there as he always was, seated at his table with his studies laid out in front of him. He was making a clean duplicate of the book, the original placed to his left, the fresh copy to the right, where he could ink in line after line with neat strokes of his hand.
“Lord Zahir,” she said.
He lifted his head.
“Lady Arwa. I was not expecting you tonight.” He lowered his pen and rose to his feet. “I heard that Parviz had returned.”
Who had told him? Were there maidservants who swept his room and cleaned his clothes, who also imparted gossip? Did he ever emerge from this place to eat or sleep or simply experience life beyond the confines of the tomb enclosure’s walls? Did he have a place in Prince Akhtar’s household of men, as an impoverished relative, as Arwa and the other elders and widows did in the part of the household under Jihan’s purview?
None of it mattered. In truth, he should not have been here at all. He was a blessed. He should have been given a position as a military general serving under a governor, a commander of a garrison fort, even a governor of a far-flung province. He had the talent to be a scholar. He could have served as a scribe or in the imperial court. Anything but this strange half life, hidden away in darkness and secrecy.
The thought of his incongruity, his strangeness, only made her angrier.
“Princess Jihan spoke to me alone,” said Arwa. “She wanted to impress upon me the importance of making you happy. She asked me whether I would be willing to discard my reputation for the sake of service. To you.”
“Did she.” Zahir’s voice was carefully neutral.
“I believed I was serving you in order to save the Empire. That was what I offered. And, my lord, that isallI offer.”
He closed his eyes, head tilting back. Exhaled.
“I suppose I should be grateful,” Arwa said shakily. “I suppose I shouldwantto make you happy, of my own volition. I am only a widow, after all. Only the illegitimate, Amrithi-blooded child of a nobleman in disgrace. What do I matter, compared to you?”
His eyes snapped open. He lowered his head.
“Lady Arwa,” he said. “No.”
His eyes were fixed on her hands now, which were fists before her. She uncurled them, and he raised his head, gazing at her veiled face.
“I want nothing from you,” he said. “I promise you.”
Liar.
She knew he was drawn to the movement of her hands, that something about her fascinated him. Perhaps he did not even know it.Lonely, Jihan had called him. But Arwa could only look at him and think of his vulnerable neck, his wrists, the moonlight on him and think,Starving, he is starving.
It only made her more furious to think it. She was starving too.
