“You have a number of books by the Hidden One,” she noted.
“The poems are important to me,” he said.
“I’m not surprised, Lord Zahir. They are rather beautiful.” There was an intimacy to them that appealed to her, resonated in her mouth, when she followed the words.
“Take one of the books with you, if you like,” he said. A pause. Then, careful: “Or read here, if you prefer.”
Her finger paused upon the shelf. She hesitated.
Arwa thought of Jihan, telling her to make Zahir happy. The memory was utterly bitter.
My honor is my own, Arwa told herself.My boundaries my own.So she and Zahir had agreed.
Oh, she knew what a paper-thin fiction that was. Reputation and honor were the business of society, and Arwa’s only responsibility was to adhere to the laws the world laid out for her. But here, within these strange walls, she could almost convince herself of the sweet lie Zahir had offered her, that the pact of trust they had concocted together protected her from dishonor. She wanted to believeshehad such power—that she defined her worth and her status.
So in that moment, she allowed the fiction to stand.
“The company would be pleasant,” she told him.
They both sat at the table. He began his copy work once more, and Arwa read the poetry, the crackle of the lantern and the hum of the breeze the only noise between them.
Eventually Arwa lifted her head. She saw then that Zahir had fallen asleep, head against the wall, chin tucked against his chest. A strand of dark hair had somehow escaped his turban, and lay across his forehead. He looked younger, in sleep.
The night was cold, and he wore no jacket, just a long-sleeved tunic and trousers. In a fit of sudden compassion, Arwa removed her shawl and draped it around him. He didn’t even stir.
She snuffed out the lantern upon the table, then stood and left him. She walked through the garden, beneath the rustling trees, as rock doves flew free from their tower over her head, black shadows against the star-flecked night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She and Zahir returned to their quiet work. On her next visit, he handed over her shawl without comment. When she returned to her room, she found small stars sewn along the edges, discreet in white thread. It took her a few days longer to realize that their order accurately reflected the arrangement of constellations above Irinah at midsummer—one of the very maps they had perused together many nights past, when they began piecing together the veracity of scholarship on the realm of ash.
She said nothing to him, and he said nothing to her. But she wore the shawl often, and sometimes when they studied the problem of the bridge between worlds—thedamnable bridge, as Arwa would often refer to it viciously, in the safety of her own head—she would trace the constellations with her fingertips in quiet comfort.
The pain—the result of that damnable, weak bridge—had stopped them from progressing any farther along the path of his soul. Arwa read his books on her own, selecting volumes that drew her interest. When she had questions—which was often—Zahir always answered her, no matter how preoccupied he was with his own research.
“There must be an alternative to incorporating cannibalism or starvation,” Arwa muttered, flicking swiftly through a thick tome.
Zahir laughed. When she looked up, he was smiling.
“If there is, I’m sure you’ll find it,” he said.
She paused. Finger upon the page.
“I expect,” she said, “that you cannot go to Irinah.”
“Ah. I wondered if you would question that.” He shut his own book. “It would be ideal. It has long been my preferred avenue of inquiry. But no. I cannot. Jihan has her spies, her women, but her power is constrained by her position.”
A daughter, no matter her power, was infinitely more constrained than a son. Arwa nodded in understanding.
“And Prince Akhtar…?”
“He understands the need for resources,” Zahir said. “For courtiers loyal to him. For administrators in his pocket. For a sister with political acumen and spies. But I have not yet proven myself useful, in his eyes, and heresy makes him uneasy. And it hurts his pride to need someone like me. A bastard, and a traitor’s son.” Bitter twist of Zahir’s mouth. “He tolerates me for Jihan’s sake, but he will not send me to Irinah.”
“Do you ever go beyond the palace walls?” Arwa asked.
“No, Lady Arwa.” He said it gently enough, but she thought she heard the pain of it, beneath the softness of his voice. “Jihan has not arranged me that privilege. But then, I have not asked for many years.”
There was a lump in her throat.
