Alizeh had managed to live a long time without needing to supply her name to anyone. Even Mrs. Amina had never demanded to know—preferring instead to call heryouandgirl. But oh, what harm would it do if she told Omid her name now? Who was listening, anyway?
Quietly, she said, “I am Alizeh.”
“Alizeh,” said the boy, testing the shape of it in his mouth. “I th—”
“Enough.” Mrs. Amina snatched the sand timer from the table. “That is quite enough. Your fifteen minutes are up. Back to work, girl.”
Alizeh swiped the scroll with lightning speed, slipping it up her sleeve with the artistry of an experienced thief. She jumped to her feet and curtsied.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
She chanced a glance in Omid’s direction, offered him a barely perceptible nod, and was already darting into the hall when he shouted—
“Minda! Setunt tesh.”Tomorrow! Nine o’clock.“Manotan ani!”I’ll meet you there!
Mrs. Amina straightened, her arms pinned angrily to hersides. “Someone please escort this child outside.Now.”
Two footmen appeared in an instant, arms outstretched as if to manhandle the boy, but Omid was undaunted. He was smiling, clutching his scrolls to his chest and slipping out of reach when he said—
“Bep shayn aneti, eh? Wi nek snoda.”Wear something nice, okay? And no snoda.
Eighteen
KAMRAN TILTED HIS HEAD UPat the blue mosaic work of the war room, not merely to admire the geometric ingenuity executed upon the domed ceiling, but to exercise his tortured neck away from the stiff collar of his tunic.
The prince had been willing to don this shirt only because he’d been assured by his valet that it was made of pure silk—and silk, he’d assumed, would prove more comfortable than that of his other formal wear. Silk was purported to be a smooth and quiet textile, was it not?
How, then, to explain the atrocity he wore now?
Kamran could not understand why the blasted article was so crisp, or why it made so much noise when he moved.
His valet was clearly an idiot.
It had taken hours, but Kamran’s earlier anger had abated just long enough to carry him home. His frustrations still simmered at a low, constant heat, but when the haze of fury had lifted, Kamran looked about himself and decided the only way through this day was to focus on things he could control. He feared he might otherwise spend every minute staring angrily at the clock until he could be certain the girl was dead.
It wouldn’t do.
Much better, the prince thought, would be to exorcisehis demons in the pursuit of a known enemy—and he bade Hazan assemble a gathering of a dozen high-ranking military officials. There was a great deal to discuss with respect to the brewing tensions with Tulan, and Kamran hoped to spend the remainder of the day working through strategy in the palace war room. Work, he thought, would calm him.
He had miscalculated.
As if this day hadn’t been from its birth an abomination, Kamran seemed doomed now to spend the rest of it accosted by halfwits; imbeciles whose jobs it was to dress him and guide him and advise him poorly in all matters both foreign and domestic.
Idiots, all of them idiots.
He was listening to one of those idiots now. The empire of Ardunia had a redundant, useless defense minister, and not only was the greasy creature present in the war room today, he wouldn’t cease speaking long enough to allow a more reasonable person to contradict him.
“Certainly, there are some concerns about relations with Tulan,” the minister was saying, dispensing words at a sluggardly pace so tedious Kamran wanted to throttle the man. “But we have the situation well in hand, and I would humbly remind His Highness—for our esteemed prince had yet to set foot on a battlefield when these provisions were made—that it was covert Ardunian intelligence that brought to bear the promotions of several of Tulan’s highest ranking officials, who might now be counted upon to report any information of note to their Ardunian allies...”
Kamran briefly closed his eyes, clenching his fists to keepfrom boxing his own ears or tearing the shirt from his body. He’d been forced to change into formal wear for the purposes of this meeting, which was one of the more ludicrous customs of peacetime. The near decade they’d spent away from the battlefield had made the once legendary leaders of Ardunia now thick and lethargic, stripping these military summits of their urgency, degrading them all in the process.
Kamran was not only prince of Ardunia, but one of only five lieutenant generals responsible for the five respective field armies—each a hundred thousand soldiers strong—and he took his position quite seriously.
When the time came for Kamran to inherit the throne, so, too, would he inherit his grandfather’s role as commanding general of the entire Ardunian military, and there were few who did not resent the prince’s impending elevation to the distinguished rank at such a young age. The title should have gone to his father, yes, but such was Kamran’s fate. He could not run from it any more than he could reanimate the dead. His only recourse was to work harder—and smarter—to show what he was worth.
This, among other reasons, might explain why his comrades had not taken kindly to Kamran’s overly aggressive counsel, and had all but called him an unschooled child for daring to suggest a preemptive attack on Tulanian soil.
Kamran did not care.
