Duchess Jamilah pursed her lips and held out her hand, and Kamran quickly closed the distance between them, tucking her delicate fingers into the crook of his elbow. Carefully, he helped the older woman walk back down the stairs.
“So,” she said. “You say you lost track of time.”
Kamran made a noncommittal sound.
“I see.” His aunt sighed. “You seem to have done a thorough job wandering the house, in any case. The servants are all in a dither over your brooding. First the street boy, then the snoda, now you’re mooning about the house, staring longingly out of windows. They all think you a tragic, hopeless romantic, and I’ll be surprised if all their gossip doesn’t earn you a few inches in the paper tomorrow.” She hesitated on a step; glanced up at him. “Take care, child. The younger girls might begin to swoon at the mere sight of you.”
Kamran forced a smile. “You have a gift, dear aunt. Yourflattery is always the most elaborate fiction.”
She gave a rasp of a laugh. “You think I exaggerate?”
“I think you enjoy exaggerating.”
She gave him a light smack on the arm. “Impertinent child.”
This time, his smile was genuine.
They’d reached the main floor, were now walking through the great room, and still, Kamran’s heart refused to slow its erratic beating. He’d been in darkness so long it was a shock to see the sun still shining through the tall windows. He turned away from the glare, burying the sharp pang that moved through him at the sight. Kamran knew a young woman who would dearly enjoy the sun, who would find solace in its light.
The moon is a great comfort to me.
He realized, with some despair, that everything would now remind him of her. The very sun and moon, the shifting of lightness and dark.
Pink roses.
There—they were just there, a vivid spray in a vase, the arrangement centered on a high table in the room they now occupied. Kamran disengaged from his aunt and wandered toward the bouquet without thinking; carefully, he drew a bloom from its vessel, grazing the velvet petals with his fingers before holding the flower to his nose, inhaling the intoxicating scent.
His aunt gave a sharp laugh, and Kamran flinched.
“You must have mercy, my dear,” she said. “News of our melancholy prince will spread far beyond Setar if you do notsoon exercise some discretion.”
With great care, the prince returned the flower to its vase. “Is our world really so ridiculous,” he said quietly, “that my every action is newsworthy, ripe for dissection? Am I not allowed a modicum of humanity? Can I not enjoy simple beauty without censure and suspicion?”
“That you even ask such a question tells me you are not yourself.” She drew closer. “Kamran, you will one day be king. The people look to your disposition as a bellwether of all to come; the temperature of your heart will define the tenor of your rule, which will in turn affect every aspect of their lives. Surely you do not forget this. You could not resent the people their curiosity—not when you know how dearly your life concerns their own.”
“Certainly not,” he said with affected calm. “How could I? I should never resent them their fears, nor could I ever forget the shackles that so loudly ornament my every waking moment.”
His aunt took a deep, wavering breath, and accepted the prince’s proffered arm. They resumed their slow walk.
“You begin to scare me, child,” she said softly. “Will you not tell me what has disordered you so?”
Disordered.
Yes.
Kamran had been rearranged. He felt it; felt that his heart had moved, that his ribs had closed like a fist around his lungs. He was different, out of alignment, and he did not know whether this feeling would fade.
Alizeh.
He still heard the whisper of her voice, the way she’d pressed the shape of her own name into the darkness between them; the way she’d gasped when he kissed her. She’d touched him with a tenderness that drove him wild, had looked into his eyes with a sincerity that broke him.
From the first there’d been no falseness in her manner, no pretension, no agonizing self-consciousness. Alizeh had been neither impressed by the prince nor intimidated; Kamran knew without a doubt that she’d judged him entirely on his own merits, his crown be damned. That she’d found him worthy, that she’d given herself to him for even a moment—
Not until that very second did he realize how much he’d longed for her good opinion. Her judgment of his character had somehow become crucial to his judgment of himself.
How?
He did not know, he did not care; he was not one for questioning the movements of his heart. He recognized only that she’d been so much more than he’d known to hope for, and it had altered him: her mind as sharp as her heart; her smile as overwhelming as her tears. She’d suffered so much in her life that Kamran had not known what to expect; he would have understood had she been withdrawn and cynical, but she was instead vibrant with feeling, alive in every emotion, mercifully giving of herself in all ways.
