Without warning, Cyrus laughed.
Kamran looked up; the southern king appeared pale and disordered. From where he knelt, Kamran could not see Alizeh’s face; he saw only the horror in Cyrus’s eyes as he looked her over. The young man had killed his own father for the throne of Tulan; he’d newly murdered King Zaal, the ruler of the greatest empire on earth; he would’ve killed Kamran, too, had he been granted but a moment more to accomplish the task. Now the copper-headed tyrant steadied himself slowly, blood seeping from his lips, smeared across his chin. Of all the adversaries they might’ve encountered, it seemed they’d both been cowed by the poor, gentle servant of Baz House.
“Damn the devil to hell,” the Tulanian king said quietly. “He didn’t tell me you were a Jinn.”
“Who?” Alizeh demanded.
“Our mutual friend.”
“Hazan?”
Kamran recoiled. He’d not been prepared for the blow of yet another betrayal, and the impact of that single word lanced through his body with a ruthlessness against which he had no defense. That she was somehow allied with Cyrus was torture enough—but that she’d gone behind his back withHazan?
This was more than he could bear.
She’d playacted at fear and innocence, had outmaneuveredhim at every turn, and worst of all—worst of all—he had fallen, madly, for her manipulations. In all the time he’d known her, Alizeh had clung to her snoda, fighting to hide her identity even in the midst of a rainstorm; now she stood unmasked before a sea of nobles, glowering at the formidable sovereign of a neighboring nation, declaring herself to the world.
All this time, Alizeh had been making plans.
Already Kamran had been attacked by grief and anger; he struggled even then to digest the magnitude of the last moments, could hardly piece together his discordant thoughts about his grandfather—but now— Now he was expected to make sense of this? He, who prided himself on the strength of his instincts—he, who believed himself to be a capable, intuitive soldier—
“Hazan?” Cyrus laughed again, his hand trembling almost imperceptibly as he wiped blood from his mouth. “Hazan?Of course notHazan.” Cyrus locked eyes with Kamran and said, “Pay attention, King, for it seems even your friends have betrayed you.”
Alizeh turned suddenly to face him—eyes wide with panic—and her obvious flush of guilt was all the evidence Kamran required. Just hours ago he would’ve sworn an oath that her desire for him was as palpable as the press of satin against his skin; he’d tasted the salt of her, had felt the exquisite shape of her body under his hands. Now he knew it had all been a lie.
Hell.
This was hell.
But to say that this revelation had broken his heart would be to misrepresent the truth; Kamran was not heartbroken, then, no—he was incandescent with rage.
He would kill her.
Any naive, lingering softness in Kamran’s heart evaporated. He’d been seduced by a siren while being deceived by his own friend—and had all but spat in the face of the only person who truly cared for his well-being. King Zaal had sold himself to evil in the pursuit of Kamran’s happiness—and the man was repaid with only disloyalty and treason. This dark night had been wrought by Kamran’s actions alone; he understood that now. The entire Ardunian empire had been left vulnerable because he’d been frail of mind and body.
Never again.
Never again would he allow a woman to own his emotions; never again would he be made weak by such base temptations. He swore it then: this monster from the prophecy would die by his hand—he would drive a blade through her heart or die trying.
But first, Hazan.
Kamran caught the eye of a guard hovering—awaiting orders—and with a single glance he issued his first decree as king of Ardunia: Hazan would hang.
Kamran experienced no victory as he watched his former minister seized, then dragged away; he felt no triumph at the sound of Hazan’s feeble protests ringing out through the astonished silence of the room. No, Kamran suffered only the ascent of a terrifying madness as he forced himself upright, daring to bear weight on his injured arm in the process, andrealizing only in the excruciating effort that his legs, too, had been badly burned. His skin and clothes were sticky with blood; his head felt leaden. It was a truth he was loath to admit: that he did not know how much longer he could stand here without the aid of a surgeon. Or a Diviner.
No.The royal Diviners were dead. Slaughtered by Cyrus.
Kamran’s eyes squeezed shut at the reminder.
“Iblees.”
His eyes flew open at the sound of her soft, traitorous voice. Kamran’s heart began pounding anew, startling him with its intensity. He couldn’t decide then what disturbed him more: to realize that she and Cyrus shareda mutual friendin the devil, or to discover that his body still wanted her, still heated at the mere sound of her voice—
She had disappeared.
Panicked, Kamran searched for her and was unsuccessful; instead he saw Cyrus, still staring intently at what could only be Alizeh, who’d a moment ago been speaking—
Without warning, she materialized.
