Gently, he said, “What is it?”
“Was your father— Was he a terrible man? Is that why you killed him?”
Cyrus fell silent for so long that the sounds of the world around them came into brighter focus. The hush of a restless wind grew fiercer, the chirps of busy birds grew louder; flowers swayed as clouds parted and passed, making paths for the setting sun to glimmer through leaves and branches, dappling all in a heavy, golden light. She heard crickets and bees, parted her lips to draw breath, tasted the chill before it pressed against her skin.
Most of all, she could hear him breathing.
“Cyrus,” she said finally. “Will you not answer me?”
“I don’t want to talk about my father.”
“But—”
“I won’t discuss it.”
“How am I supposed to trust you,” she said, “if I can’t understand why you did such a gruesome thing?”
“You don’t have to trust me.”
“Of course I do.” She frowned. “You’re making me enormous promises, and I have to believe that you mean them—that you’ll fulfill your end of the bargain—”
“I’ll make you a blood oath.”
Alizeh went very, very still. “No,” she said, exhaling the word. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“Because— Cyrus—”
“If you kill me, as we’ve agreed, none of it will matter.”
“But you’ll beboundto me—possibly forever—”
“Only if you don’t kill me.”
“And until then?”
He took a deep breath. “Well. Yes. Until then it’ll be fairly uncomfortable. Mostly for me.”
She shook her head against the flowers. “I won’t do it. It’s not humane. You’ll have no free will.”
He laughed bitterly. “And I suppose you think killing me is the more humane option?”
“Killing you wasyouridea!”
“This, too, is my idea. I don’t see why you’re being so obstinate—”
“Why won’t you just tell me your reasons?” she countered, frustrated. “Your mother said you did it because you claimed your father wasn’t fit to rule. Is that true?”
“My mother,” he said stiffly, “talks too much.”
“Cyrus—”
He stood up without warning, and Alizeh saw him come into view with a start, as if she were seeing him for the first time. She turned slowly until she was no longer on her side but on her back, her curls catching loose corollas as she moved, her motions sending into chaos a tiptoe of tulips. She picked a loose petal off her cheek and stared up at him through a kaleidoscope of color and stems and leaves, and for a moment she saw nothing but sky and the blue of his eyes. Then his hair, gleaming in the dying light; the elegant lines of his face, gilded by the golden hour. Alizeh did not like to admit to his beauty, which was hard enough to deny under ordinary conditions, but here, standing in an ocean of flowers, tall and somber in his simple black clothes, Cyrus was fairly magnificent.
He was looking at nothing in particular, his body turned away from hers, but the tension in his limbs—and the rigidity in his stance—belied the placid look on his face.
Softly, she called his name.
