“Kamran.” Hazan shook his head sharply.
The southern king looked between the two – from the prince’s wild eyes to the unspoken warning in Hazan’s – and did not understand. Kamran appeared deeply unsettled, genuine confusion unmasked in his expression when he finally turned to Cyrus and said:
“Why didn’t you kill me? The night of the ball – you had every opportunity to be rid of me. Why leave yourself open to the consequences of your actions,to the retribution you must’ve known to anticipate?”
In response Cyrus only turned away.
At intervals, he continued to feel Alizeh flare to life behind his eyes; and the truthful answer to the prince’s question was horribly enmeshed with this weakness. Worse, the prince’s earlier accusations weren’t unfounded: Cyrus had reason to dislike the prince, yes, but there was little logic to support his unchecked hatred of the Ardunian.
In fact, what intelligence he’d gathered of Kamran had been generally favorable; by all accounts he was a decent royal and a formidable soldier, and when Cyrus had first encountered the young man at the ball he’d felt no ill will toward him. It wasn’t until he realized Kamran had won Alizeh’s affections – that they’d known each other with some intimacy, that she’d cared for him enough to protect him –
Only then had he grown to hate the prince.
Somehow it didn’t matter that Alizeh had been but a conjuring of his imagination. It didn’t matter that they’d never known each other outside of the delusions of his mind. It didn’t matter that she owed him nothing.
He’dlovedher.
It was a hallucination, a fantasy. He knew that, and yet he could not reason with his emotions. Fiction or not, she’d embedded inside him, replaced the air in his lungs. That she’d proven to be real – more exquisite than he’d dreamed – and entirely ignorant of him, had been more than he could bear. To then discover that she’d given her heart to another – that he’d known her in ways Cyrus never would – had been nearly unsurvivable.And yet, it was the only reason he hadn’t killed Kamran that night.
Because he suspected she cared for him.
In response to Cyrus’s protracted silence, the prince made a sound of disbelief. “Do you know, I’m beginning to think you might be entirely unhinged,” he said. “You should be locked in a tower, your eyes devoured by scarabs –”
Without fanfare Cyrus drew his sword, the slicing sound of steel halting the prince’s speech as the room around them gasped; Deen released a faint, withering breath; and the southern king, who felt his heart was slowly atrophying inside his chest, couldn’t bring himself to care about anything beyond this moment.
“Insult me again,” he said, his voice dropping to a sinister whisper, “and I will not be merciful.”
Kamran’s eyes flashed with fury, and Cyrus almost respected him for standing his ground. The prince was reaching for his own weapon when Hazan shoved him, hard, against the wall.
“Enough,” he shouted. “I’ve had enough of you two idiots!” Then, turning, he focused his wrath on Cyrus:
“I don’t understand why you dragged Alizeh here, nor do I understand your apparent need to marry her, but I do know that you went to great lengths to orchestrate this mess. The fact that you’ve allowed her a choice in the matter of wedlock tells me that you care, at the very least, whether she’s forced to take her vows, so let me make something very clear, you blundering fool: if Alizeh finds out you’ve murdered her friends you may be certain she’ll refuse to marry you.”
Cyrus stilled, this obvious fact neutralizing his anger in an instant. He blinked, sheathed his sword and, his chest still heaving, reached once more for the wall behind him.
He was, regardless, in no condition to murder anyone.
And then he heard her again, her voice breathless with desire –
Do you know what I love most about you?
Cyrus felt his knees buckle before he caught himself. He couldn’t remember if it had been this bad before; perhaps it was worse now that he actually knew her, that just last night she’d been in his bedchamber, that he’d glimpsed something like real affection in her eyes.
Perhaps this episode would finally drive him to madness.
“How easily managed you are,” Kamran said acidly. “How desperate you must be.”
Slowly, Cyrus lifted his head. “You have no idea.”
This admission seemed to surprise the prince, whose glower slowly faded. “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why must you marry her?”
“An insightful question,” Cyrus mused. “I hadn’t realized you were capable of intelligent thought.”
The glower returned. The prince opened his mouth, no doubt to make a scathing remark, when Cyrus’s mother spoke instead.
