Sahar stood in one sinuous movement, impalingAnastasia with her glare.“I did not see you out there riding yourhorse, Princess Anastasia,” she said.“Though they are presumablyfrom the same royal stables.”
Anastasia sniffed and pushed at another ofher combs.“I was bred and raised to be a lady, not only aprincess,” she said.“Certainly not to act like a man.”
“What do you mean by that?”Sahardemanded.
“That by your own words, you have no need ofa husband, no need of a man.”Anastasia pouted prettily, drawingattention to her thin, red-stained lips.“What true woman has noneed of a man?”
Sahar stiffened, her full, lush lips pressedtight at the not-so-subtle insinuation.Aleksi rose instantly tostand beside her.
“Princess Sahar is more of a woman than youwill ever be, sister,” he said.
“How would you know, my father’sbastard?”
“I know because I have kissed her.”Besidehim, Sahar sucked in her breath.“And she kissed me back.”
The grassfire of whispers burst into flamesof gasps and conjectures that died to a low sizzle as the queenstood and slowly turned her level gaze on Anastasia.
“If I were you, Princess Anastasia,” shesaid, her voice as frosty as her glare, “I would remember whosehospitality you are here enjoying, and learn to use those royalmanners I am sure your mother, the queen, has taught you.”
Anastasia’s jaw dropped open, and then shesnapped it shut.She stood and stared down her nose at the entireassemblage before dipping a dainty knee to the queen, and then leftthe courtyard with a haughty poise learned at her mother’s breast.The king stood beside his wife and queen, and taking her hand inthe crook of his arm, announced to the gathering that the feast wasover.He gave his daughter, who remained stiff and silent as astatue beside Aleksi, a gentle smile of fatherly concern beforeleading his wife away.Aleksi turned to Sahar as stools werescraped back from the tables and muted mumblings filled the nightair.
“Sahar…”
“I did not ask you to defend me,” she hissed,her green eyes flashing fire.“I do not need you to defend me.Icertainly did not need you announcing to the entire palace that youkissed me.”
“What truly angers you,” he said with a grin,“is that I announced that you kissed me back.”
“Mother?”Sahar knocked softly on the door toher mother’s private chambers.
“Come in, my daughter.”
Sahar followed her mother through the sittingsalon into the queen’s bed chamber and plopped down onto the bed, abed used more often by her children when they had been sick or inneed of their mother than by herself.Though few people knew of it,there was a bedchamber that connected the queen’s and the king’sprivate chambers, and it was that bed that the king and queen sleptin together nightly for both safety and intimacy’s sake.
Her mother sat down beside her and waitedpatiently for her to collect her thoughts and words, as she haddone Sahar’s entire life.
“You do not care for Yago the Wolf much, doyou?”
“No,” her mother said without hesitation.“Imust admit that I cannot look at him without seeing hisparents.”
“As does Father.”
“You must understand, Sasa, Yago’s parents,the Ox and the Fox, they are horrible people.They are stupid andselfish, petty and mean spirited.It is difficult for me and yourfather to believe that a child bred and born of them, raised bythem, could be anything different.”
“But what of Father and his father, thePanther?”
“Your father had his mother, Queen Noor.Shewas as good and kind and reasonable as the Panther was bad temperedand cruel.Your father had his aunties and his brother, Nasim, aswell.”
“Could not Yago have had someone kind in hislife to teach him right from wrong?”
“It is possible,” her mother said, though hertone and her expression said otherwise.“Does he treat you kindlyand with respect?”
“He has never been unkind to me,” she said.“As for treating me with respect,” she started to say yes, but hehad not treated her with respect when he had claimed that she onlywon the first race because of Aleksandr’s interference, or when hehad suggested that it was not her fault Ommar had died, because shewas, after all, only a girl.He had been the one to make room forher, the first woman ever to stand in the line of riders, though.Or had he?Ask someone who saw, Aleksandr had told her, who trulysaw, and her mother saw everything.“The night of the Autumn’s Evefeast,” she said, “when I went to stand in the line of riders.Didyou see who it was that made a place for me?”
“It was Aleksandr who moved first, shovinghis elbow into his neighbor’s side to make room for you.”
Sahar grimaced.
“As it was Aleksandr who stood up for youtonight and you him.”
