“Dahaar—its politics, its welfare, its economics—it’s the very blood that gives you life.”
“Enough, Nikhat.”
Instead of heeding his warning, she moved closer to him. Her gaze blazed with some unknown anguish, her hands fisted by her sides…the tightness of her shoulders, the tension in her lithe frame coiling tighter and tighter around them. And beneath all that, the heat of her body stroked the slow burn in him to a smoldering fire.
“Admit that a part of you craves it even now, admit how much it tortures you that Ayaan is taking your place, that it is Ayaan’s son who will be the next king of Dahaar. How much it galls you that Ayaan is taking everything that should have been yours?”
He flinched, the cutting fury of her words stealing into him, hurting him.
“Yes, it does. It tortures me that Ayaan suffers every night, it tortures me that my father and mother have to grieve their daughter—a daughter who was about to get married—it tortures me that wherever I turn, there’s still evidence of the destruction I wrought.”
She didn’t back down even then. Her lush mouth settled into a stubborn set, her chin tilting defiantly. “I know how much Amira loved you. Even if you were somehow responsible, she would have forgiven you, Azeez. She would have never wanted this…half-life for you.”
“But she’s not here. Because of me.”
“How? How is it your fault that a terrorist group attacked all three of you and killed her?”
“They didn’t attack us. I lured them there with bait. I passed on information that I would be there, set up a meet. They had been issuing threats for months.
“Without my father’s permission, without letting him know my dangerous plans, I planned to stay behind with a small unit and capture them. He dismissed that unit without my knowledge, and too late I realized Ayaan and Amira stayed back.
“They stayed back to talk to me. They stayed back because they were worried about me, because I had been avoiding them. And they were caught in the crossfire.”
He pushed the words out through a throat raw with ache and suddenly, it felt as if the choke hold of his own guilt and recriminations relented. Just a little. He felt her tentative touch on his shoulder, and shuddered at the thought of facing her.
But when he did, he didn’t see sympathy or pity. He only saw his own pain reflected there, he only saw grief.
And then it wasn’t so hard to speak anymore. It was a relief to put his agony into words, to let her see all of his sins, all of his guilt.
“I saw her take a bullet, Nikhat, one that should have been for me. I saw a bullet graze my twenty-year-old brother’s head. I saw them fall one after the other, I saw those bastards drag them away and I could do nothing.
“I brought destruction to them.
“And all because I had become reckless, because I hadn’t cared whether I lived or died.
“She’s dead because of me. My brother has nightmares to this day because of me. I let my emotions get the better of me. Because you left, I went on a reckless rampage.
“The Golden Prince, who had never wanted for anything, who had never had anything denied him, I couldn’t handle your rejection. That’s how emotionally strong I was. That kind of man, who can fragment so easily, that kind of man who’s at the mercy of his emotions, that man is not fit to be a king.
“But Ayaan is.
“There was a point when I thought Al Sharifs, the dynasty that ruled over these lands for two centuries, would end because of what I did. Ayaan’s news today…it fills me with joy, it feels like I can draw a breath for the first time. It galls me to look at him, yes, because he is a better man than I am.
“I do not care, however, whether it is he or I on the throne, whether it is my son or his that will rule Dahaar next. I’m not guilty of that sin.”
Nikhat rubbed the back of her neck with her fingers, rocking on the balls of her feet, her breath coming and going in hard bursts.
“Nikhat?” He grabbed her as she swayed. “Why do you care so much about this…about whether I leave Dahaar or not?”
“I don’t want to,” she said. “My life will be so much simpler if you leave. And yet, I see you and…” She had paid a high price, one he hadn’t asked of her, one that she suddenly wasn’t so sure about, so that he could do his duty, so that he could be the man he was destined to be, so that he could father the heir to the throne. “Leaving him to deal with all this when you can help, leaving him to deal with Dahaar, with your parents when you hold yourself responsible for all this, it sounds like the opposite of penance.
“This sounds like cowardice.”