The handmaiden rose to her feet and bowed, pressing the tips of the fingers of her right hand to her forehead. “Sayyidi.”
“I’m impressed.” Khalid remained at the foot of the bed, his features tight.
Despina smiled, her eyes sparkling even in the weak light filtering between the window slats. “Forgive me for saying so, sayyidi, but you don’t look it.”
A single cough emitted from Vikram’s lips, meant to conceal what, in the Hindustani warrior, passed for amusement.
Khalid turned to him without preamble. “Your shoulder?”
There had never been a need for formality between them. They’d trained together for years. Bled together. Fought together. The Rajput had been his bodyguard since the day Khalid had been crowned king. His friend since before that.
Vikram did not answer. His black gaze held fast to a nondescript corner above while Khalid took in the reddened bandages and the foul-smelling poultices wrapped around the copper skin of his left shoulder. When Vikram sat up to reach for the tumbler of water on the low table beside him, he could not suppress a twinge of pain. Despina bent to assist him, ignoring his deepening scowl.
“You just missed the faqir, sayyidi,” she said as she replaced the tumbler on the low table. “He came to say—”
“That whelp’s arrows shattered my breastbone. And the bone in my shoulder,” Vikram said in a gruff tone. A tone that promised a fierce reprisal in the near future.
Despina blinked, at a loss for words. Then recovered in a flash of white teeth. “But the faqir also said—”
Vikram silenced her with a glance. Pouting, Despina returned to her stool and looped her arms across her chest.
The pitiless side of Khalid felt strangely appeased by this exchange—the sight of the twittering butterfly being silenced by the towering brute. Were Shahrzad here, Khalid suspected she would have added greatly to his satisfaction with a sharp quip that would have bettered yet worsened the situation all at once.
He strode from the foot of the bed to Vikram’s side. “Is there anything you need of me?”
Vikram leaned back against the pillows and eyed him with his usual uncompromising stare. “A new arm.”
At this, Khalid almost smiled. “Alas, I need both of mine.”
“For what?” Vikram grunted, affecting a look of disdain.
“To fight.”
“You lie. Like the posturing peacock you are.”
Khalid’s eyebrows rose. “I never lie.”
“A lie.” The Rajput’s mustache twitched, his gaze dark.
“Never . . . is perhaps the wrong word.”
“Seldom is better.”
“Seldom, then.” Khalid offered him the hint of a smile.
Vikram exhaled, smoothing his right hand across his short beard. “I cannot fight anymore, meraa dost.” It was a difficult admission. His eyes closed for an instant.
“Now that is a lie,” Khalid said without hesitation. “The faqir told me your shoulder would heal in time. It may not return to what—”
“I cannot feel anything in my left hand.”
Truly, Khalid hated surprises. With the fire of a thousand suns, he abhorred them.
His gaze drifted to Vikram’s left hand, lying prone atop the linen sheets. It looked the same as always. Merciless. Inveterate. Invulnerable.
Yet not.
He knew words of reassurance were unnecessary. Vikram was not a fool, nor was he in need of coddling. Nevertheless, Khalid could not ignore his inclination to state the obvious.
“It is too soon to pass judgment on the matter.” He refrained from speaking in a gentle tone, for he knew Vikram would despise it. “Feeling may return to your hand in time.”
“Even if it does, I will never fight as I once did.” There was no sentiment behind the response. Just a simple statement of fact.
Despina shifted in her seat—the second sign of discomfort Khalid had seen from the handmaiden since his arrival.
Though this puzzled him, Khalid granted Vikram’s words their requisite consideration. “Again, it is too soon to pass judgment on the matter.”
“That whelp used obsidian arrowheads.” Vikram’s fury cut dark fissures across his forehead and deep valleys down the sides of his face. “They shattered the bones. Beyond repair.”
Despite his wish to fan the flames, Khalid tamped down his ire. It would serve no purpose to fuel rage. Instead his features fell into a mask of false composure. A mask he wore well.
“I heard as much.”
“I cannot serve as your bodyguard with only one good arm,” Vikram ground out in pointed fashion.
“I disagree.”
“As I knew you would.” He frowned. “But it matters not, meraa dost.”
“And why is that?” Khalid said.
Again, the handmaiden shifted in her seat.
Vikram eased farther into his pillows, the edges of his expression smoothing. “Because I will not be less than what I am. And you will not force me to be less.” He did not even bother to challenge Khalid with his unyielding stare.
“What is it you need of me, my friend?” Khalid repeated his earlier query, though it sounded entirely different now.
The Rajput paused. “I wish to leave the city. To start a life of my own.”
“Of course.” Khalid nodded. “Whatever you need.”
“And to take a wife.”