Watching him.
Tariq could find nothing in his expression. Not a hint of emotion. Not the slightest sign of awareness he’d heard a single word. The caliph waited a beat before walking inside. Once he’d made certain his face was concealed beneath his rida’, he gathered Tariq’s recurve bow and quiver of arrows in unhurried silence.
Then waited by the entrance.
Without a word, Tariq followed him out into the desert. The caliph paused to hand him his bow and arrows before striding twenty paces away.
As calm as the eye of a storm, the caliph withdrew his shamshir and twisted it in two.
“Three arrows,” he began in a voice that managed to carry over the distance, though Tariq could not detect any sentiment behind the words. “Three shots, Tariq Imran al-Ziyad. There is no one here to stop you. No one here to defend me. I’ll give you three arrows. Three chances to finish what you started by the well.”
“Why three?” Tariq mirrored the caliph’s impassive tone as he shifted his quiver onto his shoulder.
“One for your cousin.” The caliph thrust a sword into the sand before him, its jeweled hilt swaying in the moonlight. He flourished the other in a glittering sweep. “One for your aunt. And one for your love.”
Tariq returned his fixed stare.
Even from this distance, the caliph’s strange eyes possessed an otherworldly glow. “But when you fail—and you will fail—you will never again repeat what I just saw.”
“Then you are jealous?” Tariq called out, loud enough to echo across the cool sands.
A thin stream of pale purple clouds drifted above, moving too fast for comfort, yet too slow to convey anything of significance.
Tomorrow’s storm would come without warning. If at all.
“Jealousy is a childish, petty emotion.” The caliph switched the single shamshir to his left hand in a single, fluid motion. “I don’t feel jealousy. I feel rage.”
Tariq waited a beat. The boy-king’s words were in stark contrast to his actions. Was this finally a weakness? Finally something that made him seem less like a monster and more like a man?
“Do you worry about me, Khalid Ibn al-Rashid?”
The caliph hesitated, and that said more than words ever could. “There was a time I did. But the fact that you waited until Shahrzad slept to touch her shows me you know she would not approve. You will not disrespect her in such a manner again. Nor will you disrespect me.”
Tariq let his recurve bow dangle by his feet. “I did not do it to disrespect her. I am not trying to win her back.” He took a measured breath. “I know I’ve—lost.”
The single shamshir flashed through the air once more. “Yet you still wish to kill me.” It was not a question.
But Tariq chose to answer it, all the same. “Of course.”
“Then here’s your chance.”
“It’s not much of a chance, since you say I will lose.”
“You will.” The caliph wrenched the other shamshir from the sand and brandished both swords. “For you’re a fool if you think I would choose to fight a battle I could not win.”
“Is that why you have yet to meet me on the battlefield, you arrogant bastard?”
The caliph’s mouth slid into a wry smile. “Partly.”
“And what are the other reasons?” Tariq removed an arrow from his quiver.
“Because I do not yet know my enemy, Tariq Imran al-Ziyad. And, unlike you, I do not willingly fight the unknown.”
“I know who you are,” Tariq ground out.
“No. You think you know who I am.”
“Perhaps you should endeavor to change my mind.”
“Perhaps I should.” Again, the caliph turned his swords in elegant arcs. “You have three arrows. Aim true.”
Tariq inhaled. He nocked the arrow to the sinew. Then pulled back.
He should aim for the bastard’s heart. For, despite the boy-king’s pompous effrontery, no man could escape three arrows, fired in rapid succession. Perhaps he could dodge one. Knock aside the second with a well-timed swing of a sword.
But not a third. He could not be that gifted a swordsman. No one was. The thought was simply ludicrous. Filled with the sort of bold audacity that routinely caused Shahrzad such trouble.
They were alike in that respect. Shazi and the boy-king.
Arrogant. Audacious.
Yet oddly steadfast in their convictions. Oddly honorable.
Tariq should aim for his heart. And take him down. For Shiva. For his aunt.
For himself.
Anger coursing through his blood, Tariq pulled the arrow even farther back. He heard the sinew tighten beside his ear. The goose feathers between his fingers felt so familiar in their softness; they almost whispered a promise on the wind.
The promise of an end to his suffering.
He could do it. The boy-king’s arrogance made him weak. Made him believe Tariq incapable of such violence. Or unable to espouse the necessary skill.
Tariq stared down the needless sights to the end of the arrow. The obsidian point gleamed back at him, menacingly beautiful in the light of the moon.