But it was no use.
He’d tried for weeks to repair the damage. Tried to mend what had been broken between them that afternoon near the steps of the library. Alas, Jalal’s heart had been lost the day Despina had vanished into the desert beyond the city’s gates. And a lost heart was a dire thing, indeed. Especially since his cousin had never experienced true heartache before. Jalal al-Khoury had lived a life where precious little had been denied him. A boy who’d been blessed with a mother to love him from infancy into adulthood. A father who had always been at his side in support. For though it could be said Aref al-Khoury was a bit standoffish, he’d always loved his son and been quietly generous in showing it.
Indeed, Jalal had been denied very little throughout the course of his twenty years. His biggest loss in life had been the loss of his best friend.
The loss of Khalid’s brother, Hassan.
Last night, after Jalal had stalked away into the cold corridors of the palace, Khalid had briefly recalled the time when Jalal had come to him after Hassan had died in battle. When Jalal had tried to find a common ground between them in shared loss.
Yet another time Khalid had retreated to the shadows, far from anyone and anything, even as a boy.
He’d spent so long concealing all from those closest to him that—even now—he did not know how to bring things to light. How to mend matters with Jalal. For Khalid had only begun to feel what it meant to live outside the darkness.
This morning, Khalid had told his uncle, the shahrban, the events of the last few days. But he was still uncertain as to whether the curse was truly broken. For he was not one to believe in things without proof.
No. Only time would provide Khalid with that solace.
He had slept again last night. A fitful, restless sort of sleep. The kind that did not lend itself to dreams. But Khalid wanted to hope dreams would come in time.
Wanted to cling to the hope of dreams.
Alas, reality brought Khalid back to his covered alcove. Back to his ebony desk. Back to a teetering pile of scrolls, detailing the requests collected in his absence. He needed to work through at least a few before he could return to the desert for Shahrzad.
Just when Khalid had decided he could not possibly parse another page, a resounding knock struck at the doors.
“Yes?” Khalid looked up.
His uncle strode inside. As usual, it was difficult to read much in his expression. A family trait. In nearly all the men. Save for Jalal. And Hassan. Hassan had smiled a great deal. Especially at his younger brother.
Khalid raised his brows in question.
“Sayyidi?” his uncle began without stopping in his paces. “The captain of the guard has detained a rather—interesting party in the palace courtyard.”
“Interesting?” Khalid leaned against one arm of his settee. “How so?”
“A Badawi sheikh wishes to speak with you. He rides with a small host at his back . . .” The shahrban hesitated. “And he is in the company of someone I’d advise you to avoid speaking with at all cost.”
Khalid stood from his desk, letting loose a flood of scrolls to the floor. “Who is it?”
“The son of the emir Nasir al-Ziyad rides at his side.”
At that, Khalid moved past his uncle without pausing for breath.
“Bring them to the royal audience hall immediately.”
“Have you ever seen a room this large?” Rahim whispered as he gazed in awe at the diagonally patterned floor of black-and-white tile.
“Pick your jaw off the ground,” Tariq said through gritted teeth.
Omar laughed loudly, and the sound echoed high into the ceiling, bouncing off the marble walls. All around them, intricate reliefs depicting warriors vanquishing their foes and winged women with hair streaming in the wind lined the cool stone surfaces. At the base of every column were two-headed lions with iron torches protruding from their roaring mouths.
Though the room appeared grand at first glance, Tariq could see chinks in its elegant armor—a crack through one wall, many small fissures through another—
The last remaining vestiges of the Great Storm.
It was a grand room, to be sure. But it was a room with a story to it.
At one end of the vast space was a raised dais with a low settee at its center. Behind it were a set of immense staircases shaped like open arms.
Tariq moved toward the raised dais, with Rahim and Omar in tow.
He’d seen this room before. The last time Tariq had been in it had been the night of a magnificent celebration, filled with food and drink and music and dance. The night the Caliph of Khorasan had introduced his new calipha to every nobleman in the kingdom.
Tariq recalled the moment they’d appeared at the bottom of the open-armed staircases, hand in hand. As though each were but an extension of the other.