“No, of course, my son. Forgive me. I keep hoping to see the best in my cousin, but time and again, he shows me only his worst.”
Rahim frowned, though inside his heart was racing. This was it. He’d hedged his bets, banking on the king’s distrust of Fariq to put Rahim one step closer to becoming Akram’s ruler. If Fariq learned of his deception, he would try to kill Rahim. If the king learned Rahim’s identity, he’d order his death as well.
But if both trusted Rahim implicitly and sought only to destroy each other, no matter the outcome, Rahim would be the winner.
“What has he done?” Rahim asked, keeping his hand on the king’s shoulder.
“This is an edict proclaiming Fariq to be the regent, to rule in my place due to my failing health.” The king’s voice shook with anger. “Not only is he trying to supplant me, but in doing this, he is also trying to supplant you.”
“But why?” Rahim did his best to sound distressed.
“Because he is greedy for power and angry that Yl’ Haliq has seen fit to deny it to him.” The king turned to Rahim. “Listen to me now. Fariq has friends within the palace and without. We cannot know who is with him in this plan. You must not tell anyone about this. We have to proceed with speed and caution. I wasn’t willing to take this step yet, because it seemed like Fariq was pushing me toward it, but now I wonder if he was pushing me because he knew that would make me resist doing the one thing that can put the crown out of his reach.”
“What are we going to do?” Rahim asked as triumph, bold and bright, spread through him.
“We will hold your coronation.”
TWENTY-THREE
IT HAD BEEN almost two weeks since the last combat round, and Sajda still didn’t know what to do about Javan.
He was surviving, a fact that shouldn’t have made her feel anything one way or the other, but which somehow made her glad. He’d kept to the rules she’d outlined for him—eating in his cell with her or Tarek, staying close to the other prisoners on the fifteenth level during chore and arena practice hours since Hashim and the rest of level five had a different schedule, and staying in plain view of the doorway during rec hour so she could keep an eye on him from the hallway in case Hashim decided to pick a fight while all the prisoners were in a room together. Occasionally she was able to get him out of his cell between his sparring hour and the bell that heralded the prisoners’ recreation time, but she’d had to invent excuses that wouldn’t raise anyone’s suspicions and get back to the warden. She’d told the guards that Javan had been given extra cleaning duties, and to make her story sound legitimate, she’d included several others from the fifteenth level as well. They’d scrubbed the arena until it glowed, polished the seats, and wiped the walls; and when they were finished, she had them start over again. Anything to keep an eye on Javan during the hours when Hashim might be able to bribe a guard to let him leave his cell.
He’d had to mingle with the other prisoners during recreation time—it would be hard to make allies otherwise, and he desperately needed those for his next stint in the arena—but Sajda had remained vigilant just outside the recreation room with the guards, her expression daring Hashim to give her a reason to punish him. Hashim had glared right back, and Sajda’s magic stung her veins at the memory.
He wouldn’t take her interference much longer. Either he’d confront her directly, or he’d do his best to kill Javan in the next combat round.
Worry chased her thoughts during the day and kept her up at night. Her bargain with Javan was a sword held over their heads by a fraying thread. One wrong move, and he could die. One mistake, and the warden could get suspicious and decide to expose Sajda. She couldn’t even coach him on the beasts he would face in the next round, because for the first time in the tournament’s history, she had no idea which creatures would go into the arena. It was supposed to be a combat round against beasts of the air, but the warden had canceled her shipment from Llorenyae and simply told Sajda she should order plenty of sand.
Instead, Sajda had coached Javan on which prisoners might make potential allies and had tried to hold up her end of the bargain by sparring with him during his arena practice. She thought it strange that he insisted on making it into a game where a simple touch counted as a point, and no one was supposed to use their full strength, but there was no accounting for the ways of aristocrats.
She’d done what she could, but she had the terrible feeling that disaster was careening toward them. She ought to walk away. Protect herself. Focus on surviving.
But he was kind, even when she wasn’t. He made her laugh. He listened to her as though her words mattered. He treated her as if she was something far better than a slave, and every time he smiled at her, something warm swirled through her veins like a new kind of magic.
It was strangely exhilarating until this morning when she woke before dawn and realized that the odd, fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn’t hunger.
At least not hunger for food.
Somehow, he’d become someone she wanted to be with each day, and it was terrifying. She wanted to back away. Cut him off at the knees before he had the chance to do the same to her. Before the thread holding the sword over their heads snapped.
But even as she considered what she would say to leave him friendless in Maqbara once again, something dark and aching opened up within her, and the words refused to pass her lips.
What was she going to do when he found out what she really was? When he turned on her and saw the monster instead of the girl?
The only good elf was a dead elf.
Maybe it was better to just show him the truth herself. At least then, he’d be walking away because she’d given him a push.
“Where are you?” Javan asked beside her, and she jumped.
“I’m standing right here in the middle of the arena with a scrub brush and bucket, just like you,” she snapped. “The warden won’t be happy if you and the other prisoners don’t get your work done before the next bell.”
“We’ll get it done. I meant where are you up here.” He tapped lightly on the side of her head.
“Do that again, and I’ll give myself ten points for every touch I get this afternoon during sparring practice.”
He gave her an exasperated look. “You can’t arbitrarily change the rules just because you’re in a bad mood.”
“I can do as I please. I did what I pleased for eleven years before you showed up, and I’ll keep doing as I please long after you’re gone.” She’d forgotten to borrow the cold composure of the stone wall outside her bedroom this morning, and everything inside her felt like a rope fraying under the strain of something far too heavy to lift.
He went still, which meant she’d just revealed too much of herself to him. She was looking back through her words to find the problem when he said quietly, “Have I done something wrong?”