The Bodyguard
My mouth went dry. My eyes darted to the guards storming toward me at Shah Jihangir’s order. Their boots pounded the stone. They grabbed hold of my arms and hefted me to my feet.
“Dayyan!” I screamed.
I didn’t want to leave him. If he was to die, I wanted to perish with him. The rope I had been working at for the past hours slipped from my hands, giving me momentary freedom. I reached for him, but the guards yanked me away, hefting me into the air. Their hands gripped me roughly.
“Let her go!” Dayyan shouted, breaking away from his guards. “Do not touch her!”
He tore the ropes from his wrists and reached for me, just as I reached for him.
The tips of our fingers brushed. And then we were launched apart—him back into the horde of men waiting for word from the shah to take his last breath and me dragged from the palace kicking and thrashing.
I was deposited onto the stairs outside.
“Leave now and never return. Or we will have no choice but to kill you,” Mustafa told me.
I sank to the ground, my chest heaving with unrestrained sobs.
The guards turned to blurs as they receded into the palace.
The gates thudded closed with a chilling finality.
Farani’s last expression, a vicious malice, haunted me.
I touched my face where she had struck me.
How could she have become so changed? The thirst for revenge had morphed her into someone I didn’t recognize.
And Dayyan . . . Of course it had been Dayyan who had ended my father’s life.
When Shah Jihangir had said the words, I’d known they were true.
Part of me had always known it; I just hadn’t wanted to accept the truth.
I didn’t know how long I’d sat there pouring sadness from my eyes when an elderly woman approached me. She wore white robes that were so clean they nearly glowed.
“What is wrong, child?”
She helped me stand and led me into the city, where we sat on a lone bench. She wiped the blood off my mouth. Her sweet care propelled me to cry harder. I fell into her arms, and she gripped me with gentle hands and brushed her fingers over my disheveled chadar.
“There now. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I focused on her. On the wrinkles lining her kind face and the warm brown eyes wise with years of life.
“My husband will be executed.”
Her features turned sorrowful. “Oh, my child.”
I sat with her for a long time, telling her everything. How I had been forced to marry Dayyan and how I had fallen for him. Once I finished, I shrugged, sapped of energy. “I am utterly hopeless.”
The woman’s brows lowered, and she lifted my chin. “There is always hope, my child. The Almighty has given you strength to weather many hardships and will not leave you alone. Find your bravery and save your shahzadeh.”
Her faith in me warmed my heart. I placed my hand over hers. “Thank you.”
I hoped she could feel the sincerity in the two words.
I stood from the bench and placed two fingers into my mouth, whistling.
The sound cut through the air, sharp and earsplitting.
Moments elapsed, and I feared it hadn’t worked.
Then I heard the whinny. Wahe landed before me in a flurry of feathers and hooves.
She nudged me with her nose and I stroked her muzzle in reply.
“Let us get our shahzadeh,” I whispered.
I glanced back at the old woman, only to find she was gone. Pearly glittering dust blew from the bench where she had been sitting.
It was the first time in ages that I’d been in the sky.
Wahe’s wings cleaved the air. I gripped her mane, guiding her around the palace until I reached my destination.
The guards below were too busy looking ahead to think about glancing up.
I slid from Wahe’s back onto the windowsill, carefully slipping inside the room.
Wahe propelled into the sky, her wings creating a powerful gust. I looked around the familiar chamber, and an ache filled my chest. I ran my fingers over the bed and the vanity—both places I had tried to stab Dayyan.
“You returned.”
I swiveled, spotting the speaker leaning on the cushions spread across the toshak. Farani’s chin was tucked into her palm, her large brown eyes tracking my movements. I exhaled the pent-up breath stuck in my throat. “What are you doing in here?”
“Here, in the palace? Or here, in the room you shared with your shahzadeh?” Farani slowly stood, glancing about the chamber. “It is quite drab. You should have done something about the décor.” She chuckled when I remained stony.
“After all your hate-filled oaths about killing the Northern royalty, now you are marrying Shah Jihangir?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think you survived.
That either of you did. It was so easy to convince Jihangir that Dayyan had killed his prized son and win him over.
The malikeh madars are dried-up old hags.
Jihangir longed for someone youthful.” She smiled, waving at herself.
“I wormed into his thoughts, just as I will one day slip something into his food. And who will remain as sultana over this desert then?”
I shook my head. “Dayyan didn’t kill Bahir. You are slandering him and causing the death of an innocent.”
“An innocent,” she hissed, slamming the items off the vanity. They clattered to the floor. She pointed a shaking finger at me. “He killed Samir. He is no innocent.”
“He didn’t kill Samir.”
We stood with bated breaths, eyes rooted to each other.
“I did.”
She recoiled, face twisting with a myriad of emotions. “What?”
“And I do not regret it. Not for a moment.”
Anger won out and took over her face. “How dare you?”
“It was my right. You know what he did to me. You know better than anyone the monster he was.”
“He changed,” she insisted.
“You never intended to ask Samir to account, did you? I told you he wanted me dead, that he had arranged my assassination. But it never mattered to you.”
She flinched, and I knew I had struck true. As she remained silent, a more devastating realization overcame me.
“You knew all along.”
She swallowed. “We heard the rumors. The prince of death had fallen for his bride. And from the way things were progressing, it seemed you had as well. We had to discard you and then I would make my entrance into the palace.” The words slipped from her mouth and hit me like a slap.
“One way or another, you were always meant to die—by saving me or being my sacrifice.”
“You never loved me,” I whispered.
“You never deserved my love. You always got everything while I was shackled to a prophecy that isn’t even true. You were given a loving father. You stole the altizar that was supposed to be mine.”
“That wasn’t on purpose.”
“It was!” she exclaimed. “Everything you did was to undermine me. If I hadn’t come, you would have continued pretending to be me and living your fairy tale with a man that would lay down his life to give you just one more breath in this world. What about me? Why do you deserve that and I don’t?”
I shook my head. She didn’t realize how difficult it had been. Every day, every path I had taken for her sake, had been laced with hardships she’d never endured. “I cannot make you understand what you do not want to hear.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, low and hoarse. “Because you will get what you deserve.”
She swung toward me, silver flashing in her palm.
I leaned back, and the blade flew over my face centimeters from my nose.
She slashed again and again. The blade grazed my arm and blood spurted, trickling down to my palm.
She screeched and shoved me. We hit the floor, each rolling to gain the upper hand.
She landed atop me, clamping her hands together around the hilt and bringing the blade toward my chest. I grabbed her wrists, resisting with all my might.
The dagger tip shook, growing nearer to my heaving chest.
“Die!” she shrieked.
I thrust her arms up and rolled out from beneath her.
Farani fell forward, her arms swinging wildly to catch herself.
And then a sickening squelch. I scrambled away in horror, then gasped when she rolled over.
Her dagger was plunged into her middle. She stared up at me, tears leaking from her brown gaze.
She touched her belly, and more tears emerged from her eyes when her hand came away red.
Her gaze flicked to mine. Blood pooled over her lips.
“Yildiz,” she gasped. “Save me.”
I crouched down, hesitated, and then listened to the goodness of my heart and placed my hands over her wound.
But it was too late. The light in her eyes had faded, and she fell limp.
I didn’t realize I was crying until a tear dropped onto my hand, mixing with Farani’s crimson blood.
The chamber door creaked open. My head shot up, and the precariousness of the situation staunched my tears.
Esana entered the room, and her lips parted in shock.