‘You’re named as a tribute.’
‘I was born before he...’
Amir’s shoulders squared. ‘Murdered my parents?’
Her eyes swept shut in anguish. ‘Yes.’
‘And yet he had knowingly hated them for a long time.’
‘You said yourself, hate has been felt by all our people for a very long time.’
‘True.’ He crossed his arms over his broad chest. She wished he hadn’t done that. It drew her focus in a way that was dangerous, flooding her body and brain with too many feelings.
‘A moment ago, I listened to you implore us to move on from those feelings. To remember that we were once allies.’ She swallowed, not realising until that instant how badly she wanted that to be the case. ‘Let’s not speak of Johar. Not when a new period of peace is upon us.’
His lips curled into what she could only describe as a grimace of derision. ‘Publicly I must advocate and encourage peace. Privately I am allowed to feel whatever the damned hell I please.’
His anger and vehemence were palpable forces, rushing towards her. ‘And what do you feel?’
He stared at her for several seconds and then looked beyond her, beyond the aviary, to the desert planes in the distance, made silver by the moonlight. ‘It’s better not to discuss it with you.’
‘If you’d known who I was...’ She let the question hang between them unfinished.
‘Would I have allowed it to happen?’ He compressed his lips. ‘No.’
‘You think you could have stopped it?’
His eyes shifted back to hers and she saw it—what she’d been conscious of and yet not fully understood before. He was a king. Born all-powerful to a mighty people. Born to rule and fully cognisant of what the world required of him. His natural authority was exactly that. She’d perceived it from the outset and she felt it now. She shivered involuntarily, a whisper of cold seizing her core.
‘Absolutely.’
Courage was failing her, but she wouldn’t allow what they’d shared to be lost completely. ‘You’re wrong.’ She moved forward, putting a hand on his chest, but he flinched away from her, his eyes holding a warning. Pain lashed her. She had to be brave; he couldn’t deny that what had happened between them was real. That it held meaning. ‘There was something about you, and me, that needed us to do that.’
He made a noise of disagreement. ‘It was a mistake.’
Hurt pounded her insides. She shook her head in disagreement.
‘Let me be clear.’ His voice was deep and authoritative. She stayed where she was, but her body was reverberating with a need to reach for him, to touch him. ‘If I had known you were a Qadir I would not have touched you. I would not have spoken to you. I will always regret what happened between us, Johara.’ And her spat her name as though it were the worst insult he could conjure. ‘Tonight, I betrayed myself, my parents, and everything I have always believed.’
Pain exploded in her chest. She blinked at him, uncertain of how to respond, surprised by how badly his words had cut her. ‘I’m not my uncle. I’m not my parents and I’m not my brother.’ She spoke with a quiet dignity, her voice only shaking a little. ‘You cannot seriously mean to hate me just because of the family I was born into?’
His eyes pierced her. ‘I’m afraid that’s exactly what I mean, Your Highness.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘IT’S IMPORTANT.’
‘It’s dangerous.’ Paris spoke over Malik in a rare sign of anger. Johara watched the two of them discussing her fate with an overarching sense of frustration. As though where she went and why came down to what they said.
‘The peace is already fraying, and only eight weeks after the accord was signed. We need to do something more to underscore our intent that this be meaningful.’ He turned to Johara, frowning. ‘I hate to ask it of you, Johara, but you know that it’s time.’
She said nothing, simply lifting a brow in a silent invitation for him to continue. ‘You’ve avoided your obligations for years, and I’ve allowed it.’ Inwardly she bristled. Malik crouched before her. ‘Because you’re my
sister and I love you—I want you to be happy. But I need you now. Someone has to go and do the sorts of visible politicking I don’t have time for.’
She ignored the way her brother so easily relegated the responsibilities he was trying to foist on her as though it were just glad-handing and smiling for cameras, rather than wading into enemy territory and attempting to win the hearts of the Ishkana people.
‘You should go.’ Paris spoke quietly, addressing Malik, his eyes intense. ‘For a short visit.’