“Pass me your shoes and bag, madam,” a separate guard invited, his accent much easier to understand.
She slipped her feet out of the sensible ballet flats she’d chosen and unhooked the bag from across her shoulder. They looked pathetic and dirty in the plastic tray. The guard, with gloved hands, began to inspect the contents of her life and then pushed them through a small scanner. He studied a screen and then nodded. “Okay.” He nodded towards his left. “Through here.”
She walked under the arch, her nerves leaping exponentially with every hurdle she crossed, for each one brought her closer to Kiral.
“You have identification?”
She nodded and reached for her handbag. “May I?”
He nodded. She slipped her passport from the bag and handed it to him. He studied it and then put it into another tray.
“Oh.” Abi’s eyes were enormous as she looked at his face. “May I have it back?”
“Not now. After.”
“After?” She licked her lower lip. “What are you going to do with it?”
His smile was reassuring. “Have it checked and keep it safe. You need not worry, madam. You are in the royal palace of Delani. We have little interest in identity fraud, eh?”
She felt small and silly. How could she explain to him that it was not identity fraud she feared so much as a loss of her liberty? She couldn’t. Not when so much was still at stake. Not when she still had no idea if Kiral would even see her. If he would help her.
“All visitors surrender their passport, madam. It is a necessary security measure.”
“Right,” she felt slightly mollified by his assurances. She nodded jerkily and, when he extended the tray to her, slipped her bag back over her shoulder and her shoes onto her feet. They were hot. So hot. This guard was kind-seeming and so she felt emboldened to say, “Would it be possible to get some water, please?”
He nodded and said a few words over her shoulder. A woman appeared with a bottle.
“This is Anushka. She will perform a pat-down, madam. Then you may have your water.”
“Fine,” Abigail nodded. Weariness sapped her like a spell. What time was it? She scanned the room, looking for a clock. Anushka’s watch was the closest she came. As the woman deftly moved her hands over Abigail’s body, she saw it was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. She’d arrived at the palace at ten that morning, and prior to that it had been a long flight out from New York. No wonder she was tired and hungry.
Anushka said something to the guard Abi had originally followed into the room and he nodded efficiently towards Abigail. “This way.”
She fell into step beside him, focussing on the details of the building to keep her mind off the meeting that was, surely, coming closer and closer to fruition.
Did the guard intentionally take her past the statue? Or was there no other way to enter the inner sanctum of the palace? It towered over her; it was at least five times as tall as her, and built of marble. It was Kiral, though. She knew his body intimately, and she knew that this statue had been perfectly carved to resemble his form. She stared at it with a sinking feeling of desperation. How had she ever felt she loved him? How had she ever believed she knew him? He was a man that sculptures had been made for! He was a King!
The guard had continued walking and Abi had to hasten her step to catch up. She left the statue behind and tried her hardest to harden her heart; to find some strength and bravery in her being. The corridors continued as endless sleeves of glowing white, and the guard took so many twists and turns that Abi knew she’d never be able to find her way out again.
The wall to her left gave way eventually to glass. From the floor to the ceiling, the view of the glistening ocean to the west was perfectly framed. It was far enough away to form a perfect vista; she could take in the spiked palm trees on the shore, and the desert sand that changed from a burnt orange to a crisp white as it neared the ocean. The ocean itself was one of the most beautiful colours she’d ever seen. Turquoise and blue, so crisp and clear than she was almost irrepres
sibly drawn to it. How inviting it looked! How pleasant it would be, on a day such as this, to submit to its cool depths.
“Here.” The man paused outside a large room. The ceiling was high above her and the chairs looked both expensive and uncomfortable. “Here you wait.”
She nodded. “Thank you. Excuse me but does he, does His Highness, know I’m here?”
“Not yet,” the man said with a shake of his head. “He will be finished soon.”
“And then he’ll come to me?”
“He will come when he is able. If he chooses to do so.” The guard’s smile was apologetic. “I cannot promise he will meet with you at all, madam.”
The thought that, after all this, he might turn her away, filled Abi with a cold sense of dread. “Please be sure to tell him it’s urgent. Please tell him … please tell him I wouldn’t have come if it weren’t a matter of life and death.”
* * *
“Life and death?” Kiral studied the passport with a pounding sense of emotion. “She used those exact words?”