AN INDELIBLE LINE

SHAHRZAD REFUSED TO BE COWED BY THE GANGLY boy standing before her.

In another world—in another life—she might have pitied him.

But he’d threatened Irsa. An indelible line had been drawn.

And, despite his best efforts to conceal it, she could see his fingers shaking around her dagger.

Move slowly.

“What is your name?” she began in a quiet tone.

He sucked in a sharp breath. “I’ll be the one to ask the questions.”

She stood still as he paced around her in a circle.

His agitation was worsening.

“How?” With every erratic footfall, streams of light bounded across his face, casting his patchy beard in sinister shadow.

Shahrzad clasped her hands before her. “Pardon?”

“How did you survive?”

She chose her next words with care. “I told stories.”

He halted midstep. His disdain was clear before he even spoke.

“You told stories? You expect me to believe that monster kept you alive because you amused him?”

Shahrzad leveled a withering stare in his direction. “Believe what you choose to believe. But the proof stands before you, all the same.”

He made a sound of choked disbelief. She almost recoiled from its harshness. “Are you trying to provoke me? Are you truly that big a fool?”

For the second time, Shahrzad lifted her palms in a placating gesture. “I’m not trying to provoke you . . .” She waited patiently, hoping the boy would take the bait.

“Teymur. My name is Teymur.”

“Teymur.” Shahrzad curved her lips into a careful smile. “I’m not trying to provoke you,” she repeated. “I’m trying to understand you.”

A poor choice of words. Shahrzad realized it as soon as they passed into comprehension.

“Understand me?” Teymur snarled. “You couldn’t possibly understand me!”

“Please just tell me—”

He charged at her. Long fingers closed around her throat like a cuff. Shahrzad wrapped both hands around his wrist, trying to stay his grip. She stared back into his flame-filled eyes, determined not to flinch.

She was not afraid. This boy—this skinny man-child—was far more afraid than she would ever be. The sweat fell in steady trickles down either side of his face.

“How could you possibly understand?” He was shaking so hard it made his voice quake. “You’re alive. The monster let you live!”

With his other hand, he placed the tip of her dagger beside her chin. The blade was still ensconced in its jeweled sheath.

“Where did you get this?” Teymur examined the delicate etchings carved into the scabbard. He ran his thumb along the seed pearls and the tiny garnets embedded in the hilt. The emeralds at its base flashed with an evil light.

“Teymur—”

“Is it his?” His gaze moved from the dagger back to Shahrzad. “Did he give it to you?”

She said nothing.

“Answer me.” He shook her by the throat. “You promised me answers!”

“Yes. He gave it to me.”

“And if I kill you with it?” His voice drained to a whisper. “Like he killed my Roya.”

Shahrzad swallowed thickly. She knew that name.

One of so many. One in a sea of scattered letters.

In a storm of remembrances.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize!” The tips of his fingers pushed into her skin.

His pain radiated through Shahrzad, from his hand to her heart, touching an old wound that would never fully heal.

Shiva.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, her eyes squeezed shut, barring him from her pain, if only for a moment more.

“The truth.”

She swallowed again. “What do you wish to know?”

“Where your loyalties lie. Do you matter to Khalid Ibn al-Rashid?” He spat the name as though it were a curse. “Does he care for you?”

“I cannot speak to his feelings. He guards them well.” A half-truth. She could manage this, if pressed further. The blood returned to her clenched fingers in a rush.

“Then speak to your own. Does the monster matter to you?”

Lie.

“No.” Shahrzad locked her jaw. “He does not.”

“So you belong to the White Falcon still?”

“I belong to me.”

“Where is your heart, Shahrzad al-Khayzuran?” His voice was coarse in its insistence.

In an alley by the souk. In a night of oblivion.

In the promise of tomorrow.

“With . . . Tariq Imran al-Ziyad.” The lie burned on her tongue. “Where it always will be.” She kept her eyes closed, knowing they might betray her.

Teymur took in a harsh breath. It rattled in his chest, then filled the space between them, hot and fetid. In, then out. Twice more.

At his silence, a sense of unease kindled within her.

He pulled her close. Too close. His warm breath prickled her forehead.

“Did the monster . . . hurt Roya?”

In his sudden closeness, she understood his meaning.

And was horrified by it.

Her eyes flashed open. “He didn’t touch her.”

He studied her in awful stillness. So very close. Her pulse ratcheted in her throat, pounding with a restless incessancy.

“You told him stories. As you are telling me stories now.”

His resolve firmed as he spoke. And Shahrzad knew she could no longer stand idle. Knocking his arm aside, she rammed into his shoulder and made to flee.

With vicious precision, Teymur seized her tight, taking her feet out from under her and slamming Shahrzad to the ground. All the air was knocked from her chest. She gasped once, the pain in her side searing as she struggled to catch her breath.

For the first time, a cold wave of fear coursed down her back.

This skinny weasel of a boy was stronger than she. He was tall and wily. And she could not fight him off forever. Nor could she reason with him.

But perhaps there was another way. A way of diversion and lies.

A surge of fury chased after the fear. Shahrzad gripped the wrist at her throat, digging her nails into his skin.

Whatever lingering pity she might have had for him melted in her rage.

The indelible line had deepened to a chasm.

He was preying upon the basest of fears. A fear Shahrzad had long held in the darkest recesses of her mind.

“What are you doing, Teymur?” She fought to keep her voice steady.

The two sides of the man-child battled for control as he glared down at her. He was so very afraid, blustering and shuddering through this hard-won triumph.

She would not lie here in silence as he warred with his convictions.

“Are you going to rape me,” Shahrzad demanded, “or are you merely trying to frighten me with the thought? And what do you hope to achieve by such uninspired villainy?”

Teymur winced at her boldness. Her nerve at bringing his shameful intentions to light.

Shahrzad knew her taunts were foolish. Knew they might further provoke him. But she could not—would not—comply in the face of such cowardice.

Not while there was still breath left in her body.

For a moment, Teymur seemed to waver. Then he clenched his jaw, bracing himself above her. With surprising deftness, he unsheathed the dagger and positioned the blade beside her face again. “You must matter to him, or he wouldn’t have let you live.”

The feel of the cold steel against her skin did not frighten her. She clung to rage instead. “Khalid Ibn al-Rashid values precious little in life. I amused him for a time. Do not seek reason beyond that. You said it yourself: he is a monster.” She spoke in clear tones, her barely leashed fury underscoring each syllable.

“You’re still lying to me. Do you mean to tell me the Caliph of Khorasan would not care if harm were to befall you?”

“As I said before, I cannot speak to his feelings.”

Teymur sneered down at her. “You expect me to believe the mighty King of Kings wouldn’t be angry for what has transpired today?”

No.

Khalid would break every bone in your body for what you’ve done.

Shahrzad stared up at him coolly. “If you think Roya would condone your actions in this moment, nothing I can do or say will matter.” She choked back the rising bile. “But I can’t imagine any girl with real love in her heart would ever approve of such a thing.”

His hold on her neck flagged as his face fell to despair. Each of his features wilted into the next. In that instant, Shahrzad saw how much Teymur had loved Roya.

How much he’d lost of himself when he’d lost her.

But it was no excuse. There would never be an excuse for this.

Successful in achieving a distraction, Shahrzad now sought to disarm him.

Ever so cautiously, she shifted one hand from around his wrist. While Teymur contended with his inner demons, Shahrzad let her hand drop to search the ground for a potential weapon. A rock, a tumbler, a bowl, a stick, anything . . .

As her fingers scrabbled for purchase, they fell upon—

A piece of dried meat?

Teymur remained lost in thought, his fingers loose at her throat, so Shahrzad let her gaze drift sidelong in one quick pass of the tent.

Even in the dim light, she could see that several strips of dried meat had been slid under the bottom of the tent in her direction.

They were the type of dried meat Tariq usually fed to Zoraya.

Tariq can’t want me to bait his falcon . . .

This did not seem at all like something Tariq would have devised. If Tariq knew what was transpiring within the tent’s walls, he would have ripped it from the ground and used its ropes to hang Teymur in the wind. Tariq—brash at every turn—would have been loath to drum up a stealth attack of any sort. And definitely not one involving Zoraya.

If not Tariq, then who devised such a harebrained scheme?

Shahrzad’s eyes combed the walls of the tent.

And where is that accursed falcon?

One thing was for certain: if this plan was intended to provide a distraction, it would prove to be an interesting one.

Shahrzad curled her fingers around the strip of dried meat.

Like a mongoose to a cobra, her hand shot up to the collar of Teymur’s qamis. She lodged the strip in the hollow behind his neck. Momentarily stunned, he released the dagger and slapped both his hands to his nape as though he were trying to quash a marauding insect.

In a flurry of feathers and flashing talons, Zoraya came screeching through the entrance of the tent, straight for Teymur’s collar. He screamed and toppled sideways off Shahrzad. The falcon continued attacking him, her wings spread wide. Shahrzad seized another piece of dried meat while Teymur tried in vain to fend off Zoraya’s onslaught.

Before Shahrzad had a chance to form a coherent thought, Rahim al-Din Walad burst into the tent with Irsa on his heels. Strips of dried meat were clasped in Irsa’s fists. Rahim grabbed Shahrzad by the arm and hauled her to her feet.

“Go! Both of you.” He ripped his scimitar from its scabbard, his expression stern.

“I will not,” Irsa replied, her voice surprisingly strong and steady. “Not until I know you and Shazi are safe.”

Shahrzad, too, refused with a pointed glance. When Rahim began to protest, she turned a deaf ear his way. He muttered a curse and moved to one side, his scimitar held at the ready.

“Zoraya. Stop this, at once!” The falcon ignored the command, so Shahrzad whistled softly.

Zoraya squawked in reply, but ceased her assault. Stooping to collect her discarded dagger, Shahrzad stepped before a cowering Teymur. His neck and hands were scratched bloody, and the front of his trowsers was soaked. An acrid tang filled the air. Utterly indifferent, Shahrzad held the piece of dried meat before her. The falcon took it in her talons and landed beside Shahrzad’s feet, her blue-grey feathers spread in protective shadow.

Shahrzad glowered down at Teymur. “If you ever touch me again, I’ll rip off your sorry excuse for manhood and feed it to the falcon.”

Then she stepped closer, brandishing her unsheathed dagger.

“But if you even look at my sister again, I’ll kill you outright.”