“Careful there, son. Don’t want to end up going in.” A man reached for him, but Javan couldn’t feel the hands that held him back.
Something wild and awful awoke in his chest and grew until it was a monster howling beneath his skin. He fell to his knees and dug his fingers into the rocky sand as he stared at the body of the man who’d been as much of a father to him for the past ten years as the one who’d given him life.
“Son?”
“Did you know him?”
“Might be his first dead body. Can be a shock.”
“Night’s falling. We can’t stay.”
The words swirled around Javan, passing over him without a ripple as the monster in his chest swelled into his throat until it was difficult to breathe.
The impostor in the royal coach.
He’d done this.
Killed the headmaster for trying to have one last word with Javan.
Killed him because the headmaster had seen the impostor. Because he had known something was wrong.
And because to fake your way onto a throne, you had to remove anyone who could dispute your claim.
If Javan hadn’t accepted the invitation to go to the tavern. If he hadn’t decided to use the privy and walk back by himself. If he’d fought harder. Escaped sooner. Run faster.
The headmaster would still be alive.
The monster tore into him with feral teeth, drawing blood from the scars of grief that covered the wound of his mother’s death. Javan threw his head back and howled at the darkening sky.
His mother was gone. His father hadn’t shown up. And now he’d lost the headmaster, a man he’d loved like family.
The hands that were holding him back let go. The voices that were talking over him gradually ceased. The prince bowed his head, grief sinking into him until the blood in his veins felt turned to stone.
It took two hours to dig the grave in the thick dirt above the shoreline. Another hour to carry the headmaster, arrange him with dignity and honor, and gently cover him with soil to keep him safe from carrion eaters until word could be sent back to Milisatria so that they could collect him and give him a proper burial.
Darkness was a vast, cavernous presence across the land, dusted by the distant glitter of cold white stars, as Javan laid a heavy stone across the top of the headmaster’s grave and scratched the man’s name into the rock with the tip of a dagger.
Resting his hands on the stone, Javan murmured a lament for the dying. It was supposed to be prayed before the loved one passed over into the next realm, but Javan knew Yl’ Haliq would understand.
Just as he would understand the deep dishonor that had been done this day, and what Javan had to do to make it right.
The sharp edges of his grief hardened into determination as he mounted his horse, lifted his hood over his head, and set his course for the desert.
SEVEN
RAHIM WAS SO close to being recognized by Akram as its prince, he could almost taste it.
He’d been traveling the Samaal Desert for over three weeks now, passing inns and long stretches of road with nothing to see but the ruins of altars to the lesser gods and the iron-caged effigies of dark elves ready to be lit on fire during the week of Tu’ Omwahl as Akramians remembered the war six generations before that had finally freed them from servitude to the monstrous creatures from the far north.
By the week of Tu’ Omwahl, the FaSaa’il would have either finished poisoning the king or Rahim would have convinced him to abdicate. Either way, Rahim would be ensconced on Akram’s throne, the crown of fire on his brow, and the bodies of all who’d opposed him strewn in his wake.
It would be interesting to kill again. He’d acted so quickly with the academy’s headmaster that he hadn’t had time to really savor his victory.
He sniffed as he glanced across the carriage at the ruined upholstery. He’d been right about the bloodstain. It was never coming out. The velvet was crusty and matted, and the man’s bright red blood had dried an unsightly brown. As the unforgiving desert sun beat down on the carriage, the smell that lingered in the stifling confines coated the back of Rahim’s tongue with sharp bitterness and almost made him wish to ride atop the vehicle with his guards.
Almost.
But Rahim had spent too many years in the burned red sand of the desert, sewing garments to help his mother eke out a living and nursing his rage, to ever travel as anything less than the royal he was.
Besides, it was good to sit with the smell. To realize that he was strong enough to kill those who caused him problems and live with it afterward. Ordinary people couldn’t stomach it, but Rahim was hardly ordinary.
A sharp knock sounded on the door, and then a guard poked her head into the carriage, her eyes scraping over the bloodstained seat as if it didn’t exist.
None of the guards and coachmen had questioned Rahim when he’d demanded they stop the carriage at the entrance to the Sakhra bridge. Not even when they discovered his reason for stopping was to dump the body of Milisatria’s headmaster onto the shore.
If the power of being Akram’s prince was this intoxicating, Rahim couldn’t wait to experience what it was like to be king.
“Forgive my intrusion, Your Highness.” The guard’s voice was brisk. “We’ll be entering Makan Almalik soon. The journey is almost over.”
He nodded his thanks and leaned forward to sweep the curtain from the carriage’s window as the guard closed the door and resumed her post.
Makan Almalik spread across a bowl-shaped valley deep in the heart of Akram. Gentle hills dipped and curved, and the copper pipes, which funneled rainfall during monsoon season into enormous holding tanks, gleamed at the edges of the city.
Rahim drank in the sight like a starving man staring at a feast. A few months ago, he’d arrived in the city as a peasant. Now he was entering as its prince. Pride swept through him, fierce and possessive.
There were the gleaming white clay homes with their colorfully painted rooftops lining the hills in stately elegance. The cinnamon trees with their rust-brown bark and lemon groves with their rich green leaves and thorny stems. There were the packed-dirt streets and the brilliant sashes tied to balconies to flutter in the wind and give early warning of incoming sandstorms. The wooden stables painted in bold hues of peacock blue, apple red, or sunlit gold and the racetracks with their betting halls and trampled sweet grass seats for the peasants who paid five wahda to watch the aristocrats race their steeds.
And there, rising above the warren of streets, orchards, and buildings was the palace—the shining jewel in the crown of Akram. White pillars capped with domes tiled in crimson and gold glowed in the early morning light like torches. Carved marble tigers, the animal on the Kadar family crest, stood sentry along the glistening white walls that hemmed in the enormous palace estate. Royal purple banners hung from the upper balconies.
Rahim smiled as the carriage entered the city and began winding its way toward the palace.
He’d done it.