The Wrath and the Dawn(59)
Instead, Shahrzad continued with the pretense—the one she gave to the world, and the one she gave to herself.
“Well?” Despina said.
Khalid’s eyes flicked to the handmaiden.
“I apologize, sayyidi. I did not mean to address the queen so informally.” Despina bowed in haste, her hand to her brow.
“You don’t have to apologize, Despina. I did not get into a fight with Jalal. We’re merely trading a few . . . lessons. Apparently, I am not that gifted with a sword. There are, in fact, limitations to my greatness,” Shahrzad jested.
“Thank the gods,” Despina mumbled.
“Limitations plague us all, Shahrzad.” Jalal grinned, seizing upon this opportunity for levity. “Don’t take it to heart.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, plunking the scimitar to the ground.
“What limitations?” Khalid asked quietly.
The sound of his voice slid down her back, bringing to mind cool water and sun-warmed honey. She gritted her teeth. “For one, I can’t seem to wield a sword. And that seems to be a basic premise of swordsmanship.”
Khalid watched her as she spoke.
“Pick it up,” he directed.
Shahrzad looked at him. He blinked, and his features softened. She raised the scimitar in both hands. Then, to her surprise, Khalid backed away and unsheathed his shamshir.
“Try to hit me,” he said.
“Are you serious?”
He waited in patient silence.
She swung the sword in a clumsy swipe.
Khalid parried it with ease and grabbed her wrist. “That was awful,” he said, pulling her into him. “Again.”
“Can you offer some direction?” she demanded.
“Widen your stance. Don’t throw your entire body into the movement. Only your upper body.”
She sunk into a lower stance, her brow lined with irritation. Once more, she curved the scimitar at him, and he blocked it, grasping her by the waist and bringing the flat of the shamshir against her throat.
In her ear, he whispered, “Do better than this, Shazi. My queen is without limitations. Boundless in all that she does. Show them.”
Her pulse raced at his warmth. In the words and the actions. The nearness of him.
She broke away and raised the scimitar.
“Smaller movements. Quicker. Lighter,” Khalid commanded. “I don’t want to see you act before you do.”
Shahrzad lashed out with the sword. Khalid parried the blow.
The Rajput grunted, crossing his mammoth arms.
After Shahrzad cut the scimitar in Khalid’s direction a few more times, she was shocked when the Rajput stepped forward and kicked at her back foot, nudging it into a new alignment. Then he lifted his bearded chin with a jerk.
He . . . wants me to keep my head up?
Khalid stood by, watching.
“Like—this?” Shahrzad asked the Rajput.
He cleared his throat and moved back.
When Shahrzad looked at Khalid again, his eyes were alight with an emotion she recognized.
Pride.
And the moment felt so terrifyingly real that the thought of anything destroying it cinched the air from her body . . .
Like a silk cord around her neck.
TO INFLICT A DARK WOUND
SHAHRZAD PICKED UP THE VIAL OF SCENTED ROSEWATER and pulled out the glass stopper. The perfume smelled heady and sweet—like a bouquet of aging blossoms alongside a vat of slowly melting sugar. Intoxicating and mysterious.
Perhaps too much so.
It didn’t smell like her.
She sighed and put down the vial.
Following her impromptu sword lesson, Shahrzad and Despina had returned to her chamber for dinner. Then her handmaiden had retired to her small room by Shahrzad’s chamber, mistakenly leaving behind a few cosmetics near the mirror in the corner. Shahrzad had wandered past this arrangement several times over the course of the last few hours.
Considering.
Situated by the vial was a tiny pot of polished ivory. Shahrzad twisted open the lid to discover a mixture of carmine and beeswax. She dipped her index finger into the shining paste and daubed it onto her lower lip. It felt sticky and strange on her skin as she attempted to mimic the alluring pout she always admired on her handmaiden. She stared back at her reflection.
I look ridiculous.
Shahrzad rubbed away the stickiness with her palm. It stained her hand pink.
What am I doing?
She paced toward the raised platform of her bed.