The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn #1)(12)
What kind of game is she playing?
“You thought wrong.” Shahrzad walked to the doors of the chamber and tugged on the handles. As soon as she crossed the threshold, a hulking figure stepped into view. His skin was the color of burnished copper, and he towered over Shahrzad, with his head bound in an intricately wrapped turban. His exposed arms were thick with corded muscle, and his black beard was neatly trimmed to a point just below his chin. Eyes the color of a moonless night gleamed down at her, stark and merciless.
“Uh, yes. You must be . . . I’m sorry, what is your name?” Shahrzad stammered.
“I told you; he’s the Rajput,” Despina replied from behind her.
“But he must have a name,” Shahrzad rasped over her shoulder.
“If he does, I don’t know it.”
With an irritated sigh, Shahrzad faced forward and braved the sight of her potential executioner once more.
“I’m Shahrzad.” She met his black gaze.
He glowered at her before moving aside to let her pass.
As she slipped by him, she noticed the long talwar sword hanging from his hip, shining with menace in the midday sun.
So this silent brute is the only swordsman who can best my enemy . . .
How am I to find any weakness in Khalid Ibn al-Rashid with his spies all around me, watching my every move?
She exhaled protractedly.
I might have a serious problem.
DRAW WEIGHT
THE ORIGINAL STRUCTURE OF THE PALACE HAD BEEN built nearly three hundred years ago, by a king with a flair for extravagance. In the years since, many wings had been added to augment the base of marble and limestone. They branched off like tributaries, winding toward an unseen destination far in the distance.
It would be easy to get lost in such a place.
“How do I get to the courtyards?” Shahrzad asked Despina, after they had wandered the shining halls for half an hour.
Despina canted her head to the side in thought. “I suppose that would be fine. No one expressly forbade you from going outdoors.”
Shahrzad resisted the urge to retort as Despina backtracked down a corridor to the right. The Rajput stalked alongside Shahrzad, his posture as rigid and implacable as his expression. After several minutes of traversing in silence, they came to an open-air gallery with a series of arched double doors leading outside.
An attendant pushed through one set of doors to allow them passage, and Shahrzad walked into a terraced courtyard arranged like colossal steps in a descending staircase. The first of these terraces was filled with flowering trees and an elaborate aviary enclosed on all sides by carefully wrought trelliswork. The sturdy acacia wood was covered with a thin layer of white paint and anchored by bolts of polished bronze. Lush blue-green grass flourished between pavestones of coarse granite.
Shahrzad strode past the aviary, glancing at the colorful trove of songbirds flittering within: nightingales, goldfinches, larks, canaries . . .
A loud squawk blasted from behind her. She twisted around to find a peacock strutting across the lawn, his plumage of malachite and gold fanning in the sun, catching errant beams of light.
Shahrzad glided closer. The peacock stopped to glare at her before lowering his fan and scurrying away.
She laughed to herself. “So quick to strut. So quick to flee.”
“What are you talking about?” Despina asked.
Shahrzad shook her head.
“Are you talking about men?” Despina snorted.
Choosing not to reply, Shahrzad paced the length of the top terrace and took the stone stairs leading down to the next tree-lined expanse. This garden was bursting with white citrus blossoms and green figs hanging heavy on their boughs, still awaiting their moment to ripen.
She passed through this tier, pausing only to breathe in the scent.
Despina regarded her thoughtfully. “What are you trying to do?” she asked with a trace of suspicion.
Shahrzad lifted her hand to shield her eyes as she focused on signs of movement in an expanse of sand and stone below them.
“If you’ll tell me what it is you’re planning, I can take you there,” Despina offered.
“I’m not planning anything. I’m looking for something.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A handmaiden who doesn’t ask so many questions.”
Despina snickered.
Shahrzad quickened her pace as she flew down the last series of stairs, making her way to the intended destination of sand and stone.
The Rajput grunted his disapproval as they neared the entrance.
So he’s not mute, after all.
Despina huffed audibly. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be here.”
“You said I could go anywhere, as long as the Rajput is with me,” Shahrzad reminded her.
“I don’t think anyone expected you to come to the training grounds.”
Shahrzad’s keen eyes ran over the sea of male faces lost in the art of swordplay, training with spears and perfecting their deadly aim with the axe-like tabarzin.
He’s not here.
“Are you looking for the caliph?” Despina demanded.
“No.”
But I assume the second-best swordsman in Rey will practice at some point today . . . if he intends to maintain his title.
And I need to learn his weakness, so that I may destroy him with it.