“He’s not going to help you, Shahrzad,” Jalal said, seamlessly resurrecting his smug façade. “I’d venture a guess that not many soldiers out here, save myself, would take the risk of getting within an arm’s length of you.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, by now every soldier in Rey knows what happened to the last guard who dared to put his hands on the queen. So if I were you, I’d give up on cajoling the Rajput into giving you lessons on swordplay. Even though you did ask him so nicely,” Jalal joked drily.
“Did . . .” Shahrzad frowned. “What happened to the guard?”
Jalal shrugged. “A bevy of broken bones. Your husband is not a forgiving man.”
Wonderful. Yet another attribute of note.
“So please put down the sword and go back to the palace, my lady,” Jalal finished in a firm tone.
“Don’t you dare dismiss me, Jalal al—” And Shahrzad’s rant died on her lips, before it even started.
She wanted to turn around.
Because she knew, instinctively, that he was there. There was no logical explanation for it, but she felt his presence behind her, like the subtle change in the seasons. A shift in the wind. This was not necessarily a welcome change. She did not suffer that kind of delusion. Not yet.
But even the moment when the leaves fall from their boughs—even that moment—has a beauty to it. A glory of its own.
And this change? This change made her shoulders tense and her stomach spin.
It was real . . . and terrifying.
“This moment could not be any more perfect,” Jalal muttered, glancing to his left.
Still Shahrzad did not turn around. She clenched the scimitar tight in both hands, and the Rajput stepped even closer, his talwar glinting with a silent warning.
“By Zeus, Shahrzad!” Despina cried. “Is this what happens when I leave you alone? You get into a sword fight with the captain of the guard?”
At that, Shahrzad twisted her head to the right.
Despina stood by Khalid with a look of worry and dismay on her pretty face.
Khalid was as inscrutable as ever.
As cold as always.
Shahrzad wished she could end it here and now, with the slash of a sword. She wished she could grab Khalid by the shoulders and shake a semblance of life onto his frozen countenance.
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 . . .