When the stone in his hands fell to the ground with a sudden thud, it missed his foot by a hairsbreadth.
Khalid swore loudly and foully and without a care.
“Watch it, boy!” A near-toothless man edged a rock past him, his sun-worn face in a perpetual snarl. “You’re liable to lose every last toe that way.”
Khalid dipped his head in wordless acknowledgment. Then he stooped to collect the stone.
His right hand was bleeding again, a gash of brilliant red across his palm. He wiped it on his black tikka sash, hoping to stanch the flow.
“You’d better clean that. And wrap it in something, before it worsens.” The toothless man pushed past him again, moving with uncanny efficiency for someone so slight. “There’s usually water in pails at the side of the building.” He nudged his chin toward the shadows.
Khalid adjusted the front of his rida’ so he could address the man without impediment. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I still don’t understand why a boy with leather sandals that fine is troubling himself with work like this.” He regarded Khalid with a critical stare.
“Perhaps I have a strange affinity for old books.”
“Perhaps.” But he looked doubtful. “In any case, clean your wound. If it festers and you perish of a fever, your rich father will not be pleased.”
With a small smile, Khalid bowed, then proceeded to the side of the building to take heed of the man’s advice.
A rabble of children played amongst pails of water. Several boys fought over a rusted tumbler perched above a questionable fount, littered with ash and debris. One enterprising young girl hovered near a large bucket, its contents fastidiously clean. Not a single twig or a smattering of dust could be seen. She glanced up at Khalid, a smile alighting her features as she took in the fine sword hanging from his hip.
“Some water on a hot day, sahib?” The bit of colorful twine around her wrist slid down her skinny arm as she held up a hollowed-out gourd.
Khalid could not help but grin back. “How much for the pail . . . and the gourd?”
“For you, sahib?” Her smile turned mischievous. “Only two dinars.”
Barely able to contain her exulting crow when Khalid handed over the coins, the girl raced into the streets, her day’s work considered done. The other children scurried after her, eager to partake in her winnings.
Though he’d been soundly fleeced, Khalid thought it money well spent.
He crouched by the pail and let the lukewarm water wash across his stiffening palm. As he splashed some onto his face, he allowed himself the luxury of lowering his hood before dipping the gourd beneath the surface and ladling water onto his head.
Khalid let it drip down into his eyes. The water stung at first, so he pressed his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose, trying to allay the burn. When he stood, he rolled back his shoulders, basking in this temporary reprieve.
“You ungrateful cur.”
There was not even a moment to process the insult before two hands grabbed Khalid by the hood of his cloak and flung him face-first against the roughhewn wall of Rey’s oldest library. His foot caught on the pail, sloshing water onto the stone.
Though his sight remained blurred, he’d recognize his cousin’s voice anywhere.
“What the hell are you doing?” Khalid demanded, struggling for breath.
Jalal wrapped a fist in Khalid’s rida’, spinning him around. “I knew you were angry with me, but I never thought you capable of this.” His voice was choked by rage. “Truly, I never thought you could be this vile. I suppose I should have known better. I’ve always put too much stock in family.”
Khalid blinked hard, seeking a point of sanity in the madness taking shape around him. “Step back before you make an irrevocable mistake, Captain al-Khoury.”
“There’s no one to save you, Khalid-jan,” Jalal said, with a look to shrivel a cloudless sky. “And it’s your own damned fault. No Vikram. No bodyguards. For once, we’re going to fight fair, and I’m going to give you the beating you’ve been due for over a decade, you thankless bastard.”
Though his words were clipped and precise, Jalal’s features were haggard. He still had not managed a proper shave. Weariness pooled in the shadows beneath his eyes.
Weariness tinged by fury.
“You can try, by means fair or foul,” Khalid shot back in a cool tone, despite his unsettled state. “But I insist you reveal your reason for such behavior before I soundly trounce you, as I’d like to know what I’m supposedly guilty of—beyond having the bad luck to call you cousin.”
At that, Jalal reared back and punched Khalid in the face.
Khalid had been born the son of a king. An eighth-generation al-Rashid. As such, it was only the third time in his life anyone had ever struck him with such unmitigated force. With such visceral hatred.
First his father. Then Shahrzad.
And now Jalal.
Khalid reeled to the ground, his fingers clawing at the dirt. Blood thundered in his brow, excruciating in its force. The chained beast in his head bayed, thrashing about, its claws raking across his eyeballs.
Still, Khalid pushed himself up to his knees . . .
And launched into Jalal’s torso.
They landed in the dirt like two angry schoolboys, in a jumble of arms and legs and clumsy scabbards. Jalal lobbed a fist in Khalid’s direction, even while struggling to right himself. It glanced off Khalid’s jaw. In response, Khalid shoved the side of his cousin’s face into the dirt and pressed a knee to Jalal’s stomach. He managed to land several unforgiving blows to Jalal’s head and chest before Jalal kicked him off, spitting a mouthful of blood and elbowing Khalid without mercy near his brow once—
Then twice more.
A crowd of curious onlookers had begun to gather, surely wondering what had prompted two well-dressed young men to come to such wicked fisticuffs.
Khalid clutched his skull, trying to crush away the agony. Needles of light cut the edges of his vision. Stabbed his temples. Enraged by his cousin’s inexplicably brutal attack, he rolled to standing and reached for his shamshir.
Jalal’s eyes went wide. Then, without a second thought, he scrambled to his feet and unsheathed his scimitar. “Draw!” A line of crimson dripped down his chin.
Khalid’s fingers tightened around the hilt. Yet he refused to unsheathe his sword.
Refused to engage a loved one in a battle of lethal force.
“Do it, you coward!” Dirt marred one side of Jalal’s face, coating his skin in an eerie dash of glittering dust.
Even from where he stood—even in a silence fraught by nerves—Khalid could see a suspicious mist forming over Jalal’s eyes.
It iced the blood in his veins.
“You think I can’t beat you?” Jalal strode closer, brandishing his scimitar. “Or is this guilt? Finally a show of guilt for someone besides yourself?”
“Guilt for what?” Khalid took in a ragged breath, fighting to maintain his preserve. “What did I do?”
The silence stretched inexorably thin.
Jalal licked his bleeding lip. “You never did forgive me for sending her away, did you?” His voice was hoarse, scratched. Defeated. “For asking that boy to take her with him?”
At that, Khalid’s hand dropped from his shamshir. Though this was a far cry from explaining his cousin’s behavior, at least they were no longer on the cusp of disaster.
“I told you there was nothing to forgive. And I meant it.”
“Then why did you do it?” Jalal’s sword fell to his side, but his face remained knotted by anger.
“What are you talking about?” Any more of these continued vagaries, and it would be a struggle for Khalid to keep his temper.
Jalal considered Khalid, clearly searching for signs of artifice.
“Despina.”
Everything around Khalid stilled. Even the very air around him swirled to a sudden halt.
“You sent her away,” Jalal whispered, his tone hollow. “After I confided in you. You must have known of whom I was speaking. Or my father must have asked you to send her away. And you did it. Without question.” He took a slow step forward. Then another. “In the end, family is nothing to you. I . . . am nothing to you.”