Twenty-four

Before

My bedroom window creaked, then shut with a thud. I sat up, my heart in my stomach, my fingers immediately feeling under my pillow for the bite of my blade.

A silhouette stood stark against the glowing moonlight. A scream lodged itself in my throat, fear gripping me in its vise until I slid the dagger out.

But something stopped me from throwing it. There was familiarity in the broad shoulders, slightly caved inward, the determined set of the profile, a recognizable curl of hair standing up in an odd direction.

"Maz?" The fear leaked out of me at the surety it was him, and not a raider who had broken into our home. I released a relieved breath.

But anger quickly replaced it.

"What are you doing? I nearly threw my dagger at you! Don't surprise me in the middle of the night like this, I could have killed you."

He stepped forward then, and I saw his features clearly—hair like he'd been through a windstorm, dark shadows lining his eyes, and a hint of stubble across his jaw. His clothing was askew—which never happened—and instead of his usual black-and-gold outfit that signified he belonged to the emperor, he wore a simple tan kurta with loose trousers and his scimitar in a sheath strapped to his belt. Mud was splattered across his lower half, and he looked as if he'd waded through quicksand to get here.

I curled my lip. "You look terrible."

He huffed out a laugh that I could tell surprised him, as if he hadn't expected to laugh tonight. Then he came to the bed, the mattress dipping with his weight. I moved over to give him room.

My pulse sped up for an entirely different reason than fear. Maz had never been in my room in the middle of the night before, and my treacherous mind was thinking all sorts of treacherous thoughts.

What did his skin feel like under my fingers?

Would he still smell like pine and a mountain rainstorm lying beside me?

Would my name sound the same if he whispered it in my ear?

What sighs would he make if my hands threaded through his hair?

I exhaled and curled my fingers in the thick quilt on my bed. Then I forced myself to shake the thoughts from my head.

At this close distance he looked even worse, his eyes bloodshot, a bruise forming on his chin I hadn't noticed before. Normally, he was impeccable, crisp jacket, combed hair, face so clean it was as if the outside elements didn't dare touch him.

But there was something different beyond what he looked like. He carried an air of heaviness that weighed down the whole room. My eyes narrowed on the bruise.

Anger rose tight and abrupt in my chest.

"What happened? Who did this to you?" My voice was like a harsh knife slicing through the weighty silence, but it seemed to shake him loose.

"How do you know something happened?" His dark eyes met mine, and the moon illuminated the bits of gold flecked in the iris.

"You look awful, and you showed up in my room in the middle of the night, which means you rode at dusk and through the valley in the dark." I cocked my head, looking again at the bruise. "You wouldn't do that if something hadn't happened. Something bad."

A breath eased from him, but I could tell it wasn't one of relief. He was steeling himself for something. Then he turned to me, and this time the glint of moonlight caught the whites of his eyes, causing the darkness in them to stand out. For a minute, he didn't look like my Maz, but rather someone darker, wilder. Someone capable of doing unspeakable things.

My Maz.

That thought jarred me. Since when had I begun thinking of him as my Maz?

"Dani." He breathed my name and lifted his hand to my face. I held my breath, suspended in the moment as the callused pads of his hands rested on my cheek. Something caught in my chest, a wild bird struggling to get free. A hawk soaring from a great height, taking an exhilarating dive toward its prey.

"Tell me something true." His voice rasped the words out, a deep scratch like he'd been swallowing sand.

"What?" I shook my head, clearing it from the feel of his hand.

"Tell me something true, something real." He looked at me earnestly, almost desperately, his lips pressed firmly together and a muscle ticking in his jaw. "I need something true right now." He lowered his hand from my cheek, but I still felt the heat of him on my skin.

"Maz, what is going on? You aren't acting like yourself."

He touched his forehead to mine, and my heart pounded between us, so loud I was surprised he didn't look down and see it beating against my loose cotton kurta.

"Vahid killed my mother."

I sucked in a breath, the air whistling between my teeth. If my fingers weren't still gripping my quilt for dear life I would have reached up and given him the human contact he looked like he craved.

But we weren't that to each other. I wasn't sure if he even wanted that.

But now he was in my room, on my bed. Looking at me like he did.

Everything was crashing together in my mind, my heart, my lungs. It wasn't that I didn't know what I wanted, but that admitting it might cost more than I was willing to give up.

"Maz, I'm so sorry."

"Don't act surprised," he said with bitter amusement in his voice. "You've always hated the emperor."

I snapped my gaze back to his. "I'm not surprised he had something to do with her death. He burned whole villages during the takeover. When he found you, you never saw your parents die. Vahid never does anything without an agenda. He isn't altruistic and you know it."

"I always thought he was truthful with me. I always thought I knew where I stood with him. He wanted loyalty, yes, but I thought he provided that to us in return. It was a transaction I thought was fair. I didn't realize it was tipped against me from the beginning."

I chewed my bottom lip, my eyes going again to the bruise on his chin. "How did you find out?"

What did he do to you?

"He told me." Mazin's mouth flattened. "After I came back from the north and didn't manage to quell the rebellion there. The smug bastard came out and told me. That he'd been lying to me all these years. That he'd killed her as she was trying to run back to us. That I was a failure just like her." He rubbed the side of his jaw where the bruise was, and I noticed blood caked in the edge of his lip too.

"He hit me, then dared me to return the strike." He gave a bitter laugh. "If I had, he would've eviscerated me. I've seen him burn people from the inside out. He always did like holding all the power and using it against those who had none."

I closed my eyes, tamping down my rising rage. I didn't usually have the kind of comforting words others did, and never managed to say the right thing to provide reassurance. I wasn't warm or soft or kind.

So I said the only thing that made sense to me.

"If the emperor were here, I would slit his throat." My voice was low and rough in the darkness of my room.

"Oddly, that makes me feel significantly better." He laughed a little, running his hand through his hair and looking up at the ceiling.

I followed the path of his fingers and bit my lip. "It should, I'm quite handy with a dagger." My voice was lighter than before, matching his tone, giving him some reprieve.

"Don't I know it." There were still shadows lurking in his eyes that I wanted desperately to chase away.

Tell me something true.

I leaned toward him, my heart in my throat, my voice low and quiet. "The first time I saw you, I wanted to wring your neck."

Maz stared at me, then let out a disbelieving laugh. "I know you have trouble being sensitive, but there might be a better time to talk about that." He tilted his head. "And likewise."

I swallowed past my panic and kept speaking. "I think you are nearly as good a swordsman as I am." My voice spilled out of me like hot chai, dispelling the cold that had crept in when Mazin talked about his mother's death.

Dawning understanding flitted across his face as he realized what I was doing. "Dani—"

I carried on, my breath rushed, like I had been running, not letting him stop the words from falling out. If he stopped me, I wouldn't ever say this.

"Sometimes, when we fight, I stare so much at your arms that I get distracted." My face was so hot I was surprised it didn't light up the room. But I had said it.

I had told him something true.

Maybe too true .

Maz choked out an incoherent sound, but I continued. I could do this. I could keep going. This wasn't just for him anymore, it was for me too. What was my life if I wasn't honest with the people I cared the most about?

Tell me something true.

I couldn't stop now.

"The other girls in the village are jealous I spend so much time with you. For the longest time I couldn't understand why." My words grew soft.

I wrung my hands in the folds of my kurta, keeping my eyes locked on his. I felt an unfamiliar fluttering, the feeling of stepping off a cliff. My fear was contained in these haunted dark eyes looking back at me, in the words that sprang from my mouth so quick I could barely contain them.

"But as we spent more time together, I understood," I continued. "Because you have more honor in your toe than the emperor has in his entire body. Because others gravitate to you, they like you. You are brave and strong, and good . You told me to tell you something true, but the only lie I could ever tell is how much you matter to me. Because it scares me too much to tell you that."

Maz's breath caught. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He looked as stunned as I felt.

But the words were between us now, and I couldn't take them back. As uncomfortable as I felt at voicing my feelings, it had been more uncomfortable to hide them, like a steel mask slowly weighing me down.

"The emperor lied to you, and I'm sorry for that." I moved closer to him, my voice earnest. "But you built a life for you and your sister, and you can't regret that. You don't have to follow Vahid forever. You don't have to do his bidding for the rest of your life."

Maz reached out and did what I hadn't dared. He cupped my cheek again, the pad of his thumb tracing my lower lip. I inhaled sharply, the surprise of it catching me off guard. His finger drew so lightly across my mouth and yet it felt like he was painting with wildfire against my skin.

He leaned into me, so close his lips were inches from mine. We stayed like that for a beat, a frozen tableau, but the darkness made me bold. I closed the distance between us, pressing my lips to his, catching his gasp in mine.

Something in my chest ignited.

I had surprised him, I could tell, but not for long. A second later he was kissing me back, and we were meeting each other with the same fervor, testing and exploring this new ground. He slid his hands to the back of my head, threading his fingers through my hair and tipping my face back. My mouth opened wider and our tongues met in a hot, messy frenzy.

I was dizzy with it, with him. I sighed against his mouth and his teeth dragged against my lower lip. My hands gripped at the collar of his tunic, pulling him closer to me, like I wanted to consume him.

It was new and yet it wasn't. We'd been drifting toward this place for so long that it felt like a natural progression. Him kissing me, my hands on his chest, his fingers in my hair.

Finally, he eased away from me, letting out a long breath. I watched him, waiting to see who we were now—if he was still Maz and I was still Dani and we existed as we always did.

Finally, he spoke. "You think I'm as good as you with a sword?"

I punched him hard on the shoulder and he fell back against the bed, laughing.

"That's the only thing you have to say?" I scowled at him, but I couldn't hide my smile. We had kissed. I still tasted him on my lips. And we still laughed together like nothing had changed.

When everything had.

"I believe I said almost as good."

He shook his head. "No, you distinctly said just as good." He grinned back at me.

"You told me to tell you something true, and I've told you several somethings." I folded my arms across my chest. "We did several somethings."

"Just one thing," he said, his voice soft. That pain was still there, I could see it behind his eyes. But the shadows seemed less deep. And even though I hadn't kissed him to give him that reprieve, I was glad that it did.

"You get distracted by my arms? I should fight you with my shirt off more often, maybe I'd win more."

I rolled my eyes. "Maz, I still have a dagger, and I'm never afraid to use it."

He leaned toward me, his face now serious. I breathed him in, the crispness of a mountain forest in the morning, the comfort of a thick quilt while waiting out a storm. This felt right. Whatever was between us, whatever we had cultivated with our training, our teamwork, our fierce rivalry, and now this kiss, it now felt right.

"I care about you too, Dani." His voice was solemn, with a gentleness to it I'd never heard before. My heart felt as if it were on fire, as though it would light up the entire room.

"And for the record," he added, the humor returning, "I don't think I'm comparable to you with a sword at all."

I gave a small smile, still distracted by what he had confessed to me, about that kiss and what this meant for us now.

He swallowed, the knot at his throat bobbing. "And thank you, for making me feel something other than consuming rage. Because my only two options were either to murder the emperor, or come straight here."

And he had chosen me .

Just by saying those words, he had told me so much.

He had chosen me over vengeance, despite the riot of emotions he must be feeling about the death of his mother. Despite knowing that the man who raised him had done the most despicable thing—he hadn't sought anger, but solace.

"Is that why you rode through the cold desert in darkness?" I asked, looking again at his muddied clothes, the torn sleeve.

He nodded, then moved his hand down to clasp mine. "I knew that if I could just get here, if I could just see you, I could hold off on doing anything rash. That we could talk things through and I wouldn't do something that would endanger Anam. If I attacked Vahid, it wouldn't be me he would destroy, it would be her. And he knows that. He knows he can control me with my sister. So, I came here." A rueful smile played on his lips. "Because I knew you would tell me to calm down."

I watched him, heat rising in my belly. "Didn't you know I would just tell you to cut out the emperor's heart?"

He laughed, and the sound lifted my heart higher. "Yes, but you also ground me. When you fight you never act rashly. It's always calculated, always precise. As if you know what move I'm going to make before I do it. I want to be like that. When I come for Vahid, I want it to be all planned out." He looked out of my bedroom window, and I followed his gaze.

From this side of the house the torches of the city shone in the far distance. You could almost make out the outline of the city, the towering palace sitting atop the hill. The place where the emperor asserted all his control.

I nodded my head in understanding. "You want justice for your mother."

"I want retribution." He tore his gaze from the window. "I want to know my mother didn't die for nothing, and that her son cared about what happened to her." He gripped the edge of the bed so hard his fingers were shaking, and I knew that if the emperor were here right now, he might not be able to hold himself back.

And I would help him.

A cat's cry startled both of us as Jalebi jumped on my bed and began rubbing her dark body against Maz. Maz laughed as he scratched behind her ears and her purring practically shook the whole bed. I was glad for the interruption, it gave me the chance to gather my thoughts, to center myself from the storm that this night had turned out to be.

"Traitor." I nodded to Jalebi. "She probably wants to sleep next to you." I felt my face heat at my words, not realizing their implications until they flew out and were sitting between us. Did I want to sleep next to him too?

But Maz didn't react to them, instead he scratched her belly, then swatted away her paws when she tried to attack him. He smiled, then closed his eyes as if blocking everything else out. I noticed for the first time how tired he looked, the circles under his eyes like craters in his face.

"I probably should get some sleep. I rode all the way here in a rage and didn't think of how exhausted I'd be." He moved to get up. "I'll go to the main room and lie on the divan."

"Just sleep here," I blurted out, thankful he couldn't see how red my face was turning in the dark. But I'd just kissed his face off, told him I admired his muscles and cared about him, I couldn't possibly be embarrassed about anything else now.

He hesitated, his eyes darting around the room as if looking for a safe place to land. "Are you sure?"

"Of course. You'll get more rest here than in the main room. My father wakes at sunup to start at the smith." I chewed at my bottom lip, not entirely sure what I was suggesting, but just knowing that I didn't want him to leave.

We'd shared something monumental between us, and I couldn't go back to sleep on my own knowing he was in the other room, looking up at the ceiling just like me.

Maz looked from the bed to the door.

"It's fine," I repeated. "Stop making it strange," I said with laughter in my voice even though my own pulse was jumping out of my skin. He was watching me with that same wild look he had before, and I felt it in the pit of my stomach. I turned away from him, not daring to meet the intensity of his gaze anymore. Instead, I shuffled to the other side of the bed, moving against the wall to give him room to lie down.

The bed dipped with his weight, and I held my breath so long my lungs were burning in my chest. He adjusted his body under the quilt and lay his head back against the pillow beside me.

My body was completely frozen.

I was too nervous to even breathe, so instead I released my breath in shallow puffs. A huffed laugh touched my hair after Maz settled against my back.

I bristled and turned my head to look at him. "What?"

"It's like sleeping next to a wooden board."

Anger spiked my blood and I scowled. "Excuse me," I retorted, crossing my arms over my chest. "But I've never slept next to a boy before." I moved as close as I possibly could to the edge of the bed to give him more room away from me. "I'll stay over here."

"No, don't do that." He cleared his throat, and I felt the heat of him behind me, moving closer to me on the bed. Every nerve ending in my body became alive with the knowledge that he was pressed against my back, lying alongside me, the back of my legs pushed against the front of his, his solid chest like a wall behind me, my bottom tucked into the apex of his thighs. When I thought I couldn't stand the awkward silence any longer, his arm snaked around my waist and his body pressed even closer. I exhaled heavily.

"Is this okay?" His voice was tentative and gruff, and if possible that endeared him to me even more.

I smiled to myself, my heart lighter as I placed my hand over his. "Yes."

"You can relax now," he mumbled into my hair, sounding drowsy. "It's me who should be worried if you sleep with a dagger under your pillow every night."

The muscles in my body eased as I let go of the uncertainty, even though my heart still pounded in my ears. But now he was next to me, it felt natural. As if we had been doing this all our lives.

"At least I'm prepared when someone breaks into my room in the middle of the night looking like a desert marauder," I retorted.

His chuckle rumbled against me, and I closed my eyes, feeling the vibrations ripple through me.

"Desert marauder? That sounds quite dashing."

A laugh escaped me, which abruptly ended when the pad of his thumb began tracing the underside of my arm. My stomach flipped. But it was a slow, contented touch, one that felt soothing and not like he was trying to instigate something. I relaxed back against him, and silence stretched out long and easy between us. His breathing was steady as his hand dropped away and fell softly to my waist. My eyes were growing heavy, but I wanted to stay awake a little longer to savor this feeling, to experience his arms wrapped around me for the first time.

I was certain he was asleep until he spoke.

"Thank you, Dani."