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She hadn’t known, until she’d landed in Abu Faya. Nothing had seemed amiss, at first, but once the plane had touched down and the aircraft doors had opened, the country’s chief security minister had met her, his expression somber.
“Sharafaha,” he addressed her with the deference due her position, as someone who was about to become betrothed to the King of the country. “We must leave, quickly.”
She was impatient to be back in the palace now. She’d been in America for two weeks, with Bella, but her life was here, in Abu Faya. Her future, too. Her blonde hair, long and loose, caught in the sultry desert air, lifting off her face, and she caught it in one hand, the diamond ring on her finger glinting in the afternoon sunlight.
“Why? Has something happened?”
He met her eyes and then looked away once more. “Now, Sharafaha.”
Displeasure at having not been answered sat inside of her, but she ignored it, suppressing her irritation as she had learned to do over the years. Sheikhas did not roll their eyes, nor sigh audibly. Sheikhas did not express what they might be feeling, even when they were feeling it in every bone of their body.
Settled in the back of the limousine, she lifted her phone from her bag and tried calling Addan. It rung out. She texted him instead, “Just landed. What’s going on?”
She put the phone away, her eyes chasing the sights of this country she loved so much as the limousine ate up the miles. The airport was nestled in desert, just a few low-lying buildings surrounded it, but beyond the desert was the enormous, modern city of Khatra, a place of wealth, privilege and dreams. It had been forged from the ideas of mankind, and it stood now as a sentinel to their strength and formidable spirit, when only their attention was focused. It was a city for dreamers, a city for doers, and beyond its magnificent modernity was the ancient, sand-swept landscape the country was famed for. Deserts, dunes and the Bedouin tribes that moved around, seeking one another out, following the historic customs of this place.
It was a twenty minute drive from the airport to the palace. She watched the undulations of the land and finally, the palace rose as if by magic from the sands that had created it. She would never get tired of that sight. As they approached, she remembered the first time she’d seen it – then as a six year old who believed in fairytales and magic, who thought princes were the creation of Hans Christian Andersen and desert principalities the providence of the Arabian nights stories she’d grown up listening to. All white walls and curling turrets, windows carved like teardrops into the sides, and palm trees lining the entrance and forming a perimeter. There were roses too, and persimmons, quinces and pomegranates forming an edible but impenetrable hedge. She and Addan had built houses from the thickets, and when she’d pricked her finger on the thorn of a pomegranate bush, he’d wipe
d the blood away with his white shirt and kissed her fingertip better. She’d been eight and he’d been twelve – but they’d become best friends that day. Brothers and sisters before they’d had any thought of marriage.
The car pulled to a stop at the entrance to the palace; she didn’t notice anything except the fragrance of the night-flowering jasmine that was beginning to sweeten the air, taking away the day’s salty and sultry heat, replacing it with romance and beauty.
“Where is Addan, Minister Hereth?” She asked, moving towards the large doors that led to the palace.
“This way,” he kept his head bowed low, leading her into the marble corridor. Ancient tapestries ran along its length, each telling a story of the country’s heritage. She’d spent days learning about them, trying to draw them, when she’d been a child. Once, she’d reached out to touch one, to feel the nobbled stitches in the time-worn fabric, but Addan had grabbed her fingers and held them, shaking his head.
“It’s back luck,” he’d said, in that way he had, that made it impossible to know if he was joking or not.
“I don’t believe in bad luck,” she had responded defiantly.
Six months later, her father had died, and she’d learned that there was such a thing as loss and luck and curses and fate.
Minister Hereth led Sophia through the corridors of the palace, corridors she knew as well as she’d ever known at any home in her life. At the door to Addan’s office, the minister came to a stop, knocking, his face unusually pale. “Minister, is something the matter?”
He didn’t answer at first and then, as the door opened inwards, “Yes, Sharafaha. There is.”
She blinked at him. “What? What’s happened?”
He didn’t speak. Her nerves stretched taut. Warily, she stepped inside.
“Addan?” She shook her hair loose from the pale headscarf she wore, draping it over the back of a chair. “Whatever is going on?”
But the dark figure by the window was not that of the man she was going to marry. Where Addan had been tall yet slim, elegant in his build, his brother Malik was a warrior, cast from the same tribal mould of Kings who had ruled this country for eons.
It was Malik who turned, slowly, to face her, Malik whose eyes, so black they were like shining coal, regarded her with the coldness and dislike that had always been a part of his response to her.
And heat flicked at her spine, the instant, unwelcome recognition a biological response to him she had learned to flatten, to ignore. A response she was glad she didn’t have to fight often – by silent yet mutual consent, they avoided one another as much as possible. She hadn’t seen Malik in at least six months, since he’d come to Addan’s birthday ball with a Swedish supermodel, and danced with her all night, his body cleaved to hers, his eyes promising seduction and heat that had made Sophia blush.
She blushed now, at the memory, and to cover it, assumed a cross expression. “What are you doing here?” She forgot, in that moment, that she generally attempted to preserve an air of respect. He was, after all, second in line to the throne. Besides which, Addan adored him – and revered him in equal measure.
“Earlier today, my brother, His Royal Highness Sheikh Addan bin Hazari, died.”
The words, spoken in her native English, jarred, like stones in the sole of her shoe. They landed against her ears but she couldn’t make sense of them, she couldn’t unravel them. She shook her head, certain she’d misheard. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, lifting a hand to her throat, toying with the necklace there. “What did you say?”
“My brother is dead.”
Belatedly, realization hit Sophia and she stumbled backwards, reaching for something, anything to support her. Only there was nothing, just air, and it was not thick enough. She shook her head, unable to accept this, needing him to explain why he would say something so cruel, why he would lie to her.
But mistaking her anger for something weaker, he crossed the room, lifting her up, holding her to his chest, cradling her and staring down at her with the same resentment she’d always felt from him. “It was an accident,” he said quietly, his face expressionless now, his eyes bitter. “It happened quickly.”
