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As he came to the top of the last dune before returning to the palace he twitched the reins, bringing Mavia to a halt.
He couldn’t.
And in that moment, as the sun crested the horizon, he swore an oath that if Star wasn’t pregnant he would let her go. No matter what, he would let her go for ever.
Star peered out of her door, holding her breath. Not seeing anyone, she stepped into the corridor and stopped to laugh at herself quietly. She felt like a naughty schoolgirl being caught sneaking out of school grounds. But the hour she’d been asked to stay in her room had come and gone, and she couldn’t stay locked up in there any longer.
As she trailed a finger gently across the chalky feel of the corridor wall, she marvelled at how light she felt, knowing that soon she might have the necklace in her hands. Her heart felt as if it had swooped upwards last night and was still soaring high. She’d desperately wanted to call her sisters to let them know all that she had discovered. But the memory of how low she had felt when she’d thought she’d never find it...that shocking disappointment had rocked the ground beneath her feet and she couldn’t do that to her sisters. She would wait until she had the necklace in her hands, rather than getting their hopes up.
Star turned right, unable to shake the feeling that she was alone, as if she could sense that Khalif wasn’t in the palace.
The silence was rare for her. There was always noise at the school; even outside the classroom children ran down hallways and played in the grounds. There was noise from the busy road she lived on, in the flat she shared with her two sisters. And even when Summer was away at university, Skye was always there, keeping her on track and running like clockwork. Star wondered whether Skye had realised that she’d kept her company almost constantly since the day that Star had met her grandparents.
She wanted to shake that thought off, the low ache she often felt when reminded of them, but there was something in the silence...something about it...that reminded her of Khalif. Not the Kal she had met, though there had been a reservation within him even then. But Khalif the Prince? The man she might have to marry? Unease swirled in her chest and she rubbed her sternum, trying to ease it. She didn’t feel as if she knew Khalif as well as Kal who’d she’d spent one magical night with. Because there was hurt and anger that Khalif was holding onto and she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she didn’t confront it—him—then she might never know him completely.
Room after room showed furniture protected by large white sheets, window shutters closed against the damaging rays of the sun. There was not a speck of dust anywhere—unlike the estate in Norfolk. But, despite that, there was the same impenetrable sense of isolation and mourning.
The loss of Faizan and Samira was palpable; it felt as if it were forbidden to utter their names. But that kind of grief could be dangerous. Locked up tight, stoppered, it festered, it wounded, it spread like a poison... And that poison could do very real hurt and damage. She thought of the twin girls, wondered if they were allowed to express their grief, to talk about their parents as her mother had encouraged her to do. Throughout her childhood and into her teens, Star had opened up her feelings, so that difficult became easier and painful became loving. And while there was still an ache, low and constant, deep within her, it was not to be overcome but accepted as evidence of that connection, that love, between her and her father.
Star found her way to the corridor Khalif had specifically declared off-limits and, despite that, she turned down it anyway. There had been nothing particularly different about it yesterday, just a sense she’d had...until she’d seen his reaction.
Passing through a partially opened door, she came to a stop.
Unlike the others, this room looked as if it had only just been left. Drop cloths on the floor, half-painted walls, rollers stuck to trays with dried, cracked paint next to large tins with the same colours spoke of a half-finished decorating project. Moving further into the room, object by object she saw signs of a home, of life she’d not found elsewhere in the palace. A jumper had been thrown across the end of a sofa in the larger living space. Some nail polish on the side table. Toys scattered on the floor, waiting to be put away.
They were signs of a family.
Faizan and Samira’s family. She turned back to the room where she’d seen the most decorating equipment and realised that it must have been the twins’ room and an overwhelming cascade of sadness drenched her where she stood.
There was something so incredibly tragic about the half-finished rooms—as if Faizan and Samira’s hopes for their children were only half fulfilled. It looked as if the decorators had stopped suddenly, midway through the day. Perhaps to the news of the shocking accident.
She looked at the two tiny beds, now far too small for the twin Princesses, and turned back into the living area, drawn to the warmth and the everydayness of the family photos on the tables and the book lying open at a page.
Star could understand why it had been left, but still...it was such a shame to keep Nadya and Nayla from what was supposed to have been their home, from what their parents had wanted for them. She frowned, looking at the colours chosen for the room, the sweet style of shelving, and she could almost make out how beautiful it would have looked, had it been finished.
She was about to turn back into the corridor when she felt the hairs on her neck lift.
‘What are you doing in here?’
She turned to find him full of thunder, heavy dark curls of sweat-soaked hair slicked to his head, his chest heaving as if he’d run here from the desert. His whitethobeopen at the collar, as if he’d been interrupted in the midst of changing it. He looked like an Arabian Darcy having caught her trespassing, but there was no eager welcome in his gaze, no tentative hope in his demeanour. Instead he stood, refusing to cross the threshold, staring at her as if she’d committed a truly heinous crime.
‘How dare you?’
Khalif was shaking with rage, grief and shock. He hadn’t thought for a minute that Star would betray him in such a way. So when Masoud, awaiting his return in the stables, had informed him where Star was he hadn’t believed him.
He tried desperately to keep his eyes only on Star but, not having been in these rooms for three years, his gaze devouredeverything.It showed him things he wanted to see and things he didn’t. Pictures of his brother and his daughters, himself and his nieces...of Samira. Memories hit him thick and fast and he would have sworn he could smell the perfume Samira used to wear drawing him, against his will, across the threshold.
‘I was wondering why the memorial was so difficult for you. And then... I think I understand now,’ Star said, her eyes watching his every move.
‘You understand nothing,’ he bit out angrily. Raw, exposed and vulnerable, he did not want to be here.
‘I understand loss,’ she said, not once breaking that serene stare of hers. ‘Loss that has happened...loss that is yet to happen,’ she said.
He hated that. He didn’t want that for her.
‘Whether it is in the past or the future, they are the same emotions, Kal. Grief, anger, resentment, devastation, helplessness. But this?’ She looked about the room. ‘It’s as if you all stopped breathing the moment they died. Do you even talk about them?’
‘Of course we do,’ he said, spinning away from her, hoping that she’d just stop.
