Free The Rose and the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn) by Renée Ahdieh Page A

fashion.
    “I disagree.”
    “As I knew you would.” He frowned. “But it matters not,
meraa dost
.”
    “And why is that?” Khalid said.
    Again, the handmaiden shifted in her seat.
    Vikram eased farther into his pillows, the edges of his expression smoothing. “Because I will not be less than what I am. And you will not force me to be less.” He did not even bother to challenge Khalid with his unyielding stare.
    “What is it you need of me, my friend?” Khalid repeated his earlier query, though it sounded entirely different now.
    The Rajput paused. “I wish to leave the city. To start a life of my own.”
    “Of course.” Khalid nodded. “Whatever you need.”
    “And to take a wife.”
    More surprises. Would it never end?
    “Is there someone you have in mind?” Khalid’s expression remained careful. Controlled.
    Vikram leveled an almost mocking gaze at his king. Then his features shifted slowly to the pouting butterfly at his bedside.
    To Khalid’s best spy.
    Apparently, Khalid’s abhorred surprises were only beginning.
    Try as he might, Khalid could not hide the look of disbelief etching its way across his face. “And are you amenable to this marriage?” he asked the handmaiden in a voice barely above a whisper.
    When her pretty lips started to pucker into an amused moue and her eyes began to shimmer like wells full of unshared secrets,it took all of Khalid’s willpower not to lose his temper and turn from the room in a mindless rage.
    “Very well, then. Far be it from me to understand the machinations of love.” Khalid shook his head, banishing all evidence of his incredulity. “Is there anything else?”
    “There is . . . one thing more,” the Rajput grumbled, almost as an afterthought.
    Khalid waited, hoping it was not another surprise.
    “Despite my choice of a wife,”—the warrior eyed his future bride, who returned his look with a knowing smile—“I do not wish to become the subject of rumors.”
    “I understand,” Khalid replied. “I will not discuss these matters with anyone. You have my word.”
    Vikram nodded curtly. “We will depart in two days. After that, all else is in the hands of the gods.”
    A sudden pang of loss shot through Khalid. He was not bothered by its presence. Merely by its keenness. “I shall miss your company, my friend.”
    “A lie.” Vikram coughed, his good shoulder quaking with repressed humor. “You shall be the finest swordsman in Rey. Finally.”
    “The finest swordsman in a fallen city,” Khalid countered, holding back the beginnings of a grin. “Fitting.” He looked away, rubbing a palm along his jaw.
    “
Meraa dost
?”
    It was the first hint of indecision Khalid had heard in Vikram’s voice.
    He glanced back at his friend.
    “Are you truly not going to bring her back?” the Rajput asked.
    “What’s this?” Khalid finally grinned, though it was with a heavy heart. “After all your early protestations?”
    “Despite all, I find I . . . miss the little troublemaker. And how she made you smile.”
    As did Khalid. More than he cared to admit to anyone.
    “She is not safe in Rey, Vikram,” Khalid said. “I am not for her.”
    “And the whelp is?” The lines across the Rajput’s forehead returned.
    Along with Khalid’s simmering rage. “Perhaps. At least he can make her smile.”
    “And you cannot?” Vikram’s eyes cut in half. Flashed like pieces of flint.
    Like the obsidian in Tariq Imran al-Ziyad’s bone-shattering arrowheads.
    Khalid’s blood pooled thick with anger. Thick with unjustifiable wrath.
    After all, he had been the one to let Shazi disappear with Nasir al-Ziyad’s son. He had not gone after her, as he’d first wanted to do. He had not ordered Jalal to bring her back, despite the wishes of his heart.
    It had been Khalid’s decision to let her go.
    Because it was best she not suffer alongside him—alongside Rey—anymore.
    For at what point could he reconcile his faults with his fate?
    It was no longer