LITMIR.BIZ

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at the airport. The storm will not die down until morning, I should think. We will return then.’ His voice was grim, determined, and Kalila knew what he was thinking.

      ‘And how will you explain our absence?’

      ‘How will you?’ he challenged. ‘What will you say to your nurse, Kalila? She believed you were unwell. What will you say to all the civil servants of your country who have sworn to give their lives to protect you? Will you talk about freedom to them?’ His voice rang out, contemptuous, condemning, and Kalila closed her eyes.

      ‘Don’t. I know…’ She drew a shaky breath. ‘I know I acted foolishly. Selfishly. I know!’ She swept the crumbs off her lap, suddenly restless, needing activity, needing the freedom she had so desperately craved. Tears stung her eyes as she realised the full depth of her situation, her mess. And she’d caused it. Everything, she thought miserably, was her fault.

      ‘How did you arrange it?’ Aarif asked after a moment. ‘Who brought the horse? The provisions?’

      Her eyes flew to his even as her mind replayed the frantic, whispered conversation with a stableboy that morning. ‘I don’t want to tell you.’

      He shrugged, no more than the arrogant lifting of one powerful shoulder. ‘I could find out easily enough.’

      She thought of the shy, young boy, how she’d determinedly twisted him around her little finger, and felt another hot rush of guilt. ‘I don’t want—that person—punished.’

      ‘You are the one who should be punished,’ Aarif returned harshly. ‘Not some frightened servant girl—or was it a besotted stableboy? Either one too weak to disobey your bidding!’

      More condemnation. They piled on her head, a crippling burden she had to bear alone.

      ‘It hardly matters,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve as good as guessed anyway.’ She raised her eyes to his, seeking mercy from the one person who was least likely to give it. ‘But tell me this, Aarif. Was it really so terribly selfish, so unforgivable, to allow myself one day—one afternoon—of freedom, when the rest of my life is spoken for?’

      Her question was like a penny being dropped into a fountain, sending ripples through the stillness. Ripples of awareness, of feeling.

      Aarif said nothing, but Kalila thought she saw a softening in his glance, however small, and it compelled her to continue. ‘I don’t want an arranged marriage. I’m willing to go through with it, and I’ll do my duty by Zakari. I’ll do my best. But I want to be loved, Aarif, and I think that’s a natural desire. Human beings were created for love. To love and be loved. And even if Zakari grows to love me—and that, I know, is only an if—it’s not the same. We weren’t able to choose. Your father and stepmother chose love, and so did my parents. Why can’t I?’

      Her question rang out in a helpless, desperate demand, one that Aarif did not answer. ‘Your destiny lay elsewhere,’ he replied after a moment, his voice expressionless. He looked away.

      ‘My destiny,’ Kalila repeated, unable to keep the scorn from her voice. Not even wanting to. ‘A destiny shaped by my father and yours, not by me. I want to choose my own destiny, or at least believe it could be different.’

      ‘We do not always have that choice, Kalila.’ His voice was low, almost gentle, although he still did not look at her.

      ‘And what about you?’ Kalila forced herself to ask. ‘Don’t you want love? To love someone and be loved back?’ She knew it was an impertinent question, an imprudent one. It hinted at shadowy thoughts, memories, desires, nudged them to the light. It was, she realised, her heart fluttering in anticipation of his response, a dangerous question.

      Yet she wanted to know. She needed to know.

      ‘It doesn’t matter what I want,’ Aarif finally said, and it was clear he was ending the conversation. ‘It never has. What matters is how best I can serve my family and country.’

      ‘You don’t take your own desires into consideration at all?’ Kalila pressed, and when his eyes met hers they were flat and hard.

      ‘No.’

      Kalila felt as if she’d touched on something darker, some hidden memory or regret that suddenly filled the small space of the tent with its poisonous presence.

      Aarif busied himself taking off his boots and spreading his blanket as far away from her as he could.

      ‘We should sleep. We will ride out as soon as the storm breaks.’

      Nodding slowly, Kalila reached for her own blanket. Aarif lay on his side, his back to her, his body still and tense.

      She spread her own blanket out, removing her boots, stretching out gingerly. If she so much as moved her arm it would brush against Aarif’s back, and as much as she was tempted to feel the bunched muscle underneath his shirt—a desire that surprised her with its sudden, unexpected urgency—she pressed backwards instead.

      The wind still whistled and shrieked shrilly, and the flapping of the tent’s sides was a ceaseless sound. On the wind she heard the horses neighing and moving in animalistic anxiety.

      Tomorrow she would be back in civilisation, in Calista. She would meet Zakari. And what would she say? How would she explain what she had done? And why?

      Kalila closed her eyes, unwilling to consider the impossible answers to those questions. Tomorrow, she determined miserably, would have to take care of itself.

      Kalila had no idea how either of them could sleep in this situation, yet even so fatigue fell over her in a fog. Still, her body was too tense, too aware, too miserable to relax into sleep. She lay awake, listening to the wind and Aarif’s steady breathing.

      Had he actually managed to fall asleep? It wouldn’t surprise her. He was a man of infinite, iron control. Sleep, like everything else, would follow his bidding.

      Finally, after what felt like several hours, she fell into an uneasy doze, woken suddenly in the middle of the night.

      All was dark and silent; the storm had abated and the stillness of the aftermath carried its own eerie tension. Yet there was a sound, a faint moaning, and Kalila wondered if it was the wind or one of the animals, still uneasy in the unfamiliar surroundings.

      But no, she realised, the sound was coming from inside the tent. From right next to her, little more than a tortured breath, a whispered plea of anguish. She shifted, the blanket rustling underneath her, and squinted through the moonlit darkness.

      Aarif lay on his back, the blanket twisted around him, a faint sheen of sweat glistening on his skin. His lips were parted in a grimace, his eyelids twitching as he battled his nightmare.

      For surely it was a nightmare that held him in its grip, Kalila realised, for the sound, that piteous moan, was coming from Aarif.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      IT WAS the same, it was always the same. Agonisingly, torturously the same, where he could never change what had happened, what would happen, replaying again and again in his mind as he watched, helpless, hopeless…

      He knew it was a dream, and still he could not wake himself from it. The nightmare grabbed him by the throat, swallowed him whole in its cavernous jaws, so all he could hear was his brother’s choked cry of desperation.

       ‘Aarif…’

      And he did nothing. He felt the searing heat across his face once more, his hands reaching out to grasp—to save—his brother, but Zafir was too far, and farther still, his face pale and terrified as Aarif fell into the water and it rushed into his mouth and nose, closed over his head…

      ‘Aarif…’ The voice was softer, sweeter now, a whisper from another world, the real world, yet still the dream did not let him go. He shook from the force of it, great tremors that racked his

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