The Moth and the Flame (3 page)

Startled, Jalal fell back to the ground. His arms encircled Despina. When he kissed her back, it stole the very breath from her body. The touch of his tongue against hers sent a swirl of maddening desire through her.

No boy had ever kissed her like this.

No man would ever kiss her like this.

“Despina,” she whispered. “My name is Despina.”

ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES

D
ESPINA WAITED ALL DAY FOR THE CALIPHA TO CALL
for her.

Waited all day for the calipha.
Not
for Jalal al-Khoury.

She was certain the young queen would request her presence. After all, they'd spent a good deal of time together yesterday afternoon, and the calipha had been receptive to the cosmetics Despina had brought to her chamber.

Not to mention their discussion on the young queen's gift to the caliph.

But the sun rose and fell without a word from the calipha or her servants.

When Despina returned to her chamber, she found a spray of jessamine before her door.

Her heart leapt at its sight.

No. Only a fool would fall prey to such an enticement.

Would fall prey to such a boy.

Even if he does kiss like a man.

Despite the yearnings of her heart, Despina ignored the tiny sprig of flowers. As luck would have it, they blossomed
overnight and left a fragrant reminder at her doorstep.

The following day came and went without a word from the calipha. The hope that had kindled within Despina two days ago began to fade; the young queen had no intention of bringing Despina into her fold.

No intention of bringing a new handmaiden into her confidences.

But Despina did not allow herself to fall to despair. For it did seem the calipha would not draw attention to Despina's superfluousness after all. Their conversation had produced at least one desired result.

Despina would not be demoted or dismissed.

There
was
that.

She spent the third day following her chance encounter with the queen—and her ill-fated stroll with the captain of the guard—reorganizing a pile of already pristine silk and damask.

When Despina moved beyond the tiny chamber housing the garments and through the queen's empty bedchamber, she saw the parchment with the beautiful calligraphy rolled into a bundle. Stowed to one side, unfinished.

Though it gave her pause, Despina knew it was not her right to pursue the matter. Not her right and not her place.

The young calipha would make her decisions. Choose her own way.

As with two nights before, when Despina returned to her chamber door at dusk, she found another sprig of jessamine lying on the marble threshold.

She stepped past it. Thought better of it.

Sighed.

And brought the flowers inside.

DARK DAYS AND A NIGHT OF LIGHT

A
LAS, ALL DESPINA'S WAITING PROVED FUTILE, FOR
the calipha never called on her again. Several months passed in relative obscurity. But Despina continued to hope for a word from the queen. To wait—

For a tragedy that shook their world at its very center.

The palace had been shrouded in shadow for the last two days and nights.

Everywhere Despina walked, servants tiptoed about the corridors, their shoulders hunched and their whispers low.

Every face she encountered was agonized, every pair of eyes bloodshot.

There were no more tears left to shed.

The young Calipha of Khorasan—Ava, the girl who studied calligraphy and spoke with the gentleness of a passing breeze—had perished.

Two mornings ago, the caliph himself had found her on that very same balcony, cold and motionless and alone.

Thankfully, Despina had not witnessed what had happened that fateful morning.

She'd heard the wails as the news spread through the marbled hallways. She'd heard the queen's servants cry to the heavens.

Very briefly, she'd seen the caliph's face.

Haunted. Horrifying.

The one face Despina had yet to see belonged to Jalal al-Khoury.

Ever since that evening when she'd brought the sprig of jessamine inside her chamber, not a day had gone by that Despina had failed to see the captain of the guard. It was almost as though he'd planned to be exactly where she was at the most opportune moment of the day.

Words were often exchanged. Teasing words. Cajoling words. Brief kisses were stolen at odd hours. At times they were sure to avoid any errant gazes.

After several weeks of this, he began making another request. For the last month, not a single day passed that Jalal failed to ask her to stay the night with him.

Despina never did.

Losing herself in a few kisses was one thing. Being as foolish as her mother was quite another. She refused to be the mistress of a rich man, to be discarded at his earliest whim. And she would most definitely not be the plaything of a notorious scoundrel like Jalal al-Khoury.

No matter how much her heart begged her to see otherwise.

No matter how much his absence these last few days troubled her.

Despina did not know if she should seek him out. It was possible he might find it improper for her to wander the halls in search of him. After all, in this palace she was but a servant.

But she had to know if Jalal was well. Recent events demanded that she know.

Earlier this evening an even darker shadow had fallen across the palace. Though the young queen had been laid to rest in the afternoon, and all should have been on its way to mending, something sinister had taken root instead. Despina heard that the Royal Guard had been sent to accompany the king on a visit to see his late wife's father.

Despina had not been present when they'd returned. But she felt the gathering shadow. The cold hand of evil seemed to grip tightly the palace itself.

And now she could no longer deny the yearnings of her heart.

Despina had to see Jalal.

Late that night, she moved into the corridors, a single scented taper clutched in one hand. She'd thrown a loose robe over her linen nightclothes. Her hair was unbound and flowing down her back. Her reflection in a passing mirror appeared quite ghoulish—a creature of nightmares, her eyes hollow and her face pale.

Despina tried to rearrange the tangles of her hair, but her efforts were halfhearted at best. Anyway, she did not think anyone at the palace cared much for appearances or propriety at this moment. The current state of things was one of churning turmoil.

A servant girl wandering the halls at night in her simplest of garments and disastrous hair was certainly the least of anyone's problems.

Despina made her way down a corridor toward the wing of the palace that housed the highest-ranking members of the Royal Guard. Since Jalal also happened to be a member of the
royal family, she knew he'd been afforded the option of having his own, far grander chamber in the east wing with the rest of his kin. His father, the
shahrban
, had an elegant chamber of his own there.

But Jalal had opted to take a room near the men in his charge.

It was an easy room to find. The only one with a guard posted outside the door.

Despina halted. Took quick stock of her surroundings. Wrapped her loose-fitting robe more tightly about her.

She cleared her throat and stood tall. “I have a message for the captain.”

The guard at the chamber appeared weary, but he still waited for her to offer him a better explanation than that.

“I—I was handmaiden to the . . . queen,” she whispered.

Immediately the guard glanced both ways. Then he stepped back, his expression just as harrowed as hers.

Without hesitation, Despina raised her fist to the heavy wooden door and rapped on it twice.

No answer.

She lifted her hand again. Three hard knocks.

No answer.

“Captain al-Khoury?” she said. “I have a message for you.”

Another moment passed in stilted silence.

Sighing, Despina turned away.

“Come in,” a gruff voice said from beyond the doors.

This time, Despina did hesitate. The voice within sounded nothing like the one she knew. When Despina tried the handle she found it unlocked. It scraped open, the sound cracking through the ominous silence.

It was pitch-dark inside the chamber, save for the light from her single taper.

Jalal was seated on the stone floor, his back against the wall.

He said nothing. He did not even glance in her direction.

Despina wavered only a moment more before she moved toward him.

“Jalal?”

His head turned toward hers. Agonizingly slow.

Even in the low light, his haunted expression brought her to his side in an instant.

“You're here,” he said in a barely audible voice. “You're here.”

She crouched beside him and lifted the taper to his face, soothing phrases collecting on her tongue and her free hand raised to—

His cloak was stained red at its center.

Despina gasped, placing the taper on the stone floor before reaching for him once more. “You're hurt.”

“No.”

“Don't play the hero,” Despina insisted as she began searching for the source of his wound. “You're bleeding.”

“It isn't my blood.”

“Then whose blood is it?”

He did not respond immediately.

“Jalal?”

“It's—Ava's father's.”

Another gasp. “You killed Ava's father?”

“No.” Jalal bent his head. Without a word, his face fell into his red-stained hands.

Despina sat with him. She brought a bowl of water to his side and removed the bloodied cloak in silence.

With great care, she washed the blood from his hands.

Jalal pulled her close. “Don't leave. Please don't leave.”

“I won't.”

A FAMILY'S LOYALTY

D
ESPINA CLUTCHED AT THE HANDLE OF HER CHAMBER
door. She locked it.

Once. Twice.

Then she ran to the looking glass propped against her wall. Without hesitation, she stripped off her skirts. Kicked off her sandals. Shimmied from her undergarments.

Then she stared at her naked body in the silver before her. She turned this way and that, studying every curve for any telltale sign.

No.

It wasn't noticeable yet.

No one would be able to tell she was with child.

Her moment of relief gave way to grim realization.

That will not be the case for much longer.

She had only a few months left to keep this a secret. Only a few months to seek order in the chaos she had wrought.

The chaos of a mere few months spent with Jalal al-Khoury.

Despina continued to stare at her reflection in cool silence.

Fool. Worthless fool.

She was her mother all over again. Carrying the child of a man who was not her husband. Carrying the child of a man who would never see her as an equal. Whose family and friends would see her as a scheming whore.

Worse, Despina had even fallen in love with the cad. A life of careful consideration undone in less than a season.

She stepped closer to the mirror, willing her reflection to disappear. Just for a moment.

So many secrets. So many lies.

In an instant, she made a decision. Despina could not tell Jalal about his child. He could never know what this meant to her. He could never learn how much she loved him.

She would never give any man that kind of power over her.

No. Despina would continue working at the palace until she could hide the truth no longer.

Then she would set her world straight, once and for all. This child would not be raised to fear or hate the world around it. Be made to bow and cower to lesser men.

No. The world around this child would bow first.

Despina collected her things and dressed herself again in a calm and collected fashion.

After all, she still had a job to do. She had to prepare the garments for yet another marriage. The bridal shroud of yet another queen.

The caliph was marrying again at dusk. Despina had lost count of how many young girls had been brought to the palace to wed a king only to die the following day.

After the first few deaths, Despina had elected to remain at a distance. She could not stomach gazing into the eyes of these
young, scared girls as they marched to their untimely demise. Could not stomach the willful destruction of life.

Instead Despina chose to focus on creating the most beautiful wedding garments ever fashioned for each of these pitiful souls. A horrible last gift. But the best one Despina could manage.

She'd been told this girl was quite lovely. Small. Proud. Eyes colored like a mosaic in a flurry of hues.

For this girl with the many-colored eyes, Despina chose silver damask and red rubies.

Without a word, Despina moved into the queen's chamber and gave the garments to the servants who would be dressing tonight's ill-fated queen.

“Did you hear?” Ruha said quietly once the two young girls had left. “This one volunteered.”

Despina cut her gaze at Ruha. “What?”

“She volunteered to marry the caliph.”

Despina blinked. “Poor little fool.”

“Why would she ever volunteer?” Ruha looked to the floor, lost in thought.

“Who knows why it is people do the things they do?”

“Do you suppose she's mad?”

“One would have to be, to wed such a man.” Despina straightened the folds of her skirt. “Or perhaps she's trying to take matters into her own hands.” She lifted her chin. “Trying to take charge of her own destiny.” Her gaze fell to the floor. “Time will tell her the futility of such efforts.”

“Is that even possible?” Ruha whispered. “Do you think she could actually make the caliph see reason? Or perhaps—”

“There is no way to know for certain what lurks in the shadowed corners of the mind.” Despina strode toward the door. At the last instant, she glanced over one shoulder to the troubled servant girl at her back.

“But I do know anything is possible,” Despina finished softly. “So long as there is a strong will behind it.” She reached for the handle of the chamber door, resolve flowing through her veins.

No. Her child would never bow to anyone.

The world would fall to its knees first.

Despina would make sure of it.