He turned to Maram. “I don’t care why you set this up or what can be gained. End it.”
She scowled at him, clearly not buying his agitation.
It was Haidar who put him out of his misery. “Although you really don’t deserve to get off the hook, big bro, Maram and I don’t have to share melting sighs anymore. My news about our engagement made Mother reminisce about how ‘our love’ must have begun, during an incident when we were fourteen. It was in a cave on the Azmaharian borders. We were almost eaten alive by hyenas and escaped by hiding inside a chamber that a slab of stone closes off when a geyser blows periodically. I told the others to look there and Harres called minutes ago. They found the jewels!”
Amjad grasped what Haidar had said. The conspiracy was over.
All he registered was that Maram had once again done whatever it took to do what her unswerving sense of justice dictated.
All he cared about was that she wasn’t lost to him.
Not yet.
Having made his momentous declaration, Haidar gave them one final excited look, then exited the room, clearly confident they’d follow.
Maram did move to follow him. Amjad lunged after her, intercepted her. “Maram, we must talk.”
She frowned down at the hand trembling on her arm, before looking up at him, her eyes stained with distance and deadness. “There’s nothing more to talk about. Your plan worked, Amjad. Your future throne is safe. Congratulations. You’ve won.”
Before he could grit out that his plan and future throne—his very future—could go to hell, that he cared only about winning her back, she bolted out of his grasp. He forced himself not to pounce on her, drag her back into the room and make her admit her need and give him another chance.
He shadowed her as she followed Haidar. But though he kept no more than a stride between them, he felt her receding with each stiff step, deepening his dread that he might have hoped too soon. That he might lose her anyway.
And with her, everything worth living for.
Amjad watched his brothers walk into their father’s stateroom. He barely noticed Shaheen and Harres as they patted Haidar on the back and thanked Maram for breaking the unbreakable queen’s silence. He barely registered Haidar and Jalal, once again drawn and silent. His focus centered on a more withdrawn Maram.
A hush fell over their gathering.
Jalal suddenly spoke, his voice dark, pained. “I know she doesn’t deserve it, but she’s our mother and we have to ask for leniency for her.”
Haidar moved toward him, as if unable to be near him yet needing to be. “Exile instead of imprisonment. We will guarantee that she won’t cause you or Zohayd trouble again.”
“Are you sure you want to take on such a…responsibility?” Shaheen had clearly already granted them what they asked on his own behalf, but feared the consequences of their misplaced compassion, for them.
“She won’t give up that easily, if at all.” Harres corroborated Shaheen’s view. “Who knows what damages she’ll cause you next as she plots your ‘trio’s’ best interests.”
Haidar shook his head. “We can’t have her in prison.”
“You might not condone, but at least understand,” Jalal said.
“We understand.” Shaheen exhaled. “Ya Ullah, what a mess.”
Harres echoed his sympathy. “I’m more sorry than I can say for the heartache she’s caused you, Haidar, Jalal.”
Haidar huffed a bitter laugh. “We’ll survive. We survived having her as a mother after all.”
“And grew up to be mushy fools anyway, apparently.” Jalal smirked, reminding Amjad too much of himself. “My mind is screaming, lock her in a dungeon, away from any sentient beings she can suck dry and gain more power from, but…” Jalal threw his hands up in self-disgust, cocked his head at them. “So what will it be?”
They all turned to their father, who’d stayed silent, eyes downcast through it all. He hadn’t spoken one complete sentence to any of them since he’d been brought into the situation.
He raised his eyes to his youngest sons. “She’s your mother. I will sanction whatever you decide to do with her.”
Haidar nodded, turned, gave Maram a brief hug and exited the room as if escaping suffocation.
Jalal thanked his father in a more collected way, settling back into his famous nonchalance before he turned to them. “How about we wrap up this disaster?”
Wrapping up the disaster turned out to be far more trouble than anyone had anticipated.
The scandal of the queen’s conspiracy erupted in the region.
As the Damned Prince, and with his father withdrawing from the scene and relegating all his powers to him, Amjad had to be the one to assure every prince and minister and their dog with convoluted new treaties to guarantee that Zohayd wouldn’t seek vengeance on the conspirators’ kingdoms and their allies. His most trying times was with the king of Azmahar, Queen Sondoss’s weakling of a brother.
The man was as whiny and irritating as his sister was ruthless and devastating. Amjad wasn’t in any mood to reassure him he wouldn’t blow him and his kingdom to smithereens in retaliation for exporting the plague of Sondoss to Zohayd all those years ago.
After two weeks of nonstop inanities, Amjad knew he’d become dangerous. Anyone standing in his way to being with Maram would be pulverized. Maram, who’d gone back to Ossaylan. Where he had to get to her before she carried out her threat of disappearing forever.
He’d called Harres and Shaheen from their cleanup assignments. He was waiting for them on the palace’s steps. He had a roomful of delegates to throw in their lap and instructions for his open-ended absence from Zohayd. He wanted to do this in person.
They were getting out of their cars, so slowly, as if taunting him. Then they approached, and he knew they were.
“My, Amjad,” Harres drawled, walking backward once he neared him for good measure. “Aren’t you in deep—”
He bared his teeth. “Don’t. Say. It.”
“—love.” Harres guffawed uncontrollably. “You’re in love.”
Shaheen placed a hand on his heart, pretending to stagger. “You’ve found the woman who makes you want to delete yourself from existence for her.”
Shaheen was taunting him with his own words, from when Shaheen had been about to give up everything he was to be with his Johara.
“Aih,” Amjad harrumphed. “It’s clear that Atef Aal Shalaan can beget nothing but idiots.”