In the winding streets of the Persian Empire, a poor girl is chosen to become the third prince's concubine.
Aliya Farhad has no interest in the lofty ideas of the palace, the staff, or her lover. Prince Cairo has all the interest in his blue-eyed A...
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IT WOULD BE BETTER IF the hall went silent, but unfortunately, this was not the case.
"Who was that?"
"I'm not too sure — I think it was one of the princes. Shahzadeh Raza, perhaps?"
"No, that was definitely Prince Finn... What is he yelling about?"
"Why would you ask me to guess if you already who he was?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at the two ladies whispering. They were the same ones who, just a few moments ago, had been discussing the absence of the princes from the table.
A few moments ago, why would I care about the words they were spewing? They could continue to talk all they wanted, and by the interested gleam in their eyes, they certainly would.
Provided, that is, they didn't enrage the prince with their constant whispering. Whether that prince would be Prince Finn or Prince Raza or even the King himself, I didn't really care.
My own selfishness prevented me from caring about other people. As long as their careless words didn't affect me, I could care less about a punishment or execution.
Perhaps the only thing the announcement would do is leave a chill on my back. But at this point, I had the feeling that I had grown immune to the sensation.
Beside me, Maryam opened her mouth, as if wanting to chastise the two girls. Before she could, though, another yell echoed across the hall — this one much closer than before.
"Listen to this, beware of that — whose advisor are you? Who pays your salary? Is your name Darij or Ismal? Command this prince one more time, see if I don't sell off your mother to the slave traders."
Maryam, slowly and very wisely, closed her mouth.
"Shahzadeh, please, calm your anger," a weak, trembling voice replied. "I don't dare to command you to do anything."
"Or so you say," Prince Finn sneered. He was close enough that his footsteps now fell like stomps on empty vases — cold, loud and hollow. I could almost imagine the floor cracking with every footfall and word that flew out of his mouth. "Darij, who do you serve?"
"You, Shahzadeh, of course you," the voice replied.
Darij was a name that I hadn't heard in a long, long, long while, and had it not been put next to Ismal's in the previous sentence, then I certainly wouldn't have remembered who this person was.
If I wasn't mistaken, Darij was one of the scum who'd come to Babylon to find — or kidnap — women, and the one who'd protested the most heavily against my procurement.
Although he was certainly still scum, I couldn't help but lighten my opinion of him a little bit.
Ismal and the other man — Abdul, they were the ones who I truly loathed.
