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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UNDER THE HAZY SUN, Prince Cairo's eyes looked especially bright.
"Did you not sleep well, Aliya?" he asked, his thin lips pursed. "Did you dream something odd?"
"Oh, no," I said instinctively, trying to mask the way my eyes were whirling around my face. "I just thought I heard something last night?"
Prince Cairo frowned again, "Are you a light sleeper, Aliya?"
"Quite," I said, shrugging my shoulders, before cringing not even a moment later at that most horrid display of nonchalance. "I don't know, I just thought something... happened last night."
"You're probably overthinking it," Prince Cairo said. "I didn't hear anything last night."
No matter how good of an actor I was or wish I could be, his words still made me pause.
"Really? So you slept well, Shahzadeh?"
His lips quirked up. "Yes," he said. "Did you not?"
I felt my heart beat accelerate, thumping so wildly against my chest, it was incredible to think that he wouldn't be able to hear.
"It was fine," I said back.
Prince Cairo smiled gently, his grin just slightly crooked, much like the shape of his nose, and I had to bite my tongue just enough for me to taste blood and remember what happened last night, and the cold sweat that has dotted my back as I ran.
I'd grown up in the streets and alleys of Babylon, where the thieves and the merchants mingled together with no differences in statures, where the people smiled as they took bracelets and shook hands as they stole cash. It was unlike the pretty, elegant upbringing of the beautiful ladies with smooth, pale hands, without callouses on their knuckles from carrying nets and boxes around the port and tan lines around their shoulders from long hours in the sun, and so I'd always prided myself on the fact that, if my upbringing did not make me pretty, then it made me smart and astute and quick on my feet, hard to trick and witty.
But looking into Prince Cairo's eyes, I could see no trick at all.
There was no tick, no constant shifting, not even a dilation of a pupil or the bobbing of an Adam's apple — he was calm and relaxed, and with every passing second that he stared ya me, his brows furrowed closer together.
"Are you alright, Aliya?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," I said, clearing my throat. "Apologies."
"You're forgiven," he said, his forehead relaxing.
Prince Cairo opened his mouth again, as if wanting to say something, but before he could get a word out, a loud, shrill voice interrupted him—
"Shahzadeh Cairo, we're going to play a game! Are you joining us?
