Anything he said now would be rehashing his previous protestations. More that she wouldn’t appreciate.
He could say only what had changed him forever, transfigured him from the inability to think the best of anyone, to thinking only that of her. “I believe you, Maram.”
She clearly didn’t believe him. “At least you believe I believe what I’m saying. Or maybe you’d believe anything of your stepmother, the entrails-snacking monstress.”
He exhaled, feeling he’d butted his head against a wall again. “She would have been my first suspect in anything heinous, if she didn’t have just as much to lose as we do. So I believe you in spite of the conflict of interest being inexplicable. And that Lady Macbeth would boil babies if it was in her best interests.”
“She is willing to destroy a region for them. And for the bonus of decimating your father, you and your brothers, whom she hates with a passion far surpassing your collective abhorrence.”
He nodded. “I was only seven when she came here and my own mother was anything but a saint, but that one…phew. She oozed venom. After she had Haidar and Jalal, I’m certain she would have arranged for our deaths if it would have made her sons the heirs. But according to the load of bull that passes for law around here, even if we all drop dead, succession is denied to Haidar and Jalal and their progeny, based on some moldy postulation that only fully Zohaydan Aal Shalaan princes can ascend to the throne. Being half-Azmaharian, they aren’t even fourth and fifth in line. If they were, Sondoss would have been my only suspect.”
“That’s where my father’s story comes in.”
A story. He ached to have her spin tales as she had when she’d soothed his madness and spread her magic through his mind and body. He whispered his need, “Tell me, Maram.”
Her gaze wavered as if with remembrance, before it firmed. “My father said…” Her blankness distorted on a grimace. “He was her lover.”
“Yuck.” He echoed it, raised her a shudder. “Seems he has body parts unknown to men in compensation for his lack of a brain, with which to mate with that…creature. I hear Father is still recovering from the encounter that resulted in Haidar and Jalal.”
Her lips twisted her agreement. “He said she manipulated him into it when he was at his lowest after I left Ossaylan, and he regretted it even as it…happened. Apparently their first fling happened before she married King Atef. Their history, along with his…malleability, among other criteria, was why she zeroed in on him as the main pawn in her plans.
“She coerced him into providing the funds she couldn’t without your suspecting the expenditure. His other role would have been on Exhibition Day, to come forward as the new ruler ‘chosen’ by the Pride of Zohayd. As soon as he was made king, she planned to divorce your father and marry him, remaining Zohayd’s queen, and becoming Ossaylan’s, too. She would have dictated new laws making her own sons eligible for the succession, making them his heirs because I’m his only offspring. She pushed him to pursue Haidar as a husband for me so he could inherit both thrones, keeping the new super-kingdom in the big happy family.”
It explained everything. Most important of all, her father’s pursuit of Haidar. One more proof that everything he’d ever thought her guilty of had been wrong. Not that he’d needed more proof.
He huffed in deprecation, of himself, of the whole situation. “I would almost admire her. Such a supreme snake. Ingenious.”
She sighed in corroboration. “It was only when my father told her he wasn’t going through with it that she implicated him as the mastermind through Harres’s now-fiancée. She wanted you to act against him, forcing him to defend himself, herding him into stepping up the schedule before Exhibition Day. But you did nothing overt, and no one knew that you’d kidnapped me.”
Before he could groan when and how she’d let him live this down, she went on. “She must be waiting for your next move, but needs to stay out of the picture, to keep her image pristine for when she remains the queen of Zohayd. But I believe if she’s cornered she might give it up, might even destroy the jewels, the evidence against her. So I made my father contact her to say you’re threatening him and he has no choice but to do everything she wants. She should be at her most secure now, making it the best time for you to strike.”
Amjad felt his heart expanding, as if it would encompass her. Even after he’d shattered hers, she’d given him everything he needed to bring this mess to an end. But what was that, when she’d given him everything he needed to live?
It was his fault she’d taken it all away.
He could only hope any measure of the unlimited love she’d felt for him would survive for him to revive and nurture.
For now he could only say, “Thank you, Maram.”
She shrugged, turned around. He caught her arm, felt awareness arc through both their bodies. “Will you stay while I plan my ‘strike’ and implement it?”
He expected her to refuse point-blank. She only nodded.
Would he ever chart her unpredictability?
And for the next hour, she sat there on his couch, reading files from her briefcase as he arranged an undetectable siege on the queen and every one of her people, then called his brothers.
They came one after the other, surprised and glad to see Maram. But it was Haidar’s reception that sent Amjad’s blood in a geyser to his head.
“Maram!” Haidar rushed toward her, his strides loaded with delight, his eyes with mischief and intimacy. She’d risen to greet each of his brothers. But with Haidar, she met him halfway, her steps and expression as eager.
Then they met and Amjad’s head almost exploded.
Haidar took her into his embrace, swung her off the ground before he put her down, bent to kiss her once on one cheek, twice on the other, in the region’s intimate salute.
Seeing his brother’s body enfolding her that way—the way he no longer could—sent misery and fury seething through him.
But it was when she surged into Haidar, her face burrowing in the breadth of his chest, that he almost had a heart attack.
He was about to rip her out of Haidar’s arms when she raised a trembling hand to Haidar’s cheek and choked, “I’m so sorry.”
“You should be sorry,” Haidar said, all indulgent admonishment. “You blew me off for two movie dates in a row. But then, I like you sorry. You always make great amends.”