It was what he deserved. What he had to live with.
He went into the private courtyard and stood gazing up at the slice of sky visible above the rooftop. This was his life now. Gazing at freedom and never having it. Giving up everything he’d ever wanted in order to do what he had to do.
If he’d been a better son, a better brother... No. Kadir sucked in a deep breath and told himself to stop. There was nothing he could have done differently to make his father and his brother like each other more. Or like him more.
“Salaam, brother.”
Kadir whirled to find Rashid standing in the door to the courtyard. It was so unexpected that he did not know what to say at first. But Rashid looked tired and worn, so Kadir held his anger in check.
“I thought you were not coming.”
Rashid came forward. He was still wearing western clothing: jeans and a button-down shirt. He looked a little foreign, a little out of place. A little bit lost.
“I wasn’t.” He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Or not right away. I thought he was manipulating us, as usual. And I wasn’t going to dance to his tune.”
So stubborn, even to the end. Fury roiled inside Kadir’s gut. “I tried to call you. If you’d taken the calls, you would have known it was bad.”
“I shut off the phone for a few days. I needed to think.”
Kadir dragged an irritated breath into his lungs. “And now you’ve emerged to find our father dead and me preparing for a coronation. If you had only come, Rashid. We could have worked this out.”
Rashid’s laugh was bitter. “Worked what out? He was always going to choose you. There was never any question. I’m not sure he ever really liked either one of us, but he found you less objectionable than I.”
Kadir’s jaw was tight. He was furious, but not faultless. “I’m sorry for my part in making that so.”
Rashid frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“When we were kids. The horses. The dog. The hawk. All of it. Everything I ever did that you were blamed for. I confessed my crimes long ago. But I waited too late, I suppose. You were grown and gone by then.”
Rashid went over and perched on the edge of one of the chairs ringing the courtyard. “Kadir.” He shook his head sadly. “You thought you were the reason he disliked me so intensely? All this time, you thought that?”
“I was not a good brother.”
“You were,” Rashid said fiercely. “You are five years younger and you were much smaller than I was back then—did you really think our father did not know who did which things? He had spies, Kadir. Many of them. He always knew the truth.”
Kadir felt as if his legs were suddenly made of concrete. He couldn’t move. “Then why...?”
Rashid raked a hand through his hair. He didn’t speak for a long moment. But then, when he did, Kadir was stunned.
“My mother. She was promised to another when our father took her to his bed. He married her—but then he married another soon after, and she was furious. When I was born, she swore to him that I was her lover’s child.” His eyes were piercing as he looked up then. “I am not, by the way. But DNA testing was not something our father would submit to then. When I was old enough, I did it myself.”