THE TRUE KING OF DAHAAR(61)

                Her hands gripped the hard wood at her sides and still, she could not look away.

                Finally, when he recovered, it felt like a lifetime even if it had been nothing but a few seconds. When he looked at Ayaan, there was nothing but undiluted happiness there. “It is cause for celebration.” He cleared his throat. “The future king of Dahaar is going to be born,” he said with such pride, such joy, that tears rose to her eyes.

                Why it should hurt so much after all these years, why it twisted her stomach in such pure agony, Nikhat couldn’t say. She had delivered babies, she saw pregnant women on a daily basis and yet, this time, she couldn’t stave off the pain no matter what she did.

                Azeez walked to Ayaan and clapped him on the back. “You are a prayer come true, Princess Zohra.” His breath hitched on the words as he pulled the princess out of her chair and enveloped her in a fierce hug that had the princess staring at him with shock filling her beautiful eyes. “For Dahaar, for my family, but most of all, my brother. Even the doctor has to agree that this calls for a drink,” he said, throwing a look at Nikhat.

                Nikhat nodded, her heart in her throat, her vision full of unshed tears. She forced herself to congratulate Ayaan, forced herself to smile even as her heart shattered in her breast again.

                Pain sliced through her and she gasped for breath. How could this pain be as sharp as ever? How had she found herself in this moment again?

                She felt Azeez’s continued scrutiny, his puzzled look at her petrified silence over the next hour, but there was nothing she could do. Every moment of the royal family’s happiness sent piercing pain through her and she sat through it all, wishing herself anywhere else in the world, yet bound to him, more by her own heart than any promise she had made.

                * * *

                Azeez finished his drink, the dark chasm of Nikhat’s heavy silence next to him grating on his nerves. She had hardly touched her food, hardly spoken a word all through dinner. They had shared one beautiful night. She was not his concern, he reminded himself.

                He turned his attention to his brother. The ever-present shadow of tiredness gleamed under Ayaan’s wide smile. “You were not present during the scan?”

                Ayaan shook his head and clasped Zohra’s fingers with his. “No. There was an official summons requiring Father’s presence in Zuran last night and I went. Thanks to you, I was at least prepared.”

                “Zayed?”

                Ayaan nodded. “He proposed changes to the economic policy Dahaar has with Zuran. He is threatening to declare war if we don’t alter the terms of the peace treaty.”

                “That treaty was signed almost fifteen years ago. I remember Father telling me how he had to force Sheikh Asad not to gamble away all of Zuran’s oil to fill his treasury.”

                Ayaan looked at him with increasing interest. “Then Zayed has conveniently decided to forget it. He claims Father bullied him into signing bad terms for Zuran with the threat of Dahaar’s army. It’s clear he views our alliance with Siyaad as a threat.”

                “It’s just a threat to get Dahaar to—”

                “I don’t think you can make that claim anymore. He’s not the man our sister was going to marry, Azeez. You saw him. Assure me he’s not changed and I will…”

                Azeez shook his head, knowing that Ayaan was right. The man he had seen had been but a shadow of his old friend. And suddenly, for the first time since he had been shot, Azeez realized what a gift he had in his family, in Nikhat.