It was as though she could hear the ticking of the clock down to an unshakeable chain binding her to everything she hated.
With each passing moment, her confidence in her betrothed’s words faltered, the midnight hour she had spent talking to him becoming fantastic and unreal in her head. Especially as Queen Fatima, Ayaan’s mother, spent every waking hour regaling Zohra about Ayaan’s childhood.
The contrast between the charming, loving boy his mother mentioned and the dark stranger she spoke to in the middle of the night was enough to cast doubt over everything.
Would he not expect anything from her? What kind of a man didn’t even want to lay eyes on his wife?
She tugged the gold-and-silver bangles on to her wrists as the celebrations around the city blared loudly on the huge plasma-screen TV in her suite. The capital city of Dahaara had been decorated lavishly, very much a bride itself, albeit a much happier one, ready for a celebration unlike Zohra had ever seen or heard of.
The gold-and-red-hued flag of Dahaar with the sword insignia flew on every street, from every shop. A holiday had been declared so that the people of Dahaar could enjoy the wedding. Gifts had been flowing in from every corner of the nation—breathtakingly exquisite silk fabrics, handmade jewelry boxes, sweets that she hadn’t heard of before—each and every gift painstakingly overflowing with Dahaar’s love of its prince.
The telecast of the celebrations, the crowds on the roads, the laughter on the faces of adults and children alike revealed how much this wedding mattered to Dahaar. The whole world was celebrating. Except the two people who were irrevocably being bound by it.
“Zo, look now. There he goes,” Saira exclaimed, looking beautiful in a sheer silk beige dress that sparkled in the sunlight every time she moved. Zohra couldn’t help but smile at the innocence in her half sister’s voice. “Wow, Zo. I didn’t realize he was so...handsome.”
Unable to resist, Zohra turned and there he was.
Displayed in all his glory on the monstrous screen. The cameras zoomed in on him, and Zohra’s breath halted in her throat.
Handsome was too tame a word for the man she was about to marry.
The motorcade transporting him and his parents weaved through the main street with ropes and security teams holding off the public.
Shouts and applause waved out of the speakers. It was almost palpable, the din of the crowd, the joy in their smiling faces. King Malik sat with Queen Fatima by his side, Prince Ayaan opposite them, resplendent in a dark navy military uniform that hugged his lean body, the very epitome of a powerful prince.
She could no more stem her curiosity about him than she could stop staring at him on the screen. Zohra shivered despite the sun-drenched room. He looked every inch a man who was used to having his every bidding done before it was given voice. Until she saw the detachment in his gaze.
Even through the screen, she could see the tension in his shoulders, in the tight set of his mouth, in the smile that curved his mouth but never reached his eyes.
He was standing in a crowd of people that loved him, next to parents who adored him, seemingly a man who had the world at his feet. And yet she could sense his isolation as clearly as if he were standing alone in a desert.
The joy around him, the celebrations, the crowds—nothing touched him. It was as though there was an invisible fortress around him that no one could pierce.
Did no one else but her see his isolation, the absolute lack of anything in that gaze? Would she have seen it if she hadn’t seen him incoherent, and writhing in pain?