interest in her voice that she was far from feeling.
‘Azim has returned!’ Arif spoke with a joy Johara didn’t understand. The name was familiar, and yet...
‘Azim...?’
‘The true heir of Alazar. He has returned from the dead, or so we all thought him.’ Arif shook his head in happy disbelief. ‘Truly it is a miracle.’
‘Azim.’ Of course, Azim al Bahjat, Malik’s older brother. Stupidly she had not made the association. Azim had been kidnapped twenty years ago, when Johara had only been two. There never had been a ransom note delivered or a body found, and so Azim had remained missing, presumed dead, for two decades. Malik had become the heir, had been the only heir in Johara’s mind. Until now.
‘Azim,’ she said again, the name sounding strange on her tongue. ‘What...what happened? How has he returned?’
‘He had amnesia, apparently, after the kidnapping. He’s been living in Italy for twenty years, not knowing who he was. But then he saw a mention of Alazar on the news and it all came flooding back. He has returned to claim his throne.’
‘But...’ A realisation was growing in her mind like a sandstorm kicking up in the desert, obliterating rational thought just as the sand blotted out the sky. Surely her father wouldn’t...to a complete stranger... ‘But what does that have to do with me?’ She was afraid she knew the answer.
Arif’s smile hardened at the edges. Johara knew that look. She quailed at that look.
‘Surely you have guessed, Jojo,’ he said, his voice jovial yet with a warning hint of underlying iron. ‘Azim is to be your husband.’
Johara’s stomach swooped. ‘But...but I have never even met him,’ she protested, her voice faltering.
‘He is the heir.’ Arif spoke as if it were obvious. ‘Since birth you have been pledged to the heir to the Sultanate. In fact you were meant for Azim before you were betrothed to Malik.’
Shock rippled through her in icy waves. Meant for Azim. ‘I didn’t know that. No one ever said.’
Arif shrugged. ‘Why would you know it? He disappeared when you were but a child. But now he has returned, and he shall claim you as his bride.’
It would have seemed romantic in a story or film, the kind of sweeping, fairy-tale gesture, a knight riding on his white steed, to make a girlish heart flutter. Johara’s heart felt as if it were made of lead, weighing her down. She didn’t want to be claimed, and certainly not by this stranger. Not when she’d had the whole world open to her moments ago, when she’d felt free for the first time in her life, able to make her own choices, live her own life.
‘This seems rather sudden,’ she said, trying not to sound quite as horrified as she felt, because she knew that would displease her father. ‘My engagement to Malik al Bahjat only ended a week ago. Perhaps we should wait a little.’
Her father shook his head. ‘Wait? Azim is determined to secure his throne, and that includes marriage as soon as possible. In fact he expects you in Alazar by tomorrow afternoon.’
Johara gazed at her father’s face, the fixed smile, his bushy eyebrows drawn together, and felt her spirits start a precipitous descent. She’d known where her duty lay as long as she could remember. She’d been told it again and again, reminded that she had been given so much, and this was the way—the only way—she could repay her family.
And she’d wanted to repay it, had longed to please the father she rarely saw. She’d been prepared to marry Malik, even if hadn’t quite felt real. She’d met him only twice, and spent only a handful of days in Alazar. And then for one brief and tantalising week, she’d imagined a different kind of life. One with choice and opportunity and freedom, where she could pursue her interests, dare to nurture her dreams.
Now, looking at her father’s stern face, she realised how foolish and naïve she’d been. Her father was never going to let his only daughter go unmarried. He was a traditional man from a traditional country, and he would see her wed...this time to a man she’d never so much as laid eyes on. A man she knew nothing about, that no one knew anything about, because he’d been gone for twenty years.
‘Johara?’ Arif’s voice had turned sharp. ‘This is not unwelcome, I trust?’
Johara gazed helplessly at the father she’d always adored. She’d lived a sheltered life, educated at home, her pursuits solitary save for some charitable works her father approved of. Her mother had been distant for years, beset by illness and unhappiness, and so it had been her father’s love, his sudden smile, his indulgent chuckle, that she had craved. She could not refuse him this even if she had the opportunity to do so, which she knew she did not.
‘No, Father,’ she whispered. ‘Of course not.’
* * *
Azim al Bahjat watched from a window as the sedan with blacked-out windows came up the curving drive of Alazar’s palace. The car contained his bride. He had not seen a picture of Johara Behwar, had told himself her looks were irrelevant. She was the intended bride of the future Sultan; the people of Alazar expected him to marry her. Any other choice would be less than second best, and therefore impossible. Nothing would prevent him from securing his inheritance and destiny, from proving himself to the people who had more than half forgotten that he was the real heir, the true Sultan.
A servant rushed forward to open the car door, and Azim leaned closer, curious in spite of himself for this first glimpse of his future bride, the next Sultana of Alazar. He saw a slippered foot first, small and dainty, and then a slim, golden ankle emerging from underneath traditional embroidered robes. Then the whole form appeared, willowy and enticing even beneath the shapeless garment, hair as dark as ink peeking from beneath a brightly coloured hijab.
Johara Behwar tilted her head to gaze up at the palace, and from the window Azim could see her whole face, and appreciate its striking beauty. Large, clear grey eyes framed by sooty lashes and gently arched brows. A pert nose, delicate cheekbones and full, pouty, kissable lips. He registered it only for an instant, for the delectable symmetry of her face was marred by its expression. Revulsion. Her eyes were wide and shadowed with it, her mouth thinning to a puckered line of distaste. As she gazed at the palace, a shudder went through her, her shoulders jerking, and for a second she wrapped her arms around herself, as if she needed to hold herself together in order to endure what was to come. Him. Then she straightened, steel entering her spine, and started towards the palace like a condemned woman ascending to the gallows.
Quickly Azim stepped away from the window. His stomach clenched and pain stabbed his head in two lightning-like slices. He pressed his fingers to his temples and tried to will it away even though he knew from far too much experience what a pointless exercise that was. So Johara Behwar was disgusted by the prospect of marrying him. It was not really a surprise, and yet...
No, he could not think like that. He had no use for sentiment of any kind, the naïve, youthful longings for some sort of connection with the woman who would be his Sultana. He’d made sure to live his life independently, needing no one. Being dependent on someone, much less actually caring, led to weakness and vulnerability. Shame and pain. He knew it too well and he had no intention of courting those awful emotions again.
This was a marriage of convenience and expediency, to secure an alliance and produce an heir. Nothing else mattered. Nothing at all.
Taking a deep breath, Azim dropped his hands
