How was she ever to take the book from her father and deliver it to Khalid if he would not part with it, even for a moment? He slept with the book pressed to his chest and its key hanging from a thin chain around his neck. To rectify the curse’s blight in advance of the war.Īlas, Jahandar refused to let it out of his sight. So Shahrzad continued to try to inveigle her father to turn over his book. It would take time for Khalid to launch a counteroffensive. Rey’s standing army remained in shambles. Shahrzad had warned Khalid last night, and though he’d begun to rally his bannermen to Rey several weeks ago, the city’s beleaguered state made the possibility of organizing a force to retake the border a difficult one. Tariq’s forces had already managed to secure two nearby strongholds along the border between Khorasan and Parthia. Though Jahandar had said he did not intend for such death and destruction to strike at the heart of Rey-that all he’d intended to do was save her-Shahrzad could not shake the feeling of doubt that settled upon her.įor her father could not meet her eyes when he said these things.Īs such, it had taken all her efforts to conceal her horror when her father revealed that Reza bin-Latief had requested his help with future endeavors. Her father’s eyes pooled with a feverish light, his scarred palms stroking over his bare scalp, as if seeking a reminder of all that had occurred. But the proof sat before her, day in and day out. Now that she realized how its evil paled in comparison to its possibilities.īefore, Shahrzad would never have believed her father could be so enraptured by the thought of power. For protecting it, even through his fog of delirium. Painstakingly memorizing its contents.Įspecially now that Shahrzad knew his reasons for prizing the book so highly. She’d smiled as he’d tried to tell her how he’d gone about painstakingly translating its pages. She’d sat alongside him in his tiny tent and listened while he explained the origins of its magic. For three days, she’d feigned interest in her father’s book.
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