“Please, Zarmina,” Durkhanai said, cutting her off. But her cousin would not be deterred. There was genuine worry in her eyes, her voice anxious when she spoke.

“Just listen to me. You must think of your future. Marrying Rashid would secure it! You do not realize—”

“Zarmina,” Durkhanai snapped, voice harsh. “I don’t wish to hear any more.”

Zarmina opened her mouth to speak once more, and it seemed there was something she wished to say that she could not say, for she bit down on whatever words she’d considered pushing past Durkhanai’s resistance. She released a long breath, then sank into the pillows beside Durkhanai.

“There, there,” Zarmina said, stroking her hair. “Everything is happening precisely as it must, remember? You always tell me that when things seem awry. All will be alright, janaan, in the end.”

When would the end come?

Her head and her heart were at a war like the Marghazari against the Luhgams. Durkhanai called for a ceasefire as she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

When Durkhanai awoke some time later, her room had darkened with the setting sun. She rushed to the window to catch the last glimmer of sunset, but it was too late.

The sun was already gone.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Durkhanai had no answer to give Rashid, so she gave him none at all.

There was work to be done, besides. The next time she went to the villages, she brought a small army of the palace’s doctors with her. The Badshah would not be happy to learn she had ordered them to come with her, but she had not been happy to be kept in the dark about the Kezu soldier, either.

“Come, this way,” she instructed. She led them to an open area of land outside the village homes. The center of the village would have been more opportune, but it was already congested from the bazaar and the traffic that led to the main roads, which cut up and down the mountain to the neighboring villages.

“Set up the tent, here, then we can get to preparing the stalls,” Durkhanai ordered. The workers who had accompanied her from the palace got to work setting up the medical station. She had brought three doctors from the palace.

“The stalls are ready, Shehzadi,” a worker informed her when they were done. The morning had been productive, and she was glad.

“Good,” she said. “Now go to the bazaar and inform the villagers to come for checkups. This stall will be here for the duration of today and tomorrow, and I expect all villagers to be examined.”

“Yes, Shehzadi.”

He was off, and when he returned, a line of villagers were behind him: old women and small children and young men.

“Please queue in three lines,” Durkhanai instructed. “And be patient—you will each get your turn.”