“And how did he know?” Dhadi asked.

So she hadn’t recognized him. Asfandyar was right: she didn’t see him as a person. Her otherwise sharp-eyed grandmother’s sight had been blurred by her own hideous prejudice. Disgust rose in Durkhanai’s throat.

“You killed his fiancée,” Durkhanai said, hoping it was not true. “My half-sister. Wakdar’s daughter.”

Durkhanai watched her grandmother rifle through memories until she realized, her face falling into understanding.

“He was there that night,” Dhadi said, astonished. “I thought he was a servant.” Dhadi almost laughed. “So he’s finally getting the tribunal he asked for so many years ago.”

“She was my sister,” Durkhanai said. “Our blood. Why have her killed?”

“Oh, Durkhanai,” Dhadi said, voice weary. “There are too many things you are still too young to understand. That girl was not our blood. When your father was leaving, we told him he was no longer ours, that our blood had split. He left anyway. And so that girl was not our kin—she was a threat.”

“A threat?” Durkhanai repeated. Dhadi nodded.

“Why would she have come, if not to incite a revolution?” she asked. “To lay a claim to the throne—to cause chaos and confusion? She should have known better. She should have stayed away. I did not wish to cause her harm, but we rulers cannot show leniency in situations such as these. We must tear problems out at the roots, or they grow to become weeds we cannot get rid of.”

“But . . . you killed her,” Durkhanai said stupidly.

“I did, and I am not proud of it. But, janaan, have you never done something you regretted afterwards?” Dhadi countered. “How mysteriously Rukhsana-sahiba passed, after the cooks saw you overseeing her food for the voyage.”

Durkhanai stilled, defeated. Her grandmother was right.

“I’m sorry, Dhadi,” she said. “I understand, now.”

And she did.

Things were much more complicated than she would have imagined.

But there was still the matter of the tribunal. Durkhanai had to stop it.

She had two feasible options. She could act like Asfandyar was nothing to her, prove her loyalty. Seeing that Asfandyar was not a threat, her grandparents could cancel the tribunal. Or, she could show them how much she loved him, fight for him. Seeing how much Asfandyar meant to their granddaughter, her grandparents could cancel the tribunal.

Durkhanai could lie, or she could tell the truth.

It was a gamble either way. Her Dhadi was pragmatic enough to concede given the first option; Agha-Jaan was emotional enough to concede to the second.

So which would she choose?

Durkhanai didn’t know what was right, but she knew she was tired of holding her breath, her heart constantly torn between two places.

“Dhadi, I—” Durkhanai stopped.

How could she say it to her grandparents? But she must.

“Dhadi, Agha-Jaan,” she started again. “I love Asfandyar. Please cancel the tribunal. Please. I love him.”