There was the truth, free to fly. A weight lifted off Durkhanai’s chest, and she realized just how sweet the words were. Oh, why hadn’t she told him when she had the chance?

Durkhanai waited to see her grandparent’s reaction. There was no explosion, as she had expected. Instead, her grandparents exchanged a knowing glance, as if they had seen this before. As if this was expected.

“Oh, janaan,” Dhadi said. “Of course you think you do. This is precisely why I forbid you from seeing him, yet you did not heed my warning.” Dhadi sighed. “You are young. He has bewitched you.”

“What?”

“Kala jadoo,” Dhadi replied. “He has used sorcery to enrapture your heart.”

“No, Dhadi,” Durkhanai said, feeling her throat closing with the claustrophobic feeling of being misunderstood. “What we feel for one another is true. It is the truth.”

“It is a lie,” Dhadi insisted calmly. “He is pretending to love you to make a fool of you. Why else would he fill your mind with these thoughts but to tear you from us? From your blood. How much easier it will be for him to cause our family’s downfall with you on his leash.”

“No,” Durkhanai said, shaking her head. The insinuation filled her with disgust. It wasn’t true. “No.”

So this was why her grandparents had reacted so calmly. They believed she had been bewitched, that Asfandyar had performed some sort of sorcery on her.

Surely it wasn’t her fault, then, but all his.

They didn’t believe her, thought her feelings to be a fallacy. Like she was a child with no skill for discernment.

“Did you ever want for anything?” Dhadi asked, eyes sad. “Love, adoration, devotion—anything? Did we not raise you with the utmost care?”

“Dhadi, of course you did,” Durkhanai responded, feeling guilty.

“Yet, you still came here with your doubts and your accusations,” Dhadi said, voice hurt. “You thought we had sent your father away and done Allah knows what to your mother. You thought me the villain, who killed your half-sister in cold blood.”

“No, Dhadi, I’m sorry,” Durkhanai said quickly. “I didn’t mean to offend you—”

“But you have,” Dhadi said. Her eyes hardened. “It is time you learned to be queen, Durkhanai. A true queen. We are tired of waiting.”

Couldn’t they see she was trying? Growing, learning . . . but how could they expect her to be a true queen when they did not treat her as such?

“You are tired of waiting?” Durkhanai asked, feeling angry again. “Yet you have told me nothing about the alliance with the Kebzu Kingdom! You cannot expect me to be content tending to domestic affairs with no knowledge of our international relations and political schemes.”

Dhadi smiled wryly. “I am sure Asfandyar told you about that. Here you come with your accusations once more.”