When that cursed Black boy brought his daughter’s corpse to him, it took all of Wakdar’s strength not to kill Asfandyar on the spot. Instead, Wakdar took the crying seventeen-year-old boy and infused him with his rage, infused him with his vengeance.

He drafted a plan. And Asfandyar became his pawn.

Nazo, his beloved sister, who had kept contact with him all those years, was the first to align with him. She was still bitter from Yaqut’s slaughter. Her marriage to another had not erased her love for Yaqut. She was still filled with spite, so many years later, as were her children, who were meant to inherit nothing from the Badshah.

And Wakdar knew the Badshah’s greed for victory would be his downfall. It would be all too easy to exact his revenge, but he needed to be patient, precise.

So Wakdar waited, biding his time, holding onto the memories of his best friend, his first wife, his daughter. Some days, the grief threatened to take him as well, take him to his beloved, but he resisted—he persisted.

Until, finally, it was time.

He had waited eighteen years—patiently, quietly. But finally, the time was ripe: Asfandyar had sent him the evidence needed to prove that Marghazar was behind the summit attack. With it, Wakdar could convince the other zillas’ leaders to join him in war.

The time had come for the crown prince to return home, to claim what was rightfully his: his land, his daughter, and mostly importantly—his revenge.

The blood had emptied from his body. Instead, war was thrumming through his veins.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Once upon a time, in a very olden time, there lived a semi-barbaric king.

He was the Badshah of Marghazar, a king of kings, with an authority untrammeled by those in his lands. No one had the temerity to question his ways, and half the time, this was acceptable. He was only semi-barbaric, as you recall, and the barbarism showed its way mainly in exuberant fancy. The Badshah, given to self-communing, turned his fancies into facts with only the consultation of he and himself.

One such manifestation of his was the public arena. Built into the mountains, below the marble palace, an amphitheater was made for the entirety of the capital city of Safed-Mahal. It was there that those accused of crimes that warranted public interest went to trial.

The rules of the game were simple: the accused was brought before two doors, completely identical. They masked entirely what was held behind them, and the accused was then given a choice to decide his own fate. Behind one door was a lion, the cruelest that could be procured. Behind the other was a lady, the most kind that could be found.