The Silver Sparrow

The Summon

There was a crease on her dress. Zahara grimaced as she smoothed it out quickly. She must have been curling her hand around it when she watched him approach the Tower. Such a detail would not be missed. She had known this from experience and had always made certain there would be none present when she was summoned. He enjoyed being able to read her as much as she dreaded being read by him. The man before whose door she was standing enjoyed many things, despite the grimness he displayed to the world at large. One had to be close enough to see it, or be the object of his entertainment to understand.

Next to her, Amelia was busy doing just the opposite. Just shy of eighteen years old, the youngest daughter of Zubin izr Mafouz, Rasharwi's most influential banker, had both her hands wound tight around the silk of her priceless crimson dress. On her expression was a strange mixture of stress, anticipation, and fear that wouldn't escape anyone's notice. It wasn't the first time she had seen such a reaction from those who'd been summoned to this room, man or woman. The salar had that effect on people, especially on those who hadn't been called often to his private chamber.

It had been a little over two months since the wedding. Amelia had been brought into the Tower only days before the salar's departure to Khandoor. He'd left almost as soon as the reception was over, and Zahara knew for a fact that he'd yet to bed her. Which explained why the girl was as anxious as she was.

She had, to everyone's knowledge, been looking forward to this moment, however. Being izr Mafouz's daughter, it was generally predicted that Amelia was to become the new figure of power in the Tower and not just a mere addition to his existing collection of wives, whether for her father or for her own ambition. To achieve such a power, she must capture his interest and raise her status above that of other wives, perhaps even the salahari. The effort to put her youth and beauty on display in the most extravagant way possible, therefore, had been done with no expenses spared by her father from the moment she set foot in the Tower.

Such an effort, however, had tripled the day she'd first knelt and kissed the signet ring on his finger. Zahara could still remember, watching from behind the throne with his other wives, how she'd blushed from her ears down to the cleavage she'd intentionally exposed through her dress' plunging neckline looking up at him. The fact that he was more than twice her age hadn't seemed to bother her any more than it bothered the other young women at court.

For one thing Muradi had been a strikingly handsome man in his youth who also happened to be aging like wine. For another, even at forty-two, he was still just as strong and capable as any young man at court, more so, in fact, than all his sons from the frequency at which he still trained. Even the ruthless, unforgiving reputation that should have given any girl a second thought seemed to be giving him an edge that glinted like a well-cut ruby. That said, the very fact that he had power—immense power—would have eclipsed all his flaws in any case had he possessed some.

It just so happened that he possessed none, which was why Amelia wasn't the first young girl to have fallen head over heels for him at first sight. Zahara, of course, had an entirely different view on this issue. Having had one's entire family slaughtered in a single day by a man tended to distort one's perspective of him to a certain degree.

Amelia's infatuation with the salar that had grown from ambition into something a lot more personal had caused quite a stir while he was away. Over the past two months she'd managed to interfere with not only the housing arrangements of the royal household but also the balance of power in the Tower. Alliances changed and loyalty faltered when enough coins were involved, and coins were what Amelia had in almost an unlimited amount. So far, she'd managed to win over the salahari's most favorite jeweler, and every new batch of silk from Makena now went to her before his other wives for the first pick. Her servants outnumbered that of the salahari's now, and the high-ranking officers at court surrounded her like flies, hoping to gain favors from the salar through his promising new wife and access to her father's gold. All the while, Jarem who'd been in charge of the Tower watched and did nothing, as though finding this influence a profitable one. The salahari and his other wives, as anyone might have expected, had turned their attention and talons from his Shakshi wife to Amelia instead.