Sultan's Choice Read online

“For me, it is.”

  Arcadius considered this then seemed to shake himself. “You might make their—and your—position easier if you formalize ties between you. Help our people understand how they’re to be regarded. Concoct an official title or something.”

  “Kadin and kadin-o?” Iksander proposed humorously.

  “I was thinking kadin and consort.” Arcadius shrugged in response to Iksander’s widening eyes. “If humans can be modern about relationships, why can’t we?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” That and the fact that humans were hardly perfect at liberality. “I’ll think on it. Thank you for the advice.”

  “It won’t be easy,” the guardian cautioned with more familiar dourness. “You’ve hurdles to surmount. For what it’s worth, though, you have my and Cade’s support. I’ve learned humans can be trustworthy. My gut tells me Connor is as well.”

  Iksander hadn’t anticipated this level of confidence. He appreciated it, not the least on a personal level. A knock on the office door forestalled him from saying so. He expected his private secretary, but Joseph came in instead.

  The magician bowed with a hastiness that said his business was important. “Your Majesty. Commander. Forgive me for intruding. I thought it best to bring a development to your intention.”

  “Both our attention?” Arcadius asked.

  “Palace security might be affected.”

  “Go ahead,” Iksander said.

  “I don’t wish to alarm you,” Joseph continued, addressing him. “Your friend is unharmed, but it seems Connor was the target of some as-yet-enigmatic plot.”

  “A plot!” The sultan managed not to pop completely out of his chair. He cleared his throat and subsided, aware that his heart was thudding too quickly. Joseph said Connor wasn’t hurt. “He was attacked?”

  “Not physically.” Joseph recounted his encounter with the fake fortuneteller.

  “Kerem is my mother’s creature.”

  “I recalled that as well,” Joseph said delicately.

  “Do you think she’s discovered Connor is an angel?” Arcadius asked. “If she has, her wanting to know his motivations would be understandable.”

  Iksander weighed this then shook his head. “She’d confront me directly if that were the case. Ask if I’d lost my mind, probably. This looks like a strategy she prefers pursuing behind my back.”

  “Connor pointed out that when people know what you want, they can use it as leverage.”

  Struck by this, Arcadius shifted forward in his chair. “If your mother thinks Connor is a djinni, she could be hoping to buy him off. Take him out of the romantic picture. To her, one controversial partner might seem sufficient for the populace to handle.”

  That sounded like his mother, especially if she thought she could control the remaining one.

  “She met Georgie this morning,” he said. “Offered her a room in the harem. Georgie declined but . . .” He thought back to Georgie’s manner when she told him. “I think something passed between them, something that unsettled her.”

  “We should, perhaps, find out what,” Joseph said. “Or you should, if it’s personal.”

  In spite of everything, Iksander smiled. Joseph’s consideration could always be counted on.

  “You remind me I’m lucky in my friends,” he observed.

  “Your Majesty,” Joseph said and bowed.

  For the first time ever the sultan wondered if a friend ought to call him that. Wasn’t Joseph his equal in most ways?

  A second later, a new thought struck him.

  “Shit,” he blurted. “I told Georgie she could go anywhere she wanted. I asked her to take an escort, but I didn’t order it. Frankly, I thought she’d balk.”

  “Your mother wouldn’t actually harm her,” Arcadius said. Iksander wished the guardian sounded one hundred percent convinced. He knew the sultana could justify a great deal in the name of protecting family.

  “I’ll track her down,” the commander said, extricating his communication scroll from the weapons belt at his waist. “I’ve already instructed my men to keep an eye on her.”

  Whatever Georgie might have preferred regarding her personal freedom, Iksander took no offense. He merely wished they’d been keeping an eye on Connor too.

  THEY FOUND HIS LOVERS in a gazebo in the Garden of Twenty Flowers, on the southern side of the palace grounds. Conveniently, the couple was in the company of one of the senior guards. This mustachioed veteran was explaining the finer points of the scroll network, thus making it easy to pinpoint their location.

  Though he’d known ahead of time they’d be there and that they were all right, on seeing them Iksander’s heart slowed dramatically. Georgie and Connor looked beautiful—harmonious and tender toward each other. Connor’s hand rested lightly on Georgie’s shoulder as they bent their heads together over a single scroll. Georgie leaned into Connor, her body language that of longstanding trust.

  I’m part of that, Iksander told himself with awe. They’ve bound me into their connection.

  Sergeant Lee must not have alerted his students that Iksander was on the way. They didn’t look up from their lesson as he and Arcadius approached.

  “So if I sketch this symbol on the parchment,” Georgie said, “my text will go straight to the sultan?”

  “Precisely,” Lee agreed. “And if you add this symbol after, his scroll will flash to let him know the message is urgent. You can also set it so a picture of your face appears.”

  “That is handy,” Connor said approvingly.

  Less entranced than Iksander over simply gazing at the pair, Arcadius cleared his throat. Sergeant Lee snapped to attention for both of them. “Your Majesty,” he said with a respectful inclination of his upper body. “Sir.”

  “Give us the room,” his commander said.

  Though there was no room, per se, Lee bowed and backed from the gazebo.

  “What’s wrong?” Georgie asked Iksander. “Your expression is thunderous.”

  She startled him. Did he want to seem that severe? Then again, considering the circumstances, perhaps he did. He placed one hand on the jeweled hilt of his scimitar. “I need to know what my mother said or did to you this morning. Exactly. Don’t hold back. Just tell the truth.”

  Georgie’s pretty face struggled but she gave in. “She tried to spell me,” she admitted. “To make me want to accept the room.”

  “Damn it.”

  “I think your mother meant well—or anyway she might have. She believes I ought to stay in the harem. Like a sultan’s women traditionally do.”

  “You don’t know her as well as I. I sincerely doubt her fondness for tradition is all that’s behind her behavior.”

  “Yasmin said the same thing.”

  “The harem girl? What does she have to do with it?”

  Interestingly, Georgie seemed more reluctant to answer this. “I don’t want to get her in trouble.”

  “Georgie,” Iksander said, fighting for patience. “I can’t make smart decisions unless I have all the facts.”

  Connor rubbed her shoulder. “Tell him. Iksander is a fair man. He wouldn’t punish anyone unjustly.”

  Georgie sighed but seemed to accept this. “Yasmin has been sneaking out of the harem in cat form.”

  “What?”

  Arcadius interrupted before Iksander could completely lose his cool. “I knew that, actually. Yasmin used the ability to help us solve the case of the abducted teenage djinn.”

  Iksander stared at him. “Anything else you neglected to tell me?”

  “Er, her estranged ifrit brother was the mastermind behind the trafficking ring?”

  “Good Lord.” Iksander recalled hearing the tale but not this particular connection. “That was a salient detail to omit!”

  Iksander’s amazement brought a rare look of embarrassment into the guardian’s face. If he’d been less self-controlled, he probably would have squirmed. Iksander realized then that—for some reason—Arcadius had purposefully le
ft the girl’s involvement out of his accounting.

  He wasn’t the only one, Iksander thought a moment later. Joseph would have known. And Elyse. And Arcadius’s double Cade. None of them had seen fit to mention Yasmin’s name.

  A half suspicious person would call that a conspiracy!

  “She seems a decent girl,” Arcadius said with a touch of defensiveness. “Brave under fire. Joseph trusts her. I think she was simply bored from being shut up with all those women. I’ll have a full report on your desk tomorrow.”

  “You do that,” Iksander said, deciding they could argue this out later.

  “I do apologize,” Arcadius added, belatedly recognizing he ought to. “Your Majesty.”

  In that moment, Iksander didn’t mind hearing his title.

  Georgie startled him by reaching for his hand. “What are you going to do?”

  He returned her clasp, aware that the simple warmth of the gesture was calming him. He smiled into her concerned eyes. “I’ll do what every son with an overbearing mother occasionally has to. Butt heads until she retreats a few meters.”

  “Should we do anything?” Connor asked. Unlike Georgie, he wasn’t worried but just asking. Iksander appreciated that as well.

  “I’d say pray for me,” he joked, “but, given who you are, that might be stacking the deck unfairly in my favor.”

  “We’ll stay out of trouble,” Georgie promised.

  “Right,” Connor agreed. “At least until you get this settled.”

  Laughing, Iksander bussed each of them on the mouth. The public display seemed to startle his commander.

  Too bad, Iksander thought. He wouldn’t hide what the pair meant to him.

  THOUGH IKSANDER’S MOTHER kept quarters in the harem, she wasn’t restricted to it the same as a concubine. So long as she observed the bounds of upper class female modesty, the world was hers to move in. Even then, those bounds were somewhat self-imposed. Bit-by-bit, generation-by-generation, Iksander’s city was changing. Their recent ordeal at the hands of the Empress Luna had changed it more. Having come out the other side, his citizens cherished all freedoms.

  To move and breathe was a gift, no matter your status or gender.

  By all accounts, the experience had changed the sultana too. In Iksander’s absence, she’d taken on more outward-turned responsibilities. She’d organized—some might say bullied—her wealthy friends into helping the city’s poor when they most needed it. Because of her, they now had a network of shelters and soup kitchens. Iksander wanted to do more in that direction, to prosper his people beyond handouts. He didn’t delude himself it would be easy. His trip to Georgie’s world and subsequently to Luna’s city had opened his eyes on numerous fronts.

  The prospect of change had the power to frighten more than the privileged.

  Naturally, it frightened them just fine.

  He composed himself before entering the harem, smoothing his tunic and tugging straight his sash. Keep your temper, he told himself. Be firm but patient. You owe your mother for more than your existence.

  That advice competed with his instinct to seize this window to shake things up. This period in time was unusual. If he ignored the opportunities it presented, they might not come again.

  The sultana’s personal guard showed him into her audience chamber.

  Only she was present, thankfully. Facing his neglected concubines was one challenge too many for him right then.

  She rose from a delicate desk where she’d been writing and reading scrolls. He knew it was her habit to keep up with diplomatic developments. One change from previous custom was her less obscuring garb. Patterned silver silk veiled her hair alone, the shade echoed in her layered gown. Though many leagues from immodest, the dress displayed her figure. Had he known she was still trim and fit? He wasn’t convinced of it.

  “Mother,” he said, taking her hands and kissing her cheeks in turn.

  Shorter than her offspring, she made up for the disadvantage with strength of will. Neck stiff, head barely tilting back, she studied him with glittering amber eyes. “Iksander. You have the look you get when you want to upbraid someone.”

  Her tone was dry, implying any urge to scold her must be juvenile . . . not to mention punching above his weight.

  He let out his breath slowly. “You must have heard your plot to suborn my lover has gone awry. Your man Kerem is in the infirmary.”

  “Who?” she asked airily.

  “Don’t play with me. Everyone knows Magician Kerem is your ally.”

  She pursed her lips and shrugged. “He was simply gathering intelligence. Or attempting to. Now you know your new friend isn’t a pushover. You should be grateful.”

  “Trust me, grateful would be my last reaction. You were hoping to bribe someone I care about to abandon me.”

  “Don’t be dramatic. I merely hoped to shuffle him to one side. Out of the public view. Until you tire of him.”

  Though this would have been bad enough, he wasn’t persuaded it was true. He was careful to speak firmly. “I am committed to Connor. And Georgie. They will stay with me as long as they wish—lifelong, if God allows.” He recalled Arcadius’s advice. “In truth, if they agree, I intend to name them kadin and consort.”

  This widened his mother’s eyes. He experienced a small spike of pleasure at knocking her off balance. She took a moment to recover. “You can’t be serious. Our people would never accept such an arrangement for their ruler.”

  “They’ve accepted it in the guardians and their fiancée. Arcadius and Cade were in charge while I was gone. Unusual ‘arrangement’ notwithstanding, no one questioned their authority.”

  “That was an emergency! Half our citizens were statues. We have a chance to get back to normal now.”

  “Maybe it’s time for a new normal.”

  She scoffed. “Don’t be naïve.”

  “I don’t think I am. This city encompasses more beliefs—and needs—than our elite circle know anything about. If the House of Nummius wants to survive into the future, we’d better address them.”

  “Son, I understand you’ve been through a lot since you lost Najat . . .”

  “This isn’t about her.”

  “Isn’t it?” The sultana patted his chest pacifyingly. “Everyone sees how much the human female resembles her. Who could forget how you fell apart when Luna murdered her? If loving this foreigner is what you need to heal, that’s what I want for you.”

  “I love Georgie because she’s her, just as I love Connor because he’s him.” He could see from his mother’s face that this wasn’t sinking in. He covered the hands she’d placed on his chest, holding them, and her, where she was. “Mother, why did you try to charm Georgie to stay here?”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Mother,” he repeated. “Human or not, Georgie is familiar with our magic. She knows when someone is spelling her.”

  “You couldn’t consider the possibility she might lie?”

  “Not about this. Not when you’re the other option for deceiver.”

  His mother yanked her hands away. “Fine. I tried to enchant her. I was hoping to manage the situation. To minimize potential damage since you obviously have your heart set on her. I do want you to be happy, just not to destroy yourself for a romantic whim.”

  He didn’t repeat that Georgie was no whim. “How would housing her in the harem minimize the damage?” The sultana opened her mouth too quickly and he stopped her. “Don’t lie again. My patience for that is exhausted.”

  She stared at him, thinking hard, then set her shoulders defiantly. “My intent was to ensure you didn’t sire a child on her. Her being human, I wasn’t sure if djinn magic could prevent it, but at least her presence within these walls would draw you here more often. The other concubines would have a chance to remind you of their appeal.”

  “Don’t look so surprised I thought of that,” she went on irritatedly. “I showed remarkable restraint with you and Najat. You and she went at it like rabbits. Clearly, s
he wasn’t going to conceive. Now that she’s gone, it’s more than time you start behaving like a proper sultan. Heirs don’t sire themselves.”

  “Mother—”

  “This is my job,” she snapped. “My most sacred duty. To ensure the furtherance of your line. Do you think I want our dynasty to end?”

  “One day Georgie might—”

  “Your precious Georgie’s child would be half human. Human blood, ruling us! We didn’t throw off Solomon’s yoke to voluntarily enslave ourselves to her kind. I’ll be damned if I’ll apologize for trying to avert that calamity.”

  The depth of her anger shocked him, though maybe it shouldn’t have. As gently as he was able, he took her rigid shoulders between his hands. “Georgie is a person, Mother, the same as you or I. What’s more, she and Connor are heroes to this city. Time and again, they risked their lives to help us and me. Half of us would still be stone if it weren’t for her.”

  “Better that,” his mother said bitterly. “Better that.”

  He released her. He could push her no more today, only pray for softening tomorrow. He knew how brave and compassionate Connor and Georgie were. Someday, with luck, the sultana would know it too.

  He wouldn’t give up hope. His mother didn’t see how much she’d changed already.

  Before he could take his leave, a door concealed in the chamber’s paneling clicked open.

  “Sultana,” said a woman’s voice. “The book you asked about arrived. I have it . . . oh.” The concubine—Safiye, he thought her name was—stopped and curtseyed on seeing him. “Your Majesty, forgive me. I didn’t realize your mother had company.”

  Though the book she’d mentioned was in her hand, believing she’d interrupted by accident was a stretch. Her clothes and coiffure were too perfect, as George would have said. On top of this, Iksander wasn’t so thick he didn’t know Safiye was his mother’s number one candidate to carry his progeny.

  His mother sighed. “This isn’t a good time, Safiye.”

  “Of course. Perhaps I could speak to His Majesty when he’s finished here. If it isn’t too much trouble.” Her voice was as smooth as velvet, her dark lashes lowered modestly. As she held the book to her breast, her manicured fingers formed a lovely shape on its red leather.