‘YOU fool!’ Ibrahim strode in, straight past his mother, to where his father sat. He left a trail of black energy that had his mother standing at the door fearful to go in, for, try as she might, she could no longer halt them. She could not contain the conflict between the two men she loved most.
‘You dare to speak to me like that.’ The king rose to defend himself. ‘I am your father, I am your king.’
‘You are not my king,’ Ibrahim said. ‘You will no longer be my king, for I am done. The knife of the family should not cut—and yet you have cut my mother out.’
‘There was no choice.’
‘You are king,’ Ibrahim sneered. ‘You get to choose. You make the rules.’
He could hear his mother crying in the hallway, but he would not stop. ‘She deserves to be at home with you, not holed up in another country as some secret. She is the mother of your sons.’
‘She cheated.’
‘As did you!’ Ibrahim challenged what no man should. He stood and questioned the ways of old, the ways that chained him, his father, his family from a future. ‘You had mistresses, many, even when you were with her…’
‘I am king!’ Indignant, he roared. ‘Your mother had four young children. I was helping her so she could focus on the children, not have to worry herself attending to my needs…’
‘What about her needs?’ Ibrahim roared. ‘Clearly she had them, but you were too blind to see.’
‘Ibrahim, please,’ Sophia begged from the hallway. ‘Please, stop.’
As Georgie pulled up at Sophia’s house she could see her at the door, bent over and crying, and as she climbed out, she heard raised voices and Sophia ran to her. ‘He will kill him for how he is speaking. Stop him, Georgie. You must.’
But he would not stop and Georgie knew it. As with Felicity, there were too many words left unsaid, a confrontation that needed to be had, so she held Sophia’s hand and listened as Ibrahim roared. ‘You didn’t even give her the dignity of ending it.’ He shook his head in disgust at his father. ‘You need to bring her home.’
‘My people will not accept her and they will not respect me if I am seen to forgive her.’
‘Some won’t!’ Ibrahim challenged. ‘But there are many who will respect you a whole lot more—your son included.’
And the king looked at his youngest son, the one he could not read, the one he had accused of being the weakest when he had wept in the desert and just would not stop. The child that wept till it choked him, till he vomited, when his body should have been spent, when he should have curled up and accepted his lesson. Still Ibrahim had not, because he would not give up on what he believed in, and the king saw then the strength in his son.
‘I love Georgie,’ Ibrahim said. ‘She will be my wife, and without her by my side, I will not return to Zaraq. I will never return and neither will our children.’ He meant it. The king knew his son meant it. ‘If I am to be a prince, she is to be royal—as my mother should be.’
‘You can’t just give it all away.’
‘I just have.’ There wasn’t a trace of regret in his voice and Georgie closed her eyes as she listened and learnt just how much he loved her.
‘You cannot just turn your back—the desert calls…’
‘There is no call from the desert. The call was from my heart.’
‘Don’t mock the ways of old.’
‘But I’m not,’ Ibrahim said. ‘The desert knows what it is doing, because it brought us together. It’s the ruler who is blind.’ He was done with his father. Now he just had to find Georgie, but even before he turned round she was there beside him and she took his hand, not just for him but because she was still intimidated by a king.
‘Is this what you want for him?’ the king challenged, and Georgie wasn’t so strong.
‘You don’t have to give it up, Ibrahim. We can work something out. I know how much you love it.’
‘They have to love me too,’ he said, and it sounded a lot like her. ‘I would be a good prince, a loyal prince. I can help them move forward and bring much-needed change, but only if they want all of me, and a part of me will always be with you.’ He meant it, Georgie realised, he truly meant it. Gone was the tension and doubt. There was no fight inside him, no wrestling with himself, and without a glance backwards he walked from the house, taking Georgie with him.
‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ Georgie asked.
‘Do you?’ Ibrahim checked, for the first time in his life bordering on embarrassed, because all that she wanted he could not now give her. ‘You won’t even be half a princess.’
‘Am I yours?’ Georgie asked, and he nodded. ‘Are you mine?’ she checked, and he closed his eyes and nodded again.
‘Then I have everything.’
She looked down at his fingers coiled around hers, to the darkness and light that they made, then up to his eyes and the talent behind them—and there was her palace.
She had her prince.
* * * * *