Page 33 of The Prince's Wife

In the end, such matters were always rather anticlimactic. They would return to their cells. They would write useless pleas for their lives. Their lawyers would do their job. Their families would be left adequate homes and funds for a stable life that would still be better than the poor ever got. As many people as possible would be found where they'd been sold across the world and brought home. International relations would be tense as Tavamara worked with various countries to get those people back.

All of that would take a lifetime. Aradishir's lifetime. A worthy way to spend a life, but it shouldn't have to be done at all.

The whole affair would be easier if he had someone to help him, work alongside him. He would of course have plenty of help, especially Lady Kubra, but an actual partner who could help with the political side of things, especially internationally… Like say a certain princess who could not be more perfect for the job…

Well, he'd managed this long; he would continue to do so. There were plenty of other people who could help him, and he'd build international alliances as he progressed.

Once the throne room was empty, he rose to leave.

"Aradishir, I would like to speak with you," Fahima said. "Wait for me in my reading room, if you do not mind."

"You say that like I have a choice," Aradishir said, even as his stomach worked itself into a thousand knots. "Of course. I'll head there now."

He nodded farewell to his father and siblings, bowed slightly in parting to Relanya, and headed off to his mother'sprivate reading room, where wine and food were already waiting. So she'd intended this since before the throne room. Wonderful. "What did I do now?" he asked with a sigh. "This can't be about the trafficking, my parents would have simply spoken to me in the throne room."

Heydar wrapped arms around him from behind, resting his head on Aradishir's shoulder. "You worry too much. Your mother has no reason to be angry with you—"

"—except over how I can't stop making eyes at my brother's fiancé," Aradishir said bitterly. "Maybe I'll get lucky and this whole cleaning up the mess the merchants made will require me traveling overseas."

"It probably will," Fahima said from behind him, making Aradishir jump and barely refrain from screaming.

She stood where a bookcase had moved, because he was a dumbass and forgot this room had access to the secret passages. "Mother."

Fahima smiled faintly. "Ididwant to talk to you about Princess Relanya, as it happens."

Aradishir recoiled, pulling free from Heydar and warding off all the others. Right now he didn't want anyone touching him. "I didn't— I haven't—"

"Calm down," Fahima said gently. With anyone else, the words would have infuriated him. But his mother was not the condescending type, not unless she was purposely pissing off smarmy councilmen who thought she couldn't possibly be as smart as them. "Leave us, please," she said to all the concubines.

Once they were alone, she took his hands, rubbing the backs of them with her thumbs as she had so many times in her life. "You are smitten with her."

"How could I not be?" Aradishir asked bitterly. "I promise I won't cause problems. I haven't so far."

Fahima smiled in that soft, fond way of hers that he'd always found so soothing, even at his most upset as a child. "Whatever I tease about you being a troublemaker, the truth is that you are the least troublesome of my children. Everyone says you take after me, and this is very true. Right up to and including marrying someone intended for your sibling."

Aradishir's heart seized in his chest. "I'mnotmarrying her though."

"Would you, though, if you could?"

"You must know my answer to that, and I don't see why tormenting me like this—"

"Because the engagement is causing more problems than we anticipated. While as king and queen we could certainly do whatever we wanted anyway, no wise ruler upsets their people willfully when there are other options. Everyone likes Relanya, but they do not like her as queen."

"You can't… you can't be saying what I think you're saying."

Fahima smiled. "If I am?"

"She's not a taki piece to just be moved around as the player likes!" Aradishir snapped. "Sheshouldbe queen, not—"

"Aradishir," Fahima cut in sternly. "You cannot think that I of all people would make people go through with something so important and pivotal if all parties were not amenable to the change."

Aradishir couldn'tbreathe. "What do you mean?"

Fahima laughed softly. "Silly boy, do you think that you are the only one smitten where you think you shouldn't be? The whole of the palace has noticed that you and Relanya seem more like a happy couple than she ever does with Bakhti."

"They have?" he asked, hoping his face wasn't as red as it felt. "That can't be true. She's older than me, better—"

"Nobody is better than you, my son, and any woman would be lucky to have you. After a point, age is not so important a thing. Look at me and your father. Look at Rakiah and your father. Age gaps all of us, quite significant in Rakiah's case. But he was an adult, and knew his own mind, and made his choices freely and fully informed. I promise that she is as smitten with you as you are with her. I had hoped to have this conversation in a few more days, when other matters were addressed, like speaking with her parents and getting the paperwork adjusted, so all of that was taken care of before I spoke with the two of you. But with all the recent upheaval, best to get this done. People willenjoyyour courtship, where they have unfortunately been too narrow minded when she was Bakhti's promised. Anyway, even a blind fool can see those two have all the spark of a lump of mud."

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