Page 89 of The King's Menagerie

His heart drummed in his ears, but sadly he could say nothing further as more people trickled into the room and the inquiry began.

His mother interrupted the matter with screaming fits twice, and only stopped because Shafiq threatened to put her in jail if she did it again, and it wouldn't be solitary. That was just short of a death sentence, given how his mother had treated prisoners and guards her entire career.

Of course, given the severity of her crimes, a death penalty was unlikely but not impossible. Previous monarchs might have chosen such, but Shafiq preferred not to go that route unless he felt there was simply no other choice.

By the time the inquiry ended, it took everything Nadir had not to bolt from the room and run through the halls back to his room. He plastered a smile on his face and made all the usual platitudes, working his way through the room of people wanting to thank him and say they were sorry and cast him pitying looks when they thought he wasn't looking.

It was true he had never wanted the future his parents had arranged for him, but he hadn't wanted to be left with nothing either. He should have been more careful with his wishes.

Disappointingly, Shafiq was swept away to another meeting before Nadir could bid him farewell.

Finally slipping away, mercifully without having to endure his mother's theatrics as she was all but dragged away by guards, Nadir returned to his room quickly, eschewing decorum entirely when he chanced upon empty halls.

Back in his room, he closed the door and for a second, simply leaned against it, getting his breath back and trying to convince his heart to slow down.

When that proved a futile effort, he pushed away from the door and returned to his desk, draining two cups of wine fromthe carafe he hadn't finished earlier. As braced as he would ever be, he drew the stack of poems close and looked them over again.

That beautiful iridescent red ink called to him, and he touched one of the replies gently before finally reading it.

His poem had been about always feeling alone. It was silly, cliché, about a fine pet forever on a leash or in a cage, but it was a good exercise.

Shafiq, if he really was the one behind these replies, had penned a beautiful response that commiserated with the feeling, always feeling caged and watched and performing tricks, even as everyone was scared of him.

Hands shaking slightly, Nadir went on to the next. These were the improv cubes he'd done the other day, and each one had some sort of response: a poem that reacted to or extended his, compliments on his word choice, and one that simply saidI'm especially fond of this one.Nadir couldn'tbreathe.

Why would Shafiq do this?

He set aside the cube exercises and…

Oh, gods. His poem about Shafiq. About his stupid, hopeless infatuation with Shafiq.

There was a reply.

Nadir had more wine, then picked up the paper to hold it closer to the light.

Shafiq had matched him line for line. Look for look. Wish for wish.

This couldn't mean what he thought. Did Shafiq truly… truly want him? Shafiq? Him?

What about him could possibly catch the eye of someone like Shafiq? His wife had been of incomparable beauty and fire. What did Nadir have that made him remarkable? A tendency to not watch where he was going? Parents who trafficked children? Bad poetry?

Except Shafiq had replied to all that bad poetry—had thought it worth the replies, all of them thoughtful and just as honest. That was a lot of trust to be granted to a nobody.

His heart was going to pop from the tumult rushing through him, but as long as it waited just a little while longer, Nadir didn't care.

Pulling out paper and the finest ink he had, which was still no comparison to the beautiful red ink Shafiq had used, he stared for several minutes before slowly, carefully, writing out a poem that answered—he hoped—everything Shafiq had given and asked in his own replies.

When it was finished, and the ink well-dried, he folded and sealed it, and went to find a servant who would see it delivered directly to Shafiq.

Then he went and drank down the rest of his wine, called for more, and tried to find something with which to distract himself while he waited to see what happened next.

*~*~*

Unfortunately, no reply came that night, though Nadir wasn't terribly surprised, given how busy Shafiq was.

Instead he got a letter from his sisters' caretakers, asking if he would come see them. Nadir looked over his schedule for the next several days and wrote to reply he would, along with the day and time. He next wrote a note to Shafiq's office to keep them apprised of his whereabouts.

After that, he was left with nothing much to do. So strange, to go from a life where he never had enough time to accomplish everything to one where all he had was time and nothing to do with it.

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