Page 80 of The Moon's Fury
They probably would have succeeded if she hadn’t seen the way Ebrahim regarded them both, Layna especially, with familiar, paternal affection.
Why had he loved them, but never thought to search for her?
Her hatred was irrational, and her scholar’s mind knew it.
But a vengeful heart was deaf to reason.
Layna, and her uncontrollable power, was why she was in this mess. After she had nearly killed Ebrahim that night, Burhani had no choice but to seek out the elders.
Layna needed to be stopped.
Her lips twisted into a sneer beneath her shawl, footsteps sure against the familiar cobblestones, a path she’d walked a thousand times over.
The two sisters thought they were so clever with their hidden texts and tomes. Her eyes rolled of their own accord. Soraya spent plenty of time in the library, nose always buried in some botany or herbology text.
Brutish Layna, however, preferred the training grounds. So when the crown princess suddenly began spending more and more time there, she knew there were secrets to uncover.
She’d found the hidden library easily, and had greedily read as many scrolls as she could manage in one sitting. Her sharp mind was hungry for knowledge, and the hidden library held it in droves.
It’s where she learned of the elders, the prophecy, and the Medjai. It’s how she knewexactlywho she needed to inform about Layna and her volatile powers.
Except the selfish bitch had fled in the night, taking her sister and mother with her.
The Medjai had installed Ebrahim as a puppet ruler, and she could see the noose tightening around his neck each day.
Her feelings about Ebrahim were complex, but shedidlove him, in her own way. He was a good man—the Medjai’s schemes and commands chafed at him.
There was little more he could take of the injustices the Medjai doled out—what he’d begrudgingly accepted was only out of fear for her safety.
Which is how she now found herself in Thessan, her footsteps leading her back to the Grand Libraries she’d left behind.
She kept her head down as she walked through the towering main doors. The first floor of the magnificent building was open to the general public. Her feet glided across the polished marble, past rows and rows and rows of bookshelves. It was a labyrinth to most, but one she knew more intimately than the lines on her palm.
She knew which column to duck behind, which turns to follow to reach the restricted section reserved only for Scholars. She rounded a corner and—
A hand gripped her arm. “You can’t be back here,sahiba.”
The voice was deep.
Familiar.
Sometimes, she still heard it in her dreams.
Slowly, she turned and dropped her hood.
The man’s grip loosened, then fell away completely. She gazed at his handsome face—he hadn’t changed at all. The years that passed between them had chiseled his features, and he was even more breathtaking than she remembered.
“Hani,” he breathed, and she lost another piece of her heart.
“Hello, Thanh. You look well.” Her voice was surprisingly even, though her heart was attempting to batter through her ribcage.
“I—so do you. How have you been?” His blond hair had grown out since she last saw him—when she had said goodbye—the wavy ends reaching past his shoulders. Wide blue eyes scanned her, and she wondered what he saw.
Did he still see his first love?
Or the woman who left him and his heart in pieces?
“It’s been difficult,” she admitted, biting her lower lip. “But I’ll make it through. I always do.”
