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duty and my right to lead this country, to care for these people, as they should be led and cared for. Not in the manner my uncle did it. Purpose is what has driven me for nearly half of my life, and purpose is what drives me now. Emotion is unnecessary and weak. Emotion lies. Purpose doesn’t.”
    In so many ways, he echoed a colder, harsher version of what she’d always told herself. That doing right was what mattered. That when people stopped doing right and started serving themselves, things fell apart. Utterly and completely.
    She’d seen it in her own family. She’d never wished to bring the kind of destruction her mother had, so she’d set out to be better. To be above selfishness. To do the right thing, the thing that benefitted others before it benefitted her.
    To take care, instead of destroy. To be a blessing instead of a burden.
    But hearing it from his lips, it seemed...wrong. At least she acknowledged emotion; she just knew there were more important things in life than giddy happiness. Giddy happiness was fleeting, and selfish. She felt it was just her mission to make sure she didn’t put her feelings above the happiness of others. There was nothing wrong with that.
    “You know what else doesn’t lie? My muscles. I’m so stiff I can hardly move.”
    “A bath then. I will have one drawn for you.”
    “Th-thank you.”
    “You sound surprised.”
    “You’re giving me nicer things than my last kidnapper.”
    “Savior, Analise. I think the word you’re looking for is savior. ”
    She looked into his midnight eyes and felt something tug, deep and hard inside of her. Something terrifying. Something that touched the edge of the forbidden. “No, I really don’t think that’s the word I’m looking for.”
    “Come,” he said, walking toward the doors of the palace.
    Zafar didn’t wait for the double doors to open for him. He pushed against them with both palms, flinging them wide, the sound of the heavy wood hitting the stone walls echoing in the antechamber.
    He simply stood for a moment, and waited. For what he did not know. Ghosts, perhaps? There were none. None that were visible, though he could almost feel them. The pain, the anguish this place had witnessed seemed to echo from the walls and he felt it deep down in his bones. If he listened hard enough, he was certain he could still hear his mother screaming. His father crying.
    The air was heavy. With memory, with a cold, stale scent that lingered. Probably had more to do with the stone walls than with the past.
    He’d spent years living in a tent. Hell, it had been over a year since he’d actually been in a building that wasn’t made from canvas. The walls were too heavy. Too thick. Making the air even harder to breathe.
    He wanted to turn and run, but Ana was behind him. He felt like an animal being herded into a cage, but he wouldn’t show that weakness. He couldn’t.
    So he took another step inside. Into darkness, into the place that had seen so much death and devastation. It was a step back into his past. One he wasn’t prepared to take, but one that had to be taken.
    “Zafar?”
    He felt a small hand on his arm and he jerked away, looking down at Ana. She didn’t shrink back, but he could see something in her wilt. Unsurprising. She must think him more beast than man, but then, there was truth in that.
    “We shall have your bath run for you,” he said, his voice tight, cold, even to his own ears.
    He had no choice but to move forward. To embrace this because it was his destiny. And his penance. He gritted his teeth and walked on.
    Yes, this was his penance. He was prepared to pay it now.

CHAPTER FOUR
    I T WAS Z AFAR ’ S great misfortune that Ambassador Rycroft was near and insisted on a meeting immediately. With Zafar in his robes, filthy from traveling. He had no idea how he must appear to the immaculately dressed, clean-shaven man who was sitting in his office now. He had very little idea of how he appeared at all. He