The Rose & the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn, #2)

by Renée Ahdieh

What did he do on the night of the storm? What have we done?

“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” she said, her mouth dry. But she wasn’t. Not for this. She was sorry for a hundred things. A thousand things. An entire city of untendered apologies. But she would never be sorry for this.

She would do whatever needed to be done to keep her family safe. Even lie to her own sister.

Moments spent in idleness were moments left to thought. Moments left to memory.

He felt nothing. He only saw it. Because nothing hurt like missing her. He suspected nothing ever would.

“You think?” Khalid said finally. “Or you know.” The slightest hesitation. “I think I know.” “Don’t equivocate, Jalal. It’s insulting. To me and to her.”

A boy who would thrash first and ask questions later.

No. Neither of them was a leader. She’d always known Rahim to be a boy who followed. Just as she was a girl who ran. A girl who failed to do anything, save spare her own skin.

“I belong to me.”

In an alley by the souk. In a night of oblivion. In the promise of tomorrow.

And what do you hope to achieve by such uninspired villainy?”

Khalid would break every bone in your body for what you’ve done.

But it was no excuse. There would never be an excuse for this.

“But if you even look at my sister again, I’ll kill you outright.”

It felt so real. So achingly alive.

“I’m—so sorry for loving him, Shiva-jan. So sorry for not being stronger.”

“I know I’m awful. So it begs the question: Why are you here?”

They felt like everything she’d ever loved about being young and free.

“He . . . would listen.” Then do exactly as he pleased.

A trace of the boy she’d always known. And greatly missed in the past few days.

Because I know. Had I spent a single night with you, I would never have wished for us to be parted from that day forward.”

oh no, that's not-

“I’m so sorry for hurting you,” Shahrzad whispered,

bestie you do not owe this guy an apology

“I do love you. Nothing will change that. Just as nothing will change the fact that he killed my cousin and stole the girl I love from me.”

my guy this is not heping your case

Shahrzad was special. Just like Jahandar. And she was strong. Even stronger than he was.

For a mistake was only a mistake if it was left to remain so.

But to what end?

Vaguely apologetic. Yet determined.

He saw a boy. Who loved a girl. More than anything in the world. And he hated him all the more for it.

Two emotions battled within Shahrzad. The first was fear. The second she would not yet dare name.

“You should truly be afraid on the days I can stand straight.

“Because I’m just as selfish and spiteful as you are.”

I know you’re queen of a broken city and of a kingdom on the brink of war.

“She’s powerful.” Artan laughed without guile. “And, like you, completely devoid a sense of humor.”

“Go to wherever it is you’re disappearing. To wherever it is that is more important than here and now.”

absent purpose.

“She keeps leaving me behind,” Irsa said softly. “Everyone keeps leaving me.

I intend to flourish.

“To live . . . fiercely.”

Destiny was for fools. Shahrzad would not wait for her life to happen. She would make it happen.