Zehra couldn’t wash the blood off her hands. The palace halls were filled with screams, and the night sky was illuminated with fire. Smoke crept along the corridors, prowling for victims. Bodies littered the bedroom and antechamber.
Zehra stared in shock at the two bodies closest to the bed. Her mother lay still, her golden hair spread across the silk sheets, her throat slashed. Blood pooled beneath her neck, and her sightless blue eyes looked through Zehra into oblivion.
A tall dark-haired man lay at her feet, his body still, a scimitar grasped in one hand. He had killed four men before being cut down.
Papa…the word didn’t escape her lips, but it was followed inside her head by a piercing scream of anguish.
Later she could move again, and then she was sprinting down the corridor, coug
