Page 8 of The Falcon and the Flame (The Birds: On Her Majesty’s Sapphic Secret Service #2)

Chapter Five

H er country was a realm of contradiction.

It was a beacon of democracy with a king at its head.

It was a bastion of freedom bordered by autocracies.

It was proud of its colonial past, even as technology, development and wealth saw it sail past the old empire that had once ruled it.

Ain Zargiers was a renewable powerhouse founded on crude.

Tradition blended seamlessly with modernity.

The shifting sands of the desert swept through its heart and perpetual drifts of snow graced its tallest mountains.

So much of her country was a reflection of the man who was its king.

The Q’sar had once been a mountain.

Steady and unshakeable, Q’sar Idris carried the weight of the Ain Zargiers on his shoulders without complaint. Zynara had spent her childhood in his shadow, watching the way his presence filled a room, loving how his deep measured voice could silence a crowd or ignite their fervour.

Now, as she walked through the palace from her father’s rooms to her own, she feared that mountain was crumbling into the sands.

Her father had greeted her today with his usual warmth and a smile that was as genuine as ever, but his hands shook in hers.

His MS flare ups were getting worse, and more frequent.

He winced at the light, then again at the pain as he turned from the door, then nearly toppled on unsteady legs before his valet caught him and his nurses helped him back to a couch.

“I hate this, binti,” he whispered. “We established the Green Futures Alliance together—you, me and Rayan. I wanted—”

His mind was as bright as ever, but on days like this, the words came hard. He couldn’t appear on the world stage in this condition. Not even the citizens of Ain Zargiers knew he was suffering like this. He hated lying to his people even more than he hated what was happening to his body.

“It’s okay, Baba,” Zynara told him. “I’ve got it. I’ll have your aides set you up with livestreams. I’ll call you at the end of every session. We’ll discuss the day’s developments over dinner every evening. I will be your voice in every negotiation. You’re still Q’sar. You’re still—”

He patted her cheek. “And you know you don’t even need me. You know I trust you.”

She looked at his hands and wondered when he’d become so frail.

They didn’t say anything about Malik, but her father’s disappointment and fear hung in the air between them like smoke and Zynara didn’t want to breathe it in.

She kissed him on the forehead so he couldn’t see her tears, and left.

The palace around her was quiet in the late afternoon.

She skirted courtyards, nodding to staff and security, greeting most of them by name and with a half smile.

She strode between pavilions, the heavy smell of jasmine turning her head once toward the gardens, a trick of her memory mistaking distant laughter for the echo of a happy childhood.

The palace was her home—and she loved it—but today, even its comfort couldn’t soothe her.

There was a garden bordering the corridor that ran alongside her rooms, the deep, cool tick of plants and soft green things alive mingling with the gentle splash of water from a fountain.

She paused for a moment, her hand on the archway, her eyes shaded by a patterned lattice.

She wanted to sit beneath the fig tree and indulge in its fruit and forget the summit, politics, grief and loss, and the sad, sorry mess her family had become.

There was no question of the Q’sar attending tonight’s cocktail party.

No one had said it, but she doubted he’d recover from this current relapse in time for the summit at all.

Malik would be fucking unbearable—too lazy to step up and be the Q’sar his country needed him to be, and yet, still belligerent his father had pushed back the date for his abdication.

The work would fall to Zynara again and, though she loved it, it wasn’t quite what she’d dreamed.

She’d been working her life away to build a better world, and she didn’t even have time to sit under a fig tree in her own fucking garden.

She blew the tempting scent of jasmine out of her nose in one long, hard sigh, and entered her study. There were more important things to be doing. Someone had to stop the mountain from crumbling into the sand.

Q’sar Idris had carried his country on his shoulders.

Zynara squared her own and summoned the strength to do the same.

Moments later, she sat at her desk, reworking her father’s notes for the speech at the evening’s cocktail party and making the words her own.

Her phone buzzed with a message from Romaissa.

— Malik is in the palace. Russian delegation confirmed for an after-party at his house late tonight. Saudis and Chinese also likely —

Zynara’s jaw tightened. Malik wasn’t even being subtle anymore. He knew how important the Green Futures summit was to her renewable energy agenda—to Ain Zargiers—and there he was, flaunting his ties to fossil fuel interests like a stubborn, rebellious child.

Her door slammed open and Malik sauntered in, drink in hand, Zynara’s personal guard in his wake. The guard bowed.

“My apologies, Qasira.”

Zynara waved the woman away. It wasn’t her fault. Malik was the heir to the throne and he had no sense of decorum. He smirked as her bodyguard left. He was as infuriating as ever.

“Still buried in work, sister? Do I have to explain the concept of delegation to you again?”

She looked back at her screen. “It would be interesting to see you try. One has to actually assume responsibility in the first place to be able to delegate it. Not a step I’ve yet seen you take.”

He didn’t rise to her bait. He rarely did. It was part of what irritated her about him. Malik was so laid back and straight up lazy he never even bothered to bite back. It came of being the baby of the family, spoiled and accustomed to getting everything he wanted.

He leaned against her desk, casual in a Kiton suit with a timepiece on his wrist that could have bought entire villages on the other side of the Tell. He picked up one of her papers and let it drop carelessly.

“Baba’s under the weather again?” he asked. There was something triumphant in his expression—like he didn’t care a bit for their father’s suffering. “It’s almost as if he’s not fit to rule.”

“Again, a concept I’m astonished you can grasp,” Zynara said.

Malik gave her a grimace like he’d stepped in shit. “You’re wasting your time with this summit nonsense—all your greenie little friends with their mirrors and windmills. It’s PR fluff for the left. Oil is what keeps this country alive. Always has. Always will.”

Zynara leaned back in her chair. “Say what you came to say, Malik. I’m busy.”

He grinned. For a split second she saw her baby brother as he used to be—pockets full of sweet dried figs racing her to the ladder of the treehouse in the east garden.

They used to pick pomegranates and prise out the jewels from inside, feasting on them until their lips and fingers were stained red with the juice.

Then they’d laugh and chase their elder brother like zombies until their father picked them all up in his strong arms and dunked them in a fountain.

That was long ago. Now, Malik’s smile curdled. Sly and mean.

“Fine. I came to invite you to the real event tonight.”

“Another party?”

He ignored that. “All the big players will be there. Consortiums with actual money, not your bleeding hearts with hopeless dreams for the future.” He raised his glass in a mock salute. “You should come. If only to take notes on how real deals are made.”

“You mean trading decency and our country’s future for decadence and debauchery?”

Shit. She shouldn’t let him get to her.

Malik’s grin widened. “Careful, sister. That almost sounds defensive. You’re not exactly innocent in that field yourself. Feeling the pressure, are we?”

“Fuck you.”

“Tut, tut. Not very decent of you, old chap. But I understand. Pressures of standing in for the old man yet again.” He leaned over her.

“Why don’t you get out of my way, Niz? Our business partners are screaming for a powerful, capable figure on the throne again, rather than this half-arsed parade of women and invalids we’ve had to endure lately. ”

She took a steadying breath. “Baba pushed back his abdication because he doesn’t think you’re ready. You will never measure up to a man like our father. The people will never accept—”

He shrugged like he didn’t care. “Completely irrelevant. The country will be mine, and when it is, we will run it my way. The people won’t have a choice.”

“Ain Zargiers is a democracy, you moron. You can’t just—”

“Only if I let it be.”

And there was the horror of it. Malik didn’t want to rule because he had the country’s best interests at heart—he wanted to reshape it completely and use it as a cash machine for himself and his billionaire friends. Ain Zargiers deserved better.

Her father was exhausted. Her mother was gone. Her wonderful, perfect elder brother was dead. Her baby brother was a fool too stupid to understand what he was destroying.

And that left her.

If she walked away, she’d lose her country, possibly her businesses, and everything she cared for.

If she listened to her conscience, to Sami, to commonsense and the national good and took the throne she’d be even more tired.

Malik was unlikely to stop. She’d spend the rest of her days mitigating her little brother’s damage, sacrificing every hope of something sweet and gentle for her heart and hardening her soul to yet more loneliness.

It was a shit choice.

Malik saw his win in her eyes. He smiled in a way he probably thought was charming and strolled over to the window. “I’ve got a 180 billion pound deal with RusGas in the works. Antonin Petrov. You know him? I’ve heard rumours he’s also interested in your green hydrogen bullshit.”

He was. Zynara was hoping to secure the deal this week. Getting Russia onboard with clean, renewable gas would go a long way to decarbonising the country—and breaking the backs of a few other old fossils. Destabilising oligarchs was an added bonus.

“So, you’ll be there tonight at my party after your silly little summit welcome. I want to keep an eye on you. Be sure you’re not making any deals with my business partners behind my back.”

For crying out loud. He was laughable. Did he really think that was how business was done?

“I have actual work to do—”

“And aren’t you just so good at it? You’ll keep doing it, too. Keep the place ticking over for me until dearest Baba hands me the keys.” He looked mad for a moment. “Or until he pops his clogs. Whichever comes first.”

She hated him.

“And you’ll do as I tell you, because if you don’t, I’m sure the people will be delighted to know their morally superior Qasira isn’t above using the women at my party house whenever it suits her.

” He brightened. “Some new talent arrived today. Blonde, British, amazing tits. Just your type. Want me to send you the pics? No?” His smirk was pure venom.

“You always said I never shared, sister dear, but we both know that’s just not true. ”

She glared, too tired to summon a comeback.

Malik turned to leave. “See you tonight, Nizzy. Don’t be late.”

She let out a slow breath when he was gone.

She hated him.

Her phone buzzed again. Romaissa had more info.

—Definite Platinum Nexus ties in the Saudi corporations Malik is courting. Yet to confirm with the Russians, but highly likely. Sending docs to you now—

Her heart weighed heavier. The Platinum Nexus was a network of ultra-conservative billionaires and other corporations that was rarely spoken of in circles outside their own.

If the mainstream had heard of it at all, it was dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

Unfortunately, it was very real. She sighed.

Yet more stupidly rich men who wanted to take the world backwards just to consolidate their wealth.

She despised the lot of them.

She stared out the window and watched the sun dip toward the horizon.

On the sea, the islands of the Archipel des Azures were bathed in gold.

Exhaustion didn’t cover it. This wasn’t the kind of tired that sleep cured.

This was a relentless grind, years of holding the weight of her family, her country and her people on her back while the world spun on blissfully unaware.

Her father had been lucky. He’d had her mother, a rare partnership of love and power that gave him the strength to rule. She’d thought, once, that maybe she could have that too. If she stepped aside, let Malik take the throne, maybe she could escape this life. Maybe she could breathe.

Totally unbidden, an image of the woman singing the blues in that London club flowed into her mind like a sweet song and the gentle touch she craved.

She almost felt it on her cheek. What might be possible, she wondered, if there ever was a woman in the world who might see her for who she was?

Someone who might want her, not the money, not the title, not the cold, aloof role she wore like a cloak, but her. Niz.

She was a fool.

Love was a distraction, a weakness. But blowing off steam? That she could work with.

She smirked, bitter and sharp. Malik’s comment about something new in his harem hadn’t escaped her. She wasn’t above a little indulgence, not when the world kept trying to grind her into dust.

Her fingers drummed against the desk, her mind moving ahead to the Summit. Malik thought he was playing the long game, but he wasn’t Q’sar yet. She still had work to do. For the good of her country. For the good of her people.

Her father had ruled with love.

For now, while her father’s power still rested in her hands, she would rule with iron.

Malik had no idea what he was up against.