Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) Read online

  Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles)

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  KISMET’S KISS

  (Alaia Chronicles)

  Cate Rowan

  Kismet’s Kiss by Cate Rowan

  Copyright 2010 by Cate Rowan

  Print ISBN-13: 9781456368609

  Print ISBN-10: 1456368605

  Digital ISBN: 9781452465739

  Published by Cate Rowan at Smashwords

  Cover by Robin Ludwig (rldprint.com)

  Photos used to create the cover were obtained from Shutterstock.com and RomanceNovelCovers.com

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced or retransmitted in any form in whole or in part without written permission from the author, with the exception of brief quotations for book reviews or critical articles. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, or actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Praise for Kismet’s Kiss

  “A must-read for all fantasy romance lovers.”

  –The Romance Reviews

  “Magic, passion, and intrigue–Kismet’s Kiss has it all! Cate Rowan’s uniquely compelling fantasy debut is set in a fascinating and fully realized world where danger lurks in every shadow. Rowan is definitely an author to watch!”

  –Alyssa Day, New York Times bestselling author

  “Kismet’s Kiss is a magical, exhilarating, sensual delight. Lush exotic world building, riveting storyline, and strong personable characters set the stage for a rich and captivating story.”

  –Smexy Books

  “A wonderful Arabian Nights story laced with humor and scheming with intriguing twists.”

  –Robin D. Owens, RITA-winning author of Heart Thief and Guardian of Honor

  “…Envelops the reader in a lush, exotic world of silk and sherbet, scimitars and precious stones… Kismet’s Kiss delivers an exhilarating reading experience.”

  –SciFiGuy.ca

  “Kismet’s Kiss is a lush, inviting, immersive gem of a book. No one who loves being swept away by a great story should miss this!”

  –Kendra Leigh Castle, author of Renegade Angel and Call of the Highland Moon

  “Kismet’s Kiss is a k-i-s-s-a-b-l-e read filled with magic, intrigue and romance!”

  –Cheryl's Book Nook

  “…A harem fantasy brimming with desire, enchantment and betrayal… I highly recommend Kismet’s Kiss to all readers who enjoy a touch of magic with their romance.”

  –The Romance Studio

  “Kismet’s Kiss is a compelling tale of love and duty set amid the clash of cultures. A thoroughly enjoyable adventure!”

  –Jana Oliver, author of the Time Rovers series and The Demon Trapper's Daughter

  “Kismet’s Kiss has everything a reader of fantasy could ask for–suspense, action, incredible world-building and magic. What captured me most was a romance so exquisitely crafted that it kept me up all night, devouring every word until the very last page. This story is a one-sitting read to be savored again and again!”

  –Shelby Reed, author of The Fifth Favor and Midnight Rose

  About the Author

  Cate Rowan has washed laundry in a crocodile-infested African lake, parasailed over Cabo, had monkeys poop in her hair, and swum with dolphins, but her best adventures are her story worlds. Her lush fantasy romances about magic, danger and passion in faraway realms have won more than thirty awards.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “She will come.” Old Dabir’s clouded eyes fixed on Kuramos, the Great Sultan of Kad, who had been holding vigil at his bedside for hours.

  “She?” Kuramos enfolded his mentor’s trembling fingers between his own bejeweled hands. “It doesn’t matter, Abha. Sleep now. We’ll talk later.”

  “There will be no later.”

  Kuramos’s jaw tightened. His gaze slid away, seeking refuge among the scrolls, piled sketches, and leather-bound tomes cramming Dabir’s sizable palace quarters. “Don’t say such things. Your illness isn’t like that of the others. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Silence gnawed at Kuramos until he turned back to the bed. The gray eyes of the shriveled Grand Vizir were half-blinded by cataracts, but still held more wisdom than any other man in Kuramos’s realm could claim. Those eyes gazed at him now, and neither man spoke further of the truth they both knew.

  Kuramos’s head grew heavy with grief, the muscles in his battle-proud neck almost too weary to hold it up.

  “Call for her.” Dabir’s voice quavered. “She will come.” His hand fluttered against Kuramos’s enclosing palms like a bird preparing for flight.

  Kuramos frowned. “Call who, Abha?” Dabir’s relatives were long dead. The Grand Vizir was a venerable six hundred years old, and Kuramos had known him for nearly two hundred of those years. There was no one left.

  “It won’t be easy for you, Zyru,” Dabir murmured, his voice so frail that Kuramos nearly missed the precious word. He could count the times it had been spoken to him, this endearment from a father to his son—as Dabir now was to Kuramos in all but blood.

  “What won’t be easy?” He flattened both hands around Dabir’s, as if by calming the tremors he could prevent Dabir from leaving.

  “You are the husam al din of our people. Your faith, your ways are dear to you, as hers are to her. Will you bend, or will she? Perhaps neither.” Dabir gave a short chuckle; it twisted into a hacking cough that racked his gaunt body.

  Kuramos reached for an almond-scented handkerchief and held it to his mentor’s mouth. When the coughing spell had eased, the white linen was stained with spatters of blood.

  Dabir’s gaze, less focused by the minute, swept Kuramos’s face. “I wish…” But pain furrowed his brow, and the words faltered.

  Kuramos swallowed and clasped Dabir’s hand again. Why, Naaz? Why must You take him now? Why must You take any of them! He hurled his despair towards the goddess’s home in the sky, but refused to look toward Her. Dabir would notice.

  A soft tapping at the door yanked him from his thoughts. The sultan turned with a furious rebuke on his tongue.

  His steward, Hamar, bowed deeply from the threshold. “O Lord, my most humble apologies for disturbing you, but Yaman needs your counsel. The illness has spread.”

  If it had been anyone el
se, or any other news, Kuramos would have flayed the intruder. Instead, he gave a terse nod. “Have him meet me in my chambers. I’ll be there shortly.”

  Hamar bowed low again and backed out, closing the door without looking up.

  Kuramos turned to Dabir. “I’m sorry, Abha…”

  Dabir rolled his head feebly on the pillow. “It’s time. Look to Teganne.”

  Teganne? Shards of ice in Kuramos’s heart thawed in yearning, then bitterly re-froze.

  Dabir’s fingers, weightless as fallen leaves, tugged at Kuramos’s hand, and at his heart. All hope drained away.

  He raised the oval sapphire ring of the Sultanate of Kad to Dabir’s parched lips.

  Hoary breaths leaked from his mentor as he kissed the ring. “O Lord, I hope I have served you well.”

  “Always, Dabir ib Rubai.” Kuramos’s voice broke. “As I hope I have ruled you.”

  “Always,” came the whisper. “She comes. And I go.” With that, the life Naaz had bestowed upon Dabir departed for the Sands of the Dead.

  Evening settled over the palace as Kuramos paced the elegant rugs and marble of his chambers. When servants entered on silent feet to light the torches and bring a beverage, he turned away and gazed at his garden of jasmine and roses under the silvered moon. At last the servants withdrew, drawing the massive double doors closed with a click.

  The sultan leaned against the arch of an open window, lifted his glass and stared into the drink. Ice carried by oxen down the Ravia Mountains cooled his pomegranate juice. The chunks, cut to resemble the soaring arches of his palace, bobbed in the sweet red liquid like drowning men.

  He hurled the glass against the mosaic wall, where it shattered with a satisfying crash. The juice slithered down the azure and ivory tiles, rivulets of blood against the span of his life.

  How many others would die?

  The best glass from Jindua was supposed to break into large chunks; the glass had been true. He knelt and picked up a shard. The wet surface glittered in the flickering torchlight.

  He slid the jagged tip across his index finger. Thick drops of blood welled to the surface and rolled over the shard. Real blood, now…the blood of his family, his household.

  The Royal Physician, Yaman, had brought a list of those in the palace afflicted by the illness. Eleven names were on it: palace servants, stable boys, the master baker, a guardsman, the royal children’s head teacher…and Dabir. Three had already died. Several others were very close.

  None of his immediate family had been struck—yet. That his children’s teacher was one of those near death worried him immensely.

  Those who lived in Kuramos’s palace, even the servants, ate unspoiled food, had fresh rushes for their pallets and drank from the blessed stream that flowed through the palace enclosure. They should be the least likely to succumb to any illness—but they had. He’d had no reports of a blight spreading outside the gates. The hand of death was inside his home.

  Naaz’s hand.

  He turned away and felt glass crunch under his sandals. I’ll call a servant to clean it, he thought, then dismissed the idea. The last thing he needed now was another intrusion.

  With his foot, he pushed the chunks into a pile. The juice stained the tawny leather of his sandal. He snapped off a broad leaf from the potted palm in the corner, folded the fractured pieces into the leaf and tossed the mess into the waste sack.

  He reached for another leaf to wipe the juice from the tiles, but let his fingers drop away. The blood should stay. It was a reminder.

  If Dabir were still alive, they would have found a solution, a way out, together. Now he would have to do that alone.

  She will come, Dabir had said.

  Had he meant Naaz?

  Kuramos shuddered.

  More of Dabir’s words floated back to him. “Look to Teganne.” Why there, of all places? Teganne…

  Was it possible? Could “she” be Qiara?

  Kuramos’s heart stumbled, and he stepped to the archway of his garden to let the fragrant, humid air fill his lungs.

  Qiara had haunted his dreams for long months after he’d allowed her to escape. Beautiful, willful, insolent—and the most alluring woman he’d ever known. She was the princess of the neighboring realms of Teganne and Fallorm, and he’d have given half his sultanate to have her. Even though she’d been sired by that uncultured gerbil, Prince Alvarr.

  But he’d let her go, and had given her damned sorcerer lover his freedom, too. Now they had a young child and ruled Fallorm, while Qiara’s parents held Teganne.

  No, Dabir’s “she” couldn’t be Qiara. She was a married woman, forbidden to Kuramos—and the Grand Vizir had known it. Besides, Dabir hadn’t spoken of Fallorm, but Teganne.

  Teganne, pah. How could that cursed land of mages and fools help him save his family?

  Behind him, the curtain of pearls dividing the harem quarters from his receiving chamber tinkled. He turned with a scowl, only to find his ebony-maned sixth wife, Sulya, with Tahir, their son. His expression thawed under the five-year-old’s solemn gaze. “Tahir, my little leopard. It’s a joy to see you. And you, Sulya,” he said more absently.

  “Abha,” Tahir said, “I don’t feel good.” His dark hair was tousled, sweaty.

  Sulya’s sharp nails rested on Tahir’s shoulder, her cold jade eyes tight with worry.

  “He is fevered, O Lord.” The undercurrent of alarm in her voice stabbed at Kuramos’s self-control.

  His gaze flicked down to the boy, whose skin seemed flushed and hot—just as the illness had begun in the others.

  The sultan clenched his fists. Naaz, you cannot take my son!

  In two swift strides, he’d gathered Tahir into his arms. “How long have you felt this way, Zyru?”

  Tahir pursed his lips as if concentrating, then shrugged and laid his small head, light as a sparrow’s, on his father’s shoulder.

  Kuramos looked over his son’s head to Sulya, who stared back in brittle, wide-eyed fear.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Many miles away in the realm of Teganne, the Royal Healer Varene na Seryn stood alone by an unlit funeral pyre, gazing down on the lifeless body of the man she’d loved in vain.

  Embroidered ivory vines spiraled over the black linen that draped from his thin shoulders to his calloused feet. The shroud hid the deadly gash he’d incurred rescuing a beggar woman from a gang of thugs, but Varene couldn’t staunch her awareness of the wound, or of the life that had poured from it into the dust.

  Once upon a time, the powerful magic in Findar’s soul would have protected him, but a madman had torn away his magery years before. Varene’s healing should have saved him, but she’d reached him too late.

  Too late.

  Now, for the first time in her life, she ran her fingers through Findar’s ash-blond hair. It was as fine and soft as she’d always imagined. “All these years,” she whispered, “I longed for you. I’d hoped you would stay here and see what was in my heart. That you’d end your wandering and be with me. That someday I could cure you of your restlessness.”

  She lifted an edge of the linen and stroked his knuckles. “You saved the beggar woman, ‘Dar. But I couldn’t save you.” The cloth fell back into place, and leaning down, she kissed his finely-shaped lips. Her tear splashed his pale cheek.

  On unsteady legs, she slipped back through the velvety grass to the waiting circle of mourners and took a torch from the hand of Alvarr, Teganne’s ruling prince. Next to him, in a matching onyx mourning tunic, stood his wife. When Jilian’s wet eyes met Varene’s, each woman struggled for breath.

  Varene returned to Findar and laid the torch on the kindling at the pyre’s base. The flames hesitated, as if waiting for a signal, then licked upward and outward. Seeking. Burning.

  Watching the fire writhe, Varene backed away until she stood beside Jilian. Alvarr didn’t speak, but Varene sensed the shared weight of his grief. The princess reached out and clasped Varene’s hand, and the warmth and life of Jilian’s skin c
ontrasted with the memory of Findar’s cold flesh.

  As flames climbed the legs of the bier, Varene began to tremble. Soon even Findar’s body would be gone—nothing but ash would be left of the man she’d quietly loved for five decades.

  Burning wood scented the air. Through the rising smoke she stared at his face, peaceful at last in death. Mother Fate had quieted his journeying in the most final way.

  And I was a fool.

  Fire licked the bier’s edges. She steeled herself for the moment when the flames would touch him, would take him into the beyond. She threaded her fingers tighter through Jilian’s, seeking strength…but soon turned away, biting her lip to halt its quiver.

  Alvarr muttered a quick spell, then placed his gentle palm at her back. “I’ve veiled the sight of it, ‘Rene. No need for you to watch.”

  She touched the shoulder of her longtime friend in gratitude, then looked at Jilian, blank-faced. “Thank you. Thank you both.” The princess embraced her as Alvarr stood close, head bowed.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jilian whispered.

  Varene leaned against the princess and saw her own golden hair sweep over Jilian’s dark locks like morning sun over shade. The image mocked Varene, because she could radiate no warmth this day.

  She cast one last glance toward the pyre, now shrouded by Alvarr’s shimmering screen. Smoke rose above, drifting away into the sky, remnants of the love she’d waited for. A love she’d been too silent and patient to induce.

  And now the splinter in her soul was the guilt she’d never escape: Would Findar still be alive if she had bared her heart to him?