Khadijah Khatib

I’m hungry for kindness. Hungry for attention. I want and want and want.

He’s the kind of beautiful that makes people want to smash things.

“There are certain expectations of a prince in Court.”

“You cannot be serious,” I say. “You feel obliged to be in love?”

“I told you—I am a courtier, versed in all the courtly arts.”

“Ah, and now you laugh. It is my curse to adore cruel women.”

“No time like the present.”

I’m tired of being scared.

With him, I am forever a night-blooming flower, attracted and repelled by the heat of the sun.

I feel a little pummeled by Oak’s beauty.

It is hard to explain the savagery of hope.

“Is that what you truly believe?” I ask.

“What? That there’s a girl? Of that, I’m certain. There always is. But I’m equally certain that bravery shouldn’t be beneath a prince,” Tiernan tells me.