"Alright my darlings, time for bed," Sara called, moving around the small bedroom picking up toys and placing them back into a basket by the door. Amitis came in, followed closely by little Reza who came toddling clumsily behind her.
Sara grinned from ear to ear and scooped the boy up just as he was about to lose his balance. "Look at you, walking all by yourself!" She praised, planting kisses on the boy's forehead.
Little Reza had come as quite surprise, and not an altogether pleasant one. Less than a week after leaving Azerbaijan it occurred to Sara that her monthly bleeding had not come the prior months when it was due. Shortly after that began the morning sickness and by the time she missed her next bleed Sara was dead certain she was with child.
The realization struck her like a knife and filled her with fear. Amitis would be only barely more than a year old when this new child would be due – could she raise two small children on her own? Moving to a foreign place would be hard enough with one child, but two? Would she be accepted in France without a husband to her two young children and a man she was not married to in her company? Darius was a eunuch, but surely there would be rumors.
More terrifying still, was the child Erik's?
In the three days she had been the Sultan's captive before Nadir came to rescue her, twice the Sultan had raped her. No matter how she cried and fought, there was no escaping the man; he was stronger than her and would have his way. The experience had been completely devastating, leaving her crying and praying for deliverance in the safety of Erik's arms.
The death of her husband overshadowed the pain of the Sultan's violation until the day she realized she was pregnant. Was fate really so cruel as to put her tormentor's baby in her womb? Sara and her husband were no strangers in the bedroom and had made love often in the days before she was stolen from the bazaar – was it possible she was with child before she was ever raped? Would she ever know?
Darius was a blessing through the entire event. Although he was not technically in her employ the chamberlain took it upon himself to wait on her as he had when she was living in the harem. While she cared for Amitis, Darius took care of the cooking and shopping as well as setting up and repacking their camp on the nights they could not find an inn. When she went into labor the man went out in the middle of the night to find a midwife willing to see her and when the child was born with a large scar across his neck and chest the man bought the midwife's silence with his own funds.
Relief and guilt struck Sara all at once as she held her son and knew immediately the boy was Erik's. Her fingers traced the boy's mottled flesh just below his right ear and along his jaw line, down his neck and spreading across his chest and Sara felt as though she might laugh and cry. The scars were identical to Erik's, little more than yellowed parchment stretched across sinew and bone.
The boy resembled Erik in more than just his scars. Like Amitis he was quiet but enormously perceptive, with large gold-flecked eyes that seemed to take in everything around them. His voice was sweet but his temper was far shorter than that of his mild-mannered sister, leading to tantrums that sorely tried Sara's patience.
"Mama, can we hear a story about Papa tonight?" Amitis asked, her vocabulary and grammar even in French startling for a child of her age.
"Certainly," Sara smiled, moving into bed beside her daughter. With Amitis under one arm and Reza settled into her lap, Sara began her story.
"Your Papa was the best magician in the entire world. He could speak to you without ever opening his mouth."
"No one can do that!" Amitis protested with a giggle.
Sara kissed the top of her head and pet her hair. "Your Papa could. And he could imitate practically anyone and anything while he did it. He built us a forest once, and filled it with the sounds of animals without ever moving his lips. Before my brother knew we were in love he used to whisper how much he loved me right into my ear, even when I couldn't see him."
"Is he whispering to you now?" The girl asked innocently.
More than a year and a half after the loss of her husband and the man who held her heart, it still took a moment for Sara to compose her words. "I think he's trying, my angel, but I imagine it's very difficult to whisper all the way from Paradise and be heard."
With a nod of understanding, Amitis settled down into the crook of her mother's arm to sleep. Sara stayed with her children until both were sound asleep before slipping from the bed and tucking her babies in for the night. Amitis would always be little, Sara guessed, but Reza was growing like a weed; it wouldn't be long before he would need a bed of his own. The already small room was supposed to be the master suite, with Sara and Darius having taken one each of the other, smaller bedrooms. There was no room left, and little money left…
Darius was waiting for her with tea when Sara slipped into the living room to sit by the fire. "You don't seem quite yourself, Miss Sara. Are you ill?"
With a small shake of her head, Sara accepted the tea. "No, I'm alright. Just a little homesick is all," she promised, and it was true. In the palace a growing family had room to move into a new apartment with more space, but three bedrooms in Paris was already more than they could afford with the money Nadir had provided them.
A knock at the door surprised them both. "I wonder who it can be at this hour?" Sara wondered aloud as Darius moved out of the room to answer the door. Immediately a muffled conversation began followed by a great laugh from Darius. Curious, Sara pulled a shawl around her shoulders and was about to move to the door when Darius returned with a figure she never imagined possible.
"Nadir!"
In a heartbeat Sara ran forward and embraced her brother, nearly knocking down by the force of her embrace. "I can't believe it, it's really you! I thought you were dead! Come and sit by the fire, you must be freezing. Darius could you put on more tea?"
Nadir laughed and followed his sister to the fire, taking the chair she had occupied while Sara pulled the other armchair closer by his. For the first time, she noticed the cane he carried and frowned. "You've hurt your leg!"
"I wish I could say it was from some egregious form of punishment, but alas it is self-inflicted. I jumped from far too high a ledge and landed poorly; I'm lucky my leg is all I injured, truthfully. That's why it's taken me so long to come."
"Long indeed! Look at you, you've grown a beard!" Sara teased, reaching forward to grab his chin.
"And at you! Do not think me unkind when I say our time apart has aged you, Sister. You look like a proper woman now instead of the girl I remember."
"Who's here, Mama?"
Amitis appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes sleepily with one hand while she held her brother's hand in the other.
Nadir glanced at the children in surprise while Sara moved to scoop the younger child up onto her hip and guide Amitis into the room by hand. "Children, this is your uncle Nadir, my brother."
"I thought uncle Nadir was in Paradise with Papa?" The girl asked, eying the stranger warily.
"I thought he was also," Sara promised with a comforting smile. "Amitis you were a baby smaller than Reza when your uncle last saw you, say hello."
After a moment of hesitation, the child released her mother's hand and curtsied politely. "How do you do?"
The Daroga laughed heartily. "Very well, Mademoiselle. Such manners! You are certainly your mother's daughter," he praised, and the girl smiled broadly at the compliment deciding she liked this uncle very much.
It was then that Nadir turned his attention to the child in Sara's arms. Standing (a far greater effort than when he was a young man, Sara noticed), he inspected the boy with a detective's eye even as the infant inspected him back.
"I was very newly pregnant when you rescued me," Sara explained quietly; her kidnapping was not a story she had dared tell the children. "I hope you don't mind – I named him Reza in your son's memory."
With a deep, steadying breath Sara thought her brother might start to cry before he spoke. "Mind? I am honored, Sara. You poor woman," he added, kissing her forehead and embracing her tightly. "I cannot begin to fathom what you've been through. He… He is Erik's son, isn't he?"
"Yes, yes he is. I wasn't sure at first," she added, and her brother cringed. "But look at his eyes in the light, and on his neck, this side here," Sara explained, shifting Reza to her other hip to show Nadir the distorted flesh running into the collar of the boy's night shirt.
"A burden off your shoulders, I'm sure," Nadir remarked, and Sara nodded.
"On the one hand I know who his father is, on the other the scar will make life difficult for him. Not so difficult as Erik's, but…" she trailed off sadly. "Let me put the children back to bed and we'll talk more."
Moving off to return her children to their bed, Sara was surprised to find Nadir staring intently into the fire when she returned in spite of the fresh tray of tea and sweetbread Darius had set out. "Have some tea and something to eat, Brother," she offered, moving to pour him a cup.
"Sara I think you had better sit down," Nadir said. The uneasiness in his voice made Sara frown, and she obeyed.
Taking a small breath, the Daroga turned away from the fire to face his sister. "Erik isn't dead, Sara."
The woman's jaw tightened. "When did you become so cruel, Nadir? Of course he is dead, or do you expect me to believe he's traveling the world without his head?"
"It wasn't his head you saw, only his mask. We took the head off a corpse that had begun to mummify in a desert grave. He was supposed to meet you in Azerbaijan; that is why I had the men wait for a month. I learned from Obadias he never found you."
Sara only glowered. "You are a monster, Nadir Khan! Your lies are cruel! My husband is dead – and you killed him too, didn't you? Did he tell you to do it? I imagine he did, the selfish bastard!" The woman spat, months of tightly concealed frustration and anger spilling tearfully over. "It's easy enough for him to die, while I'm the one left behind raising his children alone! No income, no father for my babies, night after night in an empty bed."
Tears came freely as Sara cupped her face in her hands and sobbed. Nadir stood, moving to her side to place a comforting hand on her back as she cried. "I am sorry I could not tell you sooner. I had hoped to tell you myself in Azerbaijan but with my leg as it was you left before I could arrive. Erik insisted we not tell even Obadias and Darius or the Sultan might suspect he was being fooled."
"If what you say is true, why didn't he come to meet us in Azerbaijan? We waited the full month, we went out into public to be seen," Sara breathed, wiping at her eyes.
"I don't know," Nadir admitted. "Perhaps he was in another city, or perhaps he was in the countryside."
"Why would he leave us alone?"
"I am certain it was his intent," the Daroga promised. "He lives, Sara. And what's more – I think he may be here in Paris."
The woman's eyes widened as Nadir spoke. "I've been in the city myself close to a month now. I was asking around for you when I began to hear rumors about a ghost at the construction site of the new Opera house on the other end of town. They say the ghost lurks in the cellar, has glowing yellow eyes and a white mask."
"Nadir… do you really think? Could it really be him?"
"I won't know for sure until I can find this ghost. It could be just a figment of tired workers' imaginations… but knowing Erik I think it might just be possible."