Chapter 38 Knowing Their Pasts

Amira felt the kind of thrill of exhilaration she hadn’t experienced since she’d been a child riding in Muscat as she followed Abdullah. It felt wonderful to be on a horse again, the desert flashing by in a blur of rocks and sand. She had had no time for such pursuits since she’d been queen. She hadn’t ridden like this in years.

The only sound was her horse’s hooves galloping across the sand. She spurred the beast on, eager to catch up with Abdullah —or even pass him. Although he hadn’t said, she knew it had become a race.

Glancing behind him, Abdullah pointed to a towering, needle-like boulder in the distance that Amira knew must be the finish line. She nodded back and crouched low over the horse as the wind whistled past. She was only a length behind him, and in the last dash to the finish line she made up half a length, but Abdullah’s horse still crossed a beat before hers.

Laughing, she reined the animal in and patted his sweat-soaked neck. ‘That was close.’

‘Very close,’ Abdullah