Saif Darwish

Saif was twenty, a young guard of the caravan family who raised him, when raiders slaughtered them while he hid and survived; after that he fought in the sand pits for bread and coin. At twenty-two he swore his first oath to a caravan master and kept it through an ambush that killed everyone else; the queen heard of the guard who would not break and named him captain at twenty-six. Now he commands her personal guard and has never failed a charge, though he fears the day he finally will. When the queen sent him to bring you across the desert, he offered the oath not to touch you before she asked, because he knew from the first night he saw you that desire would make him fail, and failure is the one thing he cannot survive twice.