In the winding streets of the Persian Empire, a poor girl is chosen to become the third prince's concubine.
Aliya Farhad has no interest in the lofty ideas of the palace, the staff, or her lover. Prince Cairo has all the interest in his blue-eyed A...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
PRINCE CAIRO HAUNTED ME for the rest of the night.
Well, to be fair, it was not Prince Cairo that had haunted me; rather, it was the promise of that book he'd mentioned.
"I have an Arabic book you might be interested in."
How long had it been since I'd seen Arabic? Read Arabic? Remembered my mother in ways other than old, flashing memories of blue eyes and ghosts in empty, falling kitchens?
A few years, most definitely. But the exact point in time, I couldn't seem to recall.
My mother. My mother. My mother.
Mama.
It came as no surprise to me that the Palace of Archaem had made me long for home, for Babylon and for Khale, and even for the admittedly unglamorous, arduous work near the harbor. That was to be expected, and over the past few months, I felt like I had learned to deal with the feeling well.
But I hadn't expected to suddenly start remembering Mama, and her nose and her eyes and her touch, and the way her face felt soft where her hands felt rough, and the way she'd whisper bedtime stories to me like they were kingdom secrets, always making me promise not to tell another soul.
Even back in Babylon, this was not an everyday occurrence. Or, at the very least, I'd tried my very hardest to not make it a daily occurrence. And even here in the Palace, after Khale had sent over that photograph of Mama, other than that one time I'd opened it, I didn't think I'd dare to touch it again.
It is a one time thing, I had told myself. What's in the past is in the past.
And yet, here I was, with the moon high above the sky, Maria sleeping at the edge of the bed, out on the balcony and staring at Mama.
I'd forgotten how alike we looked, and I couldn't seem to fully recall her voice.
I wasn't surprised, but I was surprised to find the slight tinge of disappointment that filled me when I tried so hard to remember, and couldn't come up with a trace.
Other than fond nostalgia and sadness, there wasn't even much love left.
But of course, you could never love someone that was now a stranger.
Slowly, I ran my thumbs over the photograph, feeling crinkles and old lines, and in the back of my mind, I wondered what I was doing.
Why was I up here in the middle of the night, with only Maria sleeping by my side? What was I thinking about? Why did the thought of that Arabic book seem to have so much effect on me?
I couldn't seem to figure it out.
It's probably just nostalgia. Memories. Wanting to feel anything that feels like comfort. Wanting to have any semblance of Mama.
