Threads of Gold

Eight | آٹھ

—————

Her lips didn't part to respond.

With his neck caught against her blade, Arzam's form loomed over the shehzadi's while his fervent gaze loomed over her face.

This man of unbending iron and unending terror seemed to turn malleable and warm under her stare. It was a farce, she was sure of it. Seething from how his welcoming words made a silent show of his advantage over her, Zartasha made a rash decision. A decision that would seal her fate; she pressed the singeing metal harder into his throat.

A hiss. The Malka-to-be had drawn blood.

Zartasha's journey to Kalthura's landmark of scintillating gemstones, ripe sands, and grating granite was inspired by the beginnings of a ploy in her mind but the panic she felt in the moment he surrounded her senses, the anger she felt in the moment he smiled at her induced a frenzied response where she pushed her khanjar against him and her discontent bled into his blood. The shehzadi's nerves were tangled, forming a knot, and choking her throat. Her apprehensiveness was new, it came from a timid girl which was not her.

She loosened her hold on the ruler of Kalthura and closed her eyes, reminding herself that this was not her. Not her. Not her.

This was him.

This was what he did. Sultan Arzam Hyderi brought the violent storm sitting under her skin overhead, a match to the barely contained chafing aggression within him.

And now, Zartasha could see the flare of agitation in this moon-cut jaw and seven centuries worth of heat in his eyes. The sooty walls were witness to his show of teeth, a manic look painting his face the darkest shade of ferocity she had seen. The soon-to-be Malka eyed the lightning running through his body under the cover of veins. She saw a rivulet of crimson on his neck. She saw a strong palm curl into a fist. She knew what would follow her incautious maneuver.

Suddenly, swiftly, but oh so carefully, her spine of steel was across the cratered grey wall of the tall minaret and the hilt of her khanjar, adorned with wooden petals folding in on themselves and leather vines wrapping themselves around the handle, was in Arzam's hand. The blade was a kiss at the corner of her jaw, the Sultan was only hovering it by her throat.

Zartasha suspected her khanjar had sharpened in his hold, for it felt infinitely more minacious against her neck than it did in her hand.

This was the shift of power that women mentioned on their wistful tongues. A man turning the tables on them; dolls with broken necks, girls with harmed flesh.

But Arzam was not harming her skin, he was harming her arrogant spirit.

Staring at her through a tiger's indelible eye, as if she was his newest treasure to keep. The difference was that he had not brought her home, she willingly came to him and now the Sultan had her where he wanted.

The tip of the blade dipped lower to trace her jutting collarbones, skimming the golden skin peeking out of her blouse's neckline. The ruler of Kalthura then leaned forward and whispered against the slab of grey wall to the right of her head, "What a pretty visitor I have gotten."

Zartasha's neck turned and it was as if the moment that was taking place was written in their aasmaan's ink and set in their zameen's stone. The Sultan's eyes shifted to his left, hers moved to find his in turn, and that was when burning coals met parched embers. Both dirty shades of the earth, scorching and destructive. One feeding the other its rage and the other feasting on it as its duty.

Arzam knew what was to be done before she hissed out her coarse words, "Your mediocre flattery won't get you what you desire and your false shows of power won't get you where you want to be."