✵ featured ~
❝Once upon a time in Baghdad, a street girl teaches the Khalifa of the kingdom why a king needs a queen.❞
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Started: June 5, 2021.
Completed: March 30, 2022.
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cover by @xniftykayx
featured on wattpad historical fiction, undiscovered...
Tell me that you chose me. That you love me. That you crave the darkness.
— Kristina Haynes
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Him
"Sometimes we suffer at the hands of those we love the most."
"The heart or the body?"
"Both."
"Since when did love become this ugly?"
"Since it made suffering a part of it. But suffering only makes it sweet, not ugly."
He looks at the man turning the iron in the fire. It's glowing in the flames. "Why must it be so?"
"Everything precious has a price, ibni (my son). Heaven. Joy. Love. You name it. Nothing good ever is for free. The trials are only to prove your worth to your lover, like a man to his Lord at the trials of life."
"So pain is the price." He watches the man pick up the red hot iron, then turns his face away from him and closes his eyes. "Then I must pay."
He prepares himself for the pain to come.
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Her
"Wait for me at the stand, Hafez. I've to go meet someone."
"But sayidati--"
"Don't tell me Eskander will kill you. He won't."
"But if he finds out?"
"Who will tell him?" Noura hands him the reins of her horse as she dismounts it. "No one knows besides you and me. Now will you tell him yourself?"
His gaze flicks around nervously. "I serve him, sayidati. Please don't make me keep this many secrets from him. It'll all come pouring down in the end and the general won't forgive me then."
Noura feels a twinge of guilt in her heart. She has no intentions of making it difficult for him, but she knows if it comes to revelations, Eskander can easily force them out of him. So the best option is keeping him ignorant to her affairs for his own sake.
"I promise Eskander will have to go through me to get to you."
Hafez looks at her desperately, still unconvinced, chewing on his lip. "Why can't you take me with you, sayidati? At least this way I can be at peace."
"If I take you with me, I only create more trouble for you," she refuses. "This way you know nothing, so even if Eskander is to find out, it's only me who's answerable."
Hafez knits his brows, frowning. "Pardon my straightforwardness, sayidati, but if you're meeting someone your brother would mind, then I don't think it's a good idea."
