✵ 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...
The heart is deceived and the deceiver is in the heart.
— Jaun Elia
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Him
"Here, your braids are done. Don't you look like a princess?"
Princess Halah holds out a hand-mirror to her and Noura beams in joy, grinning from ear to ear.
"I look like a queen!" she exclaims in merriment, clearly excited, and the princess chuckles at her enthusiasm.
"You sure do, azizi."
"I'll go show it to my maman."
"Of course." Halah strokes her cheek lovingly and she comes to place the wooden sword besides him.
"Hide it with you. That bad boy wants to steal it from me."
She runs off to find her mother and his father smiles as he remarks, "Such a feisty little thing, isn't she?"
"Wish I had a daughter of my own," his mother mumbles ruefully and the governor of Qahira gazes at his wife with an inscrutable look in his eyes.
"Halah," he places his hand atop hers, "we can have one if you want to."
She pulls back her hand from his and faces away. "Too late for it now, Marwan."
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Her
The light is a solo streak in the sky at dawn, the sun having barely risen, and only a few rays tear apart the blanket of darkness to drag forth the day. But like every day that is overcasted by shadows of prison than hopes of freedom, today is no different for her. It's only a counting until by some miracle she returns home. Until she's reunites with her mother. And so the thought doesn't let her to give up. She continues to pray-- to struggle.
The celebration of the last night still floats afresh in front of her eyes, from all the laughter and bliss to the very little entertainment for her from the events. If anything, she didn't fit. Maybe she never will-- not here, never like the queen. And to think Al Shafay ever wanted to make her one. Funnily enough, she feels more like a slave.
She walks down the cobblestone pathway through the gardens with Faris behind her. Nights for her have been sleepless and haunting, no better than her days. Eskander hasn't returned to the palace until now, and though she waited for him, she was met only with disappointment. So at the kiss of morning, she's out in the open where breathing doesn't cause her much suffocation.
When she's out the gardens and passing by the stables, she hears a horse neigh and the sound of hooves hitting the ground. At first, she decides to ignore it moves ahead. But when the noise doesn't stop coming, she halts and turns in the direction.
