✵ featured ~
❝Once upon a time in Baghdad, a street girl teaches the Khalifa of the kingdom why a king needs a queen.❞
✵
Started: June 5, 2021.
Completed: March 30, 2022.
✵
cover by @xniftykayx
featured on wattpad historical fiction, undiscovered...
Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends.
— Hafez Shirazi
✵
Him
The fire burns but provides little warmth to him. So he leaves it and let the cold night takes him into its embrace. The sky is a starless blanket and he comes to stand underneath it, carrying her letter in one hand and a candle in another.
I'm not happy at your palace.
Her words sound like echoes in his ears. Her words are knives piercing his flesh. If she's not happy, what good is anything else to him-- what meaning do they hold? If she's not happy, what worth is his love to her? He cannot fathom, neither the spiraling of his emotions out of his intellect nor this greed to have her with him. The world is a distant thought and her presence is only what he wants near.
She calls him hers, yet she speaks of leaving him. How does he allow this? Maybe at the cost of his own will and happiness, if that's what love is about.
My Khalifa, her letter reads, and a smile graces his face.
"The Khalifa will always only be yours, Noura."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Her
"It has been a while. Did you miss me?"
"Are you crazy?"
"You cannot answer my question with a question."
"You need to leave, Hadi."
She reaches out for the balcony door but he shuts them before her. The room is filled with dark except for one candle lit in the corner and she can barely make out his form. Panic settles in her gut and she hurries to put distance between them but he trails after her.
"There are soldiers on watch outside. You want me to get caught?"
"How did you climb up to my room?"
"I know a few tricks. But I can't get lucky every time."
They're speaking in hushed tones so as not to be heard by the guards on the other side of her chamber doors. Noura goes to light a few more candles to ward off the black veil enveloping them. It is only adding more to the distress that his presence around her at this inappropriate hour has brought her.
"I'm going to distract my guards and you're leaving my chamber," she orders. "You're not climbing down my balcony."
"But I just came."
She gives him a glare of disapproval and he raises his palms in a calming gesture.
"I had a small business at the palace. I thought to drop by you before leaving. Let me at least catch my breath."
