This book is a sequel to Khalifa and cannot be read as a standalone. To avoid spoilers, description and excerpt are added inside the book.
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Started: May 2, 2022.
Completed: December 3, 2022.
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cover by @xniftykayx
The limits of love are very weird Neither was I kept as hostage, nor did I run away
— Ahmed Faraz
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Him
He sits in his chamber over the cushions arranged in front of the fireplace. His food lies untouched and the glow of the the candles lit around the room illuminates for him what the dark of the night would've concealed otherwise. Solitude hadn't ever bothered him much since he was a child. But then she came.
When they were youngsters, there was a loneliness she had eased by providing him company, whether he asked for it or not, until them together was only natural. When they split, it was like breaking a habit, and took him a long time to be freed. Then she came again. This time as an addiction which he cannot rid of now.
A knock comes at the door followed by Daud's voice. "May I come in, sayidi?"
"Come in, Daud."
He steps into the chamber with a small box-- the box he had sent to her to Isfahan. Like many times before, she has refused to accept anything from him. It isn't unexpected.
"The lady returned the gold and the gifts you sent her, sayidi," Daud informs him, a narrative seemingly too old for him from hearing it every time. He places the box besides him and leaves.
He flips open the lid of the box, picking up the elegant armlet studded with sapphires. It reminds him of her-- he had liked it for her. He strokes it with his thumb. It would've looked beautiful on her. He misses her, dearly so.
Unrolling the message he has received this morning, like the many other he had received before now, he reads it without being surprise: they want to kill you.
He releases an exhausted breath. How unholy, how predictable. Yet how can he drag Noura with him in the arms of death?
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Her
The moon is full tonight. The sky is clear and a cool breeze blows in through the kitchen window where she has put the milk on the stove to boil. She can see the roses swaying in their small lawn and the nightingales singing to them in ecstasy. And amidst where nature tries to lure her to itself, she finds herself more concerned about the man sitting on stairs of the veranda and lost watching the stars.
It has been a few days since her argument with Eskander. She hasn't approached him after then, and he too has kept quiet about the matter. Laleh hasn't visited them again, and she didn't have the courage to do so either. Despite the many years shared with him and their unbreakable bond, Noura does realize there will always be parts of him he still might try to hide, never comfortable baring himself to her. But if in doing so he chooses to suffer, she knows that she cannot allow him to.
