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 woman before him is weak and frail. Her body is hunched over and her hair gray from aging. She adjusts her scarf over her head before holding out a cup of tea to him in shaking hands. He quickly takes it from her before thanking her.
"Did you receive the letter?" she asks him.
"I did."
"Then she's already with you."
She gives him a feeble smile but he cannot bring himself to return it.
"It's not enough to me," he protests, soft but insistent. "Can you tell me more?"
"I'll tell you everything." Her smiles turns sardonic. "Finish your tea first."
Though his stomach cannot take anything at the moment, he does finish his tea, as fast as he can, restless and mindless if it burns his tongue, and puts his cup down. The woman gives him a scrutinizing look.
"Where you've waited all these years, wait a little more. She's going nowhere," she advises.
"I cannot. Not anymore."
She sighs and puts her cup down. "Haste will not bring her back from the dead, ibni."
He clenches shut his eyes, the statement hitting him like an axe to his heart, and he hears her sigh again before patting his hand.
"I'll take you to her grave."
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Her
It has been more than a month since he's gone-- more than a month of his absence she cannot get used to. The hallways of the palace are deserted without him, the gardens lifeless and their chamber cold. It has only been one letter he has sent her in all this time-- one letter she has to read every night to feel his presence around her. For everything has a reminder of him, and everything without him hurts.
She sits with Zahir in a room where he updates her on their current situation and what actions are required for their plots to succeed. She doesn't know whether counting days until he returns is comforting or a folly, because with each passing day they're taken near to the end of the truce. And a new beginning awaits them all, each of them unaware to who the fate will favor against the other.
"The council is holding their next meeting in a few days, sayidati," Zahir informs her. "They'll be discussing everything from progress to decline in different regions across the kingdom, and the public opinion about their rulers."
"I don't think the public will disapprove of Ameer Sulaiman for anything, especially not Baghdad. He has been a fair ruler to them."
