One Thousand Desires | ON HOLD

1 | FROM DUSK TO DAWN

       A SERVANT GIRL dusted golden flakes onto the shoulders of Zeinab Nejem; against the girl's bronze skin, it looked like rusting stardust.

The girl could not have been older than Zeinab's own age—seventeen. As the servant lathered sandalwood paste over the soon-to-be queen's arms, she seemed to be actively refusing to look her in the eyes. Evidently, the young girl was aware that within a few hours' time, Zeinab's throat would be slit.

Or so the story had gone for every other girl whose hand in marriage had been demanded by the Caliph of Khorashtar.

Throughout the village in which Zeinab lived, stories of the king and what he did ran rampant. In King Kadar's search for a queen, he would do more than simply reject the women he did not like.

He was said to bear a gleaming dagger at all times—a dagger that his servants cleaned for each new prospective wife. For one evening, from dusk to dawn, he would spend some time with her, but only after she had been made beautiful. She would first be dressed up in an expensive, lavish dress. Her hair would be styled to inhumane perfection, until she no longer resembled her usual self. Her face and shoulders would glitter and reflect the sun in ways that human skin could not possibly do.

As soon as she set foot in his castle, she was being groomed for her death.

When King Kadar did not like her, he would take his dagger and cut her beautiful throat with one smooth swipe across the neck. Crimson blood would spill, but never onto his precious clothes, because he had had so much practice with it that he knew just where and how to slice veins without getting blood on his hands. It would always drip onto the floor instead, and he would leave the mess, including the corpse with its lifeless eyes, for his servants to deal with.

Then, he would simply search for another woman and the cycle would repeat.

The king was a murderer—there was no other way to describe him. None of his women had yet made it to dawn alive.

This was a bloodshed of young women—only the women were being killed because the women were the only ones that King Kadar wanted. Once he had his sights set on one, he had to have her—there was no defying him.

In that respect, Zeinab was the first.

King Kadar al-Din Rumi had requested her sister, and Zeinab had taken her place without his knowledge. If he found out that she was not Kalila Nejem, he would likely become angered at the fact that he had been defied and tricked by a mere commoner of seventeen years old.

A second servant girl slid bangles onto both of Zeinab's wrists, drawing her from her daze. Meanwhile, the first servant girl finished applying powder to her eyelids. At last, a necklace was fastened around her neck—her nerves caused her to feel it constricting around her, as though its intent was to strangle her.

Her hands flew to her throat and she nearly ripped off the jewel-encrusted accessory at the mere thought.

"Is this all?" Zeinab asked the servants suddenly, pursing her lips.

She looked down at her clothing, wondering what more they could possibly do to make her look less like herself. Earrings dangled from each of her ears and a large ruby hung from between her eyebrows, swinging at the slightest movement of her head. The dress she wore was extravagant for a death ceremony, which was more or less what she was attending.