{a wattpad featured story-- 6/29/18 -- 7/20/18}
an HTBC book of the month for November 2018
cover by the talented ellis ( @rubyruins )
❝the night has a thousand eyes, and the moon knows all your secrets.❞
--in which a young woman bravely defies the...
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SWALLOW THE MORN.
There was a peculiarly shaped lump in her throat as he said so, almost as if the sun itself had settled there in fear of being obliterated by the sultan's darkness.
When she thought of that she thought of death and quietness and still whispers winding their way around the cambers of her hips until they dragged her down to the earth's depths, she thought of a hand over her mouth and a blade at her jugular and Al'abraj mourning the cadavers of the sultan's brides.
She thought of the cacophonated wonder of an eclipse, and wondered how much of her blood it would take for him to spit up the stars to give them back to the starved sky that begged for her children.
"Does he plan to lighten the sky with his own glory?" The words tumbled from her lips in an instant, curiosity mingling with disgust.
"No," Azzam sighed, a long, drawn out thing, "he means to cast us all into night."
An unspeakable silence settled between the two of them, and Azade could only look down at her feet, the words she wanted to say stifled between her iron teeth.
Was he always like this?
She knew he could not have been–the stories of his childhood were littered with mentions of his kindness, his tender spirit, the way everything used to come to life when he touched it.
Like an eagle in flight before it falls.
"Night cannot be so dark as to take over the day, can it?"
Azzam said nothing, did nothing, only stared at the opening where a gossamer curtain parted to let the light in.
"Do you see the sun when night falls, sayidati? "
"No."
"Yet you see the stars sometimes when noon is high, do you not?"
"Barely," Azade countered, yet her voice trembled and she clasped her hands behind her back to stop them from trembling.
"The night is always there, Scheherazade," he said quietly, "only waiting for a chance to strike. It's in all of us–Rahim just decided to give into it more than most."
He paused, and Azade spoke. "You talk of him as if he were a human being instead of a monster."
Azzam shrugged. "Are not all monsters human before they turn? The lion was once a vulnerable cub dependant on others, the snake in constant danger of being killed by the sharp talons of a bird of prey. He was not born this way, Scheherazade, he was made."
