✵ featured ~
❝Once upon a time in Baghdad, a street girl teaches the Khalifa of the kingdom why a king needs a queen.❞
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Started: June 5, 2021.
Completed: March 30, 2022.
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cover by @xniftykayx
featured on wattpad historical fiction, undiscovered...
He grazes his knuckles down the length of her face tenderly as her peacefully sleeping form lies before him. The night in the desert is cold and she's curled up in their tent. He adjusts the blanket over her, taking his time gazing at her, intensely so that the flames ablaze within him consume him entirely.
"What have you done to me?" He sighs and gets up, finally managing to drag himself away from her.
Outside, he finds Daud still sitting by the fire and makes his way towards him. When he sees him approaching, he rushes to get to his feet but he gestures for him to keep sitting and joins him on the log.
"Soon we'll enter the borders of Isfahan, sayidi," Daud says to him. "What is the plan?"
"We leave the lady there and then set out for Qahira. I'll take over it," he informs briefly.
"And about Yusuf bin Khalid?"
"He'll take over Dimashq. Sulaiman has agreed to our conditions. If my Lord favors me, all will go as I've planned. It'll be only a matter of time before I reclaim the throne." He grins and leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. "Meanwhile appoint some of our most trusted men on duty to guard Noura and keep me updated regarding her. Until I return for her, I want her safe and away from any trouble and harm."
"As you please, sayidi." Daud tips his head, then smiles at him. He arches an inquisitive eyebrow at him and he shakes his head. "If a year before someone had told me you'd be so in love one day, I probably wouldn't have believed them. You've changed a lot, sayidi."
"There are many shades of love, Daud." He smiles and looks up at the half filled moon in the sky. "Noura is my favorite."
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Her
"I don't know which one of us deceived the other, Noura. I don't know if we burn in love or betrayal. I wanted to light stars at your feet, but instead burnt a fire. And you wanted to send me to hell, so I've met your desire. Now I'm ashen, and you're ashen, yet what more is better than a heart for another?"
"Nothing is better than a heart for another, sayidi."
"Nothing is better than us for each other, sayidati."
She clasps tightly the reins of her horse and leads it forward. It trots after her. He walks besides her with his own horse. The world around them feels both like a dream and a nightmare. Noura looks up at the sky. In the distance, the sinking sun shines feeble and light. Doubt gnaws at her mind. She cannot believe they're here again-- the place where it all began.
"I've never understood you. I still don't. You've never allowed me. Yet you knew too much of me." They stop under the shade of a tree at the corner of a deserted street. She turns to him and he avoids to meet her eyes. "I don't know if my ignorance was a bliss or betrayal. I don't know what right we've over each other, my Khalifa."
