[Pride Awards 2023, hosted by official lgbtq , Romance Category Winner and 5th Place Grandwinner] The foster son of a former cupbearer marries the cursed king of Persia, becoming not only the first consort to survive after the wedding, but also a th...
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She was wearing a sleevless long frock that hugged her petite form in the appropriate corners. It was white, spotless and pure as her. Her wheatish skin glowed in happiness. There was a tint of red on her cheeks that the painter had perfectly captured, along with the funny smile that she had on. Her messy curls, which the painter had begged to not comb and make appear civilised, covered her large forehead in swirls. Her eyes twinkled like that of a child. She wasn't what a prince would desire to have, but she was the painter's muse.
She would remain that, forever. Presently, the painter held her portrait in his lap, careful to not spill tears on the canvas.
"If only you had accepted my impatience as a blessing."
But she had not. She had dismissed his eagerness for their marriage as something silly. Firdaus regretted not coaxing her into it. Had he done that, she would have been alive. Not just trapped inside a painting like a beady moment plucked from the necklace of Time.
"But you know, janem, there is an avenger out here."
He imagined that his pretty beloved scoffed at his words. He grew impatient, as he would often become in her company - untamed, wild and stupid.
"He has survived! You don't know yet?"
Maybe you have already taken birth in some place. Maybe you are living a better life. And you need not worry about what goes on in here...
"Can you hear me, perhaps as a voice of some angel in your dream, a fae that lulls you to sleep? Do you feel the kiss"–he traced the partly parched pink lips on the painting–"that I offer you every night? Or have you forgotten me?"
He knew it was a sinful wish to pull her back, but he was a sinner in love. He wasn't one to mourn oceans and kill in wrath. He just vowed to not touch the brush again.
But oh well, he had been a part of cruelty. He had written his name in blood as a means of survival, as an act of fooling the perpetrator. What he initially pursued as a means to power became the bolt of karma, as if his lust for superiority and name had sucked the life out of her. Now, he could only wait till he was safe enough to burn the mask.
But he saw hope at the end of the tunnel. Someone who had the potential to put an end to it all had come.
"Firdaus?"
He covered the portrait with a red fabric. "You had expressed annoyance on me accompanying you everywhere," he snapped. "Now when I had left you alone at night, you come running here to my room?"
"I had just come to return your bow. You had forgotten it in my room."
Dunyazad handed over the weapon. Firdaus was impressed by the skill and ease with which she held the bow. "Have you been trained in wielding it?"
