Confronting Shadows

goodbye

The minute her eyes caught the moving yarn, it lost all its majestic composure and went crazy.

Isra felt a laugh begin to rise in her stomach, but by the time it came to her mouth, it felt like a painful sob. She turned to the paper and wondered how to break the most selfless man she knew. Her hands trembled, but this is what needed to happen. So she wrote.

" My dear Mohammed, I promised to come back, I know, but they have Suleiman, and I can not let him get hurt on my account, I can't live with that. When I come back, if I come back alive, I know what we have would be over. I know I've dragged you to the end of the road. You tried your best to save me, but I shot you the first time, and now I'm breaking your heart. You gave me a home in your country, in your arms, in your heart; but I'm not worth any of it. I ran, I hid, and I even tried to see myself the way you do, but I'm not a normal person like you. I tried to make myself believe your words. that I was more than this, but the truth is I can't be somebody's wife, I'm nothing more than a killer. It took you two years to show me a new perspective, but my past came knocking and shattered it. I know who I am now, I'm a soldier, an assassin, it's my job to protect my king and his kingdom and that's what I'll do.

Now, you must be wondering if I ever loved you if I ever cared. I do, Mohammed. I do, and I always will. I gave my youth and fading innocence to a man who couldn't call me his own in public. I've given my breakable heart to a man with trembling hands; but my eternal soul, I named it after you. I look at you and see everything I ever wanted, but when I look at myself, I realize that I deserve none of it. Yet, you deserve everything, Mohammed. you deserve someone who can love every fibre you're made of without being afraid. You deserve someone who can sit with you in calm without having to watch their back for enemies. You deserve to be happy, and God knows happiness is not something I can bring to you. I wish things were different somehow. I wish you and I had met in a calm library instead of a tension-filled meeting. I wish you had asked me for my number, and I had written it down on a napkin. I wish we could have gone on dates and had our first awkward kiss under the moonlight. I wish I could wake up next to you every single day of my life and that we could be allowed to be together like normal people. I wish I didn't have to choose my loyalties, and I wish you didn't lose every time.

I had fallen in every way imaginable when I met you. I had fallen out of my sanity, fallen out of hope, even. fallen in and out of love, yet none of that could compare to falling out of your grace. If it's possible, forgive me. If not, just don't hate me.

I will always love you, and I'm sorry."

The words seemed to flow when the pen hit the paper and without realizing Isra had begun to cry too. Fallen tears had smudged some lines, but the writing was still evident.

" Can you please re-write this, I can't. " she whimpered, holding out the letter to Prince Ali. He took it, sat behind the desk, and began. isra wiped her tears and looked at Sahar chewing on the yarn.

" I'm going to get ready," Isra said and got up.

" Don't leave without meeting me," he calls after her.

isra turned to face him.

" I'll write it and mail it with the royal seal on it so they know it's urgent," he promises with a smile.

" Mail this with it," she handed the ring to him.

it was an Oval Moissanite engagement ring with a vintage Marquise cut diamond in a rose gold band.

He looks at the simple ring. "This is beautiful." he said, keeping it in the drawer too.

He gets out from behind the table, and I gesture to him to walk ahead, Sahar joins him, and we three walk out of the office.

“goodbye, Prince Ali,” Isra said with a smile.

“why goodbye? Why not? I'll be back soon” he asks.

“I know, saira, she will either kill me or die trying. After what I did to her…” Isra closed her eyes, thinking of the fire.

“don’t worry, isra, if you die, you die a martyr” he assures her.

Isra nodded and exchanged goodbyes.

she took one last look at Prince ali, then left the office.

"I promised him that I'd be back in two days, and we would get married. I promised him that I would leave everything behind. now I've decided to leave him behind for everything else." Isra thought to herself.

Lost in her thought, isra almost bumped into Prince yunus.

" Something bothering you, my prince?" isra asked, seeing him waiting in the hallway.

" Huh.... well, obviously, my father is kidnapped... why wouldn't I be worried," he answers, upset over the question.

" Are you sure you can bring him back?" he asks, coming up to her.

" I promise you; I'll have him back home safe and sound," Isra assured him. He studied her unfazed calm demeanour.

" Aren't you afraid? You could die," he asks after a while.

" Fear is what stops you from making those split-second decisions. in my line of work, that's what gets you killed, and death will come for me even if I hide in a fortified tower. So, I might as well go down fighting rather than running. " She answered with a smile.