No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
— Terry Pratchett
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Him
Life is a game of cards. We play, we risk, we win or we lose. Life is a shadow of destiny-- a mere form with no details, each of which is unveiled with time, one by one when the curtains fall. Life is a fleeting kiss of a deceiving lover, teaching us passion and building us dreams, until one day to cheat us when death befalls.
She's one such card to him, which if he finds to keep he'll win this game. He's one such shadow to her, following her always but her fingers cannot grasp. They're one such story of lovers where she's ignorantly on the run from him and he's fervently after her in chase. In this game with her, he has traded his heart and she's playing with it. Yet he doesn't mind. He cannot ever mind a lover like her.
"You're my qalb (heart), Noura, but you're so pure. How can a man like me have a heart like you?" He watches the crescent moon smile faintly at him, then he chuckles at his own words. "Just like the night sky has its moon, I'll have you. If I'm the darkness, my light is you."
Her
It's magical how the shades of blue blend into the purple hue of the crystal before breaking apart into faded streaks of the color of roses and sun. It's magical how they make a crescent. It's as beautiful as the crescent in the sky if not more. Noura cannot take her eyes off it, just like she couldn't put it down in the bazar of Isfahan. She still cannot believe she's holding the pendant in her hand again, the delicate crescent moon hanging from a gold chain. She's not sure if it really belongs to her, dazed, wondering how come Eskander found it for her.
A good while later when her eyes start itching from staring at it too much and she feels foolish over it, she puts it back down in the box and close it. There's no note attached saying it's for her, nothing to indicate if it's from Eskander or someone else. But the coincidence of it being the same jewelry she had found back at her home and now someone leaving it in her chamber is too much.
She glances at the food tray, then puts the box right where she had found it, deciding to ask Eskander first before keeping it. Wearing her cloak, she walks out of her chamber and finds Hafez, the guard Eskander had put on her duty, standing at the door. He comes to attention upon seeing her.
"Sayidati, do you need something?"
"Is Eskander back?" Noura asks him hopefully.
"I'm not informed of his return, sayidati. I suppose the general hasn't yet returned."
She exhales in resignation before moving ahead of him. "I'll go for a walk. Take me to the gardens."
"As you please." He tips his head and leads her to through the corridors of the palace in dead silence of the night. They come across soldiers every now and then standing on guard as they walk past them. Their footsteps echo off the walls where lanterns are lit and the fire casts orange glow across the hallways, creating an eerie effect. Noura puts her arms around herself. Unlike the day in the palace when everything is fantastical, the darkness comes out hauntingly like a ghost when the sun goes down.
They step out of the palace down the other direction where bushes line the cobblestone pathway leading towards the entrance of a garden with a huge, vine-covered archway. They step past it inside, and for a moment Noura is mesmerized by the beauty of everything her gaze falls upon. Maybe in the daylight when it's more visible, it'll be more breathtaking to her. But even in the black of the night, the serenity of the place lulls her into another world. She inhales deeply, the smell of flowers and cool air offering her a glimpse of paradise. This can be her favorite spot in the palace, she decides.
When they get deeper into the garden, she notices a figure at a far end sitting on a bench by the tree, busy doing something. Noura squints her eyes to see who he is but his head is tilted down and his hands work on whatever he's holding in them. She observes him from a distance, contemplating, before moving towards him. He looks up at the sound of footsteps approaching and the moonlight glides over his face, dipping into his orbs where it is swallowed without being reflected, revealing to Noura his identity.
"Stay here," she asks Hafez who hesitates at her command.
"General Eskander--"
"--won't kill you," she cuts him before ordering more firmly, "Stay."
Hafez stops following her and Noura walks up to the man who has a million pieces making up his personality, none of the piece she has so far been able to interpret. Despite the time she has spent with him and the little exchange of words between them, he has mystified her more than untangling the mess for her.
"Adam."
He stares up at her. "What brings you here at this hour of the night, sayidati?"
She catches sight of the object in his hand that had his attention, a dagger half glinting in the starlight where the metal is clean, the rest stained with something she assumes to be blood. Adam was probably busy cleaning it.
"I couldn't sleep." Noura sits down on the opposite edge of the bench without his invitation. "I thought of taking a walk instead."
He simply goes back to wiping the dagger with a cloth without proceeding the conversation, making her feel unwelcomed. She shifts uneasily and looks up at the sky. The stars will forever remind her of Eskander. She closes her eyes.
"The stars fascinate you, sayidati?" Adam asks, taking her by surprise. During the days she has known him, he has kept to himself and avoided indulging in any lengthy or unnecessary talks with her, until now when he's striking a discussion.
"They do," Noura answers. "They beautify the darkness for me." Like Eskander beautifies her life for her.
Adam smiles ironically without so much as glancing at her. She frowns at his attitude.
"Is it funny to you?"
"No. I've just always seen it the other way around."
"How so?"
He pauses his work, tilting his head towards her now. "Darkness conceals everything ugly. In reality, it is what beautifies the flaws that the light so blatantly exposes."
Noura purses her lips, not knowing how to respond to it. He returns his attention to his dagger once more and she to the stars.
"I took the horse I rode on with you to the bazar today," she tells him. "It's a good one. I really like him."
"Have you named him?" he asks.
"Not yet." Her gaze sails across the sky, anchoring each star, admiring the constellations they make. "What about Buruj (stars)?"
"You really like the stars, don't you?"
"I'll keep it," she announces. "These are the same stars I look at when Eskander goes for war; they shine over him too. These are the same stars my mother might be looking at right now, remembering me."
Her voice turns sardonic and she holds back the hitch of agony in it before it can show. She might be hurting but she cannot let herself be vulnerable to anyone here in the palace-- these people have already turned her life upside down, let alone her displaying her suffering to them as a proof to devour on.
Adam once more stops his work and turns to her. He studies her a long moment and she starts feeling uncomfortable under his scrutiny. Nour meets his ghastly eyes and forces herself to stare back.
"You want to meet your mother?"
The confidence of his tone makes her chuckle, as if he can make it possible. "If I say yes, can you take me to her?"
"If I say yes, will you believe me?"
Noura takes a minute before curiously asking, "How will you do it?"
"The wrong way." He smirks.
She doesn't know what he means by it, neither does she dare to ask as she gawks at him flabbergasted, the density of those three words too heavy to be called dangerous alone. "I'm not sure what to think of it."
"I can be very convincing when I want to be, sayidati. I can put in a request for you to the Ameer."
"And if he doesn't agree?"
"Then there's always the queen to ask for a little favor."
Noura laughs in disbelief. "Why do I feel like you're more manipulative than convincing?"
He shrugs, flipping the dagger in his hand. "The choice is yours."
She sobers up, now eyeing him keenly, trying to solve this puzzle of a man. "I don't understand, why would you do me the favor?"
Now he's running a finger down the edge of the dagger, focused on it, replying almost subconsciously, "Because I believe you're innocent of the theft you're being accused for."
"You think so?" Noura blinks, taken aback, feeling grateful and relieved for someone to be on her side. "Is that why you spoke in support of me and Eskander at the court?"
"Not the general, no." Adam clicks his tongue and cranes his neck towards her. "I won't hesitate putting an arrow through his heart the first chance I get. I just need a reason to do so."
Noura feels her blood boil up like lava in an instant at his remark, all the gratitude she has been feeling for him seconds ago vanishing in thin air. "Why are you being so bitter towards Eskander?"
"I'd rather not crush the respect you have in your heart for your brother by telling you what a bastard he is."
She doesn't know what comes over her, whether it's sheer rage or her ferocious love for Eskander, but the very next second her hand drops to her own dagger strapped to her waist, and in the next the dagger is flying towards Adam.
Fury is a vile master. Fury is blind. It rules the mind. It disregards all consequences. Unless learnt to be tamed, fury wrecks and brings chaos. It causes havoc in ones soul and body. It tears apart the heart.
Noura doesn't care about the aftermath of her actions. If she cares about one thing, it's Eskander. If she understands one things, it's that she'd rather kill Adam with her own hands before he can even so much as lay a finger on Eskander. So she flicks the dagger towards his neck as she attacks him full force. But he's swift to judge.
Adam grips her wrist midair. As though he has been casually talking to her but been vigilant every second of it. As if he has been expecting her reaction and waiting for it. In one twists of his hand a sharp pang shoots through her wrist and the dagger falls from her grasp. Before she can retaliate, he brings his own dagger to neck, ceasing any further movements from her.
Noura hears the sound of a sword unsheathing from behind her and Adam presses the blade firmly into her skin. "Don't," he barks, threatening, "or I'll slit her throat."
Hafez doesn't move from his place and Noura takes a shuddering breath, staring into the hollow and endless black eyes of the man in front of her. He lets out a chuckles before licking the corner of his mouth evilly.
"Such love for your brother," he mocks.
"He's not my brother," she hisses, then bites her tongue in regret, glaring at Adam.
No matter the darkness, Noura still reads the confounded expression on his face before his features are pulled terse. "Not by blood, I know. But what is this attitude, sayidati?" The sarcasm in his tone slaps her and she realizes her mistake too late. "I smell something dirty."
"Shut up," she grits.
He presses the dagger to her throat some more and she clenches her jaw in pain. "Here are two advices for you, for your own sake," Adam begins, "one: don't trust anyone in this palace, not even your shadow. And two: don't make an enemy of me here."
"Or?" she challenges his second advice.
"Or you'll lose more than your life."
Noura scoffs. "You don't scare me. Now lower this dagger. This has human blood on it," she urges, feeling disturbed at the thought of someone's blood on her skin.
He raises both of his eyebrows, as if entertained by her statement. "What makes you think it's human blood?"
"What else would monsters like you hunt if not humans?" she retorts.
He lets out an amused laugh, clearly enjoying playing with her.
"Don't try to outsmart me, Hafez," he speaks without taking his gaze off her. "If I don't kill you for this, your lord definitely will. So keep standing where you are like a good boy." He then directs to her, "You've told me a secret and given me something against the general, so it's only fair if I tell you a secret too."
He loosens his grip on the dagger and Noura knits her eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"You're here not because you stole the caliph's seal." He leans forward, lowering his voice to a whisper and boring into her eyes, "You're here because Al Shafay wanted you to be. With him."
Her heart slams against her breastbone. She feels the earth start shaking beneath her feet. She feels betrayed and stripped of life. All this time while she was fighting one thing, there was totally another thing that had her defeated already. She has been made a fool of for no crime. Her tears push to fall but she somehow manage to hold them back, her body going numb from the revelation.
"Now am I really a monster, Noura?" Adam asks innocently, lowering his dagger and letting go of her. "I'm just a man trying to save myself in this game of chess."
She doesn't say anything in response, still trying to process the information that is like a hammer to her rationality. How simple is it for the Khalifa to beguile his people and make them dance on his fingertips, as if they're his puppets? As if she's nothing but a doll to him to be taken away from her home and brought here.
But why? All for what?
Adam stands up, breaking her chain of thoughts, preparing to leave. She stops him before he can go, one thing still weighing on her heart to settle with him for Eskander's sake if not her own.
"Adam?"
He turns back to her and she looks up at him meaningfully.
"Eskander and I," she sends her message in a warning rather than a request, "have nothing between us."
"You're asking me to keep it secret for you, sayidati?"
"Whatever you call it."
"If I don't want to?" he dares.
"Then I'll ruin you."
Adam smirks like a devil, as if finding pleasure in her threat-- as if considering the possibility of breaking a sacred vow. "I'll be waiting."
He turns around without wasting another minute and walks away from her while she's left to deal with the mayhem he has created inside of her head.
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Thoughts on Adam?
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