SAMPLE CHAPTERS ONLY

It was the first time he had seen her since their childhood. In the bustling bazaar of Isfahan, he would never have recognized her had her mother not been with her. As the wife of a vizier, she was well known and respected.

In the palace of Baghdad, the little girl once chased away the loneliness of his boyhood with her stories and poems. But where their friendship then was innocent, what he feels now is anything but that. For ever since he laid eyes on her in the bazaar, something in his chest has erupted into flames. The little girl has grown into a woman more bewitching to him than a sorcerer's spell.

"Noura."

She steps out of her house, her face unveiled, hanging a lantern at the threshold. It is a ritual she follows each evening before darkness falls. The dull ache in his heart eases at her sight.

"My light." He smiles.

They belong together, or destiny wouldn't have conspired to bring her to him. She's the last remnant of a once beautiful life, and he will not lose her again.

⁀➴

It has been a long time since Noura stopped seeing Eskander as an older brother, and instead as someone more than that. It happened slowly, as they grew apart, when he left to join the army and she remained at home. The years away from each other have changed them both: his bearing and her heart. The relationship they once had is no more. After all, he's not of her blood, and that fact has taken firm root in her mind.

Eskander was adopted by her parents when his father was martyred in war, his mother having died giving birth to him. Unlike her father who was part of the advisory council of Khalid bin Abd al-Malik, one of the former caliphs, Eskander's forefathers served in the army for generations. Later on, he took up that duty as well.

When they were both children, she would always follow him about. With neither of them having any siblings, they were each other's best friends. But when he turned twelve, he left home. As time passed, her bond with him grew weaker.

Eleven years later when he returned home, that bond had completely broken. Now, at twenty-one, it has turned into something else entirely for her. Guilty of her feelings, Noura keeps them hidden from him. Eskander probably still sees her the same way.

Or perhaps not. She hopes.

He might be aware of this change too. And if he is, he feigns oblivion. Where once he would call her his sister, that habit lies buried now. With her heart's inclination toward him, the past is left far behind.

"Nour."

She blinks out of her reverie, her name on his lips sweeter than the song of nightingales.

Noura moves to his side, where he readies his steed for the palace. She lays a gentle hand upon the horse's mane.

He turns toward her. "Take care of yourself and mother."

She nods. "Come home soon."

"I will."

Ever since his promotion to general of Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate, he comes home to Isfahan more often than he did while stationed in Ar-Raqqa. She's glad the waits are shorter now, no longer the endless counting of days into months before each return.

He sets his foot in the stirrup.

"Eskander?"

Their eyes meet again.

"Take care of yourself too."

"I will, azizam."

The sun sets over the surrounding hills, the day slowly dwindling into dusk. The sky, brilliant in shades of orange and gold, paints itself in his eyes. Specks of gold scatter in his light brown irises like desert grains beneath the midday sun. Her sorrows evanesce there, fading in his presence as if they had never existed. He banishes all that is dark in the world for her. He lives up to his name for her.

He will always be her warrior.

"Keep me in your prayers."

She places a hand over his heart at his request, his armor keeping it sheathed beneath where she cannot feel it beating.

"You always are."

He smiles, patting her cheek-a feather touch, too light to be felt-before pulling away, leaving longing in its wake.

"And you, Nour, are always in mine."

She smiles back, trying to grasp this moment, to prolong it until it's etched in her memory like a carving in stone. But like everything in time, it's fleeting, meant not to stay but only to linger, as he turns his back to her and mounts his horse.

"Eskander?" she calls again.

He faces her, but no words rise to her lips. She only seeks to steal another moment. When a few seconds slip away, she shakes her head and steps back.

"Allah be with you."

"And with you," he replies. "I leave you in His protection."

With this, he snaps the reins, and the horse breaks into a gallop, carrying him away from her. She stands watching until his figure vanishes in the distance. Time always contracts when they're together, hours dissolving into minutes.

She heaves a sigh.

"How do I even tell you what's in my heart, Eskander?" She clasps the pendant at her breastbone, the name of Allah carved in gold. "You belong to the palace, and perhaps I don't."

She makes her way home. After bidding farewell to Eskander, her mother had gone to visit her elder brother. Now Noura's evening lies before her, alone and dull. With Eskander gone, it will take her days to fall back into the old rhythm of her life.

What an irony. Of all men her heart could've succumbed to, it's the one surrounded at the palace by women nobler than she. Eskander might grant another a place in his heart. But Noura? Despite her doubts, her own heart remains defiant. Perhaps it's reckless, for what good can come of unrequited love?

With the sun's last rays dying, darkness slowly envelops everything into its embrace. The bustle of the bazaars and the laughter of children in the streets fade to a faint echo as she nears her house. She adjusts her shawl over her head and quickens her pace.

As she rounds the corner, she stops abruptly.

A cloaked figure looms at the window of her house, peering inside. Her fingers twitch instinctively toward the dagger under her kamarband. She's uncertain whether he is a mere passerby or a thief trying to break in.

His hood is drawn low, his cloak concealing the breadth of his body. As he tugs the reins of his horse, his sleeve rides up, exposing a forearm corded with muscle. The animal neighs, striking its hooves against the ground. A creature dark as midnight, with a long, gleaming mane, the like of which she has never seen before. The man delivers a few firm pats along its back, urging it into submission. It blows, resisting before yielding.

Majestic, beastly, and clearly well-bred. If it belongs to him, he may not be a thief. Perhaps just a passerby, or a traveler. But why is he peering into their house? Is he searching for someone?

Her peace shatters as the man turns to the door and begins picking the lock.

Thief. He must have stolen the horse as well.

Her instincts flare. He has waited until the house was empty to break in. She draws her dagger, and before she can stop herself, she's already creeping toward him.

Run. A voice inside her warns.

He can easily overpower her. She barely reaches the height of his neck.

Run. But she silences every warning.

With quick, deliberate steps she closes in. His form towers closer. Her hand tightens around the dagger. Every nerve in her body sparks alive.

Now!

Her dagger flies toward him. A heartbeat passes. The horse neighs. The man jerks around.

Their eyes lock for a flicker of time, gone too soon as he swivels away. The dagger gouges the door. Her heart thunders. Noura leaps back, then charges again.

"Hyah!" She lunges.

He's light on his feet, spinning away. She slashes the air-left, right, left again-but he dodges each strike.

He's trained, his movements too precise. But she's no stranger to the blade either.

Noura draws another dagger and strikes with both.

Right. Right. Left.

Her blade slices his upper arm.

He hisses, retreating, only to counter in a blink.

In one swift movement, he seizes her wrist and slams her against the wall. Her eyes widen. She kicks out, but he blocks with ease. He twists her arm and forces the dagger to her throat. Her breath hitches as he halts her every attempt.

He presses harder. The blade bites into her skin. A whimper slips past her lips. She doesn't dare to move.

He stands over her, a shadow blotting out the last of the light. She cannot see his face, both because of the dark and the cloth covering it. If she glimpsed him during their clash, her mind had been too bent on striking him than to register him. Only his eyes are visible, those too barely, blurred by the declining dusk.

"Let me go." Her voice is low, hoarse with fear. "I've nothing you want."

He doesn't comply, unmoving as stone, and she swallows hard as her head fills with dire possibilities.

She wriggles against the dagger at her throat. He won't harm her. Allah will save her. Though fate is cruel at times, it cannot be so unfair.

"Don't dare to hurt me."

Her lip quivers. All will be well, she tells herself. But her chest knots, her consolations collapsing within her.

Then, to her relief, the man knocks the dagger from her grasp. It clatters to the ground, and he scrapes it out of reach with his boot.

She exhales, her shoulders dropping. But before she can move, his fingers replace the blade, wrapping around her neck in a firm grip. Her body stiffens again.

"Wh-who are you?"

Thief. Her scarcely rational thoughts answer.

Her hands claw at the wall behind her, as if a loose stone might give her purchase. But she finds no escape. Not with his hand at her throat.

"I've nothing you can steal," she chokes out. "Fear Allah and release me."

His grip on her throat loosens. For a moment, she thinks he might let her go. But then his hand goes to her pendant and tears it from her neck.

"No!" she cries.

It was a gift from her late father. The last memory of him with her.

He lifts the pendant, inspecting it. She leaps at him without thought. As before, he swerves aside, and she stumbles, crashing to the ground. He gives her no chance to strike again and swings onto his horse.

"Please no!"

She scrambles to her feet just as he tosses something her way. It hits the ground and rolls toward her door. He snaps the reins, and the horse surges forward, carrying him swiftly down the path.

She stands staring after him, her vision blurring, her heart aching with the loss of her father's last token of love.

"Baba..."

Her fingers hover over the hollow of her throat, now bare. She hiccups. That pendant was dearer to her than all the jewels in the world combined.

Her gaze drops to what the thief cast at her. She picks it up, turning it in her palm. A seal of gold. She narrows her eyes to read the engraving.

"Al-Shafay?" Her breath hitches.

The Khalifa.

The name crushes her into numbness. A dread deeper than before coils in her stomach. The thief must have stolen the caliph's seal, and now she has it.

Her hands tremble at the power it carries, and at the ruin it could bring if discovered with her.

"Ya Allah." She clenches her fist around it. "What's happening?"

This small thing could upend lives in unimaginable ways. And if it falls into the wrong hands...

She hastily tucks it under her kamarband, unaware that the fate awaiting her is the one she had always thought impossible.