SAMPLE CHAPTERS ONLY

“What troubles you, my prince?”

Her voice draws him out of his musings. He looks up as she comes to stand beside him on the balcony, where he gazes at the gardens below.

“You address me like my mother,” he says. “You read me like her.”

She smiles, and he answers with one of his own.

He turns his face to the sky. The night is young, Allah’s canvas magnificent as always. None can rival His creation. He sighs, closing his eyes, fingers tightening around the balustrade.

“Will she forgive me for what I’ve done?” he whispers, voicing his troubled thoughts at last.

“Where there is love, there is some degree of selfishness. How do I blame you, when I’ve been in your place too?”

He turns to her. Her lips curve into another smile, sly this time.

“Love is dangerous, azizi, and when in danger, you set reason aside and find a way to live.”

He chuckles at her reply. Love certainly is dangerous, but so is she. He refrains from giving her the compliment, licking the corner of his mouth as it curls up into a smile that mirrors hers.

⁀➴

They reach Baghdad late at night. Adam leads her through a secluded passageway to a chamber, torches flickering and shadows dancing along the walls. Their footsteps echo through the corridors, where no one can be seen but the guards on station.

He leaves her alone in the chamber. As the doors close after him, she looks around. For a crime of theft, her supposed prison is far grander than she expected.

A qaleen unfurls across the marble floor, its patterns blooming like a garden beneath the qandeel. Her eyes stray to the stucco walls, carved in curling arabesques that catch the candlelight as if alive.

To her left, a door framed by tall windows hints at a balcony beyond. To her right, a hearth glows, silk cushions arranged in perfect symmetry around it.

But it is the bed at the chamber’s heart that holds her. Draped in a canopy of silk, it seems more like a throne than a place of rest. Beside it, a brazier breathes tendrils of smoke, the scent of oud coiling through the air, rich and heavy.

It’s beautiful, beyond anything she has known. Yet it remains a prison all the same.

She moves to the bed, slowly, as if the chamber might dissolve into a dungeon. Her finger grazes the silk veil before she pulls it apart.

She sits at the edge, her hands running over the sheets, the embroidery curling like vines beneath her.

“Ya Allah…”

Noura doesn’t know how much time has passed before a knock comes at the door. Adam enters with a tray of food. Without a word, he sets it by the hearth and turns to leave.

“I won’t eat,” she says, rising. “Take it back.”

Adam halts and turns back.

She crosses her arms, her jaw set. He steps closer, stopping just before her.

“Why won’t you eat?” he asks.

“Where is Eskander?” she demands instead. “Does he know I’m here?”

“I don’t know.” His reply is clipped and dry.

She cannot tell if he’s answering her first question or her second. Perhaps both.

“I won’t eat until I meet him,” she declares, as if it mattered to him.

“The general could be out of Baghdad, not due to return for weeks. Will you starve yourself until then?” he reasons with her.

She frowns, her heart sinking. Eskander is her only hope in the confines of these walls.

“Where is Eskander?” she asks again, her voice frayed this time.

Adam exhales heavily, his eyes clouded from their long journey to Baghdad.

“The hour is late, sayyidati. Eat and rest well. Tomorrow will be a long day for you.”

“Adam?” she calls before he can leave again.

He glances back. Something sharpens in his gaze, sending warmth to her cheeks.

Realizing her mistake, she quickly adds, “Sayyidi, at least let me know if Eskander has been informed.”

“The Ameer sent a messenger to the general,” he assures her. “He thought the general wouldn’t take the news kindly, so it was better to inform him before your arrival at the palace.”

Her shoulders fall in relief. Eskander knows. He will come to her soon.

“Thank you.”

Adam motions with a hand. “Will you eat now?”

She smiles and nods. “Yes.”

He turns to leave again, but she stops him once more.

“Sayyidi?”

He doesn’t turn around this time, only waits for her to speak.

“How long will it be before Eskander is back?”

He pauses, then replies, “I don’t know.”

“I won’t speak of the incident to anyone until Eskander is here,” she says. “No one else will believe me.”

He tilts his head, candlelight skimming across his face. The corner of his mouth twitches, slight but unmistakable.

Before she can speak another word, he exits the chamber. The doors lock behind him, leaving her alone once again.

She sinks onto the cushions and draws the food tray toward herself, grateful that Adam hadn’t taken it back when she told him to. Exhausted and starving from the long journey to reach the palace, she eats with little restraint.

When she has finished, she goes to the balcony doors and pushes them open. The wind instantly coils around her, and she hugs herself. The stars are brilliant as on so many nights before, just as her father loved them. Just as Eskander does.

“And We have created above you seven layered heavens, and never have We been of Our creation unaware,” she recites.

After spending some time stargazing, she retires to bed. Even beneath the blanket, sleep betrays her, her thoughts tangled and restless. She tosses and turns, only much later drifting into a dreamless slumber.

Dawn has barely broken when voices seep through her chamber doors. Harsh and argumentative, they grow louder. She has finished praying fajr but remains sitting on the prayer mat. At the heavy thud of boots approaching the door, she rises and hurries toward the bed, pulling out the only weapon she has—the dagger Adam gave her.

“Open the door!” someone roars.

Her heart leaps at the familiar voice. She runs toward the door.

“Eskander?” she calls, but the door doesn’t open.

Did she just imagine it to be him?

Then, as if to prove her wrong, the door is kicked open. It bursts wide, revealing him. The darkness of early morning conceals his form, but she needs no light to know it’s him. The comfort of his presence is enough. Yet she’s too stunned to react, caught between joy and disbelief.

“Leave,” he orders the guards at the door.

Unlike before, his voice is as she remembers. Controlled. Gentler.

They are left alone. Though the guards were stationed there by someone else’s orders, they do not dare disobey the general.

He comes forward with hesitant steps, as if unsure she truly stands before him. She waits until he is within reach, barely keeping herself from running to him. To cry to him. To complain to him. To bend every principle and fall apart in his embrace as she once would.

But now she cannot, for they are no longer children. When he returned two years ago, he was no longer the Eskander who had left home at twelve. Though she still considers him family, everything once innocent between them has become forbidden, and she painfully struggles to avoid it.

“Nour?” he calls, and everything around her dissolves into nothingness.

She rushes closer. “Eskander, it’s me.”

She reaches for his face with a quivering hand, and that is all it takes for him to give in to her. He presses his cheek into her palm, surprising her—and perhaps himself—as he withdraws the very next moment.

“Noura,” he says again, his voice laden with relief and tenderness. “Ya Khoda, you nearly drew the soul out of me.”

“I’m fine.”

His fingers hover over her face, grazing her cheekbone before dropping to his side. Even in the dark, the tremor in his fists cannot be missed.

“I’m fine,” she repeats, trying to reassure him. “And I’m so glad you’re here. I couldn’t ask for more than this.”

“I’m with you,” he says, his words clear but his tone strained. “You don’t have to worry now.”

He, who was never shaken by anything, now stands before her as if the ground has slipped from beneath his feet. For the first time, Noura finds Eskander unlike himself.

“They dragged you into this hell, and I wasn’t there to save you,” he whispers. “Be Khoda, I’ve never ridden a horse as I did last night. I nearly killed the animal.”

“I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t know what else to say to him. His concern for her drowns everything else.

“No, Nour. I am sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“You’re innocent, azizam. You’re my angel.”

He leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead. It doesn’t matter that they cannot properly see each other. For her, his eyes are fiercer than the burning embers in the hearth.

“This place is not for you, and I’ll take you away from here,” Eskander promises.

She wants to ask him so many questions. She wants to tell him so many things. He is here now. He is with her. At least he will believe her. And even if he is the only one, it will be enough for her to fight her fate. Together, they might find a way out.

“Did I give the general a scare?” she jokes, trying to ease the tension.

He lets out a weary laugh. “Never have the wars frightened me as much as this. I feared harm might find you.”

“My thoughts troubled you?” she teases further. “Pity. That’s not what I wished for.”

“Then what do you wish for?” he asks, suddenly serious.

Her playfulness dissipates. She swallows.

What can she tell him, when she cannot lay her heart bare? She isn’t brave enough.

“Perhaps a lot of things. But not this, Eskander.”

“I pray all your wishes come true. As for this”—he smiles—“if your thoughts trouble me, they bring me joy all the same.”

“Do they?” she mumbles.

One’s care for another, Noura thinks, is often mistaken for something more. Perhaps love. Then why must she fool herself, when he has always been that way toward her? Why expect more from him?

“Of course they do. You shared with me my childhood. You’re the most beautiful part of it,” he tells her, as though reminding her of what should be plain. “You’re the blood of the man and woman who gave me a second life. Without them, I wouldn’t be standing here—I wouldn’t have come so far. And so you’re dear to me. Without you, Nour, I’d have no light in my life.”

She’s unsure how to feel about his confession, whether his regard for her parents is what binds him to her, or if it’s something more. She tries not to read too much into it.

“Eskander…”

“Yes. This is what I mean.”

She blinks. “What?”

“For you,” he explains, “I’m Eskander Teymour. But here, in the palace, I’m General Eskander to everyone else.”

“How is the general different from the Eskander I know?”

“Eskander is a simple man,” he replies, offering only half an answer as he steps away.

“I don’t understand.”

He shakes his head, changing the subject. “Mother must be worried out of her mind for you. I’ve sent her a messenger to tell her you’re safe here with me, so her heart can rest.”

The hardship her family is enduring, and her longing for her mother, make her heart ache. She only wishes the real thief would be caught and the matter resolved soon.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll look into this matter myself and then take you back to Isfahan,” Eskander says. “I can’t let you be here for long, especially when I can’t be here with you. I don’t trust anyone in this place. This palace is a home to no one.”

Everything feels unreal. Like a nightmare. Like a lie. Her life makes no sense to her.

“Rest now, azizam.” Eskander steps toward the door. “Now that I’m here, you’ve nothing to worry about. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Eskander?” she stops him, curiosity forcing her to unravel his earlier words.

He looks at her. “Yes?”

“If Eskander is the man, then who is the general?”

“Not the man you know, Nour.”

With that, he leaves, letting the silence that trails after him engulf her.