WHEN THE KING came to her bed chamber that night, Zeinab's confidence had dwindled. In fact, it had nearly fizzled out completely, with only the thought of her mother and sister telling her to hold on. To keep fighting. To ensure the flicker of faith within her remained aflame.

Earlier on, she had said too much to Munir—and if he had suspected her motives to kill his brother, she was already as good as dead. The girl was aware of the nagging fact that every breath she inhaled may very well have been her last. She could trust no one in this wretched palace and reminded herself that the only way to survive would be to keep her temper controlled and her lips sewn shut—unless she was using her words to entrance.

"Sayyidi," Zeinab immediately said upon seeing the king walk through the door to her room.

He slinked across the floor so soundlessly that she could never quite hear him coming. He moved with the grace and agility of a panther.

She suddenly found herself very aware of how dry her mouth was and how cracked her lips had become. "Good evening," she muttered.

Kadar swung the door closed with one swift movement of his hand, then turned to face her. She stood by the bed, wearing an unusually bright smile that failed to reach her eyes. Once he saw her, his eyebrows raised and, for a split second, he might've looked like a regular boy.

"What, no caustic greeting for me tonight?" he asked, frowning slightly. There was an edge of uncertainty to his tone. "That's disappointing."

As Zeinab waved her hand dismissively, the bangles adorning her wrist jingled. "No," she replied, "not tonight. I'm feeling quite generous, so I thought perhaps I'd spare you my merciless wrath. Just for this one..." The last word faded out and nearly died in her throat, but she forced it out. "This one night." Her hand flew to her mouth and she began picking the dry skin on her lips—a nervous habit.

"So you've met my brother," the caliph drawled, dragging his eyes over her face, "and gotten acquainted with my palace."

       "Yes," she said. "And I can't possibly pick which I prefer."

       But Kadar appeared not to have heard her sarcastic remark. He raked a hand through his dark locks, sudden distress tugging his thick eyebrows together. "I should not have let this happen."

       She closed her mouth and blinked rapidly. "What?"

He continued on, keeping his eyes averted as though he couldn't bear to look at her. The odd thing was that there was nothing sadistic in his expression. "I shouldn't have allowed this to go on. It has been only a day, but it's still a day too long. I might've given you false hope."

She knew what he was doing before he did it. His hand went for his belt, unsheathing a dagger with a jewelled handle. Fear clutched at her like a feral beast with spindly fingers, grasping at anything it could. Her throat felt like it was about to close, her lungs like they would collapse.

Relax, she told herself. Relax and work your magic.

Still, Zeinab found herself momentarily frozen down to the very core. The chords of her vocals were unable to thrum, the fragile bones in her fingers were stiff as though carved from stone—even the muscles in her throat couldn't contract to allow her to swallow down her horror. The king was nearing her, the dagger glittering malevolently in his outstretched hand.

As always, his eyes were so startlingly blue that they looked like small shards of the sky; yet somehow, she could tell that no matter clear it may have once seemed, it too would be met with storm, the ire of the heavens.

His eyes trapped the kind of sky that awaited the passing of storm clouds at any given moment with bated breath.

       There was, however, something quaint in the blue pools; something she had never seen before. Something akin to reluctance. Nothing predatory—just reluctance.

       He took another step forward and stood before her, still as a sculpture of a god and just as beautiful. Their faces were so close that she could feel his breath tickling her cheeks and disturbing the stray strands of hair that had fallen out of her braid. Their proximity even permitted her to notice a white scar that cut through his top lip. It was stark against his bronze skin; she wondered how she hadn't seen it before.

       Along with the small, insignificant scar, Zeinab noticed something else about Kadar: the dagger was trembling terribly in his hand as he lifted it to her throat. He was quivering so intensely that the blade pressed into the skin of her neck and drew the slightest amount of blood. It dribbled down to her collarbone, leaving a trail of red in its path.

She let out a light gasp. The spot where the knife had cut was stinging faintly. To her, it was merely an irritation, throbbing and dull compared to the thousands of knives piercing her lungs and preventing her from being able to breathe.

       Though Kadar was holding a weapon to her lifeline, she was certain he hadn't meant to cut her at all.

Over the dagger, he was finally able to look at her and their eyes met.

       She swallowed against the dagger's edge, causing it to press deeper into her throat without quite being enough to do real damage. His hand was still shaking. She needed to talk, to say something, to use her charm; but when she spoke, everything was wrong.

"Are you going to kill me, sayyidi?"

The words came out in a rush, sounding slightly idiotic and egotistical. She hadn't meant to sound so foolishly invincible, for she was terrified.

Nevertheless, she wanted to say so much more to him. But the words, the questions—they were endless. If she even began to ask such things, she would never be able to stop, and he would likely slit her throat simply to cease her talking.

Why, my king, do you seem to reluctant to kill me? And if you truly are reluctant, why are you trying to kill me in the first place? Why did all your other brides have to perish by your hand? Why haven't I? What do I have that they didn't? What makes the worth of my life greater than that of theirs?

Perhaps there wasn't an answer to any of them. Perhaps Kadar al-Din Rumi was nothing but a murderous madman possessing absolutely no morals and entirely unable to bridle his rage. Perhaps Munir al-Din Rumi was of unsound mind and found entertainment in his brother's evil. Perhaps the palace itself drove its inhabitants mad with simmering lust and greed and rage, and all nefariousness the universe possessed.

"You do not wish to kill me, Kadar al-Din Rumi," she told him daringly. "I can see it in your beautiful eyes. You don't want to kill me."

Pushing aside her disgust, she smiled an intoxicating smile and lifted her hand, placing it over his while it clutched onto the dagger. Slowly, carefully, she coaxed the weapon away from her body and to his side. He let her without resisting. At last, she had him under the spell again.

He leaned towards her, his hand dropping to the dip in her collarbones. Her heart raced as he reached out to her. He caught the single blood droplet with one of his fingertips, swiping it from her skin. He was close enough to kiss her, close enough to touch her in a number of intimate ways. He might've done so if her voice hadn't sliced through the silence between them.

"I may not know what you want, sayyidi," Zeinab purred into his ear, "but I know what you don't want. You don't want me dead, because I am your queen and we will rule these lands together. It does not have to be this way. You don't have to slit the throat of every wife you have. You cannot possibly go on like that forever."

       He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. Then he slipped the dagger into the sheath at his belt, but kept his hand lingering over it.

Though her heart thundered against the cage of her ribs like a bird seeking freedom, she made sure to put a flirtatious edge to her tone—laced, of course, with the soporific effects of her magic. Her brown eyes were brimming with hot tears, which she blinked away. "I was thinking that tonight I might finish that tale I began telling you last night. The one about Faruq."

His hand fell from his belt to his side, releasing his hold altogether on the dagger. However, at the sound of her voice, he had been lulled into an unbreakable trance. At once, with childlike wonder glazing his blue eyes, he swept to her side and sat down on the bed.

A sigh of relief was drawn from Zeinab's lungs.

       In that moment, Kadar was so deeply rooted in her spell that she could've asked him for anything and he would've done it. She could've ordered him to kill himself where he stood, but such would have been a terrible idea. She needed to frame someone else so she couldn't possibly be blamed.

       She needed to rip his kingdom right from his grasp.

       Perhaps later, she'd use her powers to command someone else to kill the caliph for her. Or she'd lure him out of the castle and pretend that a band of thieves had taken his life. At the moment, it hardly mattered.

       All she needed was patience.