"Knowledge, she had always known, was the deadliest weapon in the palace—and now someone wielded it against her."

The scent of jasmine and cardamom twisted through the air like smoke from burning incense, sweet yet somehow ominous. Sima's fingers ghosted over the parchment's rough edges, each touch leaving behind the faintest tremor of fear. She read the words again, letting them sink into her bones like a curse:

Ten years of poison, and yet he still lives.
Such patience. Such precision. I wonder, does he taste the bitterness?
I do.
Every drop. Every glance.
Every move you make.
I see you.

Beside the note sat the vial that had been her constant companion, no larger than her smallest finger, its contents catching the light like liquid starlight. The same vial she had kept pressed against her heart, hidden in the intricate folds of her embroidered silks. Sima's heartbeat thundered in her ears. Knowledge was the deadliest weapon in the palace—and now someone wielded it against her.

The audacity of the intrusion into her private chambers spoke volumes. It whispered of power, of connections that reached deep into the palace's shadowed corners. Her mind spun like a dervish, possibilities whirling through her thoughts: perhaps it was Leila, whose kohl-lined eyes missed nothing and whose tongue dripped both honey and venom. Or Malik, the head eunuch, who moved through the palace like a ghost, collecting secrets as others collected jewels. Most terrifying of all—could it be Prince Kamal, whose ambitions climbed like ivy up the palace walls?

With the deliberate grace of a temple dancer, she returned the vial to its place, each movement a practiced deception. For ten years she had navigated the treacherous waters of the palace, letting the current of vengeance pull her closer to her goal. Her mother's screams still echoed in her dreams, demanding justice. To abandon her purpose now would be to die a different kind of death.

The Shah would meet his fate—this she swore by the stars that had witnessed her family's destruction. But now she would need to become like the deadly nightshade she favored: patient, silent, and diligent.

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The garden breathed with ancient magic—water dancing in fountains, doves calling through the branches of ancient cypress trees. Sima walked its winding paths like a ghost among the living, each step as carefully placed as the moves in a game of shatranj. Her face was serene, but beneath the surface, memories swirled like dark fish.

The laughter struck first—sharp as broken glass, cruel as a curved dagger. It shattered the garden's peace like stones thrown into still water.

"Even the fifth prince won't have her," declared Arezou, her gold bangles singing against each other as she gestured toward Sima with hands stained with henna patterns like drops of blood. "Perhaps she should return to the kitchens where she belongs—though I hear even the cats there turn their noses up at her."

"No, no," Nilufar's voice dripped honey-sweet poison, her perfect features arranged in a mockery of kindness. "Let her stay. She serves as a warning to us all. Even beauty has its limits—and some of us..." She paused, letting her gaze slide over Sima like oil. "Some of us started with so little of it to begin with."

Their laughter coiled around Sima like smoke from a dying fire, but her face remained still as a desert night. She had survived the flames that had devoured her family's home; she had endured the bitter bread of slavery. These women with their painted lips and hollow hearts could never comprehend the weight of the grief she carried like prayer beads, or the vengeful fire that burned in her blood like sweet poison.

"Have you no other entertainment?" The voice cut through the garden, and the laughter died as suddenly.

Sima turned, her pulse quickening traitorously as Prince Farid emerged from the shadows like a story coming to life. Sunlight caught the sharp planes of his face, turning him to living bronze. His ocean eyes, keen as a falcon's, swept over the gathered concubines with equal measures of amusement and contempt. A dangerous combination, Sima knew—like mixing wine with poison.

"Should I inform my father that his harem has grown so... idle?" Farid's voice remained soft as velvet, but beneath it lay steel. "Perhaps he might suggest more suitable ways to occupy your time. The palace always needs more washerwomen."

The threat hung in the air like perfume, sweet but potent. Sima watched the color drain from Arezou's face, noticed how Nilufar's fingers clutched her silks until her knuckles turned white. For a moment, she allowed herself to savor their fear like a rare delicacy.

But as she met Farid's gaze, something flickered in their shared look—a spark of understanding that unsettled her more than any amount of cruelty from the concubines.

The concubines scattered like autumn leaves in a sudden wind, their silk slippers whispering against the marble paths as they fled. Their departure left a peculiar silence in the garden, broken only by the eternal song of water against stone.

Sima inclined her head. "I didn't ask for your intervention, my prince."

Farid's lips curved into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Intervention? Hardly. I simply detest wasted time—particularly when it's spent on such amateur theatrics."

Their gazes locked like crossed daggers in a moonless night, each seeking weakness, each finding none. The garden seemed to still around them, the roses bending closer as if they too were conspirators in this dangerous game.

"Yet, you stand with the sogoli," she said.

"I stand wherever I please," he replied, his attention catching on a cluster of concubines who watched from behind jeweled fingers and painted lips, their whispers carrying across the garden like poison on the wind. Something shifted in his eyes then—a shadow of regret, perhaps, for the public shame he had brought upon her. Or perhaps it was calculation, knowing that his presence now, in the full light of day, could begin to unmake that wrong. A small price to pay for so great a debt.

"I do not deserve your pity, my prince,"

"You mistake repaying my debts for sympathy," he countered. "Even a prince must honor what he owes."

"I dare not let the Hero of the Eastern Gates owe me a debt." Her words were perfectly crafted. The title—his glory, his burden—fell from her lips like a challenge wrapped in silk.

He studied her then, this woman who wore secrets like others wore perfume. Her cunningness rivaled his own, a fact that both thrilled and unsettled him. Each word between them was a move in a game more complex than shatranj, and he found himself desperate to understand what ancient fire burned in her veins, what shadows danced behind her carefully guarded eyes.

His face hardened like cooling metal as he spoke: "It's amazing how the tongue speaks what it speaks, while in your heart, you have plunged a blade into my flesh a hundred times over."

"I dare not, your highness."

"Spare me the bull's excrement," he spat, dropping the elaborate courtesy of court speech. "We both know you're as innocent as a snake in a cradle."

A smile threatened at the corners of her mouth before she could master it. She turned away, but not before a quiet laugh escaped her—soft and genuine as morning light.

Farid's own smile turned triumphant, pleased as a cat who'd caught a particularly clever mouse. He placed his hands behind his back, chest lifting slightly as he surveyed the flowers with exaggerated interest, clearly savoring his small victory over her carefully maintained composure.

"Why did you send me away?" The question slipped from her lips like water from a cracked vessel, quiet but insistent.

"Why did you come?"

Her breath caught in her throat—a betrayal as slight as a butterfly's wing, but present nonetheless. Still, her face remained calm as still water. "The Shah sent me."

"And you follow orders so willingly?"

The question hung in the air like incense in a temple, sacred and suffocating. Sima's mind whirled like desert winds, each thought a grain of sand stinging her consciousness. She studied his face carefully. Could he be the one who had left the note? The possibility unfurled in her mind like a poisonous flower: Farid's shadow gliding through her chambers in the deepest watch of night, his clever eyes marking her movements like a falconer tracks his prey, his keen mind unraveling the tapestry of her deceptions one golden thread at a time.

But his gaze remained as unreadable, betraying nothing save that dangerous curiosity that made him as lethal as sweetened hemlock.

"I do what I must to survive," she said finally.

The smile fell from Farid's face like a mask at midnight, revealing something harder beneath—a truth carved in flesh and bone. "Survival," he echoed. "In this palace, that's an art form, isn't it?"

"More than art," she breathed. "It's war."

The truth hung between them like a suspended drop of poison, neither willing to be the first to taste it. Something flickered in Farid's expression—recognition, perhaps, or even admiration. But it vanished like smoke through fingers, replaced by that carefully crafted emptiness he wore like armor.

"I don't trust you," he said abruptly.

Her heart drummed against her ribs like a prisoner seeking escape, but she lifted her chin, meeting his gaze with the unwavering strength of a warrior-queen. "And I don't trust you."

Farid's laugh was quiet. "At least we agree on something."

The sharp clap of sandals on marble broke the silence, and a young messenger hurried into view, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the ground. "My prince," the boy said, his voice cracking under the weight of his words. "The Shah summons you."

Farid's jaw tightened, all traces of humor evaporating like morning mist in the desert sun. He gave the boy a curt nod, then turned back to Sima.

"Stay out of trouble," he said, his tone balanced between warning and challenge.

Sima watched him leave, her thoughts coiling like snakes in a basket, each one deadly, each one true. The fifth prince was no common fool—his reputation for cunning was earned with the same patience that water shows when carving through stone. But neither was she some delicate court flower, wilting at the first frost of danger. Whatever game fate had drawn them into, whatever dance of deception they now stepped, she would not be the one to miss her footing and fall.

In the suddenly empty garden, with only the roses to witness, she touched the hidden pocket where her vial nestled like a deadly secret. Its familiar shape against her fingers was both blessing and curse—like a prayer spoken in a forgotten tongue, powerful but perilous to those who failed to understand its true purpose.

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