You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell.

—

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"What troubles you, my prince?"

He looks at her upon her question, halfway coming out of the whirlwind of thoughts that had him drowning in them. She comes to stand beside him on the balcony where he has been absently gazing down at the gardens.

"You remind me of my mother," he says and turns towards her. "That's how she would read me," he tells her. "That's how she would direct to me."

She smiles wordlessly and he returns it softly. They both turn away from each other to look at sky. The night is young and the canvas of God, as always, is magnificent-- adorned by His artwork none can compete. He sighs and closes his eyes, placing his hands on the wooden handrail of the balcony.

"Will she forgive me for what I've done?" he asks her in a whisper, letting out his troubling thoughts to her.

"Where there is love, there is some degree of selfishness. How do I blame you when I've been in your shoes too?" He looks back at her and her lips pull up in another smile, clever this time. "Love is dangerous, azizi, and when in danger, you set reasons aside and find a way to live."

He chuckles at her reply and then hums, considering it. Love certainly is dangerous, but so is she. He refrains from giving her the compliment and licks the corner of his lip as it too turn up into a smile mirroring her own.

It was late hour of the night when they had arrived at Baghdad. She didn't even get a chance to register the impression of the palace as Adam had taken her to a chamber via a secluded route and locked her in there. Now it has been a long while since she has been sitting alone in this fancy space and staring mindlessly at the walls. At least, Noura gets to have a good look at the chamber and finds it pleasingly beautiful. She's grateful she isn't thrown into a dungeon but she doesn't understand her being treated unlike a thief either, given the accusation put upon her. She doesn't complain though-- the place is unlike her old house in Isfahan and seemingly like a fairytale.

Her reverie is interrupted by the sound of the doors opening and she swiftly gets down the bed to her feet. Adam enters the room with a tray of food. Without a word, he puts it on the large divan besides the window and turns around to leave.

"I won't eat," she declares and he halts in his tracks. "Take it back."

Adam turns back around towards her. She flares her nostrils and lifts her chin like a petulant child, refusing to be deterred by him. He takes measured steps towards her and stops a few feet away.

"Why won't you eat?" he simply asks.

"Where is Eskander?" she questions instead. "Does he know I'm here?"

"I don't know," he cuts plainly and she cannot gather if he's answering her first query or second. Maybe both.

"I won't eat until I meet him," she sternly announces, not shying away from his hawk like eyes.

"The general could be at the borders not returning for months. Will you stay hungry until then?" he tries to reason with her and she feels her knees buckle at the supposition.

"Where is Eskander?" she asks again, weakly this time. He's her only hope and savior in the confines of these walls.

Adam seems to give up against her as he exhales heavily, looking exhausted and worn out from their long journey to Baghdad.

"The hour is late, sayyidati. Eat and rest well. Tomorrow might be a difficult day to deal with."

"Adam?" She latches onto his arm as he once more turns to leave. He looks back at her, then down to her hands around his arm. As if realizing her actions, she quickly lets go of him and steals away her gaze from him.

"The Ameer sent a messenger to the general before our arrival," he finally tells her, as if taking pity on her desperation. "He gathered the general definitely will not react pleasantly to the situation, so it was better to inform him beforehand than him finding out on his own."

Noura feels her body coming alive again at the information. Eskander knows. He will come to her soon. She feels a smile form on her lips.

"Thank you," she utters to Adam and he only stares back at her.

"Will you eat now?"

Noura grins and nods at his question. "I will."

He turns to walk out of the chamber and she stops him once again.

"Adam?"

He doesn't turn around this time but waits for her to say whatever is on her mind. Noura fidgets with her fingers as she poses her next query.

"How long will it be before Eskander is back?"

It takes him a moment before he replies. "I don't know."

"I won't speak of the incident to anyone until Eskander is here," she informs him. "No one besides him will trust me."

He tilts his head and from the angle of his face visible to her, Noura watches his mouth pull upward to one side. She doesn't understand neither bothers to ask him for its reason, and without another word or explanation, he leaves the chamber. The doors lock and once more, she's left alone to herself.

She sighs and goes to sit on the divan. Defeatedly, she drags the tray of food towards herself and starts eating the meal. She's grateful Adam didn't take it back with him when she challenged him in her stubbornness to do so. She has been too tired and hungry due to their long journey to get to the palace in due time.

When she finishes her meal, Noura remains sitting on the divan and looks through the window to the sky outside despite her lids growing heavy. The stars are brilliant like every previous night when she would search for Eskander among them. She stays roaming in her jumbled thoughts until they turn into a mess of a web that cocoons her into sleep out of the troubling world.

The dawn is barely cracked when her eyes flutter open again at the voices coming from a distance. They're loud enough to wake her up but her sleep is still weighing on her mind and she cannot register anything besides the tones of the voices-- they are argumentative. Her lids fall shut again, too drained to stay awake, before the thuds of boots coming towards the door alarm her. She jerks to sit up, her sleep now gone.

"Open the door!" someone commands.

Her heart leaps at the familiarity of the voice and she's on her feet in the very next instant, rushing towards the door.

"Eskander?" she calls out when the door doesn't open, feeling sick in her stomach at his absence. Did she just imagine it to be him?

Then as if to disapprove her doubts, the door is kicked open and it flies apart wide, revealing his form. Noura feels herself paralyze both in joy and disbelief, all at once and unexpectedly to be reunited with him. In the dark, she cannot clearly make out his face, but she doesn't need any light to confirm his presence-- his presence always brings peace to her. And after so long, she has found the same peace again-- the solace only Eskander can bring to her heart.

"Leave," it's another command she hears him direct to the guards at the door, but unlike before, he doesn't bark it. His voice has returned to how she's used to hearing it-- calm with an edge of strength to it.

The guards leave at his order without showing any resistance. She knows they were appointed there by someone else's orders, but they don't dare to disobey the man in front of them. Maybe that's what his being does to other-- they submit to him without denial.

When they're left alone, he steps inside the chamber with hesitation, as if unable to swallow the fact it is her he's seeing. She waits for him to come near, hardly chaining her desire of running into his arms and melting into his embrace. That is how he always makes her patience crumble. He makes her go blind to her principles-- to the fact that maybe once, every exchange of gesture between them was of siblings. It can no more be, and so everything innocent between them has now turned forbidden she's painfully struggling to avoid.

"Noura?" he calls her with such sweetness that dissolves her surroundings into empty space and nothingness. She quickly steps closer to him.

"Eskander, it's me." She reaches for his face gingerly and that's all it takes for him to give into her and press his cheek into her palm.

"Noura," he says her name again, this time as if in relief of finding her safe with him. "My Lord, janem, you drew the soul out of me."

"I'm fine," she tries to assure him against his restlessness. Yet still, he too reaches for her face and his fingers lightly graze her cheekbone before falling to his side again, as if making sure of her presence near him. "I'm alright," she repeats for him. "And I'm so glad you're with me. I cannot be anymore better than this now."

"I'm with you," he whispers and moves more closer into her vicinity. "I'm with you."

Despite him speaking apparently so clearly, Noura cannot ignore the stutter in his voice. She cannot figure the cause for it, but for the first time she notices Eskander distraughted and unlike himself.

"Eskander?" Her hand drops from his face to his shoulder, and she hears him take a deep breath.

"They dragged you into this hell and I wasn't there to save you," he begins gently, but the regret is loud in his words. "Heavens, I don't think I've ever ridden a horse so madly as I did last night. I nearly killed the animal."

"I'm sorry." She doesn't know what else to say to him. Suddenly, all words are meaningless and her throat too dry to utter them. Suddenly, his concern for her has her speechless and soaring high in paradise.

"No, Nour, I am sorry."

"You've nothing to apologize for."

"You do not understand. You're too innocent, azizem. You're my angel." He pecks her forehead and hold her face in his hands now. It doesn't matter they cannot clearly make out each other. For her, his gaze on her is already too intense to regard light or darkness to be felt. "This place is not for you. And I'll take you out of here, I promise."

She wants to ask him too many questions. She wants to ask him to explain to her all the secrets. But all she can do is stay still like a statue as he caresses her cheek with his thumb.

But I'm with you. And you're with me.

She thinks and smiles, lifting one hand to hold his wrist. "Did I give the general a scare?" she jokes, trying to ease the tension in the air.

The low rumble of his chuckle sends vibration through her skin where her fingers touch him. Why must everything about him drive her senseless? Why must this love be insane?

"Never have the wars given me such a scare which you did. I haven't ever been so fearful of anything in life as the thought of any harm coming to you."

She feels a warmth nestling in her bosom, slowly spreading through her whole body as she bites her lip to hold back her grin.

"My thoughts terrorized you?" she bugs him. "They traumatized you? Pity. That's not what I've ever wanted."

"Then what do you wish for?" he asks, suddenly sounding serious, and she finds herself tongue-tied. What does she tell him? She cannot lay bare her heart to him like this. She isn't so brave yet to do so.

"A lot of things, Eskander. But not this."

"Then I pray may all your wishes come true. As for this," he tucks back a stray strand of her hair behind her ear, "if your thoughts steal my sleep, they bless me life too."

"Why?" she murmurs subconsciously, not knowing what to expect of him. A confession of love? She laughs at herself. Such folly. Just because Eskander is tender and kind with her doesn't mean he's a man crazy in her love. He has always been that way. Then why is she expecting something else out of it? She admits in her heart that she's hopeless.

"You shared with me my childhood. You're all of my past-- the most beautiful aspect of it," he tells her as if she's oblivious to the laws of the universe. "You're the most precious part of my present. You're the blood of the man and woman who gave me a second life. Without them, I wouldn't be here on my feet-- I wouldn't have come so far. Without you, Nour, I would've no light in my life."

She's once more lost on if it's his regard for her parents or his feelings for her he's stressing upon. It's rather complicated to solve the riddles behind his words and know what's in his heart. She cannot figure if it's only Eskander's care for her or if it's something more.

"Eskander..."

"Yes." He takes her hand in his and lightly squeezes it. "This is what I mean."

Once more, she fails to interpret the said meaning until he elaborates.

"With you, janem, I'm Eskander Teymour, a simple man. You keep me sane-- you guide me. But here in the palace and for everyone else, I'm general Eskander."

She lovingly gazes up at him, as if he's not a man but an angel in her eyes. "And how is the general different than the Eskander I know?"

A smile graces his lips. "Eskander is a man," he gives her only half an answer before stepping away from her. Noura only stares at him in puzzlement.

"What do you mean?" she inquires and he shakes his head in dismay.

"Mother must be worried out of her mind for you," he says instead, and it's only then the distress of being away from her home and the anxiousness for her mother hit her again. "I've send her a messenger to tell her not to worry and that you're here safe with me."

"Thank you."

"I'll look into this affair and then take you back to Isfahan. I cannot let you be here for long, especially when I'm not around myself to keep you under my eyes. I cannot trust anyone with you. The palace is home to no one."

She doesn't say anything in response and he pats her cheek. There are many things bubbling within her, both feelings and queries, for him and the palace. Everything seems like a play of destiny to her. Her life makes no sense at all at the moment.

"Rest now, azizem," Eskander tells her. "I'll see you in the morning. And now when I'm here, you've nothing to be afraid of. I'll fix everything. I'll take care of you."

His promise soothes her. She knows if within these walls there is no one to trust, he'll still be the only one she can risk everything for. Because even if he doesn't love her, his care for her alone is strong enough to fade everyone else into the background.

He turns towards the door and she calls him as her curiosity sizzles her to get the complete answer from him. She cannot help herself.

"Eskander?"

He stops at the threshold and looks at her over his shoulder. "Yes?"

"If Eskander is a man, who is the general?"

"Not a man, Noura."

With that, he leaves, letting her sink into the dense silence that follows after him.

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Binge reading my favorite novel. Never have I ever been so obsessed with a fictional man as this one.

Your favorite?

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