But in solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

—

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"Can I play with your sword?"

The young prince stops swinging his wooden sword and turns to her. She's eagerly waiting for him to give it to her, already reaching for it before he can agree.

"This?" He holds it out of her reach. "This is mine."

"I'll give it back," Noura insists, and he seems to consider it before handing her his sword. She takes it grinning, swinging it around happily and poking him in the abdomin with it. The prince patiently waits for her until she has fulfilled her exhilaration of using it. She then returns it to him and he takes it back, running away to play with the other kids.

Noura comes to him where he's sitting upon a wooden horse, faking to ride it. She kicks a stone at her feet.

"Do you have a sword too, JooJoo?"

"What's your name?"

Two curious eyes stare back at her upon her question and answer it back with silence. They gleam under the sun, one like warm honey and the other like deep ocean. His lips remain set in a thin line and he doesn't make an effort to so much as utter a word to her. Noura stares back at him, a little abashed.

"Do you remember me?" she asks again. "I stumbled into you a few days back and spilled your milk."

No response. He continues gazing at her as if a statue carved out of stone, expressionless and unmoving. Noura shifts her weight from one foot to another, titling her head at him, feeling lost.

"You don't speak?" She takes a step closer, and he takes it a sign that she wants to sit, so he scoots away on the plank, creating room for her. Noura looks between him and the empty space. At least he moved.

She takes out a few coins from her pouch, more than the price of milk, and hold them out to him. "Here, for your milk I spilled."

He doesn't attempt to take it from her, so she just puts it on the plank beside him. He looks at the coins, then back up at her, still not saying anything. He might be mute, Noura thinks, feeling sorry some more for the man.

"Take it," she requests. "I'd like it if you can keep them. Consider it my apology."

Silence. That's all he offers her, his bewitching eyes still on her, as if speaking to her what his mouth cannot say, a language she cannot understand. They grow tender, maybe raw, as Noura tries to keep afloat and not drown in them. Something about them breeds nostalgia-- she feels spellbound.

"Have we met before?" she finally asks the question plaguing her. For some reason she feels like the answer to it is yes. She just needs an affirmation from him.

"Please nod if we have," she tells him, now more than half sure he's probably mute. But he doesn't nod, neither shake his head. Maybe like her, he isn't sure either. She sighs and then offers him a small smile.

"Alright, I shall go now. Take care, stranger."

Before she can turn around to leave, he suddenly stands up, coming to tower over her. He's tall and well built which she only notices now when he's standing more closer to her and she's more attentive. Despite the cloak around his shoulders and the loose tunic, his physique clearly reflects that of a man trained and having fought in wars, or she could be mistaken, but that's what her logic tells her, added to the scar over the angle of his jaw and other running down his neck to disappear under his clothes, seemingly made with something sharp-- a dagger or sword. She shifts her gaze up and it clashes with his.

He leans down to pick up the coins she has left him, holding them out back to her. Noura blinks in perplexity, not sure of what to gather of it.

"I want you to keep them," she repeats. "I owe them to you."

He keeps standing there like that, coins lying on his open palm extended to her, silently asking her to take them back. She shakes her head at him.

"I won't take them back. I--"

She spots Annas in a distance walking in their direction, probably looking for her, and she decides to flee before he finds her chatting with a stranger.

"I should go," Noura rushes, turning on her heels. But the man follows after her. She turns back to him. He's still holding the coins in his fisted hand. "Please--"

Before she could say anything more, he turns around and walks towards a bush at the end of a street, plucking a small white jasmine from it and bringing it to her. He holds it out for her and Noura stares at him in astonishment. Though it might be adorable, maybe he wants to be nice to her for making it up to him, maybe it's his way of showing his gratitude, yet there's still something about him that tangles her intellect.

"If I take it, will you keep the money?" she asks him.

This time, he gives her a small nod, a faint smile forming on his lips. Noura cannot help the grin crawling her own face. She carefully takes the jasmine from him, giving him a lingering look, unable to shake off the familiarity towards him, before turning around and walking away from him. She glances back over her shoulder to see he if he's still there, but she finds him gone.

When she arrives at the stand, Hafez is there waiting for her. He appears to have turned into a corpse and comes alive upon seeing her, striding towards her. Noura gives him an apologetic look.

"Sayidati, where did you go to? I was out of my mind worrying."

"I went looking for the man," she excuses.

"If general Eskander comes to know I've been this negligent, he'll put my head on a pike."

"You make him sound like Pharoah," she comments as she pets the mane of her horse. "See, I'm back in one piece, ain't I, Buruj?"

"You've given the horse a name." Hafez comes to stand behind her.

"Yeah." She smiles at him. "What do you think of it?"

"Stars," he translates before saying, "it's beautiful."

"Thank you."

"You like stars, sayidati?"

"I do, very much so."

"Your brother does so too," he comments and Noura turns to him. "He spends so long staring at them every night on the battlefields, sitting alone by the fire even after it burns out."

The corners of her mouth twitch up at the information. "He tells me."

"He looks like a lost traveler trying to find his way through them in the endless desert." Hafez grins. "Sometimes we would wonder what the general is trying to find in them."

Our entangled constellation. Noura thinks and bites down another smile.

"Sayidati?" Hafez holds up a clay pot to her. "What do we do with the milk now?"

She waves it off. "Give it to someone in need, Hafez. I cannot take it to the palace with me and explain to Eskander why I needed milk."

Hafez chuckles and nods. "Alright. We better leave soon. General will be waiting for us."

It's not long before Annas returns and all of them make their way back to the palace. True enough, Eskander is waiting for them at the stables. Noura dismounts her horse and goes straight to him. He receives her with a smile.

"How did it go?"

"Good enough," she replies.

"Did you find everything you need?"

"I did."

He then directs to Annas. "Did you deliver my message to Hadi, Annas?"

"Yes, sayidi."

"Was he fine? Did he need anything?"

"He was well, sayidi. He said he didn't need anything and looks forward to your visit."

Eskander nods satisfactorily before dismissing the men and guiding Noura out of the stables towards the gardens.

"Who is Hadi, Eskander?" she asks him, having now heard his name multiple times from him.

"My friend," he answers. "He's a merchant. Some time ago he came to Baghdad for trade, but he was looted on his way here. I'm trying to provide for him as much as I can to make up for his loss."

Noura feels her heart swell up with pride at his words. She glances at him, the dusk casting a golden glow over his tanned skin, the tip of his nose and his sharp features seeming to cut the light from the overcast sky like a knife, grazing his eyelashes and sparing his eyes, making them appear darker from the angle she's looking at him. He can be loud as the thunder of colliding clouds, blinding like lightning, or relentless like hailing sky, but for her, Eskander is a tender kiss of soft drizzle on a warm day, promising tranquility.

The world can see him as a general-- a fighter born to kill and unsparing. They can see his through the lens of bloodshed. But for her, he'll forever be the man born of stardust and lost in constellations.

"How did you like the Amira (princess)?"

His question breaks her trance and she takes a moment to rearrange her thoughts and come out of her fantasies before answering him.

"She's a sweet soul."

He only hums in approval.

"You both have been friends?" Noura cannot help asking, recalling the informality with which Maysoon referred to him.

"I cannot be friends with a princess, azizem. I serve her family," he denies.

"She was rather casual talking about you."

"I served prince Sulaiman during the time when Yusuf bin Khalid was still the caliph," he tells her. "Prince Sulaiman was governor of Dimashq back then, and princess Maysoon was living in his palace with him. I was her guard before being promoted to a higher rank and sent to Ar Raqqa."

"Ah." Noura looks at him in surprise. "You didn't tell me this."

"Well, now you know."

"Yes, but you don't mention anything anyway."

Eskander chuckles at the complaint in her tone. "There's not much worthy of mentioning, azizem."

"I see. That's why she calls you Eskander, while for everyone else you're the general," Noura wonders out loud. "Like I call Hafez, Hafez. I can't imagine calling him general Hafez if he someday becomes one." She laughs softly at her own joke, but Eskander doesn't join her.

He simply puts a hand over her back, his touch so light she can barely feel it there, moving her closer to himself. "Listen to me, Noura," he utters lowly, suddenly sounding serious, and Noura turns to him in puzzlement. "The palace is a dark place, never be deceived by its glitter. Within its walls, demons dwell. And over here, everyone is carrying a dagger stained with blood stabbing one another in the back."

She doesn't know why out of no where, Eskander is telling her this. But she doesn't interrupt him and allows him to continue.

"If I'm not around and you've to survive here on your own-- if you've to save your life at the cost of another-- don't think twice." She hears his grave, ominous advise that makes the hair on her body stand in alarm. He's asking her to kill-- take a life if need be. Something is wrong, her instincts tell her. "Use your wit and numb your feelings, because these people have their conscience put to rest. Remember, no one here deserves your love, so cage your heart, janem."

She stops walking, and so does he. They face each other and Noura tips up her chin, quietly asking for an explanation.

"The Ameer wants to send back me to the borders, Nour," he tells her, and suddenly he's a shadow against the setting sun which her fingers try to grasp but come empty.

"What do you mean?" She swallows drly. "You're leaving?" Her voice shakes in disbelief and something else-- blooming ache and a newborn yearning. She stares blankly at him.

"Not yet, but maybe soon," he confesses defeatedly. "I've tried to delay it, but Ameer Zakariya insists. I suggested to send another general in place of me, let me be with you as long as you're here at the palace, but he doesn't agree."

She tries to formulate a response but nothing comes out, flabbergasted against his revelation. "But, I-- without you here?" Noura stammers, helplessly searching his eyes.

Eskander pecks her head, as if to reassure her, before saying, "You're my angel, Nour. I'll get you out of here. But if I fail to, then don't forget that some angels are created to bring demolition upon the devils. If you've to be one such angel, then be." He smiles, but it's a forbidden one. "Otherwise I can very well be a demon and leave this place in shambles if they so much try to hurt a hair on your head."

She steals her gaze from him. Something weighs down on the words in her throat.

"If I must go, I'll appoint more guards for you," Eskander adds. "I'll ask the Amira to appoint maids for you too from among her trustworthy women."

Noura doesn't say anything, the thought of him leaving already heavy in her stomach.

"The Ameer has told me they're looking for the culprit behind this incident with the seal and hopefully will find him soon."

She doesn't know how to tell him that they cannot-- that they never will. How does she tell him it's the caliph himself? She has no proof.

Eskander continues, "If they catch him before I leave, I'll take you home with me. But if I leave earlier than that, then Fereydun is to stay some more before he takes off to Khurasan. I'll ask him to take you with him. You can trust him and can go to him anytime if you've any problem."

Words are too meaningless now to be spoken. No matter what she says to him, the chaos wrecked in her heart cannot be tamed. It's spreading like a wildfire within her and everything in her turns to ashes with each passing second.

Eskander is leaving. And she has to be on her own, without him.

That night she returns to her chamber broken hearted. That night she decides not to stargaze. She wants to sleep and wake up in her home with her mother, thinking of it to be another day when Eskander is leaving and her having to count seconds until he returns whilst not burning in hell.

When she gets into her bed, she finds a small piece of paper lying on her pillow in a bundle of jasmines, the fragrance of it to much to have been overlooked. Noura picks up the note and brings it to the candlelight to read it.

I remember you, but how tragic that you don't remember me, Noura.

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Wondering how I've been on an update streak? You've TheaMayy to thank for it. She and I were having writing sessions together with daily target of finishing and publishing a chapter. Today, she completes her first book. So congratulations to my girl and if you haven't yet checked her work, drop by now and share your love. Not only is she a darling, but her writing is magical too! (:

I may or may not be able to keep up with these daily updates now onwards.

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