18| The Unerring Promise Of Something More

This is a long one. I hope you enjoy. Thanks to everyone for all the love and duas. It made my day.

Also your lovely comments forced me to write. ❤

I'd like to clear one thing, if there are questions that I am not answering regarding the story, it's only to not kill the suspense. It's a romantic thriller and I need you to trust me. As the story unfolds, you'll understand everything that might have not made sense.

Just please trust me.

Thankyou!

There is a part in the chapter where the shahadh is said. I've written it half, complete it for me in the comments if you are a Muslim and if you are a non Muslim, just drop a ❤ I want to see how many of you read the author's note lmao🙈

T H E   U N E R R I N G   P R O M I S E    O F       S O M E T H I N G    M O R E

Hayat looked up at the starlit sky above. It was a deep blue, with a crescent moon wrapped in a fleece of passing clouds. The sky seemed to stretch on without an end, its horizon curving to meet the sand on either side. Its blinking stars were a study in contrasts, some flashing in merriment, others winking in wicked suggestion, all but pretending to be oblivious to the tyranny of humans on earth, precisely in the atrocious and barbaric Kingdom of Hudaan, where life of it's people was too cheap and death was too easy.

She didn't want to look at the gallows, the dais at which she herself had been standing not long ago, preparing herself for her inevitable death.

People were cheering all around her, and she tried not show the anger she felt at everyone.

A man was being murdered and the people were rejoicing.

For them he was a traitor, not somebody's father or husband, not somebody's brother, son or friend. They were executing him to make an example of him. Hayat didn't want to watch the execution but it was an order from the King that every dweller, every guard, khadim and kaneez of AL Qasr had to watch him die. They didn't care if some people were weak. They didn't care if some people didn't have the courage to face death.

Her head had been swirling, she couldn't cry because that would make her look like a traitor too, she bit her lower lip, hard enough that she tasted blood. Leila had stood beside her. She was not standing in the crowd, she stood on a seperate elevated platform along with the other important people of the palace and it was still crowded.

Hayat knew she wouldn't be able to watch it. Painful memories of blood flashed right infront of her eyes. To avoid the fishy glance of the people, she kept looking up at the sky from time to time, occasionally glancing at the dais.

When the khadim's hands had been fastened just the way Hayat's had been, beads of sweat began to form at her forehead.

"To every man and woman of the Kingdom.." The head guard read from the scroll, "This is to inform each one of you that no traitor will ever be welcomed in AL Qasr. If you ever try to conspire against the kingdom or the King, your fate will be similar to his. Each one of you has to watch the execution. Do not try to look away or it'll be treated as disrespect."  Hayat wanted to pull her hair out of frustration. These people were monsters.

Heartless monsters!

She looked at Tayyab, who stood at the front of the dais. He was looking at her and she didn't know what to make of his expressions.

All she knew was that she definitely looked devastated and if she watched the execution take place, she'd either throw up or faint.

Time seemed to have slowed for her as the executioner began to sharpen his blade.

Everything she saw sped up, but her own movements were slowing down. She watched Tayyab walk towards her, she wanted to curl up and vanish if possible.

A lot of people gave him a puzzled look because other than him, everyone else  stood firmly in their place.

Some curious gaze even followed him till he reached Hayat. Hayat tightly fisted the sides of her shamla but didn't look away. He stood right infront of her.

"I've been looking for you." He rasped. Hayat remained clueless and Leila moved away, giving them space.

Tayyab took the vacant place right beside her, and watched the execution along with her, the executioner was almost done with his preparations. Hayat dreaded the moment when the khadim's blood would be spilt across the floor.

Her uneven breaths were not helping her either. She couldn't concentrate on one thing completely because Tayyab stood so close to her, their hands almost brushed against each other. "Be careful the next time." Tayyab said.

Hayat turned her head so fast to look at him that she almost gave herself a whiplash. He continued to stare at the dais as she continued to look at him. His eyes softened, almost imperceptibly.

His light stubble had grown into a heavy one. She watched with fascination as his Adam's apple bobbled. She wanted to ask him what he meant but now was not the time. She began to avert her gaze again, to settle it on the dais when Tayyab leaned into her ever so slightly, she could feel his warm breath fanning her earlobe. For a second, she didn't know how to react. She felt a weird sensation as her heart skipped a beat. "Use the side stairways instead to watch the tournament. The view is more clear there and you'll be safe too." He whispered before pulling back and her throat went dry. He spoke so casually as if they were watching some sport and not an execution, as if it meant nothing.

She hadn't expected it.

She stared at him gobsmacked and was only out of her trance when she heard the traitor say the shahadah, "La Ilaaha..." She turned her gaze towards the stage again, the executioner's blade had been drawn, he was about to pierce it through his neck. Hayat felt bile rise in her throat. The crowd began to cheer and shout.

Traitor!

This is what you deserve!

She only started to have a panic attack as she watched the blade come down, it triggered the memories of her past. But before she could watch the blade cut through his delicate skin, before she could see his beheaded face, she heard Tayyab bellow in pain from beside her, "Aaaghhh! Shit!" Hayat was immediately distracted. He jerked his left hand and shut his eyes out of agony. A few people who heard him amidst the cheerful screams of the crowd, began to usher towards them with fear and concern. The guards had hurried first and began to push them both away from the platform,  away from the crowd. She heard Usman bark orders to the guards but she couldn't hear him properly. Hayat frowned when she looked at his bleeding hand. She carefully held his hand to scrutinize the wound.

His right palm had been cut, it was a deep wound because blood incessantly oozed out of it. "How did it happen?" Hayat asked him in confusion as they were taken away from the noise. "I don't know." He said passively.

It only made her frown further. They were taken back to the premises of AL Qasr. "Nephew!" Altamash walked from behind them, his voice laced with concern. "What happened? Are you alright?"

"Yes! It's just a small wound."

Altamash dipped his head to take look at Tayyab's injury too. "It is deep. Did someone attack you?"

"No. I don't know. It happened too quickly. I think I must have unknowingly touched something sharp. Nobody would have dared to attack right there." Tayyab replied nonchalantly.

Hayat gave him a puzzled look but didn't say a word. She had already realised that he did it for her. To distract her, protect her. She hated him more for it because it challenged her perspective of him. It soften her heart for him and made her realise how weak she was.

She could still hear the voices from the gallows. They celebrated his death.

Maybe he was someone who the rebels blackmailed, just like they'd done to her. Hayat wanted to cry. The rebels were no less. They didn't save one of their own.

"It's fine. I have to take a leave. The palace has to be searched for the missing maps and the traitor before everyone returns from the gallows." She heard Altamash inform. Hayat's body had gone rigid but then her legs had begun to wobble.

Hayat ignored the conversation that further took place between Tayyab and his uncle. She felt a sharp pounding in her head, and then black dots began to form. She swayed like she would faint but she felt Tayyab hold  her in a sudden firm grip.

The contact itself jolted her to slight consciousness, "Hayat!" She tried to blink as he called her name, an oasis in a desert. "Ye.. es." She almost whispered. "Are you alright?" His brows were furrowed in confusion. He only held her left hand but when she began to sway a little more, she was lifted off her feet by Tayyab.

"What's wrong with her?" Altamash asked. "She is Hemophobic." She heard Tayyab reply. She tried to protest but felt weak.

Tayyab dismissed her protests as he carried her away from the carnage, with a few guards following close behind. By the time they crossed the threshold, she felt better, more awake. "I can walk now. I feel fine. You are bleeding yourself."  She protested but Tayyab ignored her, his jaws were clenched as if in pain but apart from that, he showed no reaction.

Failed, she tensed her grip around his neck as he continued down the hall. Once they rounded the corner, soldiers burst through the doors too, Yousef was one of them. "Is she hurt?" He demanded in an urgent voice.

“I’m fine,” she replied, momentarily taken aback by his concern.

"Then why is there so much blood on your dress?" He countered and Hayat realised, it was Tayyab's blood. "That's his blood. He is bleeding. Please let go of me, I can walk." Again, he refused to look at her, much less respond. "She almost fainted. I'll take her to my chamber." He said to Yousef and began walking again.

"I am sending someone to look after your wound." Yousef shouted from behind them.

They moved down the hallways with guards lighting their path, encircling them in a gleaming bastion of steel and torchfire. Her mind had been a chaos. She wasn't sure whether the royal chambers would be searched for too. It was the only thought that kept her sane in the moment. It helped her ignore the touch of his skin and the sensation it brought. She reminded herself that it was only because she hadn't been touched by another man for a very long time.

Ahmer had never refrained from holding hands and hugging her at times. She just missed it.

Deciding to cede this particular battle, Hayat leaned against Tayyab, closing her eyes to the glare for an instant, and his hold on her tightened.

They turned down another, smaller corridor that Hayat had never seen before. It was lined in stone with an arched ceiling of smooth alabaster. Soon they halted before a set of double doors made of polished ebony, hinged in bronze and iron.

"Everyone can leave." Tayyab commanded and the guards came to a halt. There was a situation of chaos at AL Qasr. Search had already begun.

A guard nodded briskly before pulling on one of the bronze handles. Tayyab walked through the huge, ebony doorway with Hayat in his arms. He did not put her down. Instead, he crossed a pitch-black antechamber to another set of doors identical to the first. Once they passed this threshold, they entered a vast room with a vaulted ceiling lit in its center by a single lamp of latticed gold.

Tayyab set Hayat on the edge of a platformed bed covered in dull silk. Then he strode to an immense ebony cabinet positioned against the back wall and brought her water.

"Drink." He offered and Hayat did because she was too thirsty.

He then knelt before her and Hayat watched him with bewilderment as he began to remove her Khussa shoes using his one hand, he refrained from any direct contact with her skin.

He paused when they heard a knock at the door. Tayyab immediately got up, "Come in."

A young woman came in with a container, a pitcher and a strip of linen. "Sayyidi!" She bowed. "I am here to tend to your wounds." She replied politely and for some unknown reason Hayat felt irritated. "I'll do it." She said and began to get up.

"No." Tayyab immediately countered. "You are not fine. You need to rest. I can do it myself." He said but Hayat ignored her.

She ambled towards the kaneez and took the tray from her. The knaeez left the chamber and Hayat walked back to the bed. "I can do it. Please lie down." Tayyab said but Hayat ignored again.

"Sit." She commanded with authority and saw a small smile tug on his lips at the sheer audacity of her to command a prince but nonetheless he obliged.

Tayyab sat on the edge of the bed and Hayat sat beside him placing the tray in between them. He offered her his wounded hand, and she poured water from the pitcher onto a strip of linen and lifted it to his hand and began cleaning the wound.

Lines of dried blood ran across his palm, marring his pale skin.

She had so much to ask him, so many questions that conjured her mind at the moment but she couldn't bring herself to do that.

She didn't look at his face for it would distract her. She knew he studied her face as she worked. "I am sorry." He almost whispered. "For what?" She dabbed the cloth in water, and watched as it's colour changed to that of blood.

"Everything!" He sounded so sad that Hayat couldn't help but raise her gaze to look at his face. The dark circles beneath his eyes were even more pronounced now.

His features were set on edge, and he refused to meet her gaze as if out of shame. The angles of his profile remained obdurate. Unyielding. Like the edges of a rumpled scroll, demanding to be smoothed or cast aside, once and for all.

There was another knock at the door and this time Hayat got up as an awkward silence began to spread between them.

"Come in."

The general barged in panting so hard, Hayat thought he'd collapse. He looked at her and then at Tayyab, "Tayyab, you need to come with me. It's urgent." He said in between his pants. Tayyab at once was walking towards the door, but then he paused and said, "Stay here."

Then he was gone.

When the door shut behind him, her eyes wandered around the room, taking in her surroundings with the careful study of a predator to its prey.

The floor was constructed of black onyx, and the walls were hewn from the same smooth alabaster as the corridor leading to the entrance of the antechamber. All the furniture was built of ebony, crafted in harsh lines. Every surface was stark and unobstructed. The bed lacked the bold surfeit of cushions Hayat had grown accustomed to in her own bed—that familiar, lush vibrancy, yearning to be lounged upon.

Like its occupant, this chamber appeared cold and uninviting—unlikely to offer the slightest hint of clarity.

This chamber is like a prison, once removed.

She sighed to herself, and the sound susurrated back at her from the heights of the vaulted ceiling. Hayat paced around the perimeter of the room, her bare footsteps leaving imprints on the shining black onyx. Then, like a whisper of a suggestion, they vanished without a trace.

The single lamp in the chamber’s center looked eerie and forlorn. It failed to provide enough light, rendering its flickering shadows more baleful than beautiful against the cool white alabaster.

It was a sad place to call a refuge, with just as unyielding an aspect as its master.

It could in no way be called the chamber of a prince.

The more Hayat gazed at the chamber, the more she realized, and the less she understood. Everything had a specific place in this room—a designated order to its existence. The only things out of place were she and the bloodstained strips of linen at the edge of the platformed bed. Any evidence of life—or lingering emotions—did not belong.

She didn't want to touch his belongings, she was rather disgusted by the way she reacted in front of him when she clearly hated him when he was not with her.

Her mind began to wander back to what could happen if her room was searched and the map was found. She had come to know that the man who died had been caught with a letter that asked him to collect the map from her.

They were going to search every female chamber in AL Qasr.

If she wanted, she could put the blame on her  kaneez but she knew she'd rather die than watch an innocent being killed for her doings.

Hayat willed the doors to open with the force of her unflinching stare. Met by the same stoic silence as always, she finally decided to leave his chamber and go to hers.

She walked past the guards in the corridor, asking her way out since she didn't know her way quite well. Once she identified a familiar corridor, she rushed to her hallway.

Her heart fell when she saw Aziz, Ali and a few other guards in her corridor. They were looking into one of the chambers in her corridor and she feared hers would be next. She almost forgot how to breathe. She strode towards them, "What are you doing?" They turned around upon hearing her voice.

"The search has to be carried out properly my lady and we can't leave any chamber at all." Aziz answered while Ali tried to avoid meeting her gaze. "You can't search my room." Aziz raised an eyebrow, "And why would that be?" He scrutinized her.

"I am part of the royal family. Is your room being searched too?" Hayat asked him back. "Are you out of your mind?" He challenged her. "Sayyidi we didn't find the map here." One of the guards who came out of the room beside her's informed.

"Move to the next room." Aziz ordered.

Hayat's heart shuddered as she protested, "You can't. I am part of the royalty too." She repeated helplessly.

"I think I should call your brother, Ya Sayyidi." Ali suggested but Aziz gave him a sharp look and he went quite. "Search her room." Hayat felt the walls close from all around her as she watched, the guards move to her door.

"Step aside!" Called a voice from behind them with an authority that made the guards cease all actions immediately, a voice that Hayat had grown to recognize even in her dreams.

Tayyab walked towards her chamber, "Brother, you know how sensitive it is. It is the order of the King, that every chamber has to be searched." Aziz groaned.

"Yet ours wouldn't be touched." Hayat watched Tayyab as he spoke, his features careful, his composure deliberate, though his eyes revealed a deeper conflict he no longer fought to conceal.

"She has motive to seek revenge from us. She could surely conspire against us."

"I trust her Aziz." He remained stone-faced, the conflict in his eyes warring on. Something in Hayat's stomach churned at his words. Her heart began to feel heavy, like a sudden weight, a burden had been placed upon it.

"If she is innocent, she has nothing to be scared of." Aziz argued. Tayyab took a step in front of Aziz, his head held high, "I want you to search her chamber and not the guards. When you are done with your search and you find nothing, I want you to apologize to my wife in front of everyone present here for disrespecting her." Tayyab stated.

Aziz's eyes narrowed for a split second but without a word he entered her chamber.

She prayed for some miracle. She didn't want to die and some ugly part of her brain didn't want to see the triumphant face of Aziz and the sadness on the face of her husband on being proved wrong. "Nobody moves from here till the search of this chamber is done." Tayyab commanded to every guard in the corridor.

Hayat could only feel the fear and anxiety.

That sense of anxiety when you realise that you are about to fail. If you can't move quickly enough, the liminality between the realization of your death and your desperation for life--that kind of terror wrecked Hayat.

Her palms and feet were cold, so cold.

She didn't dare to steal a glance at Tayyab or anybody for that matter.

She waited for Aziz to come out and announce her failure to everyone. To tell everyone that she was a traitor. Some part of her treacherous heart didn't want to see the disappointment in Tayyab's and Ali's eyes.

Ten minutes passed by as Hayat went restless. She wondered if it would be a good idea to kill herself with the sword that was dangling around Ali's waist.

She could also kill Tayyab first and then herself. Her revenge would be complete and she wouldn't have to have to watch herself go to her doom.

It would only take a second.

But the thought made her want to puke for some unknown reason. Hayat curled her fingers tight, forcing herself to recall a time when she hadn't had such weird feelings for Tayyab. A time when he meant less than nothing to her, and all that mattered was blood for blood.

She didn't want to accept it but something had changed, she no longer saw the same boy before her. Just light amidst a sea of darkness, and the unerring promise of something more. But she never saw the things she should see. The pain, the anger, the betrayal were all still there but the magnitude of it had decreased. These things always faded, and she despised herself for it.

She cursed herself for the way she had started to feel.

Her feelings were now in a constant battle against each other.

The next moment Aziz walked out of her room, and Hayat looked at him with dreadful eyes, searching for the map in his hands but she couldn't find it.

"The map was not in there." Aziz said out of frustration, looking a little embarrassed too.

Tayyab’s features smoothed knowingly.

He raised an eyebrow at Aziz and Aziz heaved a sigh of dejection, "Apologize my lady! I didn't mean to offend you. I only want what's best for the kingdom. Forgive me." His stoic apology didn't matter. Hayat's heart had been racing. Tayyab only nodded his head once. The guards watched in amusement but none said a word.

How had he not found it? Did he not look in the drawer?

"Go to the west wing." Aziz barked orders and the guards immediately began to move once again.

Aziz walked away, leaving Tayyab, Hayat and Ali alone.

When he was out of sight Tayyab looked at her. His expressions gave away nothing of what went through his mind. "Rest! You must be tired." He didn't question her why she'd left his chamber. Hayat wanted to thank him but she couldn't form words.

He didn't wait for her to say anything for he made an about turn and left along with Ali.

Hayat rushed into her chamber and bolted the doors, she looked at her messed up room,  most of her belongings were scattered. She went for the drawer first, the drawer in which she had kept the map.

She had to burn it or throw it away.

But when she opened it and looked beneath the books, she didn't find the map.

It was gone.

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