CHAPTER TWO

HE SNEERED AT THIS GIRL.

"I had expected more from you," he breathed out. "But you're just like the rest of them. Doing everything they can to survive their last night."

"They did it to save their lives, no matter how sinful their actions were." Her eyes had gone just as cold as Khai's.

Two could play this dangerous game.

And she intended to win.

He moved the blade across her neck just slightly, checking to see if she would flinch and cry out. Mazeeda did neither. That pleased him. "And your plan is to tell me a story?"

The story began to take shape, pieces of the tale coming to her at an absurd rate. Each one she plucked from the air.

"Yes." She tilted her neck farther back, exposing her beautiful chestnut skin to him. She would entrance him into a story until the next morning came.

He shook his head. "You foolish girl, not even your stories can save your beautiful throat." His voice sounded desperate and maddening to Mazeeda.

And she took advantage of it.

"In my village," she stalled, "those who had the tongue of a storyteller was looked upon like a smallgod. This was because not everyone was gifted with telling stories of the past well enough."

His grin loosened, but not to her liking.

She continued when he said nothing more. "I am the best storyteller in my village, second to my mother."

He wanted to see how well her words stood. And if they didn't, he'd kill her at a moments notice.

Khai carefully removed his dagger, tucking it back into its spot, leaving her blood on it.

She could finally breathe. But she could not move away from him, his grip like iron on her henna hand.

She didn't know if curiosity got the better of him, like a baby opening a basket to only find a poisonous snake in it, because he said, "What is this story you wish to tell me?"

And like that snake, she would strike.

She held back her smile. "This is a story about how the sun loved the moon so much, it died everyday to let it live." A pause. "Legend goes that on the longest day and the longest night, these two lovers take the form of a human. It was a forbidden love, for their kind was always been at war, wanting to dominate the sky for themselves."

"War is a necessary evil," Khai stated blatantly.

She scowled down at him. "It is not. Those who look up to war as a solution are weak-minded, for they can only speak with their hands and not their mouths. There are other alternatives when traveling down the road of hate. For that is what these lovers did. They had known each other for a long time."

"How can they if they were rivals?"

This time, Mazeeda smiled. "Funny what love can do."

His face twisted in disgust. "Love, my dear, makes men weak and cowards. It poisons their bodies from the inside out."

"And yet," she told him patiently, "it made them strong. Her name was Leila and she could move the roughest seas and the harshest oceans. She was a fighter."

Mazeeda accidently caught his gaze as said, "His name was Sharik and he brought life to the deadliest and coldest things. He was a dreamer.

And on a particular day where many warriors fell on both sides, Leila had come down from the heavens to say prayers to her warriors and bring them to peace. She never lingered long on the battlefield, but she compelled to that day. As she walked through the blood soaked field with dead bodies scattered everywhere with only a lamp in her hand, she found amongst the pale blue of skins a bronze one. Still breathing.

It was a Sun warrior."

The gold she knew peaked through the dark curtains, a warm touch against her face. It was a new dawn. She had done it.

"It was Sharik, wasn't it?"

She blinked twice before answering his question. "That is to be known when night comes again. It is dawn now."

"No," he demanded. "You will tell me now. No storyteller would leave a tale open like that."

"That is what storytellers like me do. We leave it open on purpose. Because in the end, they're just words spilt into the air; taking no shape or manifestation."

"You play a dangerous game, my love." He brought her hand to his lips and gently kissed it. His lips were unexpectedly warm and soft. But the words that came out of it were not.

He slowly got up and Mazeeda took this opportunity to move away from him. She rubbed the place he laid his kiss. "A game you are trapped in as well."

He scoffed a laugh, his dark hair catching in the scintillating light just perfectly.

Again, flawless.

It was disgusting.

"So it seems," he told her before swiftly closing the door behind him.

THE SOUND OF GLASS SHATTERING woke Mazeeda up. She clutched the silk sheets to her chest, alert. When she realized it was the maids from last night, she loosened up.

"My...my Lady."

Mazeeda got up from the plush and extravagant bed that was too big for her liking and began to pick up the spilled fragments that looked like diamonds. Her hands were careful and meticulous, avoiding any cuts.

"Malika," her maid mustered out, as she too was picking up the bits and pieces, "please leave this task to me." Once again, she avoided eye contact.

The Calipha stopped what she was doing. "It's Mazeeda.."

The maid finally looked up. "Yes, I know." A pause. "I'm Adelah."

"Now," she told Adelah. "Why is it that this cup has nothing in it?"

The maid hesitated. "There came a point where bringing in hot black tea to dead girls became too much for me to bear. And it was a waste to see the tea dumped away in the kitchen. So I begged the Caliph to allow me to bring in an empty cup of tea."

Mazeeda sent a quiet prayer towards Adelah before saying, "There's no need for that anymore."

|AUTHOR'S NOTE|

And so our story begins! How is it so far?

pronunciation:

Leila: Ley-lah