Tell me that you chose me. That you love me. That you crave the darkness.

— Kristina Haynes

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"Sometimes we suffer at the hands of those we love the most."

"The heart or the body?"

"Both."

"Since when did love become this ugly?"

"Since it made suffering a part of it. But suffering only makes it sweet, not ugly."

He looks at the man turning the iron in the fire. It's glowing in the flames. "Why must it be so?"

"Everything precious has a price, ibni (my son). Heaven. Joy. Love. You name it. Nothing good ever is for free. The trials are only to prove your worth to your lover, like a man to his Lord at the trials of life."

"So pain is the price." He watches the man pick up the red hot iron, then turns his face away from him and closes his eyes. "Then I must pay."

He prepares himself for the pain to come.

"Wait for me at the stand, Hafez. I've to go meet someone."

"But sayidati--"

"Don't tell me Eskander will kill you. He won't."

"But if he finds out?"

"Who will tell him?" Noura hands him the reins of her horse as she dismounts it. "No one knows besides you and me. Now will you tell him yourself?"

His gaze flicks around nervously. "I serve him, sayidati. Please don't make me keep this many secrets from him. It'll all come pouring down in the end and the general won't forgive me then."

Noura feels a twinge of guilt in her heart. She has no intentions of making it difficult for him, but she knows if it comes to revelations, Eskander can easily force them out of him. So the best option is keeping him ignorant to her affairs for his own sake.

"I promise Eskander will have to go through me to get to you."

Hafez looks at her desperately, still unconvinced, chewing on his lip. "Why can't you take me with you, sayidati? At least this way I can be at peace."

"If I take you with me, I only create more trouble for you," she refuses. "This way you know nothing, so even if Eskander is to find out, it's only me who's answerable."

Hafez knits his brows, frowning. "Pardon my straightforwardness, sayidati, but if you're meeting someone your brother would mind, then I don't think it's a good idea."

"It isn't." She pulls the hood of her cloak over her head. "Now stay here and don't follow me. I'll return soon."

She turn to leave and Hafez asks, "How long do I wait before I come looking for you?"

Noura smiles at him over her shoulder. "Half hour."

The morning sun has only halfway ascended the sky. The day is young and the bazar is not in its bloom yet, still early for all the rush. She's grateful she doesn't have to bump around into people to find him. She'll find him where she had met him the last time. He must be already waiting for her.

Two more note and two dozen jasmines, those were enough to convince her for coming here. Noura has no idea of how the strange eyed man knows of her whereabouts, that she's at the palace, and who delivered those notes to her chamber. What she's sure of is that he knows her. And she's determined to find out about him too.

I want to see you again. Please come to the bazar in the morning. I'll be waiting for you at the same spot where we met last time.

She arrives at her destination, and true to his words, he's sitting on the same plank set over the cut barks of trees, quietly watching people move around as he waits for her.

Noura makes her way towards him and he looks in her direction when he hears her approaching. A smile instantly forms on his lips and he stands up. She comes to stop a foot away from him.

His smile is the only greeting he offers her; he doesn't say anything more. And Noura stares at him a long moment, once more losing herself in the familiarity of those eccentric orbs, before deciding to slice the silence.

"You've been sending me those notes?"

He nods, a little stiffly, as if anticipating an unfavorably reaction from her. Noura studies his face carefully, his naive expression drawing her towards him as she forgets her previous restlessness. Her shoulders relaxes and she sighs.

"Tell me, how do you know me?"

He gestures towards the plank, silently asking her to sit, and she does so. Her curiosity might kill her someday. The man takes a seat beside her, keeping considerable distance between them.

He picks up his bag from the floor which she only notices now, taking out a notebook and quill with ink from it. It takes her a moment to realize he's going to write down his responses for her. Maybe he really cannot speak.

She watches as he dips the quill in ink and writes something down, then shows it to her.

We've met before.

"When?" Comes her next question right away.

Long time ago. He writes her a reply.

"That's not very specific." She looks into his eyes, as if trying to decipher a message there. "What's your name?"

He shakes his head at this. Noura frowns.

"You cannot tell me?"

He shakes his head again.

"Why not?"

You don't know me.

She reads his next response, feeling puzzled. "How can you say this when we've met and you know me?"

I remember you. But you don't remember me.

"I might if you tell me your name," she insists. When he doesn't comply, she asks, "Where are you from?"

Part of her childhood she has spend in Baghdad. But most of her life she has lived in Isfahan. Maybe his hometown can serve as a clue to her, depending on whether he's from Baghdad, in which case her having forgotten him might make sense since she was a child when she left it, or Isfahan of which she remembers the most.

The man seems to consider her question, as if debating in his head to tell her or not, before writing it down for her.

Dimashq.

This confuses her some more. "I've never been to Dimashq," she tells him. "I don't recall anyone from there either."

To answer her, he scribbles another reply.

We met in Baghdad.

"Ah, makes sense then." She gazes at him, the glint in his orbs seemingly getting brighter the more she talks to him, or maybe it's sunlight, Noura cannot tell. "We must have known each other as children. Although I'm sorry I don't remember much of it. Maybe that's why I cannot recall you. But how did you recognize me?"

To this, he only smiles, yet leaving another mystery for her to unravel before she bids him goodbye. For his name, he sets a price. She comes to see him again and he'll tell her someday.

It's a dangerous bargain, what she's doing. But he seems harmless-- just a poor man, probably a friend from her past, trying to reconnect. So she decides to not let the riddle be unsolved, too stubborn and curious for her own good, hoping she won't have to curse her folly in the future for it.

Later at night, Eskander invites her to his chamber to have dinner together. Despite his attempts at asking her about her whereabouts when she left Hafez behind and disappeared with Saleh, she has been coming up with excuses. Her lies are crystal clear when reflected from Eskander's eyes, but she has buried her shame and he has given up against her.

"Hafez won't leave my side even for a moment." Noura settles on the plush cushions with him where maids are laying table for dinner. "What have you done to traumatize the poor man? His every other statement ends with you killing him."

Eskander laughs at her statement and leans back against the cushions. "He's exaggerating."

"Why don't I believe you?"

He arches an eyebrow, smirking. "Say, what do I do to make you believe me then?"

"You're ruthless, Eskander." She playfully punches his arm. "I've seen you."

He catches her wrist, expression turning sober suddenly, and Noura pauses. "You're afraid of me?"

She blinks incredulously. "Of course not."

Those manly features turn tender at her words which he only allows her to see. "Good. Never be."

He releases her wrist and straightens as a maid fills a goblet for him with wine. For a minute, Noura doesn't know how to react, seeing the liquor flow down like water, and him taking a sip of it as if it's nothing forbidden. In a society where drinking alcohol is a sin, seeing Eskander commit is so casually unsettles her. But she finds herself at loss to voice it out.

He certainly is a changed man. She's only learning more and more with time. And she fears whether she'll be able to handle him or not when he fully bares himself to her. She pushes those thoughts at bay and tries to focus on the moment with him.

"Let's begin, janem."

He smiles at her and she returns it. Eskander dismisses everyone else in the room and they quietly start their meal.

"I leave in a few days, Noura," he begins some time later and Noura becomes attentive at the seriousness of his tone. "And despite my efforts, I cannot take you back home."

She fists her dress and swollows down the bite, staying silent.

"Noura." He now turns to her and she does the same. Eskander reaches out for her face, but doesn't touch it. "I hate him."

She blinks, searching his eyes for an explanation. "Who?"

"Khalifa," he grits. "Al Shafay."

"Eskander," Noura shushes him. "You serve him."

"I wish I never had. I wish I'd stopped right after the rebellion. But I've vowed to dedicate my life to the service of the royal family-- to follow in the footsteps of my forefathers." His fingers lightly graze her jaw. "But I didn't opt for this."

"For what?"

"Sacrificing you." His hand drops back to his side. "This, I cannot, janem."

"Eskander." Noura smiles reassuringly at him. "You won't have to. Whatever it is that the Khalifa wants, I won't submit to him."

He just closes his eyes and pulls away, gulping down his wine before refilling the goblet. "I fear I know what he wants. But I cannot bear the thought of you with another man."

Her heart skips at beat. She wants to ask him to to be simpler, direct in his speech. To tell her what he means in a way that'll leave no doubt in her mind. But she's unable to.

"Take care of yourself, Nour. Even when I'm not with you to do that, take care of yourself for me."

"Eskander." Noura scoots closer to him, taking the goblet from his hand and placing it on the table. "And would you take care of yourself for me?"

He smiles ruefully, as if understanding what she means without her saying it out loud. "I started drinking a long time ago," he begins, and her nerves go raw and aching right away. "There was a woman in my life. She cheated me. I had to drown my misery somehow. But the habit stuck."

Noura doesn't know how to feel about his confession. She doesn't know if he's speaking of it because of his drunkenness or he actually wanted to tell her that. Nonetheless, it's bitter to her taste.

"Who was she?"

"Doesn't matter," he closes the topic. "What matters is that I've gone miles to get you out of my heart, replace you with someone else, but failed. And I don't know when things between us changed and became this complicated-- they just did without me knowing, until it was too late." He leans towards her and Noura holds her breath. "But I'm stained, and you're pure. I've never deserved you."

"Why would you say that?" she whispers, the dream of having this man finally coming true but is suddenly too heavy to carry.

"If you know all of me, would you still gaze at me with this look in your eyes?" Eskander licks his lips, putting his weight on one hand while reaching to hold her hand with the other. "I've to be a devil to live in this hell. You don't like my drinking?"

Noura doesn't answer.

"I've done worse, azizem," he admits and her gut twists in fear. "Killing in the name of survival, drinking in the name of misery, lying in the name of benefit. I ain't so noble. I cheat. I sin. I'm a bad man."

"Why do you tell me all this?"

"I wonder if you'd hate me if you truly know me?"

"You know I never can. You know there's something else entirely in my heart for you," she confesses defeatedly. "You know I long to be in your heart." She traces a finger down the bridge of his nose, down to his lips, before retracting it. "I love you, Eskander."

His eyes go happy, as if life is breathed into them, and he grins. The candlelight flickers in them before he closes them and picks up the goblet again, draining it half.

"You want my heart?" he asks as if it's nothing special to trade. "I'd give you my life, because this heart is rotten." He looks at her-- unguarded and fragile. "This heart is a graveyard, Nour. Family and friends who have left me, unfaithful love and betrayals, everything is buried here. You would wonder for a soldier, my heart should've been a battlefield. But where in a battle one still hopes to conquer, I've surrendered to my destiny. This heart, azizem, is not what others see of me-- it's vulnerable and broken, not strong and ever victorious."

He puts the goblet on the floor between them and the liquor in it shines deep red like blood in the dim glow of the lantern. She shifts her gaze away from it to the man beside her as his head lulls forward involuntarily, reaching out to cup his jaw and face him up, meeting his drunken eyes.

"Then bury me in this graveyard." Noura pushes back his locks from his forehead. "Bury me in your heart, Eskander."

"What we lose we bury in graveyards, mahe-man (my moon). And I don't want to lose you." He lifts his hand to her face. "You're already in my heart, but not buried. You're a ghost-- you haunt me. You're there to graze my every thought with your presence, whether I'm at peace or in a war. You're always there to guide me with your light. You're the hope to keep me going." He finally cups her cheek. "You're the woman I return home to, Nour."

His touch is warm but rough, that of a soldier's skin. Eskander never allows her a full touch, but tonight he seems to have given in. And despite the tread of wrongdoing between them, she finds herself useless to rationality.

"I'm a filthy man, ain't I?" He chuckles humorlessly, those eyes once more dimming dark. "I touch you with fondness and passion. I've become a wolf in sheep's clothes, devouring my own family's shame-- betraying the man and woman who raised me, your parents, as your brother. I'm sorry I'm guilty, but it was never intentional."

"Eskander." Noura puts her palm over his mouth, begging him quietly not to go there. "You're Teymour's son. I'm Al Makhzum's daughter. We're not the same blood," she reasons. "You're a Persian from Isfahan. I'm an Arab from Baghdad. You're not my brother. That's not how I see you. If I ever did, that was too long ago for me to even fully understand it. So don't blame yourself."

He scrubs his face, gathering himself. "Mother sent me a message: take care of your sister," he says sardonically and her throat clenches. "I've started to hate this word: sister. I don't like it anymore when people associate you with me like this."

Noura feels herself being pulled in a whirlpool. The complexity of their situation disarray her logic. She doesn't know how to assure Eskander, or herself even.

"We've no power over our hearts, do we?" she mumbles.

He stares at her and she sinks into those honey orbs. "I wish you were just any other woman but not Noura Al Makhzum. I wish I was any other man but not Eskander Teymour. You wouldn't be the daughter of the couple who gave me a family, and I wouldn't be a boy raised at your house." He inches closer to her, tilting his head, and she stays still like a stone statue in front of him. "I might be a sinner, but I wish nature wouldn't make you another forbidden thing for me. Because I still want you, Nour. And this love is burning me."

Noura releases a shuddering breath as he lowers his head to rest his forehead against her shoulder. Like a child, Eskander nuzzles the crook of her neck, as if seeking comfort only she can provide him. Hesitantly, Noura runs her fingers through his hair, speechless, not knowing how to justify their feelings or ease his torment.

"Janem?" he whispers.

"Yes?" she whispers back.

"I'll take you back home, I promise."

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Surprise awaiting. Guess what?

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