Fortune Favors the Cursed
the-reticent-seer
diverselit
diverselit
1.3K5
An orphan girl with questionable morals. A scarred prince with two lives. One relic to change their world.
* * *
Badriya As-Sahra is sick of piling up camel dung and ...Chapter 30
It was her all along.
She was the one whom he saved that night from the dune robbers. The one who accompanied him in the desert during his failed quest.
The one who almost killed him.
The one who erased his memory.
Badriya had the Jewel, and Kareem was its djinni. He was telling the truth that day. No wonder she was able to redesign the palace in a short amount of time. No wonder she was so wealthy and well-known all of a sudden. It wasn't because she was part of the Crescent Order like he initially thought. He even thought of talking to her about it while they danced.
All these thoughts raced in Ayaz's mind as he pulled away from Badriya. His lips still burned from their kiss that seemed to last forever when it didn't. As he searched through Badriya's stunned gaze, he suppressed the urge to laugh. Of all things to do.
Even after everything she'd done to me, he thought. The pain, the struggle. All I can and want to remember are the moments of joy she brought to me, however small they were.
Badriya suddenly took a step back, her hands slipping from him and the sword. She didn't utter a word, but he knew she was anxious. Afraid, even. Her whole body told him so—her wide brown eyes, her clenched hands.
Ayaz started, "I—"
She darted away, brushing past his arm. Every muscle in his body screamed to reach out to her—to do something—but in his mind, he thought better than to pursue her. He knew that she realized that he broke free from her wish as much as he realized it.
She needed space. Both of them did.
No one seemed to notice both of them had stopped dancing or that one of them had run off to who knows where. Everyone was too drunk in the moment to care.
While the guests continued to dance the night away, Ayaz sheathed his sword. The world around him moved in a whirlwind of colors, and he was a tiny black mark standing in the middle of it all. The music and the noise faded into muffled silence. Soon, he retreated into an abyss, a darkness that he hadn't reached out to in years.
At that moment, Ayaz never felt so alone.
So. . . empty.
It was like being a child all over again—in that room, where he witnessed his mother's death. He was helpless and pathetic. He retreated to the same void that came with his grief over his mother and rage over his father. It took him years more to recover and find something to give him purpose. When he found no love, he found justice when he dedicated himself to becoming a slave hunter. A hardened warrior of the night.
He fell for her twice, and she turned him down twice. Why was he subjecting himself to such torture? Did he not experience enough pain for a lifetime?
Maybe he wasn't meant to escape the darkness.
Maybe he wasn't meant to be loved again.
Maybe he wasn't meant to be with her after all.
* * *
"Ayaz? Ayaz, are you alright?"
Ayaz blinked, his eyes focusing back on the person in front of him. Shahrazad sat across him on a lush carpet laid under the gardens' tallest trees. The two of them each cradled a cup of warm qahwa on their hands. The Sultana stared at him with a look reminiscent of a mother's concern. His own mother used to look at him like that when nightmares haunted his sleep and he'd wake up and run to her chambers, begging her to sing him a lullaby or tell him a story.