❝I am closed up like a house. There is nothing here for you, nothing in this place.❞

--Catherine M. Valente, The Oracle at Cayucos

YOUR FATHER wants to see you.

In another life, another time, perhaps before all of this betrayal, she would have welcomed him with open arms, sobbing into his shoulder like a child again. Perhaps she would have asked his advice, perhaps she would have taken his hand and escaped into the growing blackness.

Perhaps they would have fled to another country, boarded his vessel and started a new life.

Perhaps she would have seen him.

But perhaps meant nothing to those with whom it had lost its meaning.

Her father wanted to see her, yes.

But she did not want to see him.

"He is not my father," she said, and the untruth of it stung her tongue like a desert scorpion. Had she not said that he was only a few moments before?

What about my father?

It mocked her now.

"But sayidati, he says that he is. He says he knows things about you that no one else could ever know, that he has raised you, has made you the way you are now. And he says that you cannot deny it–"

"I cannot?" Now the honey and ichor and the godlikeness returned, like a dog to its master. "If he presumes to make amends for the way that he treated me"–the way he simply gave her up to the enemy, though she did not plan to voice those words–"he will have to go on his knees and beg before me like I am his sultana."

Because I am.

She did not voice those words either.

The boy nodded, though the fear of returning to her baba without the desired news was etched into his brow.

"What shall I tell him, sayidati?"

She straightened, looking the boy as if she was a mistress buying slaves at the market. She was not, but it was almost comforting to pretend.

"Tell him..." She hesitated. In her mind's eye she could see herself at his knee, playing in the gardens, trying to catch a butterfly that would not stay still for its would-be captor. She heard him call her, the very breath that it took an adoration in itself.

Habibti.

No. She would not let him toy with her like this, she would not let him think that he had won.

She would not let him take her heart alive.

"Tell him nothing," Scheherazade said, motioning for Akilah to come at last with the necklace. She reached for it, felt the coolness of it, and clasped the cage around her neck like a vow, let it brand her with the tongue of death. "If he is so foolish as to not be satisfied with the answer of his sayidati, then he will come and look for answers himself, if he so dares."

In the pit of her, however, she knew that he would. Her baba would not take profuse apologies and gracious escorts at their face value, no, he would know that this was all a cleverly maneuvered game.

He could give in, or he could stand alone.

The heat that settled around her fluttering pulse as the boy left told her that he would rather stand with a sword beside him than bow with his riches at the kingdom's feet.

Your father wants to see you, the boy had said.

Then let him come, and let him see with his own eyes, if he was able.

She would be waiting.

She had never been wrong before, and she was not wrong now.

He came to her only an hour later, with henna drying on her skin. When she looked up from the swirling designs on her palm to the rattle of the lock she knew that it was he, and that he had brought the sword in his mouth to cut her soul to pieces, if only to heal her in the end.

In that they were alike.

She saw his face first, and the boy's–the same from earlier–behind him afterward. The boy seemed embarrassed, almost, and stammered his apologies through trembling lips.

"A thousand pardons, sayidati, but he would not leave. I told him nothing like you said, and yet he smiled and gave me a pouch of dirhams to give to my mother; 'for the trouble,' he told me in return, and I couldn't think of doing anything else–"

"You are dismissed," she answered, fighting the urge to wave her hands for fear of the henna smudging before it was complete. "All of you are dismissed."

"But sayidati," said one of the girls who had handled her wedding clothes before, "can he not hurt you?"

Scheherazade gave a harsh laugh. "If he is my baba, as you say," she said, "one would think he would not raise a blade to his own, is that not so?"

She watched him, as she spoke, searching for a sign that she had taken the sword from his grasp and twisted it into his clavicle instead.

"I am not afraid of him," she continued. "There is no space in my heart for fear. Only anger."

A breath escaped her. "Now go."

The emptying out of the room was like a trickle of sand in the breeze before a khamsin–slowly, surely, it grew larger and larger until it swallowed you up.

Like a predator after its prey.

When the room was finally clear she turned her attention to her father.

"Baba." The sound was that of a whip cracking in still air, the hiss of leather as it touched supple flesh, the silent weeping as it slithered down the spine before rearing to strike again.

He winced, like one struck, but said nothing.

"Baba," she said again, "or should I call you al-khain?"

Al-khain.

Betrayer.

A quiet settled between them, like blood in a vessel of water.

When he spoke it was through parched lips and a tired heart.

"Al-lassan el-had siqta hangartak, habibti."

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, waiting for him to repeat himself.

"Al-lassan el-had siqta hangartak." He closed his eyes. "A sharp tongue will cut your own throat."

"If that is so," she answered, carefully, quietly, "hangarti balfal fe qata."

Mine is already in pieces.

"I offer needle and thread to mend it, then."

A soft cackle escaped her, like that of a fortune teller in the souq who laughed at you when you did not believe her cards. "Your needles are bent and your thread is fraying, al-khain. I do not need your remedies."

An intake of breath filled the space. "There is no need to pick me apart with your words, habibti."

"Do not call me that." The words were swift in coming, almost too swift, and even she was surprised at the vehemency contained in them. "You lost the right to call me that when you gave me up to the kingdom."

"I am not a man that sheds blood easily," he replied, cautious, "but neither am I a man who will make his choices without weighing the consequences. I came with my hands empty and my pockets bare."

"Save for the dirhams you gave my errand boy?"

This time it was he who laughed, though it was not quite one and did not reach his eyes.

"You grow attached easily, it seems. It has not even been a night and yet you claim authority over those that were your equals."

A note of sadness crept into his voice. "You do not want to die, do you, habibti? "

"You did not answer my question," she snapped, but there was a lump in her throat where the sun refused to leave and hot, scalding tears gathering at the corner of her eyelids.

"I would think," he continued, "that my question is of my importance than yours at this time, if I were you and you were wise."

"You have no reason to doubt that I am not."

"I have every reason, habibti, because you remind me of your mother." His lips parted silently, like he was stifling the words that he wanted to say despite himself. "Let me tell you a story, and give me the assurance that you will listen so that my breath will not be wasted."

"And why would I listen?" Scheherazade felt the tremor in her voice, knew that he had taken back the bloody sword and was slowly, surely, cutting a wound around her heart–like the hakim suturing one when it was too large to heal–but she could not defend herself.

One never can when it is the ones that they love that are inflicting their pain.

"You would listen because I know you, and you are mine." His voice broke into the annals of her silence. "Even if you are not anymore, you were and always will be to me. Now listen, and I will speak."

She watched him as his footfalls carried him to the other end of the room, where a casement overlooked Al'abraj and its souq, but she said nothing, did nothing to stop him.

Something inside her wanted to hear, and listen, and understand why.

"There were three butterflies that came into a house through an open window. Night soon fell, and the butterflies were trapped inside the room. By and by one of them noticed a candle's flame, thinking it was the sun that had returned to them. So he went closer, basking in its warmth, and said: Listen to me, my brothers, I know about love."

Her father held up three fingers, then tucked one inside his fist until two remained. "Then he returned to the others, and all was silent. But then the second butterfly flew closer, touched the flame lightly with his fragile wings and said: Listen, my brother, you may know about love, but I know how love's fire can burn."

"But the third one," he continued, leaving one finger standing in the shadows of the dusk, "the third left the company of his brothers, threw himself into the heart of the flame and was consumed. He needed no words, no enunciations from his tongue, for he alone knows what true love is."

A pause. "Scheherazade, my habibti, you may know about love, and how its fire burns bright, but until you know of true love I will tell you all that I know."

She looked up, then, saw him leave his post by the casement and come back towards her, felt his hands grasp her wrists and the smearing of the henna on her skin, smelt the faintness of his scent–myrrh and incense, with the warmth of sand and ashes–and pulled back to no avail.

"When I found your umi, I knew of love. When I lost your umi, I knew how it could burn. You know of both. But when I gave you to the vizier, the sultan in the sultan's place, I knew of how that love could consume your very being until there was nothing left." There was a crack in his voice as he spoke. "You have known love–for your umi, for me–and have been burnt, but I pray that you will heal someday. If not tonight, if not in this life, then in al-khalud."

He let her go, and it seemed she felt the loss of the weight on her wrist as quickly as it had come.

"You do not want to die, habibti, but a death having known love is better than a death without one."

The silence settled again between them, and for a moment she thought she was a child, flinging her arms around his neck in order to never let him go.

And then she opened her eyes, and it was nothing but a memory.

"You may go..." She swallowed. "Baba. Al-khain. There is nothing here for you anymore and there is nothing that I can call you."

He dipped his head, as if to acknowledge her, and then put his fingers on the handle of the door, leaving dark henna marks in his wake as the door closed behind him.

It opened again when one of the servants timidly stepped in.

"Sayidati? "

"Yes?"

"Your henna is smudged, sayidati."

Her eyes drifted to the once-impeccable design, the arabesques now trailing down her wrists like rivers.

Like blood.

"Do it again, then," she answered, but her heart was not in it. "If the flames of the sultan are about to devour me I want the henna to be unscathed."

She dared not say that she did not want to remember her father–her baba–when they did.

It seemed that she was not as guarded as they thought her to be, and that would not bring her luck.

Weakness was never seen in a woman that would be queen.

khamsin:

origin: Arabic, meaning: a dry, hot sandy local wind normally affecting Egypt, though similar winds blow in the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean basin–in WITA, the definition leans more towards the type of wind than the locale it is native to. the root word is derived from the Arabic for "fifty," literally "khamsīn," and describes a fifty-day period during the spring when these dry, sand-filled windstorms blow sporadically over Egypt, hence the name.

al-khalud:

origin: Arabic, meaning: eternity

*it'sbeentwomonthssinceiupdatedsopleasedontgetyourknifesandkillmepleasedont*

*looks outside*

*doesn't see gunfire or weapons*

*breathes a sigh of relief and dusts clothes off*

*clears throat*

i have returned

so has Baba

and those shiitake mushrooms that i promised didn't just hit the fan, they blasted a hole in the glass ceiling

and i be lovING IT

no, but seriously, y'all, this was one of my favorite chapters to write and edit because the tension was freaking palpable here and that is the angst that i promised you that i am a sucker for YASSSSSSSSS

and for once this chapter was literally semi-edited

i'm actually proud of myself

the back-and-forth in this chapter was literally me just vomiting up words into the keyboard and watching it actually work

Scheherazade snapped in the last chapter? drama went up a notch last chapter? stakes got higher last chapter? sun be going down a bit too quick last chapter? daddy-daughter time be hinging on that cliffhanger last chapter? child yOU THOUGHT asjshbebejsjwjsnosnsmwpwanbzbsczcczcshwmapsjsb

knowing me i might literally be saying the same thing next chapter cause i am tHAT GIRL AND YOU AIN'T ABOUT TO STOP THE ANGST

also the story about the butterflies is courtesy of Rumi, i just changed the wording a bit and added a bit more dialogue

and i did change the word for "mother" from ami to umi, thank you @EllenReese <3

next chapter is sort of like a bridge between the family action and then the royal action cause the wedding be almost here and i be hollering, y'all

yasssss

anyway, idek how that thing is gonna go down, i just know it gonna be good

on another, more serious note, The Fiction Awards have started here on Wattpad. it's a reader-oriented contest where you nominate your favorite books for the available categories. though you can only nominate a book once per user, multiple users can nominate the same book as well as others–the 15 books with the most nominations proceed to the final round, where the readers have a chance to vote by commenting "+1" by the book's title. the three (i believe it is) books with the most votes are awarded 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places respectively and given a sticker to place on their cover.

i would be honored if you would nominate WITA for Best Fantasy. a few of you already have, and i'm thankful for that, but if we can make it to the final round that would be a dream come true for me <333

the link for the nominations page is in the external link, but i'll also put it

here ✒️

as a link in the comments so it's easier to access.

thank you all for sticking with me through the little two-month absence of updates–i was extremely busy and just needed a bit more time to plot the 2nd and 3rd quarters of the story. hopefully, updates will definitely be more frequent now that we're entering into summer break (YASSSSSS, Y'ALL, YASSSSSSSSSSS).

stay ruinated, darlings,

–ella <3

p.s: question of the day: how was the tension? (look, y'all, i need angst validation cause it be like that sometimes ™)