Author's Note: Hello, everyone! The name's Ella, but most people call me El., and this is my very first #NBR spotlight! *squeals in excitement* I've heard that during the two weeks of spotlighting, notifications blow up like crazy--don't quite think I'm ready for that just yet, but I'll take a shot at it. 😉

This is the first chapter in my rewritten 1001 Nights retelling, Wrath in the Ashes, formerly known as The Talisman. To get a feel for the setting, please review the introduction (which includes a detailed summary and author's note) and character pages before reading the spotlighted chapter. META-ANALYSIS is also welcome 😘

Also, if you don't mind, comment the CT 

here ✒️

just to keep everything organized for me, haha

QUESTIONS:

1. What does the story set you up to expect?

2. I am considering adding a prologue, though that would be placed years before and from a different point of view. Is a prologue necessary, or are there enough details in the story or too little? Please explain.

3. Judging from your opinion of the chapter, would you add this book to your library and/or reading list(s) to read more? Please explain.

Thank you, and happy reading!

(P.S: ignore the author's note at the bottom below the glossary, or read it for laughs. 😉)

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❝Did no one tell him that pain lives in this sand, dug in and watered with our blood?❞

--Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races

THE AIR TASTED OF SALT and ashes and sand.

Sand–it was a strange enigma of a thing, that the winds were so strong that you could feel the gritty substance between your teeth–but that was what it was. Salt of the sea, ashes from the flames, and sand.

Sand was a nuisance to some, a blessing to others, but it was a danger to all. With sand you could never tell what was lurking underneath the shifting surface–with quicksand, it would only be a matter of time before it pulled you into an early grave.

Yet that was all Al-Zahureem was, in fact. Sand and sun and sorrow.

Scheherazade knew of all three.

The sand had caked the soles of her feet many, many times before, the sun only serving to harden it until she had to dip her feet in the water that was too precious to waste.

But the sorrow was here, was now, was a living, breathing, palpable thing, an arrow to the heart.

She had heard the rumours of how the fountain in the palace courtyard ran red with blood every night. And she never listened, for who in their right mind listened to rumours?

Sometimes rumours turned out to be reality.

"Baba," she asked, glancing to the side where her father sat as the ship drew close to the dock, "is it true?"

"Is what true?" He answered, whetstone in one hand and knife in the other. The metal gleamed in the light of noon, and Scheherazade couldn't help but curl her fingers over the ship's railing, quelling the longing to hold something as fine as that.

The last time she did, she had almost died in the process.

"The rumours," she pressed. "Of the blood that fills the sultan's fountains? of the fish that nibble at the chunks of flesh that drink beneath the surface?"

Her baba laughed, setting the weapon aside and stroking the beard that had only recently begun to turn the colour of moonstone.

"And why would they be true, habibti ?"

Azade threw her hands in the air, brown locks whipping wildly in her face.

"Why not, Baba? They say he's a monster, a creature of the night, something unnatural–"

"Remember what I told you, habibti ?" Her baba interrupted. "Men only cast shadow upon the things they do not try to understand. And they say the sultan's always been a peculiar one, as far as they're concerned."

"So you don't believe them, then?"

"I believe things when I have evidence," he said, standing to stretch his legs and wincing when the bones became stiff. "Look at the sun–you see it every morn, do you not? Yet no one ever says that it has some secret purpose, some plan to kill us all."

He chuckled, resting his hands on Scheherazade's shoulders. "You see the sun and think of hope because you know what it does. See the darkness, likewise, and think of light."

Azade kept quiet, even as a servant boy darted out of the cabin and tapped on her baba's arm. "We're approaching a place to anchor, sir," he said.

Her baba nodded. "Good. Try to get as close to the dock as you can so the crates don't have to travel far."

He sounded optimistic, but Azade could just barely catch the murmured observation that fell from his lips.

"The river is drier this time."

Her skin turned to gooseflesh, and she ran her hands along her arms in an attempt to dispel the eerie feeling that had come over her.

The river that supplied water for Al'abraj ebbed and flowed with the ocean tides, but there was something deeper than that.

دم الرجل والغبار من الأرض هو نفسه

It was an old saying among her people, that the land was connected to its ruler. And though many regarded it as wives' tales, it had proved faithful throughout the years.

Yet if the river was draining, that meant that something was wrong with the sultan. Soon enough ships wouldn't even be able to enter the sprawling desert capital, and then what?

She didn't want to think about it.

The anchor was lowered within a matter of minutes, and Scheherazade felt the vessel come to a lurching stop when the weighted metal hit the water. Sailors bustled about, some descending below deck before coming back up, their arms full of crates.

"Scheherazade?" Her baba asked, tearing her away from her thoughts. "You wouldn't mind carrying this crate of za'farān, for me, would you?"

"Of course not, Baba," she answered, taking it from his arms and giving him a bright smile. "You know I've done this before."

"That's my daughter." He laughed once more, but this time it sounded like clear bells ringing out on a foggy evening. "Just like your mother, you are."

A pang of sadness cut through Azade's heart at his words, but she said nothing, instead squeezing through the crowd of sailors and finding her footing as she went down the ramp.

Her mother. The gods only knew how much she wondered what it would be like to grow up with one–she had died in childbirth and left Scheherazade's father with an infant to take care of. How he had managed no one knew, yet he had all the same.

Sometimes, however, no matter how much love and attention he showered upon her, Scheherazade couldn't help but feel that she had been cheated out of her childhood.

The game of life was a tedious one.

She set the crate down on the sand, waves of steam rising from the surface. It burned underneath her feet, and she scurried back up the ramp in an attempt to keep cool.

How long it lasted she didn't know, only that when she picked up a crate of raw silk fibers, ready to be spun, her baba stopped her, the fingers that he rested on her arm digging into the supple flesh.

"Stay," he hissed, his eye on a pair of horses that were making their way to them. "I sense trouble."

Azade opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it when he maneuvered past her, shielding her, almost, from whatever was ahead.

A faint whinny caused her to peer over his shoulder, out into the horizon. The stallion snorted and stamped its feet, its rider's features somewhat shaded by the turban he wore along with his companion.

"Mohammed al-Khayzuran," he said slowly, testing the syllables on his tongue like they were honey from the souk.

"Akeem al-Khanajr," her baba murmured, stance still defensive. "We meet again, I see."

The man shrugged, reins clenched between his fingers. "Indeed, though I wish it was under more... favorable circumstances."

"What isn't favorable about this?" Her baba asked, spreading his hands to show the goods that they had unloaded. "Merchants make a living to support your extravagant ones, I must remind you."

"A stolen living," he called out. "You know trade to Al-Nakhla has been restricted lately, Mohammed, by order of the sultan–yet you come back loaded with crates."

"I have my ways," Mohammed answered. "The politics of Al'abraj and of Al-Zahureem do not concern a merchant."

"They should," Akeem spat, the spittle hissing as it hit the sand. "You forget who I am, al-Khayzuran, and who my son is and will be. I am your vizier–it would be well for you to remember that such an offense as yours could require nothing less than death."

"And who would draw the sword? Your boy-king? your reclusive sultan that you insist on calling a monster?" Her baba's voice did not waver, did not tremble, did not give away a hint of any weakness that could be exploited. "I know who you are, Akeem, yet I am not afraid."

Akeem said nothing, seemed to peer around Mohammed into the distance–and then, so quickly that she might have missed it if she had blinked, he took one of his leather gloves off and placed it in the satchel by his side.

A hand was on her mouth only a moment later.

She thrashed, trying to escape the hold, but it was useless. There was a knife at her throat and she couldn't breath and–

There. Her baba paled. That was all the proof that Akeem needed, she knew–apparently he had heard the commotion–and now he could hold it against him.

"Not so brave now, are we, al-Khayzuran?" The vizier smiled. "I see you hold an affinity for that pearl of yours."

"Do not bring Scheherazade into this," Mohammed shot back, "or may the gods help me, I will skin you and your sultan within an inch of your life and feed you to the lions."

"Oh, but will you?" Akeem nodded at Azade's captor, who tightened his grip on the weapon. "I don't think I have to tell you that your daughter's throat is only centimeters away from being slit, now do I? And then, of course, you'll hang from the gallows of Al'abraj, a spectacle to the world."

His face darkened. "I don't think you want that, do you?"

Silence. Nothing left the tip of Mohammed's tongue, yet there was only the in and out of Azade's breaths as they waited.

It was like hiding in the bushes waiting for a cobra to strike before you did.

"What do you want, Akeem?"

He laughed. "What do I want? You should know better than to ask a man with the Khanajr blood in him, Mohammed–you should ask yourself."

"I have my goods before you," her baba answered wearily. "Take your pick and leave me."

"Your goods are in effect stolen, as we both know," the vizier countered. "My son, Zayn–he knows as well. No, I don't want your goods."

A pause. All Scheherazade could hear was the howling of the desert winds, the faint ringing in her ears, the murmur of death that threatened to overtake her.

"I want your daughter."

"Baba!" Scheherazade struggled out of her captor's grasp, clinging to Mohammed's arm even as the man tried to take her back. "Baba, you can't!"

"The terms are simple," Akeem called over the ruckus, "your daughter for your life. The sultan is looking for another bride. Give her to me and you'll keep your business, your diplomatic ties–we'll even pretend this never happened."

"Baba!" Azade screamed when her captor grabbed her by the wrist, wrenching it back until she was sure it would break. "Please, Baba!"

"After all," Akeem concluded, a fire dancing in his eyes, "isn't she just the child of a harlot?"

"Don't talk about my ami like that!" Azade's voice cut through the tension like a knife splitting a fresh pomegranate. "Don't you dare! My baba would never do something that disgraceful, that–"

"Oh, but would he?" The vizier raised an eyebrow. "We think we know the ones we love, yet many times we are mistaken. You're naïve, young one. I suggest you get rid of that naïvety before anything worse happens."

He turned to Mohammed, then, the hilt of his dagger glinting in the sunlight. "What do you say, al-Khayzuran? Do we have a deal?"

He shut his eyes, and for the most fleeting of moments Scheherazade thought he would strike out, would get his revenge, would send crimson blood spilling across the sands in frothing waves to lap against the river's edge.

He did none of those.

"We have a deal."

Something akin to panic bubbled up in Azade's throat and morphed into nausea–then the bile crept up, the sourness ghosted over her tongue, she crouched to contain it–

–and the man hauled her off her feet, carrying her down the ramp and onto a waiting horse. He tied her hands, saddled the beast, held the reins in a firm grip and prepared to spur it on.

But that was minor to Azade. There was a throbbing pain in her chest, her vision blurred by hot tears of–of what? what could she call this turn of events? Heartbreak? Severed trust? Betrayal?

She looked up at her baba just as the horse began to gallop away, searching his face for any sign of remorse so that she could know if it was all a mistake, know if he still loved her just as he claimed he did.

She saw his lips move in a silent plea, a pathos of emotions–

Samhani.

Forgive me.

And then the dust hid him from view and all she knew was terror.

habibti:

origin: Arabic, meaning: my darling, my love

za'farān:

origin: Arabic, meaning: saffron

souk:

origin: Arabic, meaning: an Arab market or marketplace, a bazaar.

Al'abraj:

origin: Arabic, meaning: towers

ami:

origin: Arabic, meaning: mother

Khanajr:

origin: Arabic, meaning: dagger

Khayzuran:

origin: Arabic, meaning: bamboo, reed

دم الرجل والغبار من الأرض هو نفسه

origin: Arabic, meaning: "Man's blood and dust from the earth is the same," 

alternate, (originally intended) meaning: "The blood of man and the dust of the earth is the same."

hi darlings, it's ella! 

so currently i'm freaking out right now because i hit the "publish" button and this is WITA'S first chapter and i'm second-guessing all of my aesthetics because a part of me is like "girl why you gotta be so angsty all the time like what?" and i be like "you ever heard of minimalism here it's either black or white and i am angst to the extreme so deal with it mkay?" but still my subconscious wants a light-colored scheme but the entire book is dark fairytale retelling/tears/plot twists/aNGST/angst to the exTREME so technically it's not going to work you know?

*wheezes for breath*

y'all here's a warning–this book is fake deep like no other and i know i sound so poetically aesthetic but i have no freaking idea what on God's green earth i'm doing

this chapter is as unedited as limp potato fries from mcdonald's (i have not eaten there in forever and i never will again so tell me if they still as limp as i remember; i swear they leave them too long in there) so there's the proof and don't say i didn't warn you

yeah so for now i'm a bundled mess of emotion screaming into the void and constantly typing run-on sentences that seem to have no end while nibbling my fingernails hoping that people read this catastrophe

funny thing is while i was writing the chapter i sort of got distracted and left it alone for three days, scrapped everything and ended up with this instead

i'm a raging, sleep-deprived cranky beast that can only be appeased by perfection

hopefully next chapter i'll have returned to the land of the living and i'll be my regular old fake-deep self.

anyhoo, i may have changed? a few things? scheherazade is no longer an orphan, for one (yay me), her father "actually" loves her, and he doesn't sell her for money? he's actually forced to? tbh, i don't know, i'm just lost

yeah, i gotta go before my fingernails disappear and i can't freaking type anymore

stay ruinated, darlings (see, even my signature line is fake-deep)

--ella <3

p.s: the video featured below is the trailer for WITA that the darling @PaintingTheRosesRed made for me–check it out, loves, and tell me what you think <3

https://youtu.be/SwnqGcXMoEk