Threads of Gold

Four | چار

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Sharp voices and gruff noises slowly coaxed her out of her sleep.

Lashes like spun threads of obsidian were flitting back and forth in an early morning dance on Zartasha's face.

Slowly coming to consciousness, stretching and turning on sheets of cotton, she began to wake. The sounds that were floating up to her room's breezy arches from outside the mehal started becoming coherent, and so she rose from the bed because slumber did not excuse a ruler (or a ruler-to-be) from failing as their mulk's omniscient.

Leaning against the marble railing of her sandstone balcony in an airy silhouetted shalwar and kameez, Zartasha's nightly attire was made of blushing pink. The colour was the same hue as the few petal pink roses emerging alongside surkh ones in the garden lining the ivory walkway that spanned from the gates of the mehal's entrance to the grand ceilingless foyer.

And in the centre of the ivory-stoned grounds, Zartasha watched her royal council continue causing the ruckus that broke her from her sleep but she could not see whichever it was that they were yelling at. The sky was still dark and only slowly shifting to lighter shades with each passing moment as this disagreement was taking place in the very early hours of dawn, minutes before the Fajr azan.

She moved towards the corner of her gallery's railing from her previous position in the middle, in hopes of sighting the object of her court's ire. Zartasha was watching mostly for entertainment because anything that upset the old men who thought to control her made her want to bathe in delight.

What she saw instead left her half perplexed and half surprised.

The angle at which she was standing allowed her to view the shoulders of muscled warriors in black garbs and tinkling silver coating their sheathed weapons, those colours signifying the arrival of Kalthura at Sherqul's door. It was unheard of for her western neighbours to grace others with their presence in a civil manner. And even then, Kalthurans tended to warrant fear wherever they went.

Zartasha was not one to be frightened. However, she was smart to know that the appearance of three Kalthuran soldiers, two warriors and one lanky elder man in a dark scholastic robe, at her home's threshold was a good reason to be wary.

As the Kalthurans were turned away and denied meeting with the shehzadi and soon-to-be-Malka by Labib and Noman, the wind began blowing a warmer breeze and the rising sun began brightening the sky, it was almost as if the divine was also indicating the start to a tale like no other at the same time a new day was starting.

Zartasha turned around to rest her back against the cool marble railing and tilted her head far back to see that the Kalthurans had not yet left, so with her back arched and head inverted, she smirked showing teeth, picturizing that Sherqul had fangs too.

And little did she know, that image of a beautifully biting young woman as the face and leader of Sherqul would burn itself in the mind of a brutish Sultan.

The thing with Zartasha Fahim was that she did know and it was her incentive.

✸ ✸ ✸

The Hyderi mehal was in chaos.

It wasn't anything the staff was unfamiliar with but they were frightened nonetheless. As they always were when their king had turbulent tantrums.

They knew that the Sultan's anger was dangerous but it was his frustration that would be disastrous. And the disaster that was Arzam was apparent in the shattered vases leading up to the iron throne-room doors and the fuming voice rumbling from inside.

Their master had been denied. And denial was not something Arzam Hyderi accepted.

What they didn't know was that he had been aware there was a strong chance that entry to the shahi mehal in Gulzaan, wouldn't have been granted easily or at all. But it was when his messenger told him that the young supposed Malka-to-be watched the rejection of Kalthurans as if it were a spectacle that he unleashed his fury.

He would have to remind the world why sultans were made for mastery. And his victory in the art of mastery stemmed from roots of unending appetite. Appetite for the blood of failures, for the surrender of inferiors, for respect on his name.

His rogue nature would feed till he had his fill on his winnings. Gaining freedom from captured souls, gaining life from his opponent's terminating breaths. After all, the ruins in history only remembered the champions, the victors, and the conquerors. None had any time to spare to sculpt the sobbing screams of remaining competitors.

Before commanding his soldiers to leave the room so Arzam could plan his next move, he had one of them recount the concluding events of their journey in Sherqul. Narrating the entertained eyes, the leisurely leaning posture, and the goading actions of the Malka-to-be.

That was when he knew that this would get under his skin and scratch against his hubristic pride if he didn't put an end to where the disrespect initiated. And no Sultan could afford a hit to their arrogance.

So he decided, his next conquest would be Sherqul.

✸ ✸ ✸

Originally, the Sultan of Kalthura did attempt to be quick and quiet because of convenience when it came to taking Sherqul for himself but the shehzadi's taunting behaviour started a maddening spiral that would only stop when Arzam's talwar would run across the length of her neck. She wouldn't have done that if she didn't want to set him off. Oh but she did, and that made the matter personal for him.

It was none other than her fault that Kalthura's wrath was coming to Sherqul's doorstep and it wasn't as if the Sultan hadn't killed for less. He took what he wanted, nothing was much of an obstacle for him.

Under the midnight sky, his army was approaching, thunder rolling off of their horses' hooves. Around the edges of the arduous city that was Gulzaan, Arzam Hyderi paused and so did all of the cavaliers behind him. He then instructed his soldiers to wait until he had finished off the Malka-to-be and taken all of Sherqul's treasure for his greedy heart, to begin laying siege to the rest of the shehr.

His reign would bleed till it had reached every outskirt in Sherqul.

Sherqul, a land of luxurious textiles and hearty grains, known for soft architecture that focused on arches and mirrors, a prime example was the mirrored top of the beige arch that spanned across the back entrance of the mehal. Welcoming him into the courtyard.

His plan to rage and ruin couldn't help but slip out of his rigid hands as soon as he caught sight of her face in that same mirror.

A girl.

No, a woman.

She was what the powerful Sultan would surmise as grown devastation. The shehzadi was most definitely a woman sitting with her back resting against the water fountain's made of marble ledge in the centre of the balmy and fragrant courtyard garden.

It was almost an out-of-body experience for Arzam to be bewitched by the beauty of another. As king, he knew the lure of beauty. But he still lost all breath after looking at only Zartasha's reflection.

Her beauty was in the sharp edge of her cutting eyes running across scripted words in the kitaab she was holding. It was in the demand of her strong voice when ordering the older woman behind her, presumably a maid, to get her water. She had a haughty face and he couldn't stop admiring it.

Not being able to avert his sinful eyes nor being able to keep the praise from leaving his lips, he uttered, "MashaAllah."

At the adoringly transfixed whisper, Zartasha looked up.

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They finally meet!! (kind of)

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