The Prince
Sleep didn’t claim me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw their faces.
The last expressions of the ones I had slayed.
Their mouths were open in horror, their eyes wide with disbelief as their throats showered the ground in blood.
When exhaustion pulled me under, I was cast into nightmares.
Of the dead, the living, and the thin balance between.
I heard soft breaths and turned over. Shahdokht Farani had finally drifted off.
I stood, folding the blanket and placing it onto the low table, then setting my pillow over it.
I moved for the door before hesitating. Farani’s hair was splayed out on the pillow like spilled ink on white parchment.
I recalled the feel of it in my hand, soft as silk.
Her breaths were even and deep in slumber, but tension marked her brows, pulling them together.
Her head turned right and left, sweat dotting her brow as she resisted something I couldn’t see.
She feared me; it was clear in the way she had tried with all her might to repel me. But it was more than normal fright. A wild panic had filled her eyes as I’d approached her. It seemed I wasn’t the only one plagued by nightmares.
She shivered in the cold drifting through the half-opened window.
The air cut through the last of the candlelight, shrouding us in darkness.
I leaned over to remove her silver sandals and pull the blanket over her shoulders.
Her hands came up, gripping the covers with a fearsome hold.
I slid the window closed and then slipped from the room, heading to my work chamber, where I stood before a canvas I had started months before.
It appeared so solitary hidden under a cloth, untouched.
Beneath the cover, the edges were painted in black-and-gray shadows.
Retrieving my brush and paint, I swiped the brush over the center of the canvas, creating a dull gray circle. Time elapsed as the art held me in its hypnotizing grasp.
The door eased open. I didn’t turn, knowing at once who it was by the light patter of footsteps.
“I knew I would find you here.”
My motion stilled, the brush halting. Bazmara stepped up beside me.
“Wazir Elmas gave up his pursuit.”
I didn’t reply. If the wazir hadn’t, he wouldn’t still be breathing.
Bazmara grabbed my arm, forcing me to set the brush down. “Dayyan, please.”
I turned, looking into her pleading eyes, at the tears forming there.
“You have sacrificed so much—too much—for us.” Her voice trembled. “If you do not stop, we will lose you.”
She did not know the extents I had gone to keep them safe. She did not know how dark my soul was. Bazmara believed I could turn back, but I could not cross the path of graves blocking my way. I could not see through the dark if there was no light.
“Leave me, Mara.”
I hadn’t intended for my voice to emerge so bluntly. She flinched, stepping away.
The door creaked open, but she stopped, glancing over her shoulder.
“It is not too late to emerge from that well, Dayyan.”
The door closed, leaving me to stare at the painting.
A dark night blanketed with shadows. A well in the center, built of stones covered in grime and filth.
A silhouette stood at the bottom of the well, hands reached above as though begging for salvation.
I examined the painting again, surprised when, instead of the well, my eyes found the sole star twinkling in the shadowy sky.