The room was quiet except for the soft crackle of fire and the whisper of silk.
Aneesa stirred beneath the light sheet, warmth on her bare skin not from Tariq's touch now, but from something glowing across the room. She blinked against the dark, her senses still hazy.
In the distance, the small furnace's flame flickered inside it with an unnatural steadiness. A copper alembic sat atop it, hissing gently, and scattered around it were half-unrolled scrolls, shattered vials, and torn parchment.
Tariq knelt before the flame, shirtless, skin bronzed and aglow, brows furrowed in focus.
"You never sleep," she murmured.
He turned, surprised she had awakened, but not apologetic.
"I sleep enough to dream," he said. "I can rest when I'm done."
She sat up, pulling the sheet with her, and watched him quietly.
"That's alchemical equipment," she said.
"It is. Have you seen it before?"
"Not in real life. The book you purchased from my father, I have read it many times. I always assumed it was nothing more than fantasy." Aneesa exclaimed. Tariq laid down the items he held in his hands and sat on the bed beside her.
"Even the wildest fantasies are based on some truth, and because of that, it means that they too can become reality. You need only to set your intention to make it so." He said before kissing her on the head and standing back up to return to his work.
"You're trying to make it. The stone."
Tariq paused and then nodded. He didn't deny it.
"I thought your mother was the only one who knew I was deciphering those scrolls," she said, voice soft.
"She didn't tell me, my mother is a cautious woman," he replied. "But I recognized the script. You were reading pieces of the same language I've been chasing for years."
He turned to her, the firelight casting golden shadows across his face, his amber eyes mimicking the flames.
"The philosopher's stone is real," he said. "But it's not what people believe it to be. It's not gold, or eternal life."
"Then what is it?"
"Transformation," he said with excitement in his voice. "Of matter, yes, but also of will. Of intention. It responds to more than just chemistry. It responds to truth."
Aneesa listened, heart slowing.
"That's why it's so powerful and dangerous," he continued. "Because to use it, to shape it, you must reveal who you are. You must give it everything."
"And if you fail?" she asked, reluctant to hear the answer.
He looked at her then, haunted, lit by fire, honest in a way she hadn't seen before.
"You lose yourself."
Aneesa was quiet for a moment.
"Then you'll need someone to keep watch and to remain by your side to make sure you don't," she said, reaching for the folded scroll tucked near the bed. The one she intended to share when she arrived at his chambers. Tariq sat back beside her, and she placed it in his lap.
"So you volunteer, do you?" He smiled deeply.
"I finished your mother's latest cipher," Aneesa said hurriedly. "There's mention of movement in the north. A noble who's betraying us. An ambush. Possibly in months, maybe even weeks."
Tariq's smile faded, and his face darkened as he unrolled it. He read its content carefully before looking up at Aneesa in awe.
"You were never intended to be just a concubine, you know that?" he murmured.
She met his eyes. "Neither were you ever just a prince."
The furnace hissed louder, and the two of them kissed passionately in its glow, no longer as shadows crossing paths, but as a spark and its tinder, waiting to burn.
--------
Jahima sat on a velvet cushion, hands motionless in her lap, long nails digging crescent moons into her palms.
The courtyard had gone quiet. The water in the fountains had long since gone still. Most of the other women had retired to their rooms, lulled by the scent of rose oil and the promise of sleep.
But Jahima did not sleep.
She watched the doorway.
Waiting in agony as she fumed at the thought of Aneesa in the Emir's bed chamber.
She hoped to hear the rustle of Aneesa's footsteps returning late, perhaps with her hair unkempt, her robe clutched tightly, her cheeks flushed from whatever secret had kept her away.
But the door across the courtyard remained dark. Aneesa was not coming back to the Harem.
Jahima stood, the silk of her robe whispering against her skin. She crossed the courtyard in silence, gliding like a shadow.
When she reached Aneesa's chamber door, she looked once over her shoulder to ensure she was not seen, and then she slipped inside.
The room was dimly lit by a dying oil lamp. Simple and clean with books neatly stacked beside a single embroidered cushion on the floor. It was nothing extravagant. Just clever.
Jahima's lip curled and she sucked her teeth at the thought.
She moved to the writing table first, fingers skimming across the surface. No hidden compartments. No obvious scrolls. She opened the drawer and found nothing but ink, a quill, and a worn leather pouch of pressed flowers.
She didn't know what she was looking for, but she was certain there was something to be found.
She turned to the wardrobe and flung it open. Plain dresses. Practical robes. But beneath them, tucked under a fold of indigo fabric, she found a folded piece of parchment.
Her heart skipped as she drew it out carefully and unfolded it.
It was a page of coded notes. Some symbols she recognized from something she'd once seen the prince carry. Others were foreign, layered with annotations in Latin and Arabic, the same dual script she had overheard the queen once speak of.
Jahima smiled.
"This is what has you toiling away in the library," she whispered. "Not perfume, not favor", this."
She turned back toward the table, her mind already moving like a blade.
If Aneesa was trading in secrets, royal ones, then she was playing a game far bigger than Jahima had realized. Didn't matter. Because now she had a piece of it.
And all she needed was the right moment.
To set it on fire.