Sold through ARTSHARKS ARTHouse
By Taha Eshmawe

The night arrives at last, bringing another sort of messenger; though I am no longer young, women are scarce treasure in the battlegrounds of the desert. Every so often, such a man will show up, offering me some respite from the dull monotony of watchfulness, offering me the threat of danger and a chance to fight for my life. Why me, and not the younger, lovelier captive girls, I do not know; perhaps it is the stigma of the royal blood trickling through my veins. I can always read it in the eyes; they are the best way to tell who is most curious, most intense, most desperate. I wondered if it was the grizzled soldier who been in the tent that afternoon; I had felt his hot blue stare on the veils swirling around my body and my smoke-black eyes.

For months now I have been safe, in a certain way. After the sudden plundering and massacre of the city of Miletus, which I was visiting with my  mbassador father on a mission of peace at the time, my life has never been the same. All our escort were slain, and too many slaughtered. Such a different method of conquering than my love’s means of integration, leaving the heads upon the conquered and winning their minds and hearts instead. But as he was out conquering the world, I was taken hostage by one of the most crafty of the barbaric war-tribes,  and the only thing staying my hand from turning the dagger upon myself has been the memory of my late lover’s face and the news of his distant triumphs. He will never return, but his mere name is an oasis to my parched soul.

I have born too many bastards to this race, and strangled almost as many. But ever since the one time when a messenger came—and fought for his life and his head—and escaped with it—I have been fighting too. I slip out my slender dagger from the layered folds of my ragged dress and I wait in a crouched position. They never leave quite intact after visiting my tent, never to return to me; the sultan values my knowledge of healing too much to consider me replaceable, and they all know it.

Here he comes; I hear his soft footfalls in the sand. In a matter of minutes he appears before me, now our eyes meet. The full moon glares down a rain of brilliance on him, but before he can step within the flap of tent he has raised, a voice yells out into the night, and he leaps back out into the night. I hear the clash of swords, and suddenly it is as if the stars decided to scream out in unison, for the night is a mess of shrieks and battle-cries. I rush to the tent and push back the flap, amazed at the enemy that crept upon us so suddenly.

And he is not who I expected.

His face, after so many years, is unmistakable, as it appears again before mine. For a few minutes I cannot speak—I cannot breathe. I think I am dreaming. I reach out a hand, and his face is shaking, or perhaps it is my hand that is shaking as I trace the outline of his eyes, his regal nose and cheekbone. I blink, but this vision does not evaporate like the rest of the mirages. Hot tears drop slip from my eyes, from this bitter well I thought had dried up years ago like the desert wind.

“Madam, let’s get you out of here,” he urges, seeing only a woman’s outline in the dark. His voice is deeper, lower, quieter. But it is his voice. Doesn’t he recognize me? My Alexander. My love. He beckons me forward with an impatient hand, eyes sharp and fleeting. And he knows nothing.

“Angreek87″