Morning light spilled through the lattice windows, pouring over the golden mirror like liquid fire. I ran to it, breath uneven. The reflection that looked back at me wasn't mine — not entirely.
My skin shimmered as if sunlit from beneath, my hair a silken river framing a face I barely recognized. The dream. The flower. It was changing me again. Every sunrise brought a new version of myself — more impossible, more divine.
Beauty was supposed to be a blessing, but standing there, it felt like a curse wrapped in gold.
My eyes—golden now—caught the light and held it. Yesterday, they were hazel. Today, they burned. I looked too long and felt dizzy, as if the mirror might swallow me whole.
The door creaked. My maids entered, heads bowed low, their white garments whispering against the marble.
"Your Grace," they murmured.
Their reverence felt like fear. Maybe they didn't know which terrified them more — what I was becoming, or that they still had to touch me.
The city beyond the palace roared with life — drums, traders, cries of gold and salt and silk. But the palace itself… it was too quiet. Silence here was sharp, dangerous. One wrong word could vanish you.
A woman in blue entered, her teal headscarf coiling around her like smoke.
"Your Grace," she said softly. "Her Majesty, Khal Amanirenas, requests your presence."
My heart stuttered. The Queen. The one the Emperor himself had dethroned a nation for. The one said to have the blood of sea and sun.
Had I done something wrong?
I steadied my voice. "Tell Her Majesty I shall be there."
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The Karatah, they called the Emperor's harem court — the place where beauty sleeps.
It was less a court and more a dream carved in stone: columns of pearl, water trickling from unseen mouths, women like living jewels drifting through the mist. Seventy wives, they said. But only one Queen.
And there she was — Khal Amanirenas.
She stood in the bathhouse, back turned, her skin glistening with water and diamond dust. The statue of her towered above — the same face, the same impossible grace. Her maids moved around her like shadows, washing her in silence.
Then she turned.
Her eyes — green fading into blue — caught mine. My breath hitched.
"Come here," she said. Her voice was velvet, soft but commanding. She raised her hand, and the world seemed to tilt toward it.
I moved forward, barefoot on marble still wet with rosewater. The air trembled between us.
She reached up and brushed a strand of hair from my face, fingers lingering at my cheek. Her smile was the kind that could ruin empires.
"You're… breathtaking," she whispered, eyes searching mine. "Too beautiful to be human."
The words struck something deep in me — pride, fear, hunger, all at once.
Then her gaze sharpened. "But I know your secret, desert flower."
My heart froze.
"How did you find the golden flower?" she asked, voice low, dangerous. "Do you even know what you've done?"
I stared at her, numb. "How do you know about that?"
Her eyes turned pearly white, glowing with something not of this world. The air thickened around her.
"Believe me," she said, her tone now cold and distant, "I blend into your kind with ease. But I am not one of you. I am beyond you. I have knowledge and power that no mortal woman will ever touch."
Her gaze pierced me — not with hatred, but with cruel amusement.
"So you see," she murmured, a wicked grin touching her lips, "you cannot fool me, little flower."
I wanted to speak, but my voice was gone.
She tilted her head, eyes flickering green again. "What's the matter? Did you think we'd be friends?"
Her laugh rippled through the hall like a chime breaking in water.
"Goodbye, Iana," she said sweetly, lifting her hand in a mocking wave as I turned to leave — her laughter still clinging to the air behind me.
————————————————————
I stormed out of the bathhouse before the scent of rosewater could suffocate me.
Every step echoed through the marble halls — sharp, defiant, desperate. Her laughter followed me like a ghost. The Ivory Palace glittered around me, but all I could feel was the sting. Beauty here was a weapon, and I was bleeding from it.
By the time I reached the Prince's wing, my anger had wilted into ache. I sank onto the couch, hands trembling, heart heavy with the weight of everything unsaid. I missed home — the wind of Tan, the red earth, the freedom.
Then the door opened.
Prince Khalid entered, draped in beige robes that moved like soft sand. He carried calm with him, always — a silence that filled the room without trying.
"How are you?" he asked gently. His voice was low, steady. It grounded me.
"I'm well, my lord," I managed, though my voice betrayed me. "What brings you here?"
He smiled — small, knowing. "You can come in."
My eyes widened as the door opened wider.
"Bahati?"
For a moment, I forgot to breathe.
She stepped in — my handmaiden, my friend from Tan — dressed in plain brown robes, her face calm, her eyes warm and steady.
"Heavens," I whispered, glancing from her to the Prince.
"My lady," she said softly, bowing the way we did back home.
"What is she doing here?" I asked, disbelief cracking my voice.
Khalid's grin deepened. "I thought you might be homesick. So I brought someone to remind you of where you come from."
For a heartbeat, the world went still.
Something inside me broke — not from pain, but from relief. No one had done something like this for me in years. I didn't think; I just moved. I threw my arms around him.
"Thank you," I whispered against his shoulder, breathless, trembling.
He chuckled, his voice soft near my ear. "Iana, you'll rumple my robes."
I stepped back quickly, cheeks warm. "Apologies, Your Highness." My smile trembled but refused to fade. "Truly… thank you."
He nodded, a faint grin tugging at his lips. Then he turned to Bahati.
"You'll be serving her here from now on," he said.
"Yes, Your Highness," she replied, bowing before quietly leaving us.
Silence settled. He looked back at me, his eyes catching the light.
"Now, I must return to my chambers," he said, still smiling. "But we shall meet again at dinner."
He said more after that — something about schedules, something polite — but I didn't hear it.
All I saw was him.
The way the day light traced the lines of his face.
The calm weight of his gaze.
His lips when he spoke my name.
Something inside me shifted — quiet but powerful — like the first tremor of a storm I couldn't stop.