The Ruby Cage

A Pulp Fantasy Adventure

By Astrid Hale

Chapter 1: The Gilded Prison

I am beautiful.

This is not vanity speaking—would that it were. It is simply a fact, as immutable as the sun's rising over the minarets of Basra or the tides that caress our harbor walls. My beauty is catalogued, inventoried, and guarded like the Sultan's treasure. The arch of my brow has been praised in verse by seven poets. My hair, black as a moonless night and cascading like silk to my waist, has inspired merchants to name a new fabric in its honor. My eyes—ah, my eyes—are said to hold all the mysteries of the desert stars.

I am beautiful, and I am wretched.

The gardens below my tower shimmer in the afternoon heat, a paradise of fountains and flowering trees, of peacocks trailing jeweled feathers across marble paths. The scent of jasmine and orange blossom drifts through the latticed screens of my chamber, sweet enough to make one drunk. Beyond the palace walls, I can hear the distant song of the city—the calls of merchants, the laughter of children, the clip-clop of donkey hooves on ancient stones. A world teems with life just beyond my reach, and I am as separate from it as the moon from the earth.

I press my palm against the carved sandalwood screen, feeling the delicate patterns beneath my fingertips. How many hours have I spent here, watching life through these geometric holes? How many sunsets have I witnessed alone, the only witness to the sky's nightly transformation?

"More wine, Princess?"

Leyla, my handmaiden, appears at my elbow like a ghost. She has been with me since childhood, yet I wonder sometimes if she truly sees me at all, or merely the vessel of beauty she is paid to maintain. Her eyes never quite meet mine.

"No," I whisper, and she retreats with a bow, leaving me to my gilded solitude.

This tower, they tell me, is for my protection. The apartments are magnificent—walls adorned with intricate mosaics depicting paradise, floors covered in carpets so fine they might have been woven by djinn. I have silk cushions and silver mirrors, jeweled combs and golden anklets. I have everything, they insist, that a princess could desire.

Everything except freedom. Everything except choice. Everything except a life that is truly mine.

My father, Sultan Rasheed, loves me in his way. He loves me as a man loves a perfect ruby or a flawless blade—for what I am, not who I am. He displays me at feasts, veiled and silent, proof of his dynasty's beauty and refinement. He posts guards at every entrance to my tower, twelve men whose sole purpose is to ensure that I remain untouched, unspoiled, and ready for whatever political purpose he deems fit.

But it is not my father I fear most.

As if summoned by my thoughts, I hear voices rising from the courtyard below—voices that make my blood run cold even in the sweltering heat. I recognize the first: my father's boom, loud and jovial, the voice of a man who has never been denied. And the second...

The second belongs to Jaffar.

The Grand Vizier has been my father's closest advisor for three years now, ever since he arrived in Basra bearing gifts and honeyed words. He is tall and elegant, with a pointed beard and eyes that seem to see through flesh to the soul beneath. There is something about him that makes my skin crawl—a wrongness that lurks beneath his cultured manner like rot beneath silk.

I should retreat from the window. A proper princess would return to her cushions, to her embroidery and her studied ignorance of the world beyond her walls. But something in the tone of their voices holds me frozen, and before I can think better of it, I am moving closer to the screen, straining to hear.

"—assure you, Majesty, the alliance will be most beneficial." Jaffar's voice is smooth as oil. "My holdings in the north, combined with your coastal power, will make Basra unassailable."

"And you are certain of your ability to... manage my daughter?" My father's words strike me like a physical blow. Manage. As if I were a horse to be broken or a wild bird to be caged.

"The Princess will find me a most attentive husband." There is something in Jaffar's tone that makes my stomach turn. "She is young and has been... sheltered. She will learn her place."

Husband.

The word echoes in my mind like a death knell. I have known, of course, that marriage would come eventually. But I had harbored secret hopes—foolish, childish hopes—that I might have some say in the matter. That I might be given to a kind man, perhaps even a young one. That I might, against all odds, find something resembling happiness.

Not this. Never this.

"She is stubborn," my father warns. "Like her mother was. Beautiful but willful."

"Then it is fortunate that I have ways of... softening such resistance."

The way he says it makes my skin crawl. There is a promise of dark things in those words, of methods I cannot fathom but instinctively dread.

"When will you make the formal proposal?" my father asks.

"Soon. Very soon. There are merely a few... arrangements I must complete first. Certain rituals that will ensure our union is blessed by powers beyond the merely temporal."

They move away, their voices fading, but I remain frozen at the screen. My hands are trembling, and I realize I'm gripping the wood hard enough to leave marks on my palms.

This is it, then. This is to be my fate. Married to Jaffar, bound to that creature with his cold eyes and colder smile. Managed. Softened. Broken.

Something inside me cracks—not breaks, but transforms. The docile princess who has spent her life behind screens and veils dissolves like morning mist, and in her place rises something fierce and desperate. If I am to be caged forever, sold like a mare at market to a man who speaks of me as if I were property to be acquired, then I will have one taste of freedom first. One stolen moment of life before the bars close forever.

The sun is setting, painting the sky in shades of amber and crimson. In an hour, it will be dark. The evening prayers will sound from the mosques, and the palace will turn its attention to the evening meal. The guards will change their watch, and in that brief window of transition...

I move quickly, my heart pounding. From the depths of my wardrobes, I pull out a set of clothes I have kept hidden for years—the simple cotton dress and head covering of a merchant's daughter, obtained through careful bribes to a sympathetic servant long since dismissed. They are plain and coarse against my skin, so different from the silks I'm accustomed to. I hide my jewels, scrub the kohl from my eyes, and pin my hair in a simple style.

When I look in the mirror, I barely recognize myself. Good.

The tower has a servants' stair, narrow and winding, used by the slaves who bring my meals and empty my chamber pots. I have watched their comings and goings for years, noting the patterns, the timing. I know that at this hour, they will be preparing the Sultan's dinner, too busy to notice one more figure descending the shadowed stairs.

My heart hammers against my ribs as I slip from my chamber. Every step feels like thunder, every breath too loud. But the corridor is empty, the guards stationed at the main entrance rather than this humble back passage. I move like a wraith, like a dream, down and down and down until I reach the servants' entrance.

A slave girl is there, carrying a basket of bread. She glances at me, her eyes sliding past without interest. I am no one—just another servant on an errand. The realization is intoxicating.

And then I am through the gate, into the streets of Basra, and the world explodes around me.

Oh, gods above and below—I was not prepared for this.

The marketplace assaults my senses with the force of a sandstorm. Colors riot everywhere I look—bolts of crimson silk and azure cotton, pyramids of golden spices and mounds of purple dates. The air is thick with a thousand scents: roasting meat and fresh bread, cinnamon and cardamom, jasmine oil and leather and the salt-sweet smell of the sea. Voices rise and fall in a symphony of haggling and laughter, curses and songs. Children dart between the stalls like quicksilver fish. A monkey chatters from a merchant's shoulder. Someone is playing a reed flute, the notes dancing above the crowd.

I stand paralyzed, overwhelmed, my senses drowning in sensation. From my tower, the city was a distant song. Here, I am in the heart of the music, and it is almost too much to bear.

"Watch yourself!" A woman elbows past me, barely sparing me a glance. The casual contact, the complete lack of reverence—it's shocking and wonderful in equal measure.

I begin to walk, uncertain of my destination but drawn forward by pure need. I want to touch everything, taste everything, hear everything. At a fruit stall, I pause to admire the mangoes, their skins blushing red and gold. The merchant sees me looking and grins.

"Finest in Basra! Sweet as honey, juice like nectar. Only three dinars for the lot."

Three dinars. I have no money. I've never needed money. I smile apologetically and move on, but even this small interaction thrills me. He spoke to me—to me—as if I were normal. As if I were real.

I wander deeper into the maze of stalls and shops, drunk on freedom. A storyteller has gathered a crowd, his arms sweeping dramatically as he recounts the tale of Sinbad's voyage. I pause to listen, pressing close to hear. A woman beside me is nursing a baby, its tiny fingers curled in her headscarf. Somewhere nearby, someone is frying fish, and the smell makes my mouth water.

This. This is life. This messy, chaotic, beautiful tapestry of humanity. And I have been shut away from it, preserved like a jewel in cotton, protected from every experience that might make me truly alive.

I am so lost in the wonder of it all that I don't see him until we collide.

"Pardon me—" he begins, his hands steadying me by my elbows.

And then our eyes meet, and the world stops.

He is handsome—devastatingly so, with dark eyes that flash with intelligence and humor, strong features, and a smile that could melt stone. But it is not his beauty that steals my breath. It is the way he looks at me.

Really looks. Not at my face, not at my form, but into me. Through me. As if he can see the person I have kept hidden beneath layers of silk and expectation.

"Are you hurt?" he asks, and his voice is warm, genuine concern coloring the words.

"I—no. No, I'm perfectly well." My own voice sounds strange to my ears, breathless and eager. "I apologize. I wasn't watching where I was going."

"An easy mistake in this madness." He gestures at the swirling crowd around us, but his eyes never leave my face. "You seem... lost. Are you new to Basra?"

I should say yes. I should play the part of the merchant's daughter, new to the city. But something in his gaze makes me want to be honest, to give him at least one truth.

"I'm not new to Basra," I say softly. "But I'm new to this."

He tilts his head, puzzled and intrigued. "To the marketplace?"

"To freedom."

The word hangs between us, heavy with meaning. His expression shifts, sharpens. I see his mind working behind those intelligent eyes, piecing together clues I hadn't meant to give. But he doesn't press. Instead, he smiles—a real smile, boyish and conspiratorial.

"Then you've come to the right place. There's no freedom quite like getting lost in a Basra marketplace." He offers me his arm with exaggerated formality. "Perhaps you'd allow me to be your guide? I know all the best stalls. The silk merchant who tells the dirtiest jokes, the spice seller who reads fortunes in cardamom seeds, the baker whose honey cakes could make a dead man weep with joy."

I know I should refuse. Every moment I linger here increases the chance that my absence will be discovered. But when will I have another chance? When will I ever again feel this flutter in my chest, this electric awareness of another soul recognizing mine?

"I would like that," I hear myself say, and take his arm.

His name is Ahmad, he tells me as we walk. He speaks with the confidence of nobility, though his clothes are fine but not ostentatious. There's something in the way he carries himself—a natural authority that suggests he's accustomed to being obeyed. Yet he treats me as an equal, asking my opinions on the wares we examine, laughing at my observations, genuinely interested in my thoughts.

We stop at the silk merchant's stall, and Ahmad was right—the old man's stories would make a sailor blush. We sample honey cakes that are indeed transcendent. We watch a puppet show that has us both laughing like children. And through it all, I am intensely, vibrantly alive in a way I have never been before.

"You have the most extraordinary eyes," Ahmad says at one point, and I freeze, waiting for the poetry, the cataloguing, the reduction of me to my parts. But he continues: "They're so full of wonder. As if you're seeing the world for the first time."

"Perhaps I am," I whisper.

He looks at me then with such understanding that my throat tightens. "Sometimes," he says quietly, "the walls that imprison us are invisible. But they're no less real for that."

I want to tell him everything. I want to pour out my story, my fears, my desperate, caged heart. But before I can speak, I hear the sound that turns my blood to ice.

"There! By the silk merchant!"

Guards. My father's guards, their distinctive red and gold uniforms cutting through the crowd like knives through water.

Ahmad's hand tightens on my arm. "Friends of yours?"

"No. Yes. I—I have to go."

"Wait—" But I'm already pulling away, my brief taste of paradise crumbling to ash. The guards are pushing through the crowd, their faces grim. There will be consequences for this, I know. Severe consequences.

Ahmad catches my hand, just for a moment. "I don't even know your name."

The guards are almost upon us. In seconds, they will see, will know, will drag me back to my cage. But I hold his gaze for one heartbeat more.

"I'm nobody," I tell him. "A ghost. A dream."

"Dreams have a way of coming true," he says softly.

Then the guards are there, surrounding me, their hands rough on my arms. They apologize to Ahmad for the disturbance—"a runaway servant, sir, nothing to concern yourself with"—and begin marching me away. I don't resist. There's no point.

But I look back.

Ahmad stands in the center of the marketplace, watching me go, and I memorize everything about him—the way the lamplight catches in his hair, the set of his shoulders, the intensity of his gaze. He raises one hand, not in farewell but in promise.

And then the crowd swallows him, and he's gone.

The journey back to the palace passes in a blur of shame and defiant pride. The guards say nothing, their silence more damning than any words. Leyla meets me at my chamber door, her face pale with fear.

"Princess, what have you done?"

"I've lived," I tell her. "For one hour, I lived."

She helps me change, removing the common clothes and replacing them with silk. She brushes out my hair, reapplies my kohl. In the mirror, the Princess reappears—perfect, polished, and utterly unreal.

But something has changed. Behind my eyes, there's a fire that wasn't there before. I have tasted freedom, tasted genuine human connection. I have been seen—truly seen—by someone who looked past the beauty to the person beneath.

I am still in my ruby cage. But now I know what lies beyond the bars.

And I will not forget.

As I settle onto my cushions to await whatever punishment my father decrees, I touch my lips and smile. Let them lock me away. Let them sell me to Jaffar. Let them do their worst.

They're too late.

I am already free.

Chapter 2: The Curse of Isolation

Three days.

That is how long my father made me wait before summoning me to his presence. Three days of pacing my tower like a caged lioness, three days of imagining punishments ranging from flogging to permanent confinement to being walled up alive in some forgotten corner of the palace. Three days during which Leyla would not meet my eyes, and the guards outside my door stood rigid as statues, as if I might shatter their discipline with a glance.

But when the summons finally came, it was not to face my father's wrath.

It was to meet my husband.

"The Grand Vizier has arrived from the north," Leyla whispers as she arranges my veil, her fingers trembling against the silk. "Your father has agreed to the marriage. The betrothal ceremony is tonight."

My blood turns to ice. "Tonight? But I thought—surely there would be negotiations, arrangements—"

"The Vizier brought gifts beyond imagining. Gold, jewels, scrolls of ancient wisdom." Her voice drops even lower. "They say he performed some kind of ceremony in your father's private chambers. Afterward, the Sultan emerged smiling, agreeable to everything. It was... unnatural."

Magic. The word hangs unspoken between us, but we both feel its weight.

I want to rail against this, to tear off my finery and refuse to leave my chamber. But I know the futility of resistance. My father has made his decision, influenced by whatever dark arts Jaffar commands. I am a pawn being moved across a board I cannot see, in a game whose rules I do not know.

"Make me beautiful," I tell Leyla, my voice hollow. "If I am to be sold, let them see what they're paying for."

She dresses me in layers of silk the color of pomegranate seeds, threads gold through my hair, paints my eyes with kohl and my lips with crushed rose petals. Jewels cascade from my throat and wrists, each worth more than most men earn in a lifetime. When she finally steps back, I look like a bride from a Persian miniature—exquisite, expensive, and utterly lifeless.

The mirror shows me everything I am: beauty without substance, art without soul.

I think of Ahmad's eyes in the marketplace, the way he looked at me when I was nobody, nothing, just a girl in plain cotton. I think of his smile, his laugh, the way he offered me his arm as if I were precious not for my face but for myself.

I will never see him again.

The thought sits in my chest like a stone, heavy and cold. Whatever brief magic we shared is over, crushed under the weight of duty and dark powers I cannot fight.

The betrothal ceremony takes place in the Hall of Mirrors, that vast chamber where my father holds his grandest receptions. Hundreds of candles reflect in the polished surfaces, creating an infinity of light that should be beautiful but instead feels dizzying, disorienting. I am led to a dais at the room's center, arranged like a doll among silk cushions, my veil lowered to show only my eyes.

The court assembles—merchants and nobles, military commanders and foreign diplomats, all dressed in their finest, all here to witness the Sultan's daughter being handed over to the most powerful man in the realm after my father himself.

And then Jaffar enters.

He moves through the crowd like a serpent through grass, tall and elegant in robes of midnight blue embroidered with silver stars. His beard is oiled to a point, his fingers heavy with rings that catch the candlelight. He is handsome in a sharp, predatory way—all angles and edges, nothing soft, nothing kind.

But it is his eyes that make my skin crawl. They are dark and fathomless, and when they fix on me, I feel something slither across my soul like a cold finger down my spine.

He approaches the dais and bows—a shallow, mocking gesture that suggests he considers this ceremony a formality rather than a privilege.

"Princess," he says, his voice carrying across the hushed hall. "You are even more exquisite than rumor suggested. I am honored beyond measure."

The words are correct, but there is no warmth in them. He looks at me the way a jeweler might examine a particularly fine ruby—assessing value, checking for flaws, calculating worth.

My father rises from his throne, beaming. "Jaffar, my friend, my right hand. Today we forge more than a political alliance. We unite our families, our fortunes, our futures."

There is something wrong with my father's voice. It has a mechanical quality, as if he's reciting words learned by rote. His eyes are glazed, distant. This is not the man who bellowed at me for lesser infractions, who once had a servant beaten for allowing dust to settle on my cushions.

This is a puppet, and Jaffar holds the strings.

The imam steps forward to conduct the ceremony. I barely hear the words—sacred verses about duty and partnership, about the bonds of marriage being blessed by Allah. My mind is elsewhere, flying back to the marketplace, to a moment of genuine connection now lost forever.

Jaffar produces a contract, unfurling it across a low table. My father signs without reading it. Then Jaffar signs, his script elegant and precise. Finally, they turn to me.

"Your mark, Princess," the imam says gently.

I look at the document, at the flowing Arabic script that will bind me to this man for life. My hand hovers over the ink pot. I could refuse. I could create a scandal, shame my father before his court. But what would it accomplish? They would force my hand eventually, and the cost of my resistance would be paid by those around me—Leyla, the kind old gardener who sometimes smuggles me books, the young guard who once smiled at me sympathetically.

I am trapped, and I know it.

My hand moves as if controlled by another, and I make my mark.

The court erupts in polite applause. Musicians begin to play. Servants circulate with honeyed pastries and chilled sherbet. It is done. In three months, when the proper preparations have been completed, I will be wed to Jaffar in a ceremony even grander than this one.

I am his, legally and irrevocably.

Jaffar approaches the dais again, and this time he climbs the steps to sit beside me. He is close enough that I can smell him—sandalwood and something else, something bitter and wrong, like meat just beginning to turn.

"My bride," he murmurs, his voice pitched for my ears alone. "I have a gift for you. A token of my... affection."

He claps his hands, and two servants struggle forward carrying something large and awkward, draped in silk. They set it before the dais and withdraw, bowing. Jaffar rises smoothly and pulls away the covering with a flourish.

The court gasps, and I cannot blame them.

It is a girl—or rather, a mechanical simulacrum of a girl, wrought in silver and precious metals. She is life-sized, seated on a small wheeled platform, her hands resting delicately in her lap. Every detail is perfect: the cascade of silver wire hair, the delicate features, the elaborate dress of silver mesh set with tiny gems. Her eyes are closed, and her face wears an expression of serene contentment.

"A clockwork marvel," Jaffar announces to the crowd. "Created by the finest artificers in Persia. She dances, she plays music, she even speaks a few simple phrases. A companion for my Princess, so she need never be lonely in her tower."

The court murmurs appreciatively. My father beams. "A magnificent gift! Generous beyond measure!"

But I am staring at the silver girl, and every instinct I possess is screaming at me to run. There is something deeply wrong about her, something that goes beyond her uncanny resemblance to human form. In the candlelight, shadows seem to move beneath her silver skin, and though her eyes are closed, I have the unsettling sensation that she is watching me.

"Come, my bride," Jaffar says, extending his hand. "Wind her key. Let the court see her dance."

I don't want to touch it. Every fiber of my being rebels against the idea. But hundreds of eyes are upon me, including my father's glazed stare, and I have no choice. I rise on trembling legs and descend from the dais.

Jaffar guides my hand to a silver key protruding from the automaton's back. His fingers are cold, corpse-cold, and they tighten around mine with unexpected strength.

"Turn it," he whispers, his breath hot against my ear. "Accept my gift."

I turn the key.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then the silver girl's eyes open—and they are not gems or glass but something organic, something alive and aware and full of malice. They fix on me, and I see my own reflection in their dark depths, see myself small and helpless and utterly doomed.

A wave of something crashes over me, through me, into the very core of my being. It is cold beyond cold, dark beyond dark. I feel it wrap around my heart like iron chains, feel it sink hooks into my soul. The hall spins, and I am falling, falling—

Strong hands catch me. Jaffar's hands. He lowers me back onto the cushions, all solicitous concern.

"The Princess is overwhelmed by emotion," he announces to the court. "The joy of our betrothal has quite overcome her. We should let her rest."

The court is already dispersing, the excitement over. My father waves a dismissive hand, his attention already on the refreshments. Servants begin dismantling the ceremony space. Only Leyla rushes to my side, her face creased with worry.

"Princess? Can you hear me?"

I can hear her, but I cannot speak. My tongue feels thick, foreign. My body will not respond to my commands. I am conscious but paralyzed, aware but helpless.

Jaffar leans close, his smile never wavering. "The gift will be sent to your chambers," he says pleasantly. "I'm certain you'll grow most... attached to it."

Then he is gone, gliding away with my father, leaving me shaking and cold on the dais.

They carry me back to my tower, Leyla and two serving women. I can walk now, though my legs feel distant, disconnected. The silver girl is wheeled after us, her sightless eyes watching, watching, always watching.

"Set it in the corner," Leyla instructs the servants, her voice tight with unease. They obey quickly, clearly as eager to be away from the thing as I am.

When they're gone, Leyla helps me to my cushions and presses a cup of water to my lips. I drink mechanically, still unable to speak, my mind whirling with what happened. That touch, that terrible moment of contact—what did Jaffar do to me?

"Rest, Princess," Leyla whispers. "I'll stay with you tonight."

But I cannot rest. Even with my eyes closed, I feel the silver girl's presence like a weight on my chest. I feel something coiling around me, tightening, changing.

Sleep finally comes near dawn, fitful and full of nightmares.

***

I wake to screaming.

My eyes snap open to find one of the younger serving girls standing in my doorway, her face twisted in horror. She is staring at me, her hand pressed to her mouth as if to hold back vomit.

"Get out!" she shrieks. "Get out, you hideous thing!"

Leyla rushes in and slaps the girl. "How dare you speak to the Princess that way!"

But the serving girl only cries harder, pointing at me with a shaking finger. "That's not the Princess! That's a monster! Look at her!"

Other servants are gathering now, drawn by the commotion. I see their faces twist as they look at me—revulsion, disgust, horror. One man crosses himself and backs away, murmuring prayers of protection.

"What's wrong with you all?" Leyla demands, but I can hear the fear creeping into her voice.

I rise slowly and move to my mirror, though part of me knows I shouldn't, knows that what I see will break something inside me.

The mirror shows me myself—beautiful, exactly as I have always been. My hair cascades in glossy waves, my skin is flawless, my features perfectly proportioned. I am unchanged.

But behind me in the mirror, I see the servants' reflections, and I see what they see.

Or rather, I don't. Because in their reflected gazes, I am monstrous.

I turn back to face them, and the terror in their eyes confirms what I cannot see. Somehow, impossibly, I appear to them as something grotesque, something repulsive beyond bearing.

"The curse," I whisper, and the servants flee.

The day that follows is a descent into a special kind of hell.

The guards outside my door will not look at me. When I try to pass, they turn their faces away, their hands moving to their sword hilts as if I might attack. Servants who have tended to me for years now refuse to enter my chambers. My meals are left outside the door like food for a prisoner—or an animal.

Leyla is the only one who tries to maintain normalcy, but even she cannot meet my eyes for long. I see the struggle in her face, the fight between duty and revulsion. She loves me, I know this, but whatever Jaffar has done makes even love difficult to sustain.

I spend hours at my mirror, staring at my unchanged reflection, trying to understand. This is Jaffar's doing—the silver girl, that moment of dark contact. He has cursed me somehow, made me appear hideous to all who look upon me.

But why? If he wanted to break me, to ensure my submission, he has succeeded spectacularly. I am now isolated not just by walls and guards but by the very faces I wear. I am more alone than I have ever been.

As the sun sets on that terrible day, I understand. Jaffar has made me utterly dependent on him. He is the only one immune to the curse, the only one who can still see me as beautiful. He has ensured that I will have no allies, no one to turn to, no hope of rescue or escape. When we marry, I will be grateful to him simply for being able to look at me without flinching.

It is a masterpiece of cruelty.

I sink onto my cushions as darkness falls, and for the first time since I was a small child, I weep. Not delicate tears, but great wracking sobs that shake my entire body. I cry for my lost freedom, for Ahmad's face that I will never see again, for the nightmare my life has become.

And I cry because some terrible part of me wonders: is this my punishment? Did I bring this curse upon myself by daring to leave my tower, to taste freedom, to want something more?

The night deepens, and I am alone with my horror.

But then—a knock at my door.

Not the confident rap of a guard or the timid tap of a servant. Something different, lighter, almost furtive.

"Who's there?" My voice is hoarse from crying.

"A delivery, lady. From an admirer."

I rise, my heart beating strangely. Through the door's carved screen, I can make out the shape of a young boy, perhaps twelve, holding a covered basket.

"Leave it and go."

"Can't, lady. Was told to place it in your hands specifically." There's something off about his tone—too cheerful, almost rehearsed.

I open the door a crack, braced for his reaction, but the boy just grins up at me. His eyes are clouded with cataracts—he is blind, I realize. The curse cannot touch him.

"From a friend," he says, pressing the basket into my hands. Then he is gone, running down the corridor before I can question him further.

I carry the basket inside, my hands trembling. It is light, fragrant. I lift the woven lid.

Mangoes. Six perfect mangoes, their skins blushing red and gold in the lamplight.

And nestled among them, wrapped in a scrap of silk, is a flower wrought in pure gold.

My breath catches. The petals are impossibly delicate, each one shaped and hammered with exquisite care. It is not a real flower but something finer—art made permanent, beauty that cannot fade or die.

I lift it to the lamplight, and tears blur my vision. Because I know who sent this, know without question. Ahmad. Somehow, impossibly, he found me. Somehow he is telling me that he remembers our hour in the marketplace, that he hasn't forgotten.

But how? He must see me as the curse makes me appear—hideous, monstrous. The servants flee from my sight. Leyla can barely stand to look at me. What must I seem like to him?

And yet he sent this. This message of gold and sweetness, this promise that I am not entirely alone.

I press the flower to my lips, and something inside me, something that was breaking, begins to knit back together. Not healed, perhaps, but no longer shattering.

The curse has failed in one crucial way. It cannot reach the heart of a man who saw me—truly saw me—when I was no one at all. Ahmad looked past the beauty to the person beneath. And now, it seems, he can look past the ugliness to that same person.

I set the flower on my cushion, where I can see it always, and I feel something dangerous growing in my chest.

Hope.

Jaffar has made me monstrous to the world, has isolated me in a prison of flesh and perception. But he has made one critical error. He believed that beauty was my strength, that taking it from me would break me entirely.

He was wrong.

My beauty was my cage, not my power. It was the bars that kept me separate from the world, the thing that made me a possession rather than a person. And Ahmad taught me that in one hour in the marketplace—he saw me not because I was beautiful but because I was real.

I am still real. Still here. Still fighting.

I move to the window, looking out over Basra's lights. Somewhere in that sprawling city, Ahmad is thinking of me. Somehow, against all odds and dark magic, we are connected.

I don't know how I will escape Jaffar's curse. I don't know how I will avoid the marriage that will bind me to him forever. I don't know if I will ever be free again.

But I know one thing with absolute certainty: I am not defeated.

I am a princess in a ruby cage, cursed to wear a monster's face. But I am also the girl who tasted freedom in a marketplace, who saw wonder in honey cakes and puppet shows, who felt genuine connection with another soul.

That girl is still alive. And she will not surrender.

I lie down with the golden flower clutched in my hand, and for the first time since the curse fell, I sleep without nightmares.

Tomorrow, I will begin planning my survival.

Tomorrow, I will find a way to fight back.

Tomorrow, I will prove to Jaffar that taking my beauty has only revealed the stronger thing beneath.

Tomorrow.

But tonight, I hold gold and mangoes and hope, and I smile in the darkness.

Let the Vizier think he's won. Let him believe his magic is unbreakable.

He doesn't know that the most powerful magic of all is the kind that sees through illusions, that recognizes truth beneath any mask.

He doesn't know about Ahmad.

And that will be his undoing.

Chapter 3: The Star and the Scimitar

The storm was building.

I could feel it in my bones, in the oppressive weight of the air that pressed against my tower chamber like a living thing. Lightning flickered on the horizon, turning the distant sea into a sheet of hammered silver. Thunder growled like a caged beast. Perfect.

Three days had passed since Jaffar's curse had transformed me into a monster—or rather, had made the world believe I was one. Three days of watching servants recoil in horror, of seeing guards avert their eyes in disgust, of enduring the cruel irony that my mirror still showed me my true face while every living soul saw only hideousness. Three days of Jaffar's satisfied smile, knowing he had isolated me more completely than any locked door ever could.

But I was not as alone as he believed.

The golden flower lay hidden beneath my pillow, its delicate petals catching lamplight when I dared to look at it. Ahmad had sent it. Despite the curse, despite seeing what everyone else saw—a face twisted by dark magic into something repulsive—he had remembered me. The flower meant he saw past the surface, past the spell, to something Jaffar's magic couldn't touch.

My soul, perhaps. Or my spirit. Whatever it was, it was enough.

"Yasmin," I called softly. "Attend me."

The old woman shuffled into the chamber, her blind eyes milky white in her weathered face. She was the only servant who could approach me without flinching, blessed by the curse's one weakness—it could not deceive those who did not see. She had been my nurse once, long ago, before age had stolen her sight. My father had allowed her to stay in the palace out of charity, never knowing she would become my salvation.

"Princess?" Her voice was gentle, concerned. She alone still spoke to me with warmth.

I pressed a small scroll into her gnarled hands, along with a pouch of gold dinars I'd hoarded from years of ignored allowances. "Take this to the address I've written. Give it only to the man who lives there—no one else. Can you do this?"

Her fingers traced the scroll, and though she couldn't read it, she seemed to understand its weight. "It is dangerous, child."

"Everything is dangerous now." I touched her cheek, feeling the soft leather of her skin. "If you're caught—"

"I am an old blind woman. Who notices such creatures? I will be your invisible messenger, as you have been made invisible by that devil's curse." She tucked the scroll into her robes. "What does it say, this message?"

I had agonized over the words, trying to compress desperate hope into a few lines: The cage is open, but the bird is poisoned. Save me, not for my face, but for the star you follow. Tonight, when the storm breaks. The west balcony. Come alone, or come with an army—but come.

"It says I'm ready to fight," I told her simply.

She nodded, understanding in her blind eyes more than sight could ever show. "Then fight well, little bird. And fly far." She shuffled toward the door, then paused. "Your mother would be proud."

The words struck me like a physical blow. My mother, dead these ten years, who had been wild and free before my father's love had caged her too. Yes. She would understand this desperate gamble. She would approve.

After Yasmin left, I began my preparations.

The knotted silks had been my project for two days, worked on in secret during the long hours of isolation. I had torn apart cushion covers, curtains, even the delicate scarves I'd once worn for court appearances. My hands bore small cuts from where I'd pulled the knots too tight, testing their strength. The makeshift rope was rough but serviceable, long enough to reach from my balcony to the garden wall thirty feet below.

I dressed in the most practical clothes I possessed—a simple tunic and loose trousers meant for sleeping, dyed dark blue. Over this I wrapped a black cloak. My jewels I left behind—all except one ruby ring that had been my mother's. If this went wrong, if I died in the attempt, I wanted something of hers with me.

The storm hit as darkness fell.

Rain lashed against the latticed screens with furious intensity. Wind howled through the palace like a chorus of djinn. Perfect conditions for madness. Perfect conditions for escape.

I tied one end of my silk rope to the heavy stone basin in my chamber, testing the knot three times. My hands were steadier than I'd expected. Perhaps fear had burned through me so completely that I'd passed into some realm beyond terror, where only cold determination remained.

The west balcony was barely more than a decorative protrusion, a place where I'd once sat to watch sunsets. Now it would be my gateway to freedom or death. I stepped out into the storm, and the wind immediately tried to tear me from my perch. Rain soaked through my cloak in seconds, plastering my hair to my skull. Lightning split the sky, and in its flash I saw the garden wall below, slick and treacherous.

No sign of Ahmad. Had my message even reached him? Was I about to descend to nothing but capture and punishment?

Then I saw movement at the wall—two figures, dark shapes against darker stone. One tall and lean, moving with the grace of a dancer. The other shorter, stockier, scrambling over the wall with practiced ease. Relief flooded through me with such force I nearly sobbed.

He had come.

I threw the silk rope over the balcony's edge, watching it snake down into the storm-dark garden. No time for second thoughts now. I gripped the rope, whispered a prayer to any god who might listen to cursed princesses, and climbed over the railing.

The descent was nightmare.

My hands, soft from a lifetime of luxury, screamed in protest as I lowered myself hand over hand. The wet silk slipped in my grip. Wind buffeted me, slamming me against the tower wall hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. Rain blinded me. My arms trembled with strain.

Halfway down, I heard the shouts.

"The Princess! She's escaping!"

Jaffar's voice, sharp with fury, cut through the storm. "Stop her! Bring her back alive—I want her alive!"

Guards poured into the garden below like ants from a disturbed nest. Torches bobbed in the darkness, rain-dimmed but approaching fast.

"Drop!" The command came from below—Ahmad's voice, urgent and strong. "I'll catch you!"

I looked down. He stood directly beneath me, arms outstretched. The ground was still fifteen feet away. Fifteen feet of empty air and hard earth.

"Trust me!" he called.

What choice did I have?

I let go.

The fall seemed to last forever and no time at all. Then I slammed into Ahmad's arms with enough force to drive us both to the muddy ground. For a heartbeat we lay there, tangled together, the breath knocked from both our lungs.

"Well," gasped a new voice—the shorter man, standing over us with a distinctly amused expression, "that was graceful. Truly. Poets will sing of it."

"Shut up, Abu," Ahmad wheezed, but he was already moving, pulling me to my feet. His hands on my arms were firm, steadying. He looked at me—really looked—and I saw him flinch. Just a tiny movement, quickly suppressed, but I saw it. The curse showed him a monster, yet here he was, holding me as if I were precious.

"Can you run?" he asked.

"Like the wind," I promised.

"Then run!"

We ran.

The gardens became a maze of shadows and rain, of slippery paths and grasping thorns. Guards shouted behind us, their voices multiplying. A crossbow bolt whistled past my head, so close I felt the wind of its passage. Abu, running ahead, laughed—actually laughed—as if this were a grand adventure rather than a flight from death.

"Who is this madman?" I gasped to Ahmad.

"Abu? Best thief in Basra. Worst influence in three kingdoms. Saved my life twice."

"Only twice?" Abu called back. "I'm losing count!"

We burst through a hedge and nearly collided with a patrol of guards. Steel rang as Ahmad drew his scimitar—a beautiful weapon that caught lightning-flash and threw it back. He moved like water, like wind, the blade dancing in his hands. Two guards went down before they could shout. A third lunged at me, and I surprised us both by kicking him squarely between the legs. He dropped with a strangled wheeze.

"Remind me never to anger you," Abu said appreciatively.

Then we were past them, racing toward the outer wall. Abu produced a rope—where had he been hiding that?—and in moments we were up and over, dropping into the alley beyond. The palace bells began to ring, their brazen voices announcing my escape to all of Basra.

"The harbor," Ahmad said. "Now."

We ran through streets transformed by storm into rivers of mud and refuse. Citizens huddled in doorways, watching our mad flight with wide eyes. More guards appeared, drawn by the bells, and we dodged into side alleys, vaulted over market stalls, splashed through flooded squares. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. I had never felt more alive.

At the harbor, a small dhow waited, its single sail furled, its deck awash with rain. A weather-beaten sailor stood at the tiller, looking distinctly unhappy about the storm.

"This is madness!" he shouted over the wind. "The harbor master will never—"

Abu tossed him a purse that clinked heavily. "The harbor master can take it up with Shaitan himself! Cast off!"

We leapt aboard as the sailor began frantically untying mooring ropes. Behind us, guards poured onto the dock, crossbows raised. Bolts thunked into the dhow's hull. Ahmad shoved me down behind the low gunwale, his body shielding mine. I felt his heart hammering against my back—or perhaps that was my own heart, impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

The sail unfurled with a crack like thunder. Wind caught it, and the dhow lurched away from the dock with stomach-dropping speed. We shot into the harbor, into the storm, into the wild darkness beyond Basra's sheltering walls.

"They're following!" Abu shouted, pointing back.

Three larger vessels had launched behind us, their oars churning white water. Jaffar stood in the prow of the lead ship, his robes whipping in the wind, his face a mask of cold fury. Even at this distance, I could feel the weight of his hatred.

"He'll use magic," I warned Ahmad. "He has power—dark power you can't imagine."

"Then we'd better imagine faster sailing!" Ahmad moved to help the sailor with the rigging. The dhow heeled over alarmingly, its rail dipping toward the hungry waves. Water sloshed over the deck, and I clung to a rope, terrified and exhilarated in equal measure.

Abu crouched beside me, his cheerful face suddenly serious. "So you're the princess. The one who's got Jaffar in such a state."

"You know about Jaffar?"

"Everyone knows about Jaffar, lady. He's been working his hooks into every power in Basra since he arrived. Question is—what did you do to make him so desperate to get you back?"

"I refused to be his pawn," I said simply.

Abu grinned, sudden and bright. "I like you. Most nobles would have fainted by now."

"I'm not most nobles."

"No," he agreed, studying me with shrewd eyes that seemed to see past the curse's illusion. "No, you're not."

The pursuing ships were gaining. Jaffar stood like a statue in the lead vessel, and now I saw him raise his hands. Words I couldn't hear carried across the water, and the wind shifted, blowing against our sail.

"He's controlling the storm!" the sailor screamed, fighting the tiller as our dhow wallowed.

Ahmad appeared at my side, his hair plastered to his skull, his fine clothes ruined. In the lightning flashes, he looked like some ancient hero from the old tales—all wild determination and reckless courage. When he looked at me, I saw him struggling not to recoil from whatever face the curse showed him, but his voice was steady.

"Listen to me. I need you to understand something. I don't know what Jaffar did to you, what magic he used, but I see—" He swallowed hard. "I see what he wants me to see. And it doesn't matter."

"Ahmad—"

"Let me finish." His hand found mine, gripped it tight. "When I look at you, yes, I see something the curse wants me to see. But I also see courage. I see someone who climbed down a tower in a storm, who kicked a guard in the fruits, who hasn't uttered a single complaint while being shot at and chased across a harbor. Your courage shines brighter than any face."

Tears mixed with rain on my cheeks. "You barely know me."

"I know enough. I know you're worth fighting for."

A massive wave crashed over the bow, nearly washing us overboard. Abu cursed creatively as he scrambled for handholds. The pursuing ships were within arrow range now.

"We can't outrun them," Ahmad said grimly. "Not with Jaffar bending the wind itself."

"Then we go where he can't follow." The sailor pointed toward the rocky coastline, barely visible through the storm. "The Serpent's Teeth. Narrow channels, sharp rocks. A small boat can navigate them. Those war galleys will be torn apart."

"How encouraging," Abu muttered.

"Do it," Ahmad commanded.

The sailor spun the tiller, and we careened toward the rocks. Behind us, Jaffar's ship followed, its oars beating like the wings of some monstrous bird. I could see his face now, twisted with rage, his hands weaving patterns in the air. Lightning struck near our mast, close enough that I smelled ozone and burning wood.

"He's trying to kill us all!" Abu yelped.

"No," I said with cold certainty. "He's trying to kill you. He wants me alive."

The Serpent's Teeth rose from the storm-lashed sea like the spine of some drowned titan. Our dhow shot between two towering rocks, missing collision by inches. The sailor was brilliant, reading the currents, dancing between stone fangs that could tear out our hull. Behind us, Jaffar's lead ship tried to follow—

And struck.

The crash was audible even over the storm. The war galley's hull splintered on submerged rocks. Oars shattered. Men screamed. I saw Jaffar gesticulating wildly, trying to use magic to save his vessel, but the sea was older than his power, wilder than his will. The ship listed, taking on water.

The other two vessels had stopped, their captains too wise to follow into the Teeth.

We were through.

For a long moment, no one spoke. We simply breathed, clinging to our battered dhow as it limped away from the rocks into deeper water. The storm was passing, the wind easing. Dawn light, pale and tentative, began to paint the eastern sky.

"Where are we?" I asked finally.

"Forty miles south of Basra," the sailor said. "There's a beach ahead. We're taking on water—we won't make it much farther."

Ahmad nodded. "Take us in."

The beach was a crescent of white sand backed by palm trees and scrub. We ran the dhow aground and stumbled onto dry land, exhausted, soaked, but alive. The sailor took his payment and began examining his damaged vessel, muttering about the insanity of nobles.

I collapsed onto the sand, every muscle in my body screaming. Ahmad sat beside me, and Abu sprawled on my other side. For a long moment, we simply watched the sun rise, painting the world in shades of gold and rose.

"So," Abu said eventually. "Anyone want to explain what we're running from? Besides an evil vizier and certain death?"

Ahmad looked at me. I looked at him. And suddenly, impossibly, I began to laugh. It bubbled up from somewhere deep inside, uncontrollable and slightly hysterical. Abu joined in, and then Ahmad, and we sat there on that beach like madmen, laughing at the sheer insanity of being alive.

When the laughter faded, Ahmad spoke quietly. "I should tell you something. My name is Ahmad ibn Malik. I am—or was—Prince of Basra. Jaffar used magic to depose me, to make my own father, the Sultan, forget I existed. He's stolen my throne, my identity, my life."

The world seemed to tilt. "You're the Prince?"

"Was the Prince. Now I'm just a man trying to reclaim what was stolen." He looked at me intently. "And you? Who are you, really?"

The time for secrets had passed. "I am Princess Soraya, daughter of Sultan Rasheed. Jaffar cursed me to make me hideous to all who look upon me—all except him. He wants to marry me, to cement his power through my bloodline."

Abu whistled low. "So let me see if I understand this. We've got two displaced royals, one evil sorcerer vizier, and a curse that needs breaking. This is either the start of a great legend or the worst day of my life."

"Possibly both," I admitted.

Ahmad was staring at me with new understanding. "The girl from the market. That was you?"

"That was my one taste of freedom before Jaffar closed his trap." I met his eyes, unflinching despite knowing what he saw. "You said you would remember me. That dreams have a way of coming true."

"I remember," he said softly. "I see you, Soraya. Not the face the curse shows me, not the princess in the tower—you. The woman who chose freedom over safety. The one who climbed down a tower in a storm."

"Then help me destroy him." I turned to face both men fully. "Jaffar has taken everything from both of us. He holds Basra in his grip, poisons it with his dark magic. He must be stopped."

"Stopped?" Abu snorted. "Lady, in case you missed it, we just barely escaped with our lives. He commands armies, he has magic, and he's got the Sultan himself under his thumb. What are we supposed to do? Ask him nicely to step aside?"

"No." Ahmad's voice was hard, determined. "We do what heroes in the old stories always do. We find his weakness. We build our strength. And we take back what's ours."

He stood, offering me his hand. I took it, rising to face the dawn. The sun was fully up now, burning away the last of the storm clouds. Behind us was Basra, the city that had been our prison. Ahead was unknown country, uncertain fate.

But we were free. And we were together.

"I swear to you, Soraya," Ahmad said, his hand still holding mine, "I will help you break this curse. I will help you stop Jaffar. Or I will die trying."

"I swear the same to you," I replied. "Your throne, your kingdom—we will restore them. Together."

Abu groaned. "Oh, wonderful. We're doing dramatic oaths now. Fine." He stood, placing his hand over ours. "I swear to help you two crazy nobles get yourselves killed in the most spectacular way possible. And if by some miracle we succeed, I want a palace. A small one. With a really good wine cellar."

Despite everything—the exhaustion, the fear, the impossible task ahead—I smiled. Then Ahmad smiled. And standing there on that beach with the morning sun warming our faces and the salt wind in our hair, we were not a deposed prince, a cursed princess, and a thief.

We were three people who had chosen to fight.

And fight we would.

To be continued...