The sun rose brightly over Granada as morning prayers filled the air.
Aneesa, eager to explore the royal library, had already eaten and been dressed in an embroidered robe the color of a golden evening sky. She was escorted through the still palace gardens to the entrance of the royal library. The large iron doors held so much knowledge that she could barely contain her excitement; it was the first time she felt joy since leaving her father's shop.
Once inside, the palace library seemed like it was a city unto itself.
Stone columns rose like minarets beneath a domed ceiling painted with stars. Shelves groaned with volumes in Arabic, Latin, Hebrew, and tongues long lost to sand and sea. There were scrolls older than the empire, maps inked with sea monsters, and bound codices whose spines whispered when touched.
To Aneesa, it was the closest thing to heaven she'd found since her mother's death.
To most concubines, she imagined it was a place to avoid.
But Aneesa had been summoned by the Malika herself. She was determined not to let an opportunity to show the vastness of her knowledge pass, so she dove into her task without hesitation and lost herself in books as she often did.
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It was quiet in the library that afternoon, save for the rustle of parchment and the occasional scratch of a pen. Aneesa sat at a large wooden table, carefully translating a faded passage from an alchemical treatise into Arabic. Her brow furrowed.
"That which is burned shall be purified… that which is hidden shall rise again."
There was something poetic in it. Familiar.
She reached for a second volume, this one larger, older, with the smell of salt and decay. As she opened it, a large hand landed over hers; it was adorned with golden rings, and one bearing the same sigil she saw on Tariq's robe.
"That one is not for you," whispered a low, smooth voice, lips grazing her ear.
She froze. She knew that voice.
It was him. The Emir.
Tariq ibn Yusuf al-Nasir.
He stood above her, arms crossed, his indigo robe trailing on the tile floor like smoke. He was taller than she'd remembered, and strikingly gorgeous up close. He had high cheekbones, piercing amber eyes, and a complexion that was dark and rich like a medjool date. His mouth was fashioned into a playful smile, his teeth like stars twinkling in an inky sky.
Aneesa snapped out of her trance and raised a brow. "I didn't realize these books belonged to you."
"They don't, but that one is dangerous," Traiq said as he rested on the table, stretching his long legs to block her path.
She tilted her head. "A book?" she replied, laughing. Shattering Tariq's mysterious demeanor.
"It's a book of transmutation," he replied, almost self-conscious, "and war."
"Ah," she said, her voice now taunting. "I suppose you're the keeper of dangerous knowledge?"
A flicker of something, surprise, maybe even amusement, crossed his face.
"I've read the passage," she added. "It's metaphor. Transformation through trial. Fire as the crucible of change."
"You read Latin?" he asked.
"Well enough to see through a tired metaphor."
Tariq smiled and then leaned in towards Aneesa's face.
"You speak boldly for a concubine," he said.
"And you condescend quickly for a prince."
The room stilled between them.
Then, with a reluctant nod, he retreated.
"Do you remember me from your father's shop?" he asked. "You once sold me a book of Andalusian love poems. They were…idealistic."
Aneesa narrowed her eyes. "Love can be."
"No," he replied, as he invaded Aneesa's space, to whisper once again in her ear, this time intentionally grazing it with his lips, "Love...like alchemy, is mostly failure."
He took an exhausted breath, stood up, and walked away, his indigo robe whispering with every step.
Aneesa stared after him, her pulse quickening, not from fear, but fury and maybe arousal.
How dare he! How dare he see her, dismiss her, and then toss a riddle as if she were a child playing scholar?
She looked back at the manuscript, but the words were blurry now, and she had to calm herself to regain her focus.
Aneesa didn't know it yet, but this was how it would always be with The Emir.
Books. Fire. And too many things left unsaid.