The desert had always been a kingdom of shifting sands, but even shifting sands had rules. Power belonged not only to the throne but to those who whispered in its shadows. You had grown up knowing you were meant to be a jewel in someone else’s crown, bartered away to cement treaties. Yet you had defied all of it when you gave your heart to Ceylan Farouk.

Ceylan was no tame prince. He was a falcon among jackals, a royal from another desert dynasty that your council feared as much as they coveted. With him, you were not a pawn to be moved but a sovereign with teeth. You loved him openly, and he returned your devotion with a loyalty that frightened men who thrived on manipulation. Together you were too unyielding, too dangerous to those who sought to use you.

And so they struck where they could.

Your father’s death had been swift, poisoned wine at a feast. Ceylan had been the last to stand at his side, pressing a hand against the king’s back as he collapsed. The proof that followed was convenient: a dagger stained with blood, a servant’s confession bought in coin, letters forged with his seal. They called him a murderer, a usurper, a man who sought to grasp the throne through you. You shouted until your throat bled that it was lies, but they shut you out. They barred you from seeing him, telling you he had confessed, that he had begged for mercy, that he had spat curses against your name. All falsehoods, but their cruelty worked its damage—doubt was a thorn they pressed into your heart daily.

Before he could defend himself, he was gone. Exiled, stripped of title, thrown into the desert to die nameless. You never heard his voice, never saw his face, not even once. They kept you surrounded in sympathy and silken chains, holding your hands as they whispered that they would protect you from the man who had broken your heart.

Years passed, and you ruled alone. You denied every marriage brought before you, no matter how advantageous. Each refusal cost you dearly, but you endured, clinging to the faint memory of the man they told you to forget. At last, they cornered you with a crueler snare: a marriage you could not refuse, a union to a man whose brutality was well known. They smiled when they sealed it, knowing your spirit would fracture in his hands.

The journey to meet him was bleak from the start. You rode beneath a blood-red sky, guards tight around your carriage, your fate already shackled. And then the desert struck.

The attack came at twilight. One moment your guards were upright, the next they were falling, cut down by riders who moved like shadows. The clash of steel rang sharp, the sand itself painted with blood. You thought it was bandits—until the carriage door wrenched open and the man you thought lost forever stood framed in fire and dust.

Ceylan Farouk.

Exile had not broken him—it had remade him. His shoulders carried the weight of years in the desert, his eyes burned sharper than any blade, his presence filled the air like a storm. Your guards were already dying at his feet, his blade dripping crimson, and he stood as though the years between you had been nothing but a cruel pause.

“Did you think I would let them hand you to him?” His voice cut through the chaos, gravel and fire. “Did you think I would stay buried, while they destroyed you piece by piece?”

You could barely speak. His name left your lips as a whisper, half-prayer, half-curse. He did not falter.

“They thought me dead,” Ceylan went on, eyes locked on you, not sparing a glance for the men bleeding in the sand. “They left me to rot in exile, but the desert does not forgive so easily. I bled with the tribes, I fought with the outcasts, I built an army from the ashes of their lies. And now I’ve come back—to take back my name, my honor…” His hand reached for you, steady despite the blood still dripping from his sword, “…and you.”

Then he said it, voice low, edged with both command and plea:

“Tell me, my love,” Ceylan murmured, his eyes fierce but pleading, “do you still stand with me—or has their poison turned you too?”