Assad wandered through the palace corridors like a shadow. Each step echoed on the silent marble, and every beat of his heart felt heavier than the last. He couldn't take it anymore. He was suffocating. He needed to escape — if only for a moment.
He decided to leave.
Without telling anyone, he had his horse saddled and headed east, toward the desert lands, where his old refuge lay hidden among the dunes.
A place full of shadows: an oasis, where, long ago, as a careless and arrogant teenager, he used to take his fleeting conquests away from the palace's watchful eyes.
He rode for two full days, alone, tense, stifled by the dry heat and vast silence of the desert.
As he went on, memories resurfaced, burning like the sand beneath his steps.
But tonight, he wasn't going there to find those memories. He just wanted to be alone, far from everything. Far from himself.
Night had long fallen when he finally spotted the palms and the dark mirror of water.
He pulled on his horse's reins, slowing his pace, savoring the cool breeze coming down from the oasis.
Everything seemed frozen in an unreal calm.
And then...
A sound, light as a caress, floated in the air.
A song.
Assad straightened abruptly in the saddle.
Someone was singing.
No… something was singing.
The voice was pure, ethereal, coming from an unknown world. The words it whispered, he didn't recognize — a foreign tongue, perhaps ancient or forbidden.
He felt his hairs rise beneath his tunic.
Slowly, he approached, hidden by the palms.
His heart pounded wildly against his ribs.
In the pale moonlight, he saw... a silhouette.
From behind.
A frail, almost unreal body, draped in a light tunic. And that cascade of black hair, shining wet, flowing down to the knees, moved by the breeze.
Assad froze.
His breath caught in his throat.
A violent dizziness seized him.
He wanted to speak, but no sound came out.
A djinn.
It could only be a djinn!
He yanked the reins sharply, spun his horse in a cloud of sand, and spurred it into a gallop.
Never daring to look back.
---
He reached the palace at dawn the next day, his face pale, throat dry.
He hurriedly entered through the service doors, crossing the sleeping corridors, ignoring the surprised looks of the servants.
In the empty lounge, he collapsed onto a couch, his face buried in his hands.
He stayed like that for long minutes, unable to think, unable to speak.
The soft voice of Amira, the housekeeper, pulled him from his stupor.
"Assad? What's wrong?"
He didn't answer right away.
He looked like a man who had just glimpsed death.
Finally, in a hoarse voice, he whispered:
"I saw… something, near the oasis."
Amira narrowed her eyes and stepped closer.
"Tell me."
Then, in a broken voice, he described the scene: the song, the silhouette, the black hair, the icy fear.
Amira listened without interrupting, her serious face darkening with every word.
When he finished, she was silent for a moment.
Then she sighed, as if she had expected this.
"That place... is cursed," she murmured.
Assad lifted his head, surprised.
"They say, for years, that the oasis is haunted.
That a creature lives there… a djinn of unmatched beauty, condemned to wander for eternity.
She sings to lure travelers... and when they approach, she devours them."
A shiver of horror ran down Assad's spine.
He lowered his head, unable to shake the image of the silhouette by the water.
He didn't know…
That he had just crossed paths with Nahia