The door of the small house shut firmly after the rebels departed. The silence they left behind felt dense, almost physical.
Al-Mu'tashim stood with his back to her, fists clenched at his sides. His breathing had steadied, yet tension still marked the line of his shoulders.
"We cannot remain here," he said at last.
Ruqayyah leaned against the wooden table, watching him warily. "Because they will return?"
"They will," he replied without hesitation. "And next time, they will not bother to knock."
The words cooled the air between them.
She lifted her chin. "Then what is your plan, Ya Amir? To move me to another crumbling house?"
Al-Mu'tashim turned. His gaze was firm, unyielding.
"You will come with me to the palace."
The sentence fell simply. No flourish. No explanation.
Ruqayyah went still.
"The palace?" she repeated slowly, as though testing the sound of it. "You would take me to the heart of Abbasid power?"
He did not elaborate. He did not need to. Ruqayyah understood well enough the danger bound to her name.
Several heartbeats passed.
"Why?" she asked at last, quieter now. "Why trouble yourself to save me? I am no one."
Al-Mu'tashim fell silent. Something shifted across his features—a brief conflict, gone almost as soon as it appeared.
"Because your death would create greater trouble than your survival," he said finally.
It was a strategist's answer. Measured. Safe.
Ruqayyah studied him, as if trying to see beyond the cold surface.
"And there is no other reason?" she asked softly.
He did not respond.
Instead, he took up a plain mantle and tossed it toward her. "We leave before the sun climbs high. Wear a veil. No one must recognize you."
She caught the cloth instinctively.
So this was not an invitation.
It was a decision.
Ruqayyah cast one last look around the small house—the place where she had nearly died, where secrets had begun to unravel.
Then she secured the veil firmly over her face.
"Very well," she murmured. "If I must enter the lion's den, then see that the lion does not bite."
For the first time that morning, the corner of Al-Mu'tashim's mouth shifted faintly.
"That depends on you."
Without another word, they stepped out—leaving the narrow house behind and walking toward a fate far more perilous behind the walls of the palace.
They walked through corridors of marble.
Al-Mu'tashim halted.
Then turned.
For a moment, the passage lay hushed—only the distant echo of a guard's footsteps carrying along the stone.
"What am I?" Ruqayyah asked quietly beneath her veil. "A guest? Or a prisoner?"
His gaze fixed on her—sharp, cool, though not entirely devoid of restraint.
"In this palace," he said slowly, "you are under my protection."
"Protection," she echoed. "A gracious word for confinement."
His jaw tightened.
"If I intended to confine you, you would not be standing here speaking so freely."
Silence settled again.
Ruqayyah searched his expression, trying to read what lay beneath the discipline and command. He was as impenetrable as carved granite.
At last she spoke. "Then grant me one answer."
"What is it?"
"Am I safe because you require me… or because you feel responsible for me?"
The question lingered in the lamplit air.
Al-Mu'tashim did not answer at once. His eyes narrowed—not in anger, but in thought.
"Because circumstances are not yet concluded," he said at last. "And you are part of those circumstances."
An answer that did not truly answer.
Ruqayyah exhaled softly. So be it. She was neither guest nor prisoner.
She was a variable.
With a brief gesture, he summoned several maidservants. They bowed deeply, not daring to lift their eyes to the prince.
"Prepare a chamber in the eastern wing," Al-Mu'tashim commanded. "No one enters without my leave."
They nodded quickly.
Ruqayyah followed them through a long corridor lit by oil lamps. The air smelled faintly of oud and cool stone. Her pulse quickened—not entirely from fear, but from the awareness that she now stood at the center of Abbasid authority.
This was no mud-floored house with rain seeping through the beams.
Here, every whisper could become treachery. Every glance might conceal an intention.
Before parting, Al-Mu'tashim spoke without looking at her. "Do not remove your veil before anyone."
Ruqayyah paused.
"And if I do?"
He turned then. His gaze was heavier now.
"If you are recognized," he said quietly, "you will not be the only one hunted."
Her eyes softened slightly behind the veil.
So there was a greater danger than she had been told.
---
When the chamber door closed behind her, Ruqayyah released a long breath.
The room was spacious, layered with woven carpets, tall windows veiled in thick drapery, and the faint fragrance of burning gaharu lingering in the air.
She touched the edge of her veil.
From a small house to a palace.
From near death… to becoming the guarded secret of a prince.
In her mind, the system spoke again.
[Host. Threat level has increased. However, opportunity has also increased.]
Ruqayyah huffed softly. "You sound like a merchant in the suq."
[Host is now upon a larger board.]
She gazed at her dim reflection in a polished bronze mirror.
"If this is a board," she whispered, "then I will not be a pawn."
Beyond the door, the fading echo of Al-Mu'tashim's footsteps receded down the corridor.
And somehow—
the game had only just begun.
---
The palace corridor fell silent once more after Ruqayyah's chamber door closed.
Al-Mu'tashim's steps did not falter. His robe swept across the marble floor, his face once again the cold mask of an Abbasid prince.
Yet the calm did not last.
"Ya Amir."
The soft voice came from the inner garden, from behind a thin silk curtain swaying in the afternoon breeze.
A woman stepped forward.
Shuja.
A concubine of the harem, she wore an emerald-green gown embroidered with delicate threads of gold. Her face was beautiful, composed, and unnervingly serene. Her black eyes were sharp—not the eyes of someone who merely lingered in the shadows of the palace.
She bowed with poise, careful not to overstep the bounds of her station.
"We heard, Amir, that you returned unannounced," she said softly. "And without your chief guards."