AS SOON AS THE WORDS LEFT my mouth, I could almost see the way his eyes turned dark, and the hand that I had placed on his chest was -- in the gentlest manner, but not at all yielding -- pushed away.

Firmly, stubbornly, I raised my hand and once again pressed it to Cairo's heartbeat. "Answer me."

Cairo's hand fell from mine, down to his lap, and I watched as he twisted his fingers into the fabric. His head dropped down to his chin, as if he'd gone back to being six years old, a lonely prince being scolded for nothing.

"Cairo," I said, and it was hard to keep my voice steady. The poets said you took a little piece of everybody you met, melted and molded that piece into a part of you, so that everybody you meet becomes you, the so-called circle of life. I didn't know what parts I had taken from other people, nor what parts they had taken from me, but I wondered now whether I had momentarily taken the shaky voice Cairo had spoken in earlier, sound lilting and shaking at the tail, and he had somehow taken that part of me that refused to speak. "Answer me."

I had my hand on his chest, but the person not a foot away from me suddenly felt distant, and distinctly, it was almost as if I could feel his heart beat fading underneath my fingertips.

A hallucination of the mind, or a premonition of a bad spirit.

"Cairo." My voice sounded foreign to my own ears; sharp, gravelly, a little shrill. It grated on my nerves and eardrums, and in my frustration, I found myself fisting Cairo's shirt between my fingers.

Slowly, he lifted his head. There was a small smile at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes held no delight; still, like an undisturbed body of lake, but in a way that was eerily and frighteningly so.

"Aliya," he said, gaze searching mine, "with my reaction, is it still necessary to ask?"

My hands had clenched his shirt so tight in my fingers that my knuckles had turned white and the fabric had wrinkled, but still I found myself grasping it tighter.

"I don't believe you." The words tumbled out of my mouth. "Tell me the truth."

Cairo didn't speak, and again, I found myself clenching my hands even tighter, pulling him closer to me. I didn't know what I was trying to find, but if it was the trace of a lie, there was none.

There was a horrible taste in my mouth, and an unsettlingly heavy weight in my stomach.

"Well," I choked out, "I don't believe that you're telling me the whole truth."

"Aliya--"

"What? Are you going to tell me that you have prepared for death, Cairo?" I hissed. "Is that what it is?"

He didn't speak, and I didn't stop.

"Have you come to my room tonight with the thought that you would tell me? Tell me that you're dying of some uncureable disease, masking the truth? Or were you not going to tell me, ever? Disappear mysteriously? Make me look for you so? What were your plans, Cairo? What have you thought of?"

"Aliya," he whispered, "man are mortal. The Prince title is wordly; in the end, I am just a man."

"Yes," I said, shoving at his chest. "So you will live and die like a man. Do not come to me acting like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs."

Cairo squeezed his eyes shut. "Stop it."

"Stop what? Stop speaking sense? Am I starting to change your mind? Do you see the ludicrity of your words? Since when is the weight of life so light, Cairo? Do you have no fight in you?"

Cairo's eyes opened then. "Don't make it sound like I want this, Aliya."

"So fight it then!"

"Have I not been fighting?" Cairo snapped. "I've said all there is to be said; I ask you, have I not been fighting? Is that possible, Aliya? At six, I hadn't known what plans Kamak had had for me -- rather, what plans he had had using me. Since I found out, is it possible for me not to fight?"

"How many lives have I left in my wake?" Cairo whispered, dropping his head to his hands. "How many men and women are screaming to pull me down to my grave? The number that I know keeps me up before I sleep, and the numbers I don't know visit me in my dreams. I wonder how many, how old, how did they die. I wonder if amongst the many ghosts screaming, my mother will be one of them."

Silence filled the room.

"It is tiring to fight, Aliya," he finally said, voice hoarse. "Humans have to pay for what's due."

"But this is not your due," I whispered, reaching out to place a hand on his hair. "His ghosts are not yours."

"But he does it all, gore and glory, through my hands. I look at my face in the mirror and know that this is the last thing so many people see before their journey to meet King Yima. Tell me, Aliya--" He raised his head. "Would a life forever like this be worth fighting for?"

I did not have an answer, and even if I did, I knew I could not answer.

For it was not.

When faced with my lack of reply, Cairo smiled. "Do you see?" he asked. Gently, he reached up and removed my hand from his head, rubbing little circles over my palms.

"I see," I whispered, "but I cannot accept it."

"And that, too, is part of being man," Cairo said. "In time, you will."

His fingers continued tracing patterns on my hands, but its touch now felt distant, as if his words warning me of the day he wod disappear was already starting to turn into reality, as if he was already slipping away from me.

One day, there would not be a Cairo. The world would continue to move forward, not even remembering a memory of the third, concubine-born prince.

But even the thought of it sent a little stab through my chest, making my heart clench and the act of breathing difficult, as if I had suddenly been thrown into a fire.

"I--" Stopped.

There were words bubbling in my mouth, in my chest, fighting to come out, but when I parted my lips, it was as if I could feel them dying.

No words.

Because a part of me, the righteous me, the me that did not feel myself slipping into a dangerous, two-step dance with this man knew that in his aftermath, there wete only corpses and blood.

That me knew he deserved death.

It was only the part of me that loved him that fought against it.

For a long time, I didn't speak, and Cairo continued tracing patterns into my hands. Slowly, he dropped his head down and pressed a kiss to my shoulder.

"Do you know what I'm drawing right now?" His voice was low, making goosebumps arise on my neck.

"No," I whispered.

"Aldebaran," he murmured. "And this one... is Regulus."

His fingers danced on my skin, cold but leaving flaming hot traces. "This next one is Antares. And the last one is Fomalhault."

He pulled away. "They're constellations. I learned them when I was eighth. The way they align when a person is born determines destiny... or so they say."

I met his eyes, and as he reached out to brush the hair away from my face, I thought I saw his fingers trembling.

"You're scared," I whispered.

"I am never not."

Again, we went quiet.

"Do you know when?" Would it be today? Or tomorrow? Or would it be next week?

When would be the end of the time I spent with this beautiful boy?

Cairo let out a held, stolen breath. "No," he said, and I wondered whether he could tell that a part of my soul felt like it had been crushed. "He likes to kill slow. It hurts more that way."

"Do you feel it hurting?"

He smiled. "I feel it fading," he answered. "My energy. My consciousness. My sanity. Once, he told me laughingly that I would feel it physically. That my vision would get dark. That my hearing would go sound. But I don't know whether he meant it; or whether it was a torturous prank. Either way, he'd meant to frighten me, and it's worked. It works to this day."

I reached out to lace my fingers through his, and when I squeezed his hand, I felt him squeeze mine back harder. "So we don't know when," I whispered.

"No," he murmured, "so living now, right now, we must."

Blue looked into brown. I had always thought that my eyes were the reason behind my persecution, behind my prejudice, but the eyes of this boy, brown and Persian, had seen much more than mine.

"We must."

One moment his hands were laced through mine, and in the next they were on my neck, my cheek, my shoulders. I didn't know when we had moved from sitting to lying to tangling amongst scarlet sheets, but my mind was hazy, and I did not trust myself to think, let alone to speak. All I knew was that his lips tasted sweet and burnt, like the taste of Babylon smoke and old, red wine, and I didn't drink, but now I knew why men did.

Men drowned in alcohol. I drowned in him.

And as we laid together to sleep, his nose pressed into my shoulder and one arm wrapped around my waist, I looked out the window to see the stars twinkling in the sky.

One thought passed through my mind.

I did not know which one was Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares, or Fomalhault. I did not know of how the stars had aligned when Cairo nor I was born, or what destiny the Gods had planned for us, but I did not think it mattered.

Cairo believed in fate I believed in man.

Perhaps the devil had come to me that night, for if someone had asked, I would have told them that it didn't matter if I had to take 1000 lives --

I wanted 1001 more nights with him.

Slowly, I let out a breath, reaching to caress the hands around me.

If God wouldn't help him, I would find a way.

Kay ©️ 2023.