It began with a whisper. Not from a voice, but from the threads.
Aarifa sat alone in the royal Zenana workshop—a vast room built like a temple to silence. Here, silence was not the absence of sound, but the echo of restraint. Women moved quietly through their tasks, their bangles muffled with muslin. Even the looms creaked politely. Every breath felt borrowed.
And yet, the moment her fingers touched the spool of indigo silk, the room ceased to exist.
The thread spoke.
Not in words, never in words. It spoke in heat and instinct, in images that flashed behind her eyes—visions of a rose blooming in reverse, a falcon circling smoke, a hand reaching for something it could not hold.
Aarifa blinked hard, grounding herself. She was here, now. In Delhi. In the Red Fort.
Under Empress Mumtaz's watchful gaze.
The shawl she worked on was for the Empress herself. A gift to be presented at the spring festival, when the court would gather in full regalia, the Emperor seated beside her like a moon to her sun. Aarifa's task was simple: to weave grace, opulence, obedience. Nothing else.
But her hands rebelled.
Every time the shuttle passed through the warp, it left behind tiny rebellions—an extra twist, a darker thread, a shape hidden in paisley. She could no more stop them than she could stop breathing.
She did not mean to weave his eyes again.
But there they were. Hidden within the folds, barely discernible. Gold-ringed, flame-laced eyes. The ones that had haunted her sleep ever since she stepped into the fort.
Khurram.
She hadn't seen him—not truly. The Red Fort was a kingdom within a kingdom. The men and women of court moved in separate spheres, their orbits rarely colliding. Yet she felt his presence in every hallway, in every rose that bloomed too red, in the hush that followed whenever his name was spoken.
She had dreamed of him again last night. Not a memory. Something else.
He had been standing beneath a neem tree. Alone. Wearing no crown, no jewels, only a white cotton robe. He looked... exhausted. His palms were cut. And in them, he held something small—something wrapped in silk and fire.
She woke with her heart trying to leap out of her throat.
And now here she was, betraying the Empress with her fingers.
A hiss of breath. The matron supervisor stood behind her.
"Too much tension," the woman muttered, frowning at the yarn. "Loosen your grip. Or it will warp."
Aarifa nodded, obedient. But her pulse stuttered.
Too much tension.
If only the woman knew.
That evening, she was summoned.
Again.
The eunuch arrived at dusk, a time when the palace glowed golden, and every corridor looked dipped in honey.
"Her Majesty requests your company in the gardens," he said without ceremony.
This was unusual.
The gardens of the Red Fort were sacred ground—reserved for courtly display and private grief. Even concubines required special permission to walk its stone pathways.
Aarifa followed in silence.
The air was thick with the scent of night-blooming flowers. Moonlight spilled over the marble fountains, turning them ghost-pale. Peacocks nested silently in trees that had witnessed more secrets than any human ear.
Mumtaz stood by a small pond, alone.
Her veil shimmered like starlight. Not a single guard in sight. Aarifa felt a shiver crawl up her spine.
"Come," Mumtaz said without turning. "Take off your shoes."
Aarifa obeyed. The grass was damp beneath her feet.
The Empress knelt and dipped her fingers into the water. "Do you know why I called you here?"
Aarifa lowered her gaze. "No, Your Majesty."
"Because I saw it." Her voice was calm. Too calm.
Aarifa's stomach dropped.
"I saw what you wove."
Silence.
"I warned you," Mumtaz said, straightening. "No eyes. No fire. No shadows of my husband in your cloth."
Aarifa opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came.
"Do you love him?" The question was quiet. Dangerous.
"No," Aarifa said too quickly. Then again, softer, "No."
"Do you think he loves you?"
"I don't know him."
"But he knows you."
That made Aarifa look up.
Mumtaz's eyes were unreadable. "He came to my chamber last night. Held your shawl in his hands. Said it smelled like rain on burnt earth."
Aarifa's heart hammered.
"He said it made him ache."
Aarifa's knees threatened to buckle.
"He asked who made it. I told him nothing." Her voice dropped. "But I saw the way he looked at it. At the thread. At the pattern."
A long pause.
"I should send you away."
Aarifa swallowed. "Then why haven't you?"
Mumtaz looked skyward. "Because power isn't just about removing threats. Sometimes, it's about keeping them close."
Another silence, this one gentler.
"My grandmother taught me the language of threads," she said. "She called it manzar bandi—the art of scene-binding. It's older than any empire. Before the Sultans, before the Mughals. Women passed it through cloth when they couldn't speak."
Aarifa listened, breathless.
"You have it," Mumtaz said. "You were born with it. The visions, the pull, the... burning."
"I don't understand it," Aarifa whispered.
"You will."
They stood there for a while, barefoot on royal grass, two women bound by the same thread.
Then, softly:
"You'll stay," Mumtaz said. "But not here. You'll be moved to the eastern wing. Closer to the royal atelier. I want to see what else your hands remember."
Aarifa nodded.
"Oh, and one more thing," Mumtaz added, turning away. "You will attend the spring mehfil. As my guest."
Aarifa's mouth fell open.
"You will not wear servant's garb. You will dress as a court woman. Speak only when spoken to. Smile. Watch."
The Empress glanced back. "And don't forget to paint your eyes. The court will wonder about you. Let them."
Later that night, Aarifa sat by the oil lamp in her quarters, her hands trembling as they traced the fabric of her old shawl—the one Mumtaz still kept locked in her private chest.
She wondered about the Empress. About the cost of love. About the blade edge of favor.
She wondered about Khurram.
What kind of man a future emperor must be to crave truth in a pattern. To ache over thread. To see a girl in cloth.
The fire within her stirred.
And far across the fort, in the Emperor's private wing, Khurram opened his eyes from restless sleep.
He could still smell the rain on burnt earth.
He didn't know her name.
But the silk had remembered his.