Aarifa stood before the mirror, draped in an unfamiliar version of herself. The fabric of her new angarkha was so fine it seemed spun from river mist—pale gold with slivers of jade, cinched gently at the waist with a belt so delicate it whispered when she moved. Her hair, for once, wasn't bound in a simple braid. It flowed in a silken wave down her back, held in place by a pin of mother-of-pearl.
She felt like a ghost of some courtly legend.
Zahra had been the one to dress her, fingers nimble, eyes full of mischief.
"You look like you were born for this," she had said, looping the final bangle around Aarifa's wrist.
"I wasn't."
"But what if you were?" Zahra smiled, that old glimmer of daring in her gaze. "What if the silk always knew where to land?"
Aarifa had no answer.
Now, standing alone, waiting for the eunuch who would escort her to the mehfil, she felt the silk stick to her skin with every breath. Like it was listening.
The mehfil was held in the Diwan-e-Khas, the Hall of Private Audiences. A place reserved for power to flirt with poetry. The marble gleamed under the glow of countless oil lamps suspended in brass holders shaped like inverted lotuses. Musicians tuned their instruments with reverence. Attendants moved like shadows, refilling goblets of sherbet, arranging garlands, whispering rumors with their eyes.
When Aarifa entered, the air shifted.
No one knew her name, but they knew she did not belong.
And yet, she walked as if she did.
The Empress had taught her that. That power doesn't always roar—it often arrives dressed in restraint. So Aarifa held her head high, eyes lowered, each step deliberate. She moved as silk should.
And silk always lands where it must.
She spotted Mumtaz across the chamber—seated like a moon amidst stars, surrounded by noblewomen and scholars and visiting poets. But it was not the Empress's gaze she felt.
It was his.
Prince Khurram stood against one of the carved pillars, his arms folded, his robe a deep indigo that matched the night sky outside. A single ruby sat at his throat like a drop of old blood. His eyes followed her.
He did not smile.
But he did not look away.
Aarifa's breath faltered. Just for a second.
"Be still," she whispered to herself. "Be silk."
She made her way to her place—a cushion set behind the Empress, among the other invited women artisans and attendants. No one spoke to her. But they watched. Oh, they watched.
The mehfil began with a qawwali—four voices braided in devotion, accompanied by a tabla and a harmonium that made the marble vibrate. The poetry was about longing. Of course it was. Everything beautiful was always about longing.
When the last note dissolved into silence, a courtier stepped forward to recite a new ghazal.
It began simply:
"She stitched my silence into silk, She wore my dreams along her skin. I touched her only in the folds, But even folds can bear sin."
A ripple passed through the chamber.
Khurram did not move.
Mumtaz, sitting impossibly still, turned her head a fraction—just enough to glance at Aarifa.
And Aarifa felt the thread tighten.
Later that night, long after the musicians had packed away their instruments, after the courtiers had traded their wine for secrets and slipped away into velvet corridors, Aarifa remained in the garden outside the Diwan-e-Khas.
The jasmine was blooming.
She reached out to touch one of the flowers, half-dreaming—and froze.
"You wear it like you were born royal."
The voice was unmistakable.
She turned slowly. Khurram stood beneath an archway, partially cloaked in shadow. The moonlight kissed the side of his face, enough to make his expression unreadable.
She bowed. "My Prince."
"Please don't," he said. "Not here. Not tonight."
Aarifa straightened, her heart drumming wildly.
He stepped closer. "You wove your name into that shawl."
She looked up sharply.
Khurram smiled faintly. "Not letters. Something else. A pattern that only someone who dreams like you would notice. A falcon in flight. A hand reaching through flame. A secret inside a secret."
Her lips parted, but no words came.
"How did you know?" she finally asked.
He looked away. "Because I see things I shouldn't. Always have. It's why I recognized your work. Why it felt like memory."
She could feel the space between them stretch and shimmer.
"I shouldn't be speaking to you," she said.
"And yet, you are."
He took another step closer. Now she could smell the scent of him—something sharp and earthy, like rain hitting dry stone.
"What do you want from me?" she asked, voice shaking.
He paused. "I don't know. Maybe I just want to remember what it's like to want something real."
And with that, he turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadowed marble.
Leaving her there.
With a jasmine petal between her fingers.
And a thousand threads tangled inside her chest.
Aarifa couldn't sleep. The words from the ghazal returned like ghosts to her pillow.
"I touched her only in the folds…"
She sat at her loom. It was past midnight. The silence of the fort around her made her thoughts louder. She let her fingers glide over the warp threads, not weaving yet—just listening.
Every weaver, especially those from Agra's old alleys, knew the stories. Cloth could carry omens. Patterns could become maps of prophecy if made with devotion. Her nani (maternal grandmother) used to whisper that a certain kind of silence lived in the weft—the horizontal threads. That if you wove while your heart was breaking, the cloth remembered.
She didn't know what her heart was doing now. But something inside her was shifting. And the threads… they responded.
The next morning, the Empress called for her.
They met in the harem garden. Mumtaz was surrounded by rose bushes, yet she sat untouched by them, like a painting in prayer.
"You saw him," she said simply.
Aarifa hesitated. "Yes."
"I know what he said."
"How?"
Mumtaz smiled, not kindly. "Because he's said similar things to me once, long ago. Before my face was carved into coins."
Aarifa looked down.
"Don't be afraid of the pattern," Mumtaz continued. "You were chosen not just because of your gift. But because I saw what you hid."
"The falcon?" Aarifa whispered.
"No. The flame." Mumtaz reached over and touched her wrist gently. "We all dream of burning. But only some of us set fire."
Mumtaz rose then, graceful as smoke. "The Emperor returns to the Diwan-e-Khas tomorrow. You will attend the court again."
Aarifa's breath caught. "May I ask why?"
Mumtaz turned, her voice light but lethal. "Because fate is impatient. And your thread is no longer just yours to hold."
She paused, then leaned closer, her eyes unreadable. "I dreamed of a falcon last night. But it was burning."
Aarifa blinked. "Burning?"
Mumtaz touched her wrist gently. "You were chosen not because of the falcon. But because of the fire."
And then—so softly Aarifa wasn't sure she heard it—Mumtaz whispered, "Don't let him unravel you."
She walked away, her scent trailing rose and something bitter.
Aarifa stood rooted. But something inside her snapped taut.
She turned, almost blindly, and stumbled back to her chambers. The loom waited in the corner like a shadow with its mouth open.
She didn't sit.
She didn't breathe.
She reached for the silk threads with trembling fingers and began to weave.
And as the pattern emerged beneath her hands, she gasped.
The cloth was telling her something. Warning her.
She stepped back as if burned.
Woven in gold, across the blood-red silk, was not a falcon.
It was a crown.
Cracked straight down the middle.
And beneath it—
A dagger.