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Najma Viper is an unexpected child.
She arrives in the world in the middle of the night, crying her little lungs out to a cluster of stars coldly twinkling in a cloudless sky. Her mother cradles her, cooing platitudes amongst the exhaustion, heaving a long rattled sigh. Her father holds up her brother, a barely bigger child, and he stares wonderstruck at the wrinkly, rosy-tinged wailing baby.
Najma grows up beloved. Her brother loves her the way older brothers do, by teasing her the more she grows, by pulling her hair, pushing her and calling her names. But their bickering is never laced with malice, that recalcitrant fondness of him always seeping through, and so they stick together.
Her parents love her just enough. Mama braids her hair every night, coating it with oils that make Najma’s hair glossy like a starry night sky. Baba is soft and gentle with her, humouring her in her games and patting her head when she comes back from school. Her parents do love her.
They just don’t love her like they love Jamil.
Mama never fusses over Najma the way she does with Jamil. She is strict and severe with him, but that’s because she expects great things, because he makes them proud and honours their family’s generations-old tradition. Najma wants to make them proud, too. But Mama just smiles placatingly and nods in that way adults do when they want her to shut up.
Papa always praises Jamil, but he backtracks when Najma perks up and stares expectantly at him. Papa says that Jamil is smart and capable and talented, but when he compliments Najma, he just says "cute" and "well-behaved".
Najma wants to be smart and capable and talented, too.
But everything she does, her brother has already done, and done better. An endless sea of dunes separates them. When Najma has thought of a way to sail it, Jamil is further away, and the landscape an ever-shifting mosaic of sand and wind. She can't cross it. She can't reach him. And her parents know it.
Najma is always an afterthought, no more than an echo of Jamil’s greatness.
It doesn't help when none of the young mistresses of the Asim household like her.
"She's like a cactus." One of the girls scrunches her nose, donning a vibrant peacock-coloured gown with an embroidered shawl to match. Self-consciousness tugs at Najma. She'd chosen her prettiest dress, asked her mother to plait her hair in an elaborate braid, and yet she’s so lacklustre and plain in comparison.
Another, swaddled in white, giggles in agreement. "Ugly and pointy. Boyish too."
It stings.
Najma returns home with a bruised ego and eyes brimming with tears. Her parents comfort her half-heartedly. Jamil shrugs and tells her that at least this way, she has more free time.
"It's okay, Najma," Mama reassures at dinner, serving food with a wide, wide smile, "It's a little unfortunate, but don't worry. Master Kalim is very fond of Jamil. Just today he gifted him a beautiful hairpin! That's everything we could ask for.”
Mama hands Jamil a plate overflowing with golden-crisp falafels, accompanied by spread-out hummus over flat bread. It smells heavenly. Mama’s eyes linger on the beautiful, redder-than-a-lollipop jewel glinting over Jamil’s ear, pinned just below one of the braids she painstakingly plaits for him every morning. They crinkle, pleased.
Jamil takes the plate nonchalantly, murmuring a brief thank you, but Najma can tell he’s preening under the pride their mother radiates.
Najma lowers her head, biting her lip and crumpling the skirt of her dress. The tears in her eyes are scalding, snot rushing to clog her nose. She doesn't care about Jamil. She cares about herself. She wants to be useful too, to be praised and recognised, to have expectations set for her—for what are expectations if not hope of what you will ultimately achieve?
What does that make her, the unexpected child?
Time is not kind.
In the sprawling streets of Silk City, beneath the array of colourful tents and the tempting aroma of mouthwatering food clogging the air, the uncles and aunties of the stalls only know her as the little girl who always trails behind Jamil Viper. In school, teachers nod approvingly at her work, but drop a comment or two that she’s not quite as remarkable as her brother, especially after she admits through gritted teeth that she does not have magic. In the winding cobblestone paths and marble walls of the Asim Mansion, Jamil is Master Kalim’s favourite, and so other servants recognise her, but they never call her by name.
Jamil is, ironically and despite all his faults, the only one who sees her as herself. No matter how many times Najma blows up at him after he wins when they play, he always entertains another match with her. He asks after her more than their parents do, and congratulates her in that roundabout way of his when she gets a good grade. He argues with her, bothers her, pushes her, but the moment he catches someone else doing the same, he kicks their butts.
She will reflect years later, in hindsight, that it may be the only reason why her heart did not completely darken with resentment towards her brother.
“I wish I had as much free time as you, Najma,” Jamil scoffs one day, kicking a stone as they tredge back home. Twilight creeps up in the desert’s horizon, the sun sinking low and deep, the afternoon crowd dwindling the more the sun yawns and lanterns hung up in rafters are lit up.
“You’re the lucky one!” Najma scoffs back. A chilly wind whistles in the street, leaving a trace of goosebumps on her bare arms and ruffling the skirt of her dress. “Master Kalim likes you. You get to go to the mansion every day.”
Jamil’s expression scrunches as if he bit into a particularly sour lemon. “Kalim is annoying. I have to look out for him all the time. And he’s always saying we’re friends.”
“That sounds great to me.”
Jamil shoots her an alien gaze, incredulous. His lips curdle into a grimace. “It’s really not. You’re just saying that because you don’t know what it’s like.”
It’s right there and then, at the tender age twelve years old and with shadows carving severe lines in her brother’s face, that it occurs to Najma for the first time in her life that Jamil doesn’t like serving the Asims.
Once the thought worms itself into her mind, she can’t shake it away.
As time trickles by, she notices how Jamil doesn’t think of their family’s tradition as a noble task, but a prison. Although he wears a pleasant smile in the Asim household, the fakeness of it betrays how he treats their master’s favour like a shackle. He collects trinkets of foreign merchants in his room, gaze filled with yearning when he looks at the world map hung up in one of his walls. He only lets loose with his schoolmates, a group of ragtag troublemakers that run amok through the streets of Silk City, and bears the brunt of their parent’s scoldings when he returns home.
At first, shock brews into anger. It roars and blazes, and Najma shuts herself in her room and punches her pillow again and again. But her rage quickly deflates into bleak understanding. She collapses to her knees, hands falling limp at her sides.
Jamil never asked to be the prodigal son his parents always desired, just like Najma never asked to be the leftover daughter.
For her, her ancestors’ role is an honour, a way to prove herself. For Jamil, it is a curse.
What a pair they make.
Najma throws herself into excelling with a renewed purpose. She studies, she trains in martial arts, she does an apprenticeship with the Asims’ physician, she sneakily tries to shoulder more tasks in the Asim Mansion. Magic does not thrum in her veins, but that is of no consequence.
Not only for her, but for her brother, she’d step up, and show everyone how much an unexpected star could shine.
Her long wished opportunity arrives with Jamil’s admittance to Night Raven College.
Jamil radiates with joy. He prepares his luggage weeks in advance, furtively practising magic whenever time allows and ruffling through the required reads again and again. His happiness is contagious: Najma finds herself bubbling with glee for both of them.
It’s quite the contrast to their parents, who furrow their brows and murmur worriedly in spite of Lord Asim’s explicit consent that Jamil is free to go. Rumour in the mansion goes that without Jamil there to keep spinning Master Kalim’s affections, the Viper family is vulnerable to falling out of grace. Other servants are looming like vultures, preparing to swoop in and fetch the big prize.
Najma is ready to fend them off, though. Jamil will go and forge his own path, but she will follow her family’s footsteps.
The afternoon a week before Jamil’s departure finds her carrying freshly dried blankets smelling of sunlight, cotton-soft fabric warm and heavy in her arms. Outside the latticed windows framing the corridor, streaks of thin white clouds cross an otherwise blue sky, a mellow sun already set in its downward path.
Najma rounds in a corner and halts. Her heart skips a beat. Then two.
Kalim Al-Asim is there, staring out of a window.
Najma sucks in a breath, scrambling back. The blankets in her arms almost topple over, but Master Kalim doesn’t seem to hear her. Clutching the fabric so hard it looks as if the wrinkles will be permanently etched on it, she cautiously peeks over the wall.
Dappled sunlight mottles Master Kalim’s white hair and green headscarf, grazing his also green tunic. All the verdant hues make his red eyes pop, but they are soft and tender, a desert flower blooming in an oasis. His left hand curls around his face, elbow propped up on the windowsill, and the rolled up sleeve reveals glittering bracelets and a beautiful golden ring.
It’s the first time Najma has a good look at him, beyond paintings and pictures. She’d caught glimpses of him sometimes, sprinting through the garden paths or strolling pavilion after pavilion, but she’d never seen him so close. Jamil always describes Master Kalim as boisterous, hyper-active and annoying, but Master Kalim now is still as oasis water. So still that the coins in his headscarf don’t even jingle.
He looks… lonely.
It is a little like treason, the way the thought slithers into her mind. But Najma can’t help it. The cut of his figure against the window, showered with golden light, reminds Najma of her illustrated copy back home of the tale of the princess and the thief, a mosaic-like painting portraying the princess as she yearns for love. But where the princess had bore a heart wrenching expression of forlorn longing, Master Kalim smiles.
She wonders what he’s looking at.
Najma darts a glance at the empty corridor, all bedroom doors sealed shut. Master Kalim is alone. If she gathers her courage, she can make the most of this opportunity. She can present herself and make her case to him. She’s heard so much of his kindness—surely if he’s so fond of her brother, he will give her a chance.
Her knees wobble. A bird’s song trills outside, a gentle breeze carrying the scent of the rows of orange trees. Najma decidedly takes a soundless step.
Her gaze pierces Master Kalim. He hasn’t noticed her yet. Whatever he’s staring at has him transfixed, almost ensnared. Najma gulps.
Pivoting on her feet, she turns back.
Najma retreats, heart in her throat and blankets crumpled beyond repair. She only stops her sprint in a small pavilion, arched roof dotted with intricate patterns, after spooking a couple of other servants in the way.
“It’s alright,” she tells herself, heaving a rattled sigh and setting the blankets on a cushioned bench. She fixes her low ponytail, retying it. “You’ll have another chance, Najma. It just wasn’t the moment today.”
For a second, she was overwhelmed by the feeling that interrupting Master Kalim would be unwise.
It’s hard to not feel like she has just let slip a golden opportunity past her fingertips, however. She can’t stop her shoulders from drooping as Jamil and her trudge back home.
“Did something happen?” Jamil asks lightly. Najma shakes her head.
“Nothing, nothing.” Jamil raises an eyebrow, unconvinced, so Najma wrangles out a beatific smile. “What about you? Are you all ready for magician school?”
Jamil instantly frowns. Strike. “Why do you have to say it like that?”
“Isn’t that what it is?” Najma counters. “A school for magic tricks. Magician school.”
“It’s a wizard school. They’re not parlour tricks.” Jamil rolls his eyes, lifting his palm up. “It’s real magic.”
Najma gasps in mock realisation. “Like when you burnt that stall!”
“We don’t talk about that!”
Najma can’t help it: she dissolves into peals of laughter. Jamil grunts, crossing his arms. She leans in to add a shove for good measure, but a strange fragrance clinging to her brother’s tunic catches her by surprise. She baulks, sniffing.
“Is that… orange?”
Jamil scoffs. “What are you now, a dog?”
“Oh, were you stealing oranges then?”
Jamil blanches. Her brother is so fun. He always takes the weirdest things so seriously. “Of course not!”
Najma jabs an accusing finger at him. “That’s exactly what a thief would say.”
Jamil groans, putting his hands over his hips like their mother when she’s at her wit’s end. “You’re insufferable. I was just dancing near the orange trees in one of the inner gardens this afternoon. The aroma is very strong at this time of the year. I guess it just clung to the clothes.”
Najma halts. She whirls at him, blood freezing.
“What did you say?”
Jamil stops a couple of steps ahead, eyebrows knotting together. “I said, you rascal, that I was dancing near some orange trees. Let’s go now. Mom is going to scold us if we arrive late.”
He resumes walking again. Najma silently follows, eyes wide but unseeing.
Master Kalim… had he been looking at her brother?
The setting sun burns red in mockery. Najma falls into step beside her brother, stilted conversation restarting. But instead of focusing on the stone paved streets in front of her, Najma’s mind is back in the empty corridor of the Asim Mansion, Master Kalim doused in green and gold, gazing out tenderly as he sported a wry smile.
Lonely, like the princess from her homeland’s most famous tale.
She doesn’t know what to do with this new piece of information.
“Oh yeah,” Jamil says suddenly, eyes narrowing, “Kalim asked after you today, before leaving.”
Najma’s heart somersaults. It takes all of her willpower to not flinch. “Wha...What? Master Kalim did?”
“He said he saw you in passing, but he wanted to know if it was you,” Jamil frowns, pressing his lips in a taut, severe line. “He laughed and said we look alike. Same nonsense as usual. Why did he ask, though? Did you do something?”
He’d noticed her.
Her heart beats wildly against her chest. Najma doesn’t have her brother and mother’s mastery of slithering in the shadows (yet), but she had silenced her steps and tried her best to conceal her presence. He hadn't looked as if he'd noticed her, either. And yet..
“We just… passed each other,” Najma lies, stuttering. Jamil crosses his arms, but his frown smoothes. “I didn’t think he’d noticed me. He must be a really good observer.”
Jamil scoffs. “Luck, most likely. Kalim’s an idiot. He wouldn’t be able to recognise someone, even if they had kidnapped him the day before.”
Although the words are Jamil’s usual brand of poison, Najma’s stomach plummets. An argument sits at the tip of her tongue, yet she finds herself unable to retort without spilling the truth. So she stays quiet, and lets the rhythm of the conversation lull them to safer topics.
Dinner passes by like a dream. When the moon glows high in the sky and Najma goes to bed, she's still out of sorts.
Najma has heard about Master Kalim all her life: from her parents, from her fellow servants, from gossiping nobles, but mostly from her brother. She'd never doubted his words, yet somehow they do not ring truthful now. Their chime is too similar to when Najma hears gossip about her brother, waxing poetics about his good manners, gentlemanly appearance and inherent kindness. They're not lying, but they're not telling the truth either.
They only know the mask her brother dons. They don't know how pathetic he is when he spies a crawling bug, or how nasty he can be when he really wants something. Jamil is an asshole, through and through, he just conceals it well.
Perhaps Master Kalim dons a mask too.
She blinks. A swath of moonlight slips in through the gap in her curtains, tracing a long silver line in the darkness of her room. The street outside is silent as death.
It feels as if she’s stumbled on a secret not even her brother is privy to.
“Maybe he is like me,” Najma whispers, sliding her arm out of her blanket cocoon and reaching out her hand to touch the sliver of moonlight. It slips through her fingers, painting them white. “Unexpected.”
When the news of Master Kalim going to Night Raven College break, Najma bawls her eyes out.
She can’t help it. Shock pours a bucket of icy water over her, but frustration pumps up her heart rate and consumes her whole. Anger flares when she stomps to her empty house and slams shut the door to her room, shrieking as she hurls her pillows to the floor, punches her bed and makes the wood creak painfully. She kicks the wall and trashes all the accessories she’d fished out of her and Jamil’s room to make a good impression in the coming weeks.
When her fumes run out, her knees buckle. The pressure in her chest builds up until she can’t breathe. And between a blink and the next, her tears spill and sobs wrack her body. Her chin quivers, and no matter how hard she digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, the tears don’t stop.
This was her chance. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not—
“How wonderful that Master Kalim has discovered his new talent. Who would have thought he’d share Lady Asim’s gift?” Mom says mildly when she hands out dinner, but her eyes crinkle with delight. Dad openly wears a wide smile. “And he chose to go to the same school as our Jamil.”
Najma listlessly picks at her tabbouleh, each blink a sting. It was hard to conceal the red blotches on her face after crying so much, but her parents are too happy to notice her puffy eyes.
“How is Jamil?” Najma asks with faux curiosity, not feeling very charitable. Dad’s smile tightens.
“Shocked with delight.”
Shocked enough that he slipped and complained, then. A part of Najma feels bad that her brother is suffering too, especially after how happy he was when he left, but the other is sated by the sweet taste of vindication. Misery loves company.
Mom clears her throat, sitting down.
“What matters is that our position will be solid for years to come. Jamil can fulfil his tasks as he studies. Oh, the way this lifts a weight off my shoulders…" Mom sighs, waving her hand. The dismissal ignites the cinders of Najma's temper. "I was worried how much our family would suffer in Jamil's absence."
"I could have done it," Najma mutters recklessly. Her parents whirl their heads at her, Mom's eyebrows pinching together.
"Come again?"
"I could have done it," she seethes again, standing up. "I was going to step up! All my life I've been waiting for this opportunity, but instead you always choose to saddle Jamil with it—"
"Watch your tone," Mom warns sharply. "I don't know what you're talking about, Najma. What has spurred this on?”
Dad sighs patronisingly, tilting his head and leaning back on the chair. "Are you still mad about not being able to serve the Asim mistresses, habibi? Envying your brother—"
"I'm not mad about that," Najma sputters with heated cheeks, indignant. The tell-tale prickle of tears stings at her sore eyes. "I… I am a Viper too! I've been studying and training and—"
"Your brother already does the job better than we could hope for. Than you could ever hope for."
"You don't know that!" Najma snaps, stomach churning, "It's not as if Jamil wants it either!"
"Najma," Mom hisses with a withering gaze, "you will not talk back to your father like that. Nor entertain these delusions of yours. You are not capable of taking on such an important task as to be the Asim's heir personal servant. You never have."
The pain jolts Najma, taking her breath away for a never-ending second. She smothers down a flinch.
Her mother has never believed in her. The realisation slaps her, crumbling her like a deft wind blowing away glittering desert sand. No one truly has believed in her. Not her mother, not her father, not her teachers—not even her brother, blinded by his stubbornness and believing she's better off not being anything else.
But one thing is to know it, and another for her family to say it out loud.
Look at me! the voice within her wails, I'm right here! I may not shine as bright as other stars, I may not have a fixed route, but I can—!
Her mother continues, uncaring of the pounding of her heart nor her watering eyes. "Jamil is a smart boy. You should just focus on your schoolwork. He can do the job more than fine. Your brother knows what's best for us. Now, sit down and let's finish the meal, lest you spoil it with your tantrum."
Despair blazes into anger. An inferno rages within Najma, and she's livid enough for her body to pump with courage. She doesn't sit down.
"Jamil will be your ruin," Najma spits scathingly, squaring her jaw. Her parents stare at her, alien and unfeeling. She’s standing up, but they’re looking down at her. Her voice, to her utmost humiliation, trembles. "He’s prideful and selfish. You’ve done your best to mould him into your little perfect boy, but he’s not. He will lash out, and when he does? You will wish you had believed in your daughter."
She stomps to her room, chest heaving. Mom calls after her sharply, but Najma slams the door of her room shut. Dad knocks softly a few hours later, but Najma just turns up the volume of her headphones, pop-song blasting over her ears, and ignores him. She crawls to her window, perching up on the alcove, and stares out.
Beyond the glittering lamps of Silk City, the night is pitch-black and hopeless. It is a moonless night. While the stars are supposed to shine the brightest tonight, diamonds shimmering in a distant domed ceiling, a veil of clouds and sand covers up the sky.
Najma draws her knees close to her chest, wrung out of tears, and wonders if the darkness in her heart will ever abate.
It’s not a surprise when Jamil overblots.
Once they’re assured of Jamil’s condition and her concern settles, Najma is ashamed of the grim satisfaction that spreads through her. She’d noticed that something was wrong with her brother, that he’d closed off to everyone and resentment rampantly festered in his heart. But she had never reached out. Perhaps out of pettiness, or perhaps because her brother had never been within her reach at all.
But seeing him clad in the robes of the Al’ab Nariya Festival and surrounded by his friends, she finds her heart is at ease. Shadows do not haunt Jamil anymore. He does not pretend to be pleasant or kind. She may nudge him a bit too far the other edge with those childhood stories, but what else are sisters for? His friends share in peals of laughter, and she’s—happy.
Last Al’ab Nariya, gloom cloaked Jamil like a second skin. His narrowed eyes strayed to the Asim Mansion crowning the horizon every so often, darkening. He drank in the praise his neighbourhood and parents offered him like a thirsty man. And Najma…
Najma had let it slide.
She hums as she treads over the streets of Camel Market, quickly losing her brother’s group and blending in the crowd charmed by the sizzling meat, refreshing ice creams and glossy fruit. Beads of sweat build up on her forehead, the sun reaching its zenith in the sky.
Her thoughts spiral to the day when the Headmaster of Night Raven College himself called them. Najma had never seen her mother so panicked, nor her father so crushed with concern. Eventually, Najma herself called her brother, and while she wasn’t as smart as him, after making sure he was okay she gleaned from his stilted speech that something else had happened. Something he didn’t tell his parents.
Something involving Master Kalim.
Najma is not stupid. She may have spent the last year and a half discouraged, droning out her school lessons and mechanically going over her martial arts forms, but she still keeps a dutiful ear out when she goes to the Asim Mansion. And lately, she’s heard the ripples of a rumour closer to conspiracy: that Master Asim was hurt during the winter holidays, and the perpetrator was none other than his beloved servant, Jamil Viper.
Najma rounds a corner, heading to a quieter alleyway and pressing her lips together. She will have to see how she can pester her brother to acquiesce and tell her the entire story. Maybe blackmail—
“I’m sorry!” A voice hurries to apologise, painfully heartfelt. Najma blinks in confusion, shoulder throbbing. “Are you alright? I’m really sorry for pushing you.”
“Don’t…” Najma smiles, but her voice dies halfway. She would recognise the young man smiling apologetically at her everywhere, earrings ringing as he tilts his scarf-wrapped head. “Master Kalim! What…what a surprise!”
Master Kalim squints at her. After a couple of seconds, his face brightens. “Ah! You’re Jamil’s sister, aren’t you? Najma, you’ve really grown up!”
She beams, dizzy with surprise and privately thinking Master Kalim has grown up too. Lean muscle now sharpens his earlier baby fat, the dorm’s clothes giving him a little of a casual air. Unlike the last time she saw him, his smile is more blinding than the sun beating up over them.
“I didn’t think you’d remember me.”
Master Kalim’s boisterous laugh startles her. “Jamil and you look really alike! I’m usually bad with faces, but it only took me a couple of seconds this time.”
Her smile dims a little, the excited butterflies fluttering in her chest losing a little steam. The bustling chatter of the market washes over her. “Are you looking for my brother?”
Master Kalim nods, coins chiming enthusiastically. “Yes, I finished attending the guests for the festival a little early. If you know where he and the others are, that’d be a huge help!” He scratches the back of his head rather bashfully. “I’m actually a little lost.”
“It’s no problem,” Najma says, but closes the distance between them instead of guiding him out of the street. “Master Kalim, I wanted… I wanted to apologise in my brother’s stead.”
Master Kalim’s smile flickers. Bingo.
Najma loves her brother. She’s happy he’s letting loose, that he’s starting to have actual, good friends (unlike his middle school lot) and that he’s no longer haunted by his grudges.
But she’s also not above laddering off his failures.
“There’s no reason to apologise,” Master Kalim assures, “it was my fault too. I never realised how much pain I was causing him. But I promised him—and I promise you too, Najma, your family will be free!”
The world stops.
“What?” She blurts out, aghast. Master Kalim blinks confusedly. “No!”
“...no?”
“No!” Najma parrots back. What in the Sorcerer of the Sands’ name had Jamil done? “No, no, no! Master Kalim, what…? We aren’t slaves. My family is employed in your service. It’s thanks to the Asim family that we’ve never had any sort of financial problems, and it’s an honour to serve such a noble family so closely. Other people would kill at this chance, and this is a task we’ve carried for generations with pride!”
Master Kalim is staring at her, baffled. Najma gulps a mouthful of air, chest heaving and heat rushing to her cheeks.
“But Jamil…”
She deflates. “Jamil has always wanted something else. I think he should be free to choose it. But Master Kalim, I…”
The words get stuck in her throat and she ducks her head. She’s not Jamil. She’s not as smart, reliable, or talented. She’s a little unexpected star in the face of his glory. She’s a girl that likes going to the Asim Mansion, living in Silk City, having a steady source of income, the thought of protecting that boy she spied on as he peered over a window. But Najma is… just that. A leftover, unexpected daughter who no one believes in.
She hesitantly raises her head. Master Kalim is looking at her. Truly looking. He’s not the Asim’s young mistress who had looked down on her with derision; instead his eyes are kind and encouraging.
Najma hitches on a breath, and doesn’t dwell too much on how she must look in his eyes. A traitor’s silly little sister. “But I… I have always wanted to honour my family’s legacy. I have studied and trained and worked… Master Kalim, there is no good reason that you should believe me, not yet. I know, but…” She lowers one knee to the ground, bowing her head. The heated tiles burn through her leggings. “But please, give my family a second chance. Give me a chance. Please…”
Please believe in me, she wants to say, but she chokes on her words.
Najma lifts her head sharply when Master Kalim grabs her hand, kneeling in front of her. The smile on his face is small but blinding. Like a star.
“I believe in you,” Master Kalim says kindly, squeezing her hand. Najma’s heart stops. “But are you sure you really want this? Jamil… he works so much. I also… I also guess I haven’t been a good master, nor a good friend.”
“Master Kalim, I’ve never been more certain of something in my life.” Najma bobs her head. “I know it will be a huge responsibility, but I’m ready. I’m capable. I’m choosing this.”
Master Kalim’s smile grows. He nods, coins jingling.
“If you really want it, then I will trust your words. Ah, but this is really unexpected! I’ll talk to Baba about this tonight after the fireworks.”
All the air rushes out of Najma’s lungs. For an instant, she cannot believe it. Maybe she got a heatstroke and this is no more than a desert mirage. No, but Kalim Al-Asim is warm and solid in front of her, beaming at her growing smile.
She swallows the happy knot in her throat, blinking out tears as she bows her head again. “Thank you! Thank… you so much!”
Master Kalim laughs. Najma stiffens when she feels a warm hand patting her head softly. More tears slip out.
Eventually, Najma composes herself. She accompanies Master Kalim to the Zahab Market, guessing her brother and his friends would be there, and leaves once they see the tall, pearly skinned foreigner towering over the crowd. Master Kalim offers her one last smile before he meets his classmate. She smiles back, glowing with happiness.
Someone has seen her. At last, someone will… give her a chance.
The afternoon quickly passes by in the company of her friends, her mind drunk in the glee of achieving the first step of her dream. Najma wonders if Lord Asim will accept her, and if so, what new tasks she will be entrusted with.
She cannot wait to see her family’s faces at the announcement. Her parents, who love her, but never enough to believe in her. Her brother, who is weird and stubborn and emotionally constipated, but still her brother.
When the sun sets and the moon rises high in the sky, fireworks start to bloom in the sky. People delight with the colours and shapes, dancing underneath the lights and celebrating a princess of aeons past.
“As always, the fireworks show is so amazing. Right, Najma?”
Najma barely hears her friend’s voice over the roaring cheers of the crowd and the pops of the fireworks. “Yup!” She nods, smiling. “I don’t know why but… the fireworks of this year look more beautiful to me!”
And they do. The climax flares with exuberance, romantic and dynamic and temperamental. It reminds Najma of her brother. She enjoys the show, indulging in twirling with her friend and sneaking a glance to the tent where she knows her brother and Master Kalim are. She laughs and teases and looks forward to the future, happier than she remembers ever being.
Although blindingly brilliant, the fireworks eventually stop blooming in the night sky. But once the wind clears the smoke left behind, the stars peek over thin, swirling clouds. They are dim compared to the fireworks and infinitely smaller, but they are steadfast. They’re always there, twinkling. Sometimes unnoticed, sometimes unexpected. Like her. Like Master Kalim.
Twinkle, twinkle, little Najma, she tells herself as she skips a step on her way back home, a shower of starlight in the sky, now will be your time to shine.