The Empress's summons arrived on a morning that smelled of blood oranges and dust.
Aarifa had barely rinsed the sleep from her eyes when the knock came—loud, sharp, no-nonsense. The kind of knock that didn't belong to neighbors or merchants. The kind that belonged to men who wore swords and answered only to kings.
She opened the door, still barefoot, hair in a loose braid from the night before. Two imperial guards stood before her, one tall and brooding, the other with a nose that looked like it had been broken and reset too many times. They didn't smile. They didn't need to.
"You are Aarifa?" the tall one asked, though it didn't sound like a question.
Aarifa nodded, her heart knocking against her ribs.
"You are summoned by Her Majesty, Empress Mumtaz Mahal," the other guard said, unfurling a scroll sealed with royal wax.
She stared at the seal. Crimson red. A blooming rose surrounded by crescent moons. The emblem of the most powerful woman in the empire.
"What for?" she asked, before she could stop herself.
The guards exchanged a look. "Your hands," said the tall one. "They've reached places you haven't."
Zahra clutched her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she stood beside Aarifa in the courtyard. Her eyes were stormy with worry, but her voice was low and firm.
"Don't trust anyone in the Red Fort," she said. "Not even the women. Especially not the women."
Aarifa exhaled slowly. "It's the Empress, Zahra. She's the one who brought schools to the poorer districts. She funds the weavers' guild."
Zahra shook her head. "Power is always a coin, Aarifa. One side is generosity. The other is hunger."
She wanted to laugh, but couldn't. Not when her fingers were still tingling from the threads she had woven last night. Threads that foretold fire and desire and something sharp enough to draw blood.
"You think I should refuse?" Aarifa asked.
Zahra's jaw tightened. "I think you already said yes the moment you touched that thread."
The Red Fort rose like a mirage from the chaos of Delhi—walls of flame-colored sandstone that caught the sun and threw it back tenfold. Inside, the air smelled of rosewater, burnt sandalwood, and the kind of wealth that could crush a soul if it got too close.
Aarifa's feet moved of their own accord as she followed the eunuch who led her through corridors veined with marble. Domes arched overhead like the sky itself had bent down to watch. Gold flickered on every surface—tiles, lanterns, even the veiled eyes of passing concubines.
They led her through a garden so lush it felt obscene. Peacocks strutted without fear. Parrots chattered in Farsi. The air was thick with jasmine, but even thicker with power.
Finally, they stopped before a carved silver door.
"She waits," the eunuch said, bowing slightly before disappearing like smoke.
Aarifa didn't knock. Her fingers hovered over the door for a breath too long, then pushed it open.
The Empress sat on a low divan, her skin glowing like sun-warmed honey, her dark hair woven with strings of pearls. She was younger than Aarifa expected. Younger, and far more dangerous.
She smiled as Aarifa entered. It was not a welcoming smile.
"You are smaller than I imagined," Mumtaz said, sipping something golden from a crystal cup. "And more frightened."
Aarifa bowed low. "Your Majesty summoned me."
"Yes," Mumtaz said. "Because your thread reached me before your name did."
Aarifa didn't look up. She didn't dare.
The Empress continued, her voice soft but sharpened with steel. "Do you know how many weavers there are in this city, girl? Hundreds. Thousands, perhaps. But your shawl made my skin prickle when I touched it. Your pattern whispered something I haven't heard in years."
Aarifa felt her throat dry up.
Mumtaz set the cup down and stood, moving toward her like a blade wrapped in silk. "You wove a pomegranate flower with four petals—one for each chamber of the heart. You twisted gold thread into fire. You stitched eyes that do not sleep." Her eyes narrowed. "Tell me what you see when you weave."
Aarifa's voice barely rose. "Truth."
The Empress's smile curved. "And whose truth was in that last piece?"
Aarifa lifted her head. Their eyes locked. She could see it then—not cruelty, not madness, but an almost unbearable loneliness behind the power.
"The Prince," she whispered.
Silence fell like a blade.
Then, laughter. Low and sharp.
"You see my husband," Mumtaz said. "You see Khurram."
Aarifa blinked. "Your… husband?"
Mumtaz walked past her, pausing at the window. "Before I was Empress, I was Arjumand. And before he was Shah Jahan, he was just a man who loved me more than life itself." She turned, eyes hard now. "But love is not armor, Aarifa. Power leaves you bare."
Aarifa stood still, trembling.
"You will work in the Zenana now," Mumtaz said. "Under the court's patronage. You will weave only for me. No patterns that whisper of the prince." She smiled again. "Do we understand each other?"
Aarifa nodded, though her heart was already fraying at the edges.
That night, she couldn't sleep. Her new quarters were fragrant and soft, but suffocating. She lay under silk sheets and stared at the ceiling, her mind spinning with the Empress's words.
Khurram.
She had seen him once, years ago. A fleeting glimpse in the market square—he had passed in a palanquin lined with velvet, surrounded by guards and admirers. But his eyes had pierced the space between them. She remembered them—not just because they were gold like sun-drenched honey—but because they saw her.
Not the shawl. Not the booth. Her.
And now she was in his palace. Hiding from him. Forbidden from seeing him in her work.
But it was too late. His thread had already woven itself into her soul.
Somewhere deep in the palace, Prince Khurram couldn't sleep either.
His dreams were full of fire, tangled silk, and a girl with storm-dark eyes who bled truth with her hands.
Later, in the quiet of the imperial library, Mumtaz would trace the patterns of Aarifa's shawl again, her fingers lingering on the smallest stitch—the one only she had noticed. A secret language passed down from her own grandmother, once a keeper of the old silk looms in Kashmir. It was how she had learned to see stories in thread. To interpret, to protect, and—when necessary—to destroy.
Aarifa had no idea she had inherited that language. But Mumtaz knew.
Because once, long ago, she had woven her own fate into fabric too.