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1.
If Jamil could begin to be half of what Kalim thinks of him, he could probably do about anything.
Kalim only seems capable of thinking in terms of grandeur. In hyperboles, if the lessons of Jamil's fourth grade teacher are to be believed. Kalim dissolves into giggling fits at the lamest jokes, smiles brightly at the same old blue sky, dances at the faintest melody, and bursts into tears at the slightest inconvenience. He swings wildly from one emotion to another, everything always painfully intense.
And following this trend, Kalim often seems to believe Jamil is the greatest human on the Land of the Hot Sands.
Jamil doesn't understand it. He knows he's smart, but Kalim's praise and glittering eyes after he helps him with his homework are excessive. So are the remarks after they play mancala, empty flattery that tastes all the more bitter as Jamil lets him win.
It’s so annoying. Playing with Kalim is so annoying.
Kalim himself is so annoying—so noisy, so starry-eyed, so clueless.
Jamil kicks one of the marble walls of the Asim residence in frustration, muffling a pained yelp when it instantly throbs. Servants pay him no mind, maids and butlers fluttering from one hallway to another. Guards side-eye him but don’t say a word.
Jamil pouts, shoulders drooping with a sigh.
At least entering through the servants’ quarters grants him a few more precious minutes of peace and quiet.
Jamil doesn’t want to entertain his mother’s wrath again for sneaking out to play with his friends in town, so he gathers all his energy and tredges up to Kalim’s room. He chants his parents’ words in his mind. Let the young master win. Attend to the young master’s every whim. Keep the young master safe.
Keep the young master safe.
The doors to Kalim’s bedroom are ajar.
Jamil’s heart rate quickens. He bolts the rest of the way, crawling on the floor once he gets close enough to the room, and peeks through the gap between the doors.
Kalim silently kneels at the centre of the room, a golden cage balanced on his lap. A bird within chirps a soft melody, tilting its head at Kalim.
Jamil sighs soundlessly, relieved, but stays crouched beside the door.
He’s never seen Kalim this quiet.
“I wonder where Jamil is…” Kalim sighs, voice strange. Jamil flinches guiltily, face burning.
The bird croons back, tilting its head.
“Jamil is my best friend!” Kalim exclaims cheerfully. Jamil’s brows pull together into a frown, irritation ebbing back. “He’s the one that helped you get better, do you remember? He’s amazing!”
Ah. Now Jamil recognizes the bird.
It's a surprise Kalim still cares about the bird they had encountered with a broken wing a few weeks ago, chirping pitifully in the gardens. Jamil had thought of just putting it out of its misery and using the meat in the kitchen, but Kalim had insisted, on the verge of tears, for them to nurse it back to health.
With how fickle Kalim is, Jamil never thought he’d remember the bird after more than a month.
The bird flaps its wings in the cage. Kalim giggles. It chirps more. Jamil will give it to it: it is a pretty bird. Pristine white, red-eyed, with the slightest hint of yellow at the end of its feathers. Probably brought to Silk City by a merchant. It won’t stand out amongst the Asim family’s pigeons.
“Oh!” Kalim gasps in understanding. Jamil frowns, uncomprehending. “Oh, so that’s what you want. Well!”
Kalim springs to his feet. Jamil jumps back, blood rushing in his ears. But Kalim doesn’t head to the door: he sprints to his ample windows framed by silk curtains, setting the cage in the windowsill. The sweltering midday sun has dimmed to a tolerable intensity, but Silk City’s buildings still reflect the heat like a mirror.
Kalim opens the cage, smiling foolishly.
You idiot, Jamil thinks, astonished. The bird also blinks disbelievingly.
“Go on, it’s okay,” Kalim coaxes, high-pitched childish voice somehow sounding reassuring, “it’s what you want, don’t you? To fly in the sky again.”
The bird doesn’t lose time. It leaps out of the cage, flapping its wings in front of Kalim one last time before taking off.
Jamil stares at the bird, green with envy. The white expanse of its wings dazzles with the sunlight. It soon becomes a speck in the cloudless blue sky.
His stomach lurches.
Kalim just beams at the sky, enthusiastically bidding the bird goodbye. There's not the faintest trace of sadness in his features, nothing that betrays how deeply he cared for the bird.
Jamil's chest tightens. Tears prickle at the back of his eyes, as scalding as the afternoon sand.
He doesn't know why.
(He knows why.
He wouldn't have let the bird go.
Why would he let a bird soar away when he's chained to the ground? Why would he let it get away after painstakingly nursing it back to health?
What an ungrateful creature.
Kalim keeps on smiling. Jamil doesn't let himself wallow in the yearning tugging at his heart—in wondering how Kalim does it.)
2.
Jamil has always thought he might be a bad person.
He wouldn't consider himself outright evil, of course. He doesn’t go out of his way to screw over people, unlike other unscrupulous individuals. No, Jamil just prioritises himself (and by extension his master) over everyone else. If something or someone stands in their way, he makes sure to remove it swiftly and surgically, whether it is by magic-coated words or a knife to the throat.
But with a master like Kalim, he's always been painfully aware of the line between good and evil he treads over. Kalim, who bleeds and pukes and bruises, and still offers a universe of blind faith to a world that only wants to desecrate him.
Kalim, whose mind is so painfully pliant when Jamil enacts his plan, trusting his lies without a veil of doubt.
Kalim, who forgives too easily, who laughs even more, who smiles ever so kindly.
Jamil hates him.
He despises bowing his head to such an airhead. Hates that his family has been cursed to a lifetime of servitude to a boy whose only redeeming feature is that he was born with too much money.
Jamil is so sick of it.
“I’ve always hated you!” he shrieks.
All the colour seeps from Kalim’s face, almost as if he has been poisoned. Jamil resolutely stomps down on the instinctive spark of concern that flares within him, its ashes washed away by a wave of satisfaction.
Jamil has never injected so much venom into his words. He seethes each carefully concealed truth, veins darkening with exhilaration, voice thrumming with magic. And still—
Kalim apologises. Kalim promises to do better.
He's so good.
He's nothing like Jamil.
It’s so…
“The curse I have on me isn’t that easy to break.” Jamil twists the knife further, drinking in Kalim’s heartbroken face. “Kalim, as long as you exist in this world…”
The blot drenches him. Drowns him. But he has never felt so alive.
His hate boils, long-brewed resentment overflowing, spilling…
Incompetent kings. Scammers. He has no use for any of them.
He hates Kalim. Hates his desolate expression, his slightly outstretched hand, the tears glimmering in his still shell-shocked eyes. Hates the lack of anger. The absence of loathing.
Even now… even now, Kalim…
He’s still so infuriating.
Jamil blasts him away.
…ah, look at him go.
(When the overblot is over and Kalim kneels over him, choking out apologies between sobs, in a brief instant of clarity Jamil wishes he knew what the hell makes Kalim think Jamil is so special.)
3.
Kalim’s lips are as soft as a dancer's gauzy dress.
The kiss stifles Jamil’s startled gasp, but it doesn't prevent him from dropping the tray with the afternoon tea. The china shatters against the floor, tea spilling all over the carpet, but still Kalim doesn’t break the kiss. He stands on his tip-toes, borrowing support from Jamil's shoulders—Jamil had hit a late growth-spurt during their last year at NRC, and now at twenty years old he towers a good head over Kalim.
Stunned, he makes no movement. Kalim pulls away before Jamil’s body attempts to kiss back.
Kalim’s lips lift in a smile, face soft and open. Jamil’s stomach swoops from under him.
And then he notices it. He is… lighter.
It feels so easy to breathe now. As if someone has just lifted a weight he’s carried over his whole life off his chest, and he’d never noticed how suffocated he was. As if a shackle tying him down has just been shattered to smithereens.
“Wha—?” Jamil sputters, looking down at his dark robes and drenched shoes, flabbergasted. Kalim perks up, smile widening.
“So it did work…?”
Jamil breathes sharply, whirling at him.
“What did you—?”
“There is an old saying,” Kalim says slowly, voice impossibly tender. Sunlight pours over him, bathing him in the ivory and gold of his turban. “That there is a spell that can break any curse. I just tried it. And it worked!”
Jamil blinks owlishly.
“What?”
“Jamil,” Kalim exclaims, joy bleeding from every sound, smile stretching impossibly wide and hinting a sliver of gum, “Jamil, the curse is gone. You’re free!”
It hits him like a punch, air leaving his lungs.
He’s… he’s…
He’s…?
“How did you do it?” Jamil blurts out, hands trembling with… something. He’s still not sure. “Why did you do it?”
Kalim softens.
“Jamil has always been very precious to me.” He grabs both of Jamil’s hands, covering them with his smaller, warmer ones. “If he wants to, then of course I’d wish for his freedom.”
Jamil gapes, speechless. His sight mists.
Arrangements are made quickly after that.
He waves goodbye to his parents, Najma and Kalim before the day dawns, two weeks later. The brittle light of the fading stars still twinkles in the sky, a desert moon yawning her last beams from the west.
Kalim hugs him tightly, fending the chill off, and reminds him to share pictures of the places he visits. His smile glows like the nacreous crescent moon. Jamil just shoves him away, reminding him to tighten his security and to not forget any of his upcoming events and paperwork.
“You’ll always be welcome here, if you want to return.”
Kalim’s usual boisterous voice is quiet. Jamil notices his parents clasping their hands together, Najma smiling widely—they had elected to remain at the Asim’s service, but this time as a choice.
Never a curse again.
Jamil nods, smirking. His blood sings with excitement. The horizon blurs with grey.
“I’ll be going, then.”
The world awaits.
(It’s not until three months after, when Jamil visits a coastal city near the Coral Sea and he hears a local fairy tale, that it finally clicks.
A spell that can break any curse. Of course.
A true love’s kiss.
Rarer than any jewel, powerful enough to even undo the ancient curse binding the Vipers to the Asims.
Jamil doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry.
His chest aches, but he convinces himself that it’s not yet time to go back.)
(One year and a half after, on the other side of the world, he ponders.
If he could begin to do something that does right by Kalim… perhaps he would do about anything, indeed.
He would even learn how to love…)
+1
Silk City hasn’t changed one bit in the three years since Jamil left.
Old businesses have closed, new stalls have sprouted, but the colourful and bustling marketplace is just like Jamil remembers it.
Vendors sing their prices, attempting to overpower one another over the crowd’s merry chatter. Ripe fruits shine smooth and glossy, as if polished with wax. Spices waft through the dry air and wisps of sweet perfume escape through not-so-tightly sealed lids. Fabrics ruffle with the wind, peacock-coloured textiles looking as light and soft as silk.
Hooded as he is, no local stops him. Some vendors jingle jewellery enticingly, others subtly point to their products, but no one insists much. Weathered travellers aren’t known for being the most generous of patrons, after all.
Jamil breathes in the spices again, shoulders sagging. Ginger, cumin, turmeric, cardamom, garam masala, pepper…
He’s home.
The Asim home glints in the distance, looming over the city. The ghost of a smile tugs the corners of Jamil’s lips upwards, heart finally at ease.
Three years of sleeping in odd places, tasting strange dishes, visiting forgotten ruins, taking photos at tourist traps, meeting people, reuniting with old friends, travelling the world, enjoying himself… and still his chest swells with emotion.
He’s home. He’s home.
Those words have never rung as sweet.
He slips through the mansion’s security, not bothering to announce himself. His backpack rattles when he climbs over the outer wall and lands on an inner garden.
The Asim home is just like he remembers it, almost frozen in time. Hallways framed by arcs, carved windows letting dappled sunlight through, spotless marble floors and peacock-coloured tiles, flowers blossoming with fervour…
“An intruder!”
At least there are some competent guards.
Jamil uncovers his face, narrowing his eyes and chanting his signature spell internally. Before any guard can close in however, a gasp interrupts them.
“Jamil?!”
Jamil trails his eyes up a balcony.
Kalim and him lock gazes. Jamil cannot stifle a smirk at how utterly shocked his former master looks, shaken at how long it has taken.
The grin however vanishes as soon as Kalim rushes to the balcony’s railing, ignoring a sputtering servant behind him and the alarmed shouts of the guards.
Kalim jumps down.
For an instant, it paints a breathtaking picture. His white robes billow in the wind, his smile as blinding as the sun kissing his golden brown skin. The cerulean fabric of his turban almost aims to blend in with the sky, snowy long hair painstakingly tied into a braid. His eyes gleam like twin setting suns, forever burning red at the edge of the desert’s horizon.
Unfortunately, Jamil doesn’t have more than a split of a second to appreciate it. He tosses the backpack off his shoulders and lunges forward.
“Jamil!” Kalim laughs loudly as Jamil attempts to breathe, air knocked right out of him when he barely catches him. Both of them crumple into the ground in a heap of limbs.
The weight of the guards’ stunned glances is perhaps a little too heavy.
“Jamil!”
“Why would you even do that?! You—”
“Jamil!”
“—so reckless, endangering yourself—!”
“Jamil, you’re back!”
Kalim wraps his arms around him once Jamil sits them up, clinging tightly. Jamil sighs, resigned.
“You haven’t changed one bit.”
His laugh is as clear as a calming bell. Jamil’s frown smoothes on its own accord.
Kalim’s laugh tapers off when Jamil pushes him slightly away, hands coming up to cup his cheeks, fingers curling behind his ears. Kalim parts his lips, confused, but Jamil leans in.
“Last time, I left without giving something back. May I?”
Jamil’s heart thunders against his chest as fast as Kalim’s pulses beneath his throat. He waits patiently until red eyes widen in understanding, lower lip wobbling.
“Jamil… you…”
Jamil swoops in.
Kalim’s lips are as soft as he remembers them. This kiss lasts much longer, guards scurrying away once their lord starts to kiss back quite enthusiastically. The servant in the balcony gapes so widely his jaw might as well be on the ground with them.
Jamil takes his time, pouring every single feeling dwelling in his soul on it. He allows himself to let it through, to blossom. Love, love, love.
When they pull apart, Kalim beams at him, stray white tresses fringing his face.
Jamil sighs with faux exasperation, but a small genuine smile betrays him. His chest is warm, his entire body most embarrassingly bursting with happiness.
Kalim throws himself to his arms again, embracing him tightly.
“Welcome home, Jamil!”
(He doesn’t need to wish anymore.
After all, Jamil has always been an excellent learner.)