Authors notes: Exams are over! Ah, I have never been so relieved! University (College for the American's out there!) is so much more intense than school! But, I'm finished now, and classes don't start again until the 31st January!

Another chapter, longest one yet! I'm upping my minimum word count from 2,000 to 3,000 which may mean some more skipping between plot lines, but otherwise this thing's going to drag on forever, and from past experiences, if it goes on too long, I'll lose enthusiasm which I definatly don't want to do... I HATE not finishing stories.

Oh, and something you should be pleased about: FLUFF. Yes there's fluff, a little bit, but fluff none the less. If sweet/romantic moments turn your stomach, please go and fetch a bucket :)

xoxoktk: Nice to see you on board! Bad boys are the best ;) But I'll happily take the goodies too, as long as their a bit rough around the edges, like... Dastan for example! Lol. Thanks for all the lovely things you said in your review!
Starfish: Hassansins are ALWAYS up to something. It shall all be revealed in the next chapter! Big drama going down XD
Sorree: Zolm and his snakes. I kind of hate snakes, but as far as Zolm's concerned, I think I could learn to love them too ;) Thanks for your reviews, I really appreciate them xx

Woffles92

Chapter 5 – Politics and Plots

The moment Dastan drew up his horse at the main steps of the palace at Alamut, Tamina slid from its back unaided. She hit the ground and grunted, as her bare feet provided her no protection from the impact. But even the pain couldn't deter her as she sprinted up the steps two at a time, past the ornate golden elephants at the foot of the long staircase. Remembering his earlier carelessness, Dastan made sure that he handed his reins to a very bemused looking man at arms.

In the few weeks that he'd been here, in this timeline and the previous, he could find his way adequately around the palace. However, he would have to catch up with her soon, as the location of the fabled high temple was kept a secret to all outsiders.

Serving girls and other palace staff jumped out of his way as he sprinted down corridors and up flights of steps. At one point he nearly ran into his eldest brother.

"Dastan!" he cried with both concern and amusement.

"Not now, Tus!" he said curtly as he skirted out of his path.

Then, he did run into someone. An old priest was standing in the middle of the corridor, and Dastan skidded to a halt on the marble floor to avoid knocking into him.

"Persian Prince!" he noticed in surprise. Even in his haste Dastan noticed that he had been referred to as the 'Persian' prince. He was supposed to have been married to Tamina today, thus putting himself in the Alamutian lineage, but he suspected that it would take a long time for them to accept him as their own Prince.
"The Princess has returned! Gods be praised for this wonderful news!"

"Yes, which way did she go?" Dastan asked breathlessly.

"I think she's gone to the high temple, no doubt to thank the Gods for her safe return."

"Where is it?"

"End of the corridor." The old man spoke with infuriating slowness, "Then turn left and follow that to the end. You will come to a set of stairs, and you will find the temple at the top. Don't worry, I'll show you the way."

But Dastan had already bolted. If the dagger was gone, he would be angry. But if the thieves were still lying in wait, and something happened to Tamina, he would never forgive himself.

He rounded the last corner of the spiral staircase, and saw the big ornate wooden doors of the temple were ajar. Tamina was praying loudly, and he was suddenly struck by a need to be respectful. He gently pushed the door open and slowly made his way around the room checking behind the pillars with his sword drawn. When he had decided that the coast was clear, he sheathed the weapon and decided to watch and listen to Tamina.

After a few more moments, the cage where the dagger was kept began to open. To a stranger, it would have appeared that the Gods themselves were sliding back the doors of the enclosure. However, being a natural sceptic, Dastan had scanned the room thoroughly and could see the turning mechanism hidden just out of plain sight. It was carefully weighted, he guessed, timed to perfection to coincide with the opening prayers.

The sunlight shone through as the cage opened and Dastan had to shield his eyes and squint through the brightness to try to see whether or not the dagger was in its proper place.

It was.

He let out a long breath and he felt as though his knees might buckle with the relief. Moving his gaze to the Princess, he watched as she turned her head around. She was smiling and tears of pure joy trickled down her face. It was infections, and Dastan couldn't help but smile back. He walked over and offered to help her from the floor. She accepted his hands.

"See," he said gently as she was lifted to her feet, "Nothing to worry about."

Then, she embraced him, pressing her tear stained face to his shirt. Dastan felt pleasantly surprised by her open and unexpected show of emotion.

But as suddenly as she had hugged him, she broke away, and her face no longer registered glee, but rather a scowl. He reeled at the speed of which a woman's emotions could shift. In annoyance, she kicked his skin with her foot, forgetting they were bare. The impact seemed to hurt her more than him, which enflamed her further.

"How could you be so stupid not to check on it before you left!" she grumbled.

He opened his mouth to apologise but was interrupted as a flurry of her handmaidens burst into the room. Tamina was met with a barrage of questions, all concerning her health. One girl, after the initial interrogation, asked in a small voice, "What about the wedding?"

Tamina threw a contemptuous glance in the Prince's direction.
"Certainly not today," she replied coldly, and turned and left.

The daylight was fading fast as Tamina stood on the small stool. One of the maids was cleaning her feet with a special solution so as to make the henna tattoos last longer on her skin. Another maid attended to her hand. She was supposed to have them done the morning of her wedding, but she had decided to have them done now. The tingling sensation on her skin, as the cool ink was placed in the complex patterns relaxed her. She could use the relaxation after the trials of the day.

Suddenly, there was a sharp pain on her arm where the maid was cleaning her skin. She gasped, and the girl who had been working their squeaked in alarm.

"I'm so sorry Princess!"

Tamina examined the place which had hurt and discovered a small mark. She must have caught herself on a thorn, she decided.

"It's alright," she soothed, "You may continue."

They were mixing up the henna dye when there was a loud thud from the other side of the room. Something had crashed through the curtain of her balcony. The maids all screamed together and Tamina swung her head around to look. Sprawling on the floor of her room was the Persian Prince.

Quickly he got up and held his hands up to protest innocence.

"Prince Dastan, to what do we owe the honour?" she asked coolly, stepping down from the stool.

"What did you do," he asked, turning around to inspect the seemingly innocent curtain which had uncharacteristically tripped him

"I laid a trap, and it seems as though I have succeeded in catching a rat."
It would have sounded like she was teasing him, but her face held no hint of a jest. She had asked for a small string to be placed across the gap, she didn't like the thought of the Prince being able to enter her room as he pleased with his trick of jumping up walls and over balconies.

"Princess, might I have a word?" he requested.

"Most people seeking an audience with me usually knock on the door. Or perhaps you forgot yourself Prince. Might I remind you that we weren't actually married today, and you still have no right to enter my room without permission, especially like a thief through my balcony?"

The maids giggled, and Tamina was relishing in the look of embarrassment and awkwardness on his face at being chastised like this. He couldn't defend himself, because he knew that every word from her lips was the truth, he had no right to be there. But after the events of earlier, he had been compelled to seek her out and explain. He desperately sought her favour, the last thing he wanted to do was marry someone who loathed him. Perhaps sneaking into her room wasn't the best idea, but he wasn't in possession of the dagger, and this was one action he couldn't reverse.

"Please," he begged.

She regarded him dispassionately for a moment, then without breaking the gaze she motioned for her attendants to leave.

"But don't stray too far. And tell the guards to be extra attentive; I may need their assistance if the Prince forgets his manners."

Giggling still, they left Dastan and Tamina alone.

There was an awkward moment of silence, then Tamina spoke.
"Well?" she demanded.

"Don't be angry with me Tamina," he pleaded.

"Why shouldn't I?" she snapped, "You've just scared my maids half to death, and you have entered my room without permission, once again."

"I just wanted to talk with you in private. Would you have let me in had I come to the door?"

Tamina considered this and decided no, she wouldn't have. The prince read the expression on her face perfectly.

"See, I was right. So the only way I could be sure I would see you was this way."

She gave him a contemptuous look, but said nothing. Dastan came forward to stand in front of her.

"I just wanted to say sorry for earlier. Garsiv ordered the guards removed to search for you, not me. But I should have thought, and I didn't and I'm sorry." Then with a mischievous smile he added, "I was so distraught by the news of your disappearance that I couldn't think of anything but you. For a moment, I thought you might have run away so that you wouldn't have to marry me."

"Run away?" she blurted in disbelief, "And leave my people, this city, and the sacred duty to which I have been bound all my life? You do not know me at all Prince."

"I guess not," he smiled ruefully, "I just thought that you would have wanted to avoid me and the… marriage."

"I accepted your proposal, did I not?" she snapped.

"Under duress! There was an army at your door, of course you would have accepted."

"Your brother made me no threat. His offer was friendship, and then he suggested that we be united by bonds stronger. I was under no duress."

"I find it hard to believe that you would willingly accept a stranger, especially based on the events which preceded it. I want to know whether what we'll do tomorrow will be nothing but politics, or if I can dare to hope of something more. Why did you say yes to me?"

"You tell me Dastan!" she said loudly, and in a voice so full of pent up emotion that it startled him a little.
"You tell me," she repeated, "Because I don't know. I should hate you, all of you! You destroyed part of my city and invaded like the pack of ruthless desert dogs that you are. You're right, I didn't know you. But… that moment you stepped forward, I did. Why do I feel like I know you? Please tell me because I can only begin to imagine."

Dastan swallowed, and was about to speak but Tamina interrupted again.

"My mother used to tell me that the Sands of Time were exactly that. Sand. No matter how hard you tried to sweep it up, some would always remain. Tell me why you handed me back a dagger empty of sand, when I know perfectly well that it was full when it left my hands the night your army attacked."

He took a moment to compose his thoughts. Then he began.

"Do you remember one of the first things you said to me, that day in the garden, after I told you that I was no longer the same man who breeched your walls?"

Tamina nodded.
"That's a short time for a man to change so much," she recalled.

"It wasn't a short time. Not by any stretch of the imagination. My uncle had a terrible plot, and he wanted to use the dagger and the sands, to go back to when he and my father were just boys. He wanted to stop himself from saving my father's life on a hunting trip so that he would become the rightful king."

"That's impossible," she gasped, "How could he have known about the dagger, it's a sacred secret!"

"I don't know," he lied. Some of the Hassansins were former guardian's of her religion. It would have broken her heart to learn of their treachery.

"Please, tell me everything," she urged.

Dastan shook his head.
"Forgive me Tamina, but I won't. Like I said, those events changed me. I am ashamed of the man I was before, and I don't wish to speak of him. I don't want you to think any worse of me than you already do."

Tamina sighed in frustration. Then, she met his eyes and all her anger melted away.

"You're impossible, you know that?"

Dastan's small smile made her heart miss a beat. No matter how hard she wanted to, she couldn't hold a grudge against him when he looked at her like this.
"I have been told that before," he chuckled.

"So you really won't tell me?" she asked, hoping that one last plea might change his mind.

"Maybe one day," he said noncommittally, "When I'm sure that you won't despise me for the things I did."

Like sell you into the service of Sheik Amar, he thought to himself.

Silence wrapped around them and they just smiled, then, laughed at the silence, releasing the awkward tension.

"I think you better leave," she said finally, but with a small hint of regret, "The servants will talk."

"They'll talk anyway," he muttered softly, moving towards her. The beating beneath her chest became faster, and it was so loud that she was sure that it could be heard all throughout Alamut.

"Dastan…"
It was a warning, but even as she gave it, she wasn't sure whether or not she actually meant it.

"Do I dare to hope of something between us greater than politics, or shall I say goodbye with just words?" he asked coyly, with a raise of one eyebrow. The last time he'd kissed her, she had been caught off guard. Now, she was fully aware of his intentions. A battle raged inside of her. Her head knew that the protocol for such things was to decline, but her heart wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms like the princesses in the stories her mother had told her when she was a girl.

Having made up her mind for her, Dastan put a hand on her neck, and when she made no attempt to resist, pulled her face gently to meet his. Their lips connected in such a way that set her whole body tingling. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, remembering the time as a girl, the son of a visiting dignitary had taught her how to kiss.

Their mouths moved together in a soft and hesitant way that showed both of them were afraid of displeasing the other in some manner. The short hair on Dastan's chin and upper lip tickled her, but she didn't mind. They remained like that for some time, testing the waters, as they tried to find a particular rhythm that suited them both. Much to the Persian's disappointment, Tamina broke away.

"I… think that's enough…" she said, a tad breathlessly.

"What's the matter," he teased in a low voice, his face still dangerously close to hers, "Don't you trust yourself?"

Tamina moved backwards, giving a little gasp of shock at his cheeky words.

"Myself?" she asked indignantly, "It's you my dear Prince who I don't trust."

He smiled, in that devastating way that only he could. The sparkle in his eyes only confirmed her accusation. He took her hand, and without breaking his gaze, kissed it.

"Until tomorrow then," he said.

Her heart gave a nervous jerk. It was one thing to share a kiss, but the sudden thought of consummating their marriage positively terrified her.

Dastan could sense her tension and his face changed from teasing to serious in an instant.
"I meant what I said last night. If you need more time… I'll stay in my own room tomorrow night."

"After the vows are said, and the celebrations are over... we'll see," Tamina said hesitantly. She didn't want to commit herself to an answer right at this very moment.
"Goodnight, Prince."

Her eyes seemed to swallow him up, and it took all of his strength to tear himself away from her and leave. He turned, and looked over his shoulder as he approached the balcony.
"Sleep well, Princess."

This time, he made sure not to trip on the hidden threads.

The tavern was noisy, many men sat around discussing matters with loud and drunken voices. Somewhere, a musician was feverously plucking notes on a stringed instrument while a handful of girls in long flowing skirts, danced around the room.

In a dark corner, Zolm watched the proceedings. Before he left the inn that night, he had two things to accomplish, and neither of them involved drinking himself into a stupor or trading a coin for a night with one of the dancers. A shadowy figure pulled back the curtain over the door and entered warily, casting his eyes around as if searching for something. He saw the Hassansin, and approached him immediately.

"Brother Zolm," the stranger said as he approached the table where the snake master was sat.

Zolm smiled.
"Brother Horus, I trust everything is in order."

"The rest of the brothers have sucessfully entered the city and are awaiting your next commands," he replied. Zolm waved a hand at the stool beside him, and the other obliged. As he moved his cloak, for the briefest of moments, two coils were visible, tied to the belt around his waist. While Zolm had command of both snake and sword, Horus was deadly skilled in the use of these two whips, tipped with vicious knives that could rip open the flesh of a body in single instance.

"Good. Have you brought what I requested?"

Horus took out a small roll of parchment and laid it out on the little table between them. The map was roughly sketched, but would serve his purpose.

Horus spoke in an anxious whisper, "Brother, are you sure you want to go through, you're dealing with powers that…"

"Enough," Zolm cut across, "Thank you for your help. Tell the brothers to make themselves available, tomorrow we will be serving a new master, and he will no doubt need our help to secure the palace for himself."

"Secure the palace? Zolm, what in the name of the Gods are you planning?" Horus asked in disbelief.

"You will know soon enough. And you know that this is not my plan."

"Not Nizam again. The old fool is dead and he still thinks he owns us. Why are you still determined to…"

He stopped midsentence suddenly as he felt something at his leg. He shot a concerned look at Zolm, whose eyes were silently crackling with rage.

"Call her off," Horus pleaded quietly. There was no mistaking the cold presence slowly ascending his leg. He tensed, trying not to agitate the snake further, for fear of the venom in its fangs.

"You shouldn't question me," Zolm said calmly.

"I was merely voicing my concerns for this little expedition. I of course trust your ultimate judgement and motives. Now, please, stop this before someone gets hurt!"

Zolm smiled evilly, relishing in the panic rising on the brother's face. He, of course, would not hurt one of the brotherhood on purpose. He simply liked to remind them from time to time, who they had elected as their leader. Practically soundless, he muttered a few words and the snake retreated back to her master.

"You may leave. Prepare yourself for tomorrow."

With a hesitation, Horus bowed his head. His stool scraped on the floor as he stood up and left.

Zolm calmly processed the events that had happened. As he did, one of the tavern girls approach him.

"Can I get you another drink?" she asked. Without looking up, he shook his head and waved her away. She persisted.
"How about a rat from the kitchen for that snake of yours?"

The Hassansin snapped his head up.
"You," he breathed in disbelief.

"Well don't look so pleased," Nasreen teased, "People might start talking."

His face immediately fell into a frown.
"What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like? I'm working for a place to sleep tonight and a crust of bread for my supper!"

Zolm gritted his teeth in annoyance. The look on her face said she had understood exactly what he had meant in the first place, but was just being difficult.
"Did you follow me?" he asked, barely managing to supress the anger in his voice.

"Depends what you mean by follow," she mused, those unforgettable eyes of hers flashing flirtatiously under a mass of dark eyelashes. "But it could just be an innocent coincidence."

He snorted, highly doubting that anything involving her could be innocent.

"Shouldn't you be serving drinks to those who actually want one?" he hissed.

"The more drinks I sell, the more I get to eat tonight, so I'm not leaving until you order a cup of wine."
She raised an eyebrow expectantly as she balanced the wooden tray of empty goblets on her hip.

"I hope you enjoy waiting."
Then, a thought came to him, and suddenly her persistence and unwelcome advances showed themselves with new usefulness.
"Actually," he said hesitantly, "You may be able to help me with something."

"I offered it before for free but it's going to cost you this time…"

The look on his face was thunderous.
"Do you want to earn the coin or not?" he spat.

"Fine," she sighed, giving up her games, "What do you need me to do?"