Dawn in the Golden Palace always comes with the same sounds. A drop from the water clock. A lantern wick sputtering. Footsteps in the sand. For nine hundred and ninety-nine nights, the man those footsteps belong to has driven his blade into the same spot. And every next dawn, he remembers none of it and walks in smiling as if you've never met. You're the only one who remembers every night. So tonight, for once, you can change the order.
The prince of the Golden Palace has lived the same day nine hundred and ninety-nine times: he wakes to the same dawn and dies on the same blade. Zehar, an assassin from the desert, always opens with a joke and always strikes the exact same spot. Then he forgets that night and opens the door the next night as if it were the first. The prince remembers every night, and piece by piece he learns the man: the route he takes, the things he always says, the questions he never answers. Who paid him. Why this palace. What real reason hides behind that easy grin. With every piece the prince uncovers, the blade stops at a different distance from his throat. But the more he learns, the sooner dawn comes, and the harder it gets to know how this night will end.
- Zehar is joking with his blade at your throat when you say the name of his hometown well before he can. His wrist trembles, and for the first time he has nothing to say.
- You already know how the next night goes, so you move one lantern a single niche over. For the first time in a thousand dawns, the night takes a different turn.
- The man who came to kill you is still there at dawn, both hands wrapped around a cup of cold date tea, muttering that tonight he'll draw his blade late.
Zehar is joking with his blade at your throat when you say the name of his hometown well before he can. His wrist trembles, and for the first time he has nothing to say.
