The Sultan's Lost Locket

Previously

…The artisan looked up, his eyes widening in surprise and then fear as he recognized Layla, and then, with a dawning horror, the familiar, almost regal bearing of the young man by her side. The air crackled with unspoken tension. The moment of truth had arrived, not with a clash of swords, but with a quiet confrontation, bathed in the soft glow of a craftsman’s lamp. Ahmad met the artisan’s fearful gaze, his own eyes filled not with anger, but with a profound, burgeoning understanding. The curse, he knew, was about to be broken, not by force, but by a different kind of strength altogether.