The knife suddenly pulled at his belt and almost jerked him off his feet. Members of the Sultan's army approached, their piercing gazes seemed to go right to the weapon. Fear gripped his heart and trembled his hands. Courage broke through the paralyzation to allow him to duck into an alley. Climbing stairs, leaping walls, and scampering up ladders he lost the soldiers in the maze of dwellings.

Panting from the exhaustion, he wandered until he found a street again. Once there, he realized the opposite side of the street lacked any doors or windows. The Sultan's palace rose a story over that of the surrounding dwellings and seemed impenetrable, except for the closed and barred gate only a block away. A living Sultan would come; then he would die.

Benevolent Fate smiled upon her servant as no sooner had he sat down to wait, the gates opened. Soldiers in a column by twos marched forth, followed by a procession of carriages, the largest and only white carriage would carry the Sultan. With great speed, Jadan sprinted for the carriage and lept catching the door handle and flinging it open. Already, he heard the clicks of launching crossbows and whistles of passing quarrels. He realized his blade already sat in his hand and made twentieth the descent into the sole occupant of the carriage.

Shock spread across his face. The person occupying the carriage could not be the Sultan, for she was not a he. Her face lay slumped in agonized death and fear, for by his own hands he had killed her. The Sultan's daughter, the woman he loved, the woman he killed.

Pain lanced throughout his body as a quarrel from one of the Sultan's soldiers struck him in the face. Before he could even recover, blow after blow struck his head, shoulders, and back before he completely lost consciousness. Finally he died (or so he thought). For he woke in a cell, in darkness.