Chaotic Constellation
Against the inky black night, the abandoned alley was illuminated by the faint light of the moon. As quiet as a shadow, Manaal took refuge in the darkness of the night as she progressed further. Nearing her destination, her heart hammered against her ribs and she grabbed her sword as an instinct. A small prayer escaped her lips as she raised her fist to knock on the wooden door only to find it open already. Sighing in exasperation, she took a whistling arrow and shot it towards the mouth of the alley to inform her brother, Musab, of yet another failure.
For the past week, the city had been cloaked in chaos. It began when Anas, the fruit vendor, and his family developed a rare illness on their way to a neighboring city. The city’s only hospital burned their oil lamp day and night to find a cure whilst the culprit took it as an opportunity to raid Anas’s humble abode. Leaving his home as if a tornado had hit it, the culprit repeated this technique with the ones on their radar. Despite the state’s spy force working around the clock, peculiarly, they still hadn’t gotten their hands on the culprit.
To dispel the overcoming sleep and tiredness, Manaal took a sip of tea and recalled the events of last night. She realized that these bandits would not stop until they got their hands on what they desired: the state’s secret room. Sighing, she got up to retrieve the scrolls with data of the ones whose home had been raided. As she scanned them to observe any pattern in the occurrence of these raids, a sudden creaking sound caused her to spin on her heels.
Rolling her eyes, she said, “No wonder we are the best spies our city has seen in decided.”
With a scowl plastered on his face, Musab had entered the room. “Only a few hours into the morning, and I have heard this twice already!” He snapped.
Noticing Manaal’s cluelessness, Musab elaborated “Nasir gave me a whole talk on how he made a mistake by trusting us with this task. I know he was blowing off some steam, but the moment he attacked us being mathematics and astronomy students, I lost it.”
“You did what?” Holding the corner of her brother’s tunic, she snarled.
“Calm down Manaal. Nothing heated happened as Jamal, Nasir’s brother, jumped in and resolved the matter.” Flashing a forced smile, Musab gulped the bile rising in his throat.
Letting go of his collar Manaal occupied a seat next to the window and cradled her head in her hands. She knew that as two hot-headed men had clashed, there was more to the story than Musab had narrated. Arguing back with Nasir was already like walking on the tip of the iceberg, adding fighting on top of that was like being thrown off that iceberg into freezing water on a cold winter morning. Being the head of the city’s spy force, Nasir could dismiss them with just a word and the city’s minister couldn’t even do anything about it.
Seeing worry plastered over her sister’s face, Musab squeezed her shoulder and reassured her: “Since he hasn’t sent a messenger yet, it seems like we are still on duty, little sister.”
A mischievous smile creped on his lips upon which Manaal only rolled her eyes and punched him lightly on his shoulder. “But we have to work harder now, Manaal. Where are those scrolls with the information we have gathered?”
As the sun reached its zenith and basked the city with its radiance on a cold winter day, both siblings were surrounded by a sea of scrolls. With a quill, Manaal marked all the places on the city’s map. As she marked the last place, her eyes took in the map as a whole. With the marks in the correct spot, they seemed like a constellation, albeit a chaotic constellation, that Manaal had spent nights observing at the minister’s observatory. Realizing the pattern of the incidents, a shrill escaped her throat.
“Manaal what happened?” Musab shrieked, raising his head in a state of half-sleep from the scrolls he was working on.
“Musab looks there’s a pattern.” She exclaimed excitedly.
Upon examining it, he realized there was indeed one. The attacks had not been on current state workers rather on the prime minister’s secret force that worked mundane jobs in the street to collect vital information. These people had once been a part of the spy force but were removed a few years back. The reason being that the prime minister was building a secret force and the ones removed were his most trusted men. No one knew this except the prime minister and Nasir. Other’s presumed that they had moved on to mundane jobs as they had lost the trust of the prime minister. Musab double-checked it and expressed that they should report this crucial information to Nasir.
“Are you mad? Someone from our spy force probably leaked this information. If we inform him, we’ll alert that person and pour water over all our findings. We should make our plan, see if it works, and then inform Nasir.” Manaal exclaimed, wringing her hands.
As both siblings concluded not informing Nasir, they got to work immediately. Predicting where the next attack might be using the pattern they had decoded, Manaal and Musab left the house under the cloak of the night. As they made their way to their destination, Manaal smiled under her hood as she reminisced the time when she and Musab would pretend to be spies. Once they reached the destination, both hid in different locations as planned. On a windy night, it was difficult to keep a hood on, so as Manaal adjusted it, she stepped on a twig, causing it to snap. Upon hearing it, Musab cursed under his breath and turned to check up on his sister only to find a hood no longer masking her face and a dagger on her throat.
All the blood drained from his face when he realized that the person holding the dagger was the man they were looking for and he had been with them all this time.
“Jamal?” Musab exclaimed his voice wavering.
