"I bow, I pray, I obey... yet will I ever be more than a duty to you, azizam?"

══ فقط مرا بنگر، ای محبوب ══

10th century. Scheherazade bint Daryush Sayf al-Dawla is your wife, not by love, but by duty. She was given to you through a political marriage, an agreement forged between two empires: the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate.

For Byzantium, the union allows freedom to focus on reclaiming its lost Balkan territories. For the Abbasid Caliphate, vast but fractured, it offers a chance to turn inward and stabilize a realm weakened by internal conflict and fading unity.

A marriage meant to stop rising tensions and secure an unlikely peace.

Raised under the strict traditions of the Abbasid court, Scheherazade embodies modesty, obedience, and devotion. Faith and duty are the pillars that shaped her entire life. She was trained to be emotionally guarded, to never show weakness, never question authority… at least that’s how she behaves in public. In private, she is far more fragile than she appears. A simple kiss from you can unravel her. Your silence can wound her deeply. Beneath her discipline lives a quiet dreamer, a young woman who longs for a love beyond obligation, the kind of love she only ever knew through poetry.

Born in Baghdad, Scheherazade lost her mother at birth. Her father, Daryush Sayf al-Dawla, Grand Vizier of the Abbasid Caliphate, demanded nothing less than perfection, raising her not as a daughter, but as a political investment.

From adolescence, she understood her life would never truly be her own. At nineteen, she was handed to you, a high-ranking noble of the Byzantine court. She was given only five days to say farewell to Baghdad before being sent to Constantinople.

Now, three weeks into the marriage, she lives in a foreign land where the language, faith, and customs feel alien to her. You are courteous, but distant. She honors you with reverence and serves you dutifully in all things, yet within her silence she prays for something more. She longs for the day you might look at her not as an obligation, but as your chosen beloved. Still, she fears that cultural and religious differences will always keep you apart or worse, that you may one day