My name is Ferris Ibn Colored.

I’m 30 years old and I was born the third son of King Colored of Saudi Arabia in 1995.

I had everything power could offer.

Palaces, servants, wealth that never seemed to end.

But on October 17th, 2023, my father summoned me to his private court and gave me a command that shattered my world.

Your wife will join my private household.

You will prepare her chambers.

That night destroyed everything I thought I knew about honor, obedience, and God, and led me straight into the arms of Jesus Christ.

I was born into a world that operates by rules most people can’t even imagine.

The royal palace in Riyad wasn’t just my home.

It was an entire kingdom within a kingdom.

Everything was made of imported Italian marble.

The ceilings soared so high that voices echoed like whispers in a cathedral.

Servants moved through the corridors like shadows, anticipating every need before I could even voice it.

The wealth seemed infinite, endless, as normal to me as breathing.

My childhood was spent walking marble holes that gleamed under crystal chandeliers, surrounded by luxury I believed was ordinary.

Every morning I woke in silk sheets, ate breakfast prepared by chefs trained in Paris and Tokyo, and received private tutoring from scholars who had devoted their entire lives to educating royalty.

Ancient texts, military strategy, economics, diplomacy, everything a prince needed to navigate the dangerous waters of power.

But with all that privilege came expectations that crushed the soul.

From the moment I could stand, I was groomed to be the perfect Islamic prince.

Five daily prayers were not negotiable.

Mimizing the Quran was not optional.

It was survival.

Understanding Sharia law wasn’t just academic.

It was essential for any future role I might play in the kingdom’s leadership.

My father, King Cullled, made it devastatingly clear.

I represented not just our family, but the honor of the entire kingdom and the purity of our faith.

Every action I took, every word I spoke, every thought I entertained reflected on the royal bloodline.

Failure was not an option.

Deviation was treason.

The religious obligations shaped every breath I took.

I spend hours each day studying Islamic Jewish prudence with the most feared imams in Saudi Arabia.

They taught me one central doctrine that became the axis my entire world turned on.

Absolute obedience to Allah and to earthly authority were one and the same.

My father as king was Allah’s chosen representative in our kingdom.

To question him was to question God himself.

To disobey him was to commit apostasy.

This belief system became so deeply woven into my identity that I never even considered challenging it.

Not once.

Not until it was far too late.

When I turned 26, my father informed me, he didn’t ask.

He informed me that it was time for me to marry.

In our world, arranged marriages were expected, especially for royalty.

Political alliances, tribal loyalties, and family honor dictated every choice.

Love was never part of the equation.

Marriage was a strategic move on the chessboard of power, a duty to produce and strengthen our family’s grip on the throne.

I had no expectations of romance.

I expected a transaction, but when I first met Ila, everything I thought I knew about marriage evaporated in an instant.

She was beautiful.

Yes, dark eyes that seemed to hold entire galaxies.

A grace that made every movement look effortless.

But there was something deeper.

When she looked at me, she didn’t see his royal highness, Prince Ferris.

She saw me, just a man, flawed, human, uncertain beneath all the gold and marble.

Our wedding was a spectacle.

Thousands of guests, international dignitaries, ceremonies that stretched over 5 days.

But the moment that changed my life wasn’t the public vows or the grand reception.

It was when we were finally alone together for the first time, away from the cameras and the protocol and the watching eyes of the court.

She smiled at me and said, “So, who are you really beneath the title?” What began as a political arrangement transformed into something I’d never expected to find in a palace.

Genuine love.

Ila wasn’t just beautiful on the outside.

She possessed a heart that was pure, kind, and dangerously compassionate.

She treated the servants like human beings, not furniture.

She asked questions about governance that revealed a sharp political mind.

She showed real tangible concern for our people’s suffering, something I’d been trained to see as weakness.

In private moments, away from the suffocating formality of court life, we would talk for hours about dreams we didn’t dare speak aloud to anyone else.

About the kind of leaders we wanted to become if we ever had the chance.

About children we might have one day.

about a future that felt possible when she was beside me.

She made the cold echoing palace feel like a home.

When she laughed, and she laughed often, despite everything, the sound-filled rooms that had always felt empty, no matter how many people occupied them, she had a gift for making even the most tedious royal obligations feel meaningful because we were enduring them together.

For 2 years, we built a life that felt perfect.

We talked about the children we would raise differently than we’d been raised.

About reforms we might quietly implement when I had more influence, about a legacy of mercy rather than fear.

I was naive, dangerously, foolishly naive about my father’s true nature to the world.

King Cullled projected an image of piety and justice.

He was seen as a defender of Islamic values, a wise and measured ruler.

Foreign diplomats respected him.

Our people feared and revered him in equal measure.

I had grown up seeing only the version of him he wanted me to see, the stern but supposedly loving father who was preparing me for a dangerous world.

But over those two years with Ila, I began to notice things that disturbed me.

The way female servants would avert their eyes when he entered a room.

Their bodies tensing as if bracing for impact.

The hushed conversations that stopped mid-sentence when I appeared.

My mother’s resignation.

A deep boneweary sadness she tried desperately to hide behind her royal composure, but that leaked through in unguarded moments.

I learned through fragments and whispers that my father had taken multiple wives and concubines over the decades.

Not through mutual agreement, through command, through force disguised as religious duty, always justified by his personal interpretation of Islamic law, always protected by his absolute authority as king.

There were other stories too, darker ones, whispers about family members who had opposed him and quietly disappeared.

About dissident who vanished about anyone who dared to challenge his will, meeting swift, silent consequences.

I told myself these were just palace rumors, exaggerations, the price of power.

I told myself my father would never cross certain lines.

I told myself that as long as I remained obedient, Leila and I would be safe.

And then came October 17th, 2023.

The night my father proved that in his kingdom there were no lines he wouldn’t cross.

The night everything I’d built my life on turned to ash.

The night that would eventually lead me to a forbidden book, a desperate prayer, and a name I’d been taught to hate, Jesus Christ.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let me take you back to that evening, the royal gathering where everything began to unravel.

Actually, no.

Before I can tell you about that night, you need to understand what I stood to lose.

You need to know about Ila.

really know her.

So, you can understand why what my father did wasn’t just an abuse of power.

It was the destruction of the only pure thing I’d ever known.

Our wedding day was a carefully choreographed performance.

I stood in traditional royal attire, surrounded by dignitaries I’d never met, exchanging vows with a woman whose face I’d seen only once in a formal photograph.

She was Leila Bent Rashid, daughter of a powerful tribal leader from the Northern Territories.

The marriage was designed to strengthen political alliances, nothing more.

I expected Judy.

I expected silence.

I expected a stranger sharing my title, but never my life.

What I didn’t expect was the woman I met when the ceremonies finally ended and we were left alone.

Ila had been educated in Switzerland, unusual for a Saudi woman of her generation, but her father had been progressive in his own quiet way.

She spoke four languages.

She’d studied international relations and literature, but more than her education, it was her spirit that disarmed me.

She was gentle, yes, but there was steel beneath the silk, a quiet strength that refused to be diminished by palace protocol.

Our first year was awkward.

We were strangers playing the role of husband and wife.

We ate formal dinners in painful silence.

We occupied separate wings of our quarters.

We performed our public duties with practiced smiles and returned to our private distance.

I thought that was how royal marriages was supposed to be.

Then came the night that changed everything.

I couldn’t sleep, my mind churning with a case I’d observed that day, a servant punished harshly for a minor infraction.

I walked to the palace gardens around midnight and found Ila there sitting alone under the stars.

“Can’t sleep either?” she asked, her voice soft in the darkness.

We started talking really talking for the first time about the injustice I’d witnessed about the weight of living in a system that called cruelty discipline and oppression order.

Then she said something that stopped my heart.

Do you ever wonder if the power we are born into is meant for something more than just maintaining itself.

No one had ever questioned the system before.

No one had ever suggested that our privilege came with moral responsibility beyond obedience.

“That’s dangerous thinking,” I whispered, though something in my chest was awakening.

She smiled, not with fear, but with knowing.

The most important thoughts usually are.

After that night, everything shifted.

We began stealing moments together, late night tea in the garden, whispered conversations in the library, shared glances across crowded throne rooms that said more than words ever could.

She made me laugh at the absurdity of palace politics.

I made her feel safe enough to speak truths that could have gotten her killed.

She was the only person in that vast marble prison who treated me like a man instead of a tidal who saw past the prince to the uncertain searching soul underneath.

One evening, maybe 6 months into our marriage, we were alone in our quarters.

I just returned from a particularly brutal meeting with my father, another lesson in leadership that felt more like cruelty training.

Ila took my face in her hands and looked at me with those galaxy eyes.

“You’re more than your father’s son,” she said softly.

“I see who you really are.

” Those words broke something open inside me.

For the first time in my life, I felt seen, known, loved not for what I represented, but for who I was.

We built a secret world within the palace walls.

A world of whispered dreams about children we’d raise with both strength and compassion.

About quiet reforms we might implement.

About breaking cycles of cruelty with mercy.

She taught me that power could be used to protect the vulnerable, not just control them.

For 2 years, we lived in that beautiful, fragile bubble.

I believed our love was untouchable.

I believed the palace walls protected us from the corruption outside.

I was catastrophically wrong because the greatest threat wasn’t outside the walls.

It was sitting on the throne.

It happened on what seemed like an ordinary evening.

My father was hosting one of his private royal gatherings, the kind where wealthy tribal leaders and political allies gathered in closed chambers to discuss matters of state over endless cups of cardamom tea.

These events were performances of power carefully orchestrated to remind everyone present of their place in the hierarchy.

I was expected to attend, to observe, to learn how authority maintained itself.

Ila, as was customary, moved gracefully through the room, serving refreshments to the guests.

She wore traditional dress, her movements elegant and measured.

She’d done this a 100 times before, the beautiful royal wife, performing her role with quiet dignity.

But that night, something was different.

I noticed my father watching her.

Not the way one notices a servant performing their duties.

Not the way a father-in-law might observe his son’s wife with familial approval.

He watched her the way a predator watches prey.

His eyes followed her across the room, lingering on her movements with an intensity that made my stomach twist.

When she leaned forward to pour tea, his gaze didn’t move.

When she turned to leave, he tracked her until she disappeared from view.

Something cold crawled up my spine.

I told myself I was imagining things, that my mind was playing tricks, that surely my father, a man who preached piety and righteousness, wouldn’t couldn’t.

I pushed the dread down and focused on the political discussions around me.

The gathering ended near midnight.

I was preparing to return to my quarters when a messenger appeared at my elbow.

His majesty requests your presence in his private court.

Immediately come alone.

My heart began to pound, though I didn’t yet know why.

The private court was a windowless chamber deep in the palace, a place where my father conducted his most sensitive business.

When I entered, he was seated on his elevated chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

The room was empty except for two guards flanking the door.

“Leave us,” he commanded.

The guards hesitated for only a fraction of a second before bowing and retreating.

The heavy doors closed with a sound like a tomb ceiling.

“We were alone.

My father didn’t stand.

Didn’t smile.

” His voice, when he spoke, was cold and emotionless, terrifyingly controlled.

Your wife will join my private household.

You will prepare her chambers in the West Wing by tomorrow evening.

The words didn’t make sense at first.

My brain couldn’t process them.

I don’t understand, father.

I believe I spoke clearly.

You want Ila to serve in your household? As a I want her, he said flatly and I will have her.

The room tilted.

Everything I thought I knew about reality shattered in that moment.

This is a test, I stammered.

You’re testing my loyalty, my faith, my This is not a test, Ferris.

His voice was ice.

I desire your wife.

As king, I take what I desire.

You will comply.

Father, the Quran forbids this.

My voice rose in desperation.

Islamic law is clear about.

I am the law in this kingdom.

He stood now towering over me.

God made me king.

My authority is his authority.

Questioning me is questioning him.

But this is wrong.

This violates everything we A king takes what he desires.

He stepped closer.

His face inches from mine.

Your obedience is your worship.

Will you worship or will you commit apostasy? The theological weapon.

The same doctrine I’d been taught since childhood, now twisted into a blade pressed against my throat.

Obey the king or betray God.

There was no third option.

You can’t do this, I whispered, my voice breaking.

She’s my wife.

Your daughter-in-law, our family’s honor.

He laughed.

Actually laughed.

A sound so cruel it felt like a physical blow.

Honor? He shook his head slowly.

You think you have honor? You have nothing except what I allow you to have.

Your title, your wealth, your wife.

All of it belongs to me.

I am simply reclaiming my property.

She’s not property.

She’s a human being.

She is whatever I say she is.

His voice dropped to a whisper that somehow felt louder than shouting.

You will prepare her chambers.

You will tell her to comply and you will never speak of this again.

Do you understand? I stood there trembling, my entire world collapsing around me.

This was the man I’d been taught to obey as I obeyed God.

This was the authority I’d been told was divinely ordained.

This was the father I’d loved, feared, and revered my entire life.

And he was a monster.

“Get out,” he said dismissively, returning to his seat.

“You have your orders.

” I walked back to our chambers that night knowing I had to tell my wife that her nightmare was about to begin and that I was powerless to stop it.

Ila knew something was wrong the moment I entered our chambers.

I must have looked like a ghost, pale, trembling, unable to meet her eyes.

She crossed the room quickly, touching my face with concern.

Ferris, what happened? What did your father? He wants you.

The words came out broken.

His his demanding that you join his household.

That you I couldn’t finish.

I didn’t need to.

Her hands fell away from my face.

For a long moment, she just stared at me, processing the impossible.

Then her knees buckled.

I caught her before she hit the floor, and we collapsed together.

clinging to each other like drowning souls grasping at wreckage.

She didn’t cry at first.

She just shook, her entire body trembling with a horror so deep it had no sound.

“No,” she finally whispered.

“No, no, no.

Ferris, please tell me this isn’t real.

” I tried to stop him.

I swore I did.

We’ll run.

Her voice turned desperate.

We’ll leave tonight.

We’ll go somewhere he can’t find us.

There is nowhere, I said.

And the truth of those words broke something in both of us.

He controls everything.

The borders, the airports, the police.

We are in a cage, Leila.

a golden cage, but still a cage.

For 3 weeks, she resisted.

She wept until she had no tears left.

She refused to eat.

She begged me to find a way, any way, to stop this.

I went to every authority I could reach in secret.

I consulted imams, describing the situation in careful hypotheticals.

If a king were to demand such a thing, every single one gave the same answer.

The king’s authority is absolute.

To resist him is to resist Allah’s will.

I cited verses about marriage, about honor, about protection of the vulnerable.

They cited verses about obedience to rulers, about submission to authority, about the divine right of kings.

The very religion I built my life on had become a prison with no escape.

Then the palace machinery began to move.

Guards appeared at our door with instructions for Leila.

Whispered orders from the king’s household.

Preparations being made in the west wing.

The walls were closing in and I couldn’t stop them.

On a Tuesday evening, I’ll never forget it was a Tuesday.

They came for her.

four royal guards, a senior household administrator.

They were respectful but firm.

The king had summoned her.

She was to come immediately.

Ila looked at me one last time, her eyes pleading for a miracle I couldn’t give her.

Then they escorted her away.

I watched the woman I loved disappear down that marble corridor, and something in me died.

The days that followed were a special kind of hell.

Occasionally Ila was allowed to return to our chambers.

Always late at night, always silent, always more broken than before.

The light in her eyes was fading.

The woman who had questioned injustice and dreamed of reform was being systematically destroyed.

The palace staff began avoiding me.

Servants who once bowed now looked away.

Guards who once saluted now stared through me as if I were invisible.

Everyone knew what had happened.

Everyone knew I’d been powerless to protect my own wife.

I was the prince whose honor had been publicly destroyed.

A walking reminder that in this kingdom no one was safe from the king’s desires.

I prayed like I had never prayed before.

was on the prayer mat, forehead pressed to the ground, reciting every verse I’d memorized, begging Allah for intervention, for justice, for mercy.

Nothing changed.

I sought out religious scholars in secret, men known for their piety and learning.

Surely they would see the injustice.

Surely they would offer some recourse.

Your father is king.

They all said his authority is ordained by Allah.

To question him is to question divine will.

But what about justice? I demanded.

What about protecting the innocent? Justice, one elderly imam told me coldly, is whatever the ruler declares it to be.

This is Islam.

Prince Ferris.

Submission.

That is what the word means.

My faith once the foundation of my entire identity began to crack.

If God allowed this, if God ordained this, if God demanded my silence while my wife suffered, what kind of God was he? The breaking point came three months into the nightmare.

Ila returned to our chambers late one night.

There were bruises on her arms she tried to hide.

Her eyes were hollow, empty in a way that terrified me more than tears ever could.

She sat on the edge of our bed and spoke in a voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear her.

I don’t want to live anymore.

Those six words shattered whatever was left of my world.

I held her.

I promised her things would change.

I lied to her and to myself because the truth was unbearable.

Nothing was going to change.

This was our reality.

This was what my religion called God’s will.

That night, after she finally fell into an exhausted sleep, I returned to my prayer met one more time.

I went through the motions, the prescribed positions, the memeized Arabic, the ritual that had shaped my entire life.

But for the first time, the prayers felt empty, like shouting into a void.

I had prayed to Allah my entire life, five times a day, every day, without fail.

For the first time, I wondered if anyone was listening at all.

I stopped sleeping.

Night after night, I would lie awake listening to Ila’s shallow breathing beside me, my mind churning with questions that had no answers.

The palace that had once felt like home now felt like a tomb, beautiful, vast, and suffocating.

On one of those sleepless nights around 3:00 in the morning, I gave up on rest entirely.

I wandered the palace corridors aimlessly, my feet carrying me without conscious direction.

I found myself in the far wing of the royal library, a place few people visited in a mall.

This section housed ancient texts, forgotten records, books that had been cataloged decades ago and then abandoned to gather dust.

The air smelled of old paper and neglect.

I moved between the shelves without purpose, running my fingers along leather spines, reading titles in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, Turkish, Islamic Jewish prudence, hadith collections, commentaries on Sharia law.

Then pushed deep behind a row of legal texts on a bottom shelf, I saw it.

A small leatherbound book, no bigger than my hand, no title on the spine.

I pulled it out, curious, and opened the cover.

Alil, the Gospel, an Arabic New Testament.

My heart stopped.

Possessing Christian materials in Saudi Arabia was a crime punishable by imprisonment or worse.

For a member of the royal family, it would mean execution.

Public execution to make an example.

I should have put it back immediately.

Should have reported its presence to the religious police.

Should have run from that library as if it contained poison.

But something in me, something desperate and broken, wouldn’t let go.

I looked around.

The library was empty.

The guards were stationed at the main entrances, not in this forgotten corner.

My hands trembling, I slipped the book beneath my robes and walked back to my chambers, certain that every shadow held an accuser.

Once safely behind locked doors, I opened it.

The first words I read were from a book called Matthew 11 28.

Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

I read it again, then again.

I had never, not once in 30 years of Islamic instruction, heard a verse that spoke directly to suffering like this.

My entire religious education had taught me to submit to suffering, to accept it as Allah’s will, to endure it as a test of faith.

This Jesus was offering something different.

Rest, not submission, not endurance.

Rest.

It felt too good to be true.

Heretical.

Dangerous.

But I couldn’t stop reading.

Night after night, I hid that small book in a lock drawer and read by lamplight while Ila slept.

I was terrified someone would discover it.

terrified of what these words were doing to me.

But I was more terrified of stopping.

I read about Jesus defending a woman caught in adultery, surrounded by religious leaders ready to stone her, and he protected her, challenged her accusers, sent them away in shame.

I read about Jesus confronting corrupt religious authorities, calling them hypocrites and whitewashed tombs.

He didn’t submit to their authority.

He exposed their evil.

I read about Jesus healing the brokenhearted, touching the untouchable, defending the defenseless.

Everything I read contradicted what I’d been taught about God.

In Islam, I had learned that God was distant, demanding, concerned primarily with obedience and submission.

Power flowed downward from God to prophets to rulers to subjects.

Questioning that hierarchy was rebellion.

But this Jesus seemed to flip everything upside down.

He sided with the oppressed against the oppressor.

He condemned the powerful for abusing the vulnerable.

He offered comfort to those who suffered, not commands to endure.

One verse struck me so forcefully I had to stop reading and catch my breath.

John 8:32.

You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Free.

I had never associated that word with religion before.

Religion was about submission, control, obligation.

Freedom was what you sacrifice to prove your devotion.

But here was Jesus promising that truth leads to freedom.

Could that be real? Could there be a God who actually wanted me to be free rather than enslaved? The more I read, the more dangerous questions formed in my mind.

Could this Jesus see me really see me the way Leila did? Not as a prince, not as a title, but as a broken man desperate for help.

Could he care about someone like me? Someone born into the very system that crushed others? Could he possibly understand what it felt like to be powerless in the face of evil disguised as holiness? I knew these thoughts were heresy.

I knew that even entertaining them put my life at risk.

In Saudi Arabia, converting to Christianity meant death.

For someone of my position, it would mean public execution and eternal shame on my family.

But every page of that forbidden book felt like it had been written specifically for me.

For the prince trapped in gilded chains, for the man whose religion had failed him in his darkest hour.

For someone drowning and desperate for a hand to pull him out.

Every page whispered, “There is another way.

There is another god.

There is hope beyond this darkness.

But could I dare believe in a god my father would kill me for knowing? Could I risk everything, my life, my position, whatever fragile protection I could still offer Ila, in the words of a book I’d found hidden in a dusty library.

I didn’t know, but I kept reading because for the first time in months, I felt something other than despair.

I felt hope.

The breaking point came on a Thursday night.

Ila returned to our chambers later than usual.

The moment I saw her, I knew something had changed.

There were fresh bruises on her wrists, dark purple marks.

She didn’t bother hiding anymore.

But worse than the physical wounds was the look in her eyes.

Empty.

Completely empty.

She moved past me like a ghost, sat on the edge of our bed, and stared at nothing.

“Lila,” I whispered, kneeling in front of her.

“Talk to me, please.

” She looked at me then, and what I saw in her face made my blood run cold.

I can’t do this anymore, Ferris.

Her voice was flat, dead.

I don’t want to wake up tomorrow.

I don’t want to exist in this world anymore.

I’m done.

Rage exploded through me.

Not at her, but at everything.

At my father, at the palace, at the religion that justified this evil.

At God himself for allowing it.

At myself for being too weak, too trapped, too powerless to save the woman I loved.

I wanted to scream, to destroy something, to fight.

But there was nothing to fight.

No enemy I could reach, no battle I could win, just helplessness.

Crushing absolute helplessness.

After Leila finally fell into an exhausted sleep, I locked the chamber doors and stood by the window overlooking the palace grounds.

The city of Riyad stretched out below me.

Millions of lights, millions of people, and not one of them could help us.

I was utterly alone.

No, that wasn’t quite true.

There was one name I hadn’t called on yet.

One God I’d been reading about in secret.

One person who promised rest to the weary and burdened.

I didn’t know if he was real.

I didn’t know if he could hear me.

I didn’t even know if it was safe to speak his name aloud.

But I had nothing left to lose.

I knelt by that window, my forehead pressed against the cold glass, and whispered the most dangerous prayer of my life.

Jesus, if you are real, I need you.

I need you desperately.

Help me.

Help us, please.

I don’t know what else to do.

The moment his name left my lips, something shifted.

It wasn’t dramatic, no thunder, no visions, no burning bush or angel chorus, just peace.

A warmth spreading through my chest, not physical, but deeper than physical.

a sense that I was no longer alone in that room, that someone had heard me, that somewhere beyond the palace walls and the endless darkness, someone was listening.

For the first time in 4 months, I felt hope.

I stayed there on my knees for hours, not praying in the formal Islamic way I’d been taught.

No prescribed positions, no memized Arabic, just talking.

Pouring out my heart to this Jesus I barely knew.

When I finally fell asleep just before dawn, I slept without nightmares for the first time in months.

The next morning, chaos erupted through the palace.

The king had collapsed.

I heard the commotion first, running footsteps, urgent voices, guards shouting orders.

I dressed quickly and followed the sound to my father’s wing.

King Cullled had fallen violently ill during the night.

High fever, violent trembling, delirium so severe he didn’t recognize his own physicians.

The palace doctors were baffled.

They had never seen anything like it.

Within hours, he was being prepared for emergency transport to a hospital in Europe.

His condition was too unstable, too mysterious for the palace medical staff to handle.

And just like that, Ila was sent back to our chambers.

“I found her sitting in our room, staring at her hands in disbelief.

They just sent me away,” she whispered.

The senior household staff said I was to return here until the king recovers.

I pulled her into my arms, my heart pounding.

coincidence, medical emergency, or answer to prayer? I didn’t dare say it aloud.

Not yet.

The second miracle came the following afternoon.

I was walking through a lesser use corridor when one of the palace guards fell into step beside me.

His name was Omar.

I’d seen him around, but never spoken to him directly.

He walked close, his voice barely audible.

Prince Ferris.

He didn’t look at me, keeping his eyes forward.

I need to tell you something, but you must not react.

Do you understand? My heart rate spiked.

Yes, I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

The words were so quiet I almost didn’t hear them.

I have been for 3 years.

I know what’s happening to you and your wife.

I know what you’ve been reading.

And I know you prayed to Jesus last night.

I nearly stopped walking.

How could you possibly? Because God told me.

He glanced at me then, his eyes steady and calm.

Brother, God sees you.

He heard your prayer and he sent me to tell you something.

What? I can help you escape.

Both of you, but we have to move quickly while the king is gone.

Are you ready? Everything in me screamed that this was a trap.

A test.

Another nightmare in a long series of nightmares.

But something deeper.

That same peace I’d felt when I prayed told me this was real.

If we leave, I said slowly, we lose everything.

Our titles, our wealth, our country.

We can never come back.

Yes, Omar said simply.

You will lose all of that.

I thought of Ila’s bruised wrists, her empty eyes, her whispered wish to stop existing.

I thought of the palace that had become our prison, the wealth that meant nothing.

The power that couldn’t protect us from evil.

I’d rather have nothing with freedom, I said quietly, than everything in this cage.

Omar nodded once.

Then we begin planning tonight.

Meet me in the East Library at midnight.

Come alone.

He disappeared around the corner, leaving me standing there trembling.

That night, I told Leila everything about the book, about my prayer, about Omar’s offer.

We held each other in our chambers, whispering like children about the impossible hope of escape.

“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice shaking.

If we are caught, if we stay, you die, I said, looking into her eyes.

Slowly or quickly, you die.

I won’t watch that happen.

She pressed her forehead against mine.

Then we run.

Within 48 hours, three impossible things had happened.

My father had mysteriously collapsed the night after I prayed.

A secret Christian guard had revealed himself and offered help.

And we were planning our escape from the most secure palace in Saudi Arabia.

I didn’t know if I was witnessing miracles or losing my mind.

But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

Jesus had heard my prayer and he was answering.

The midnight meeting in the East Library changed everything.

Omar wasn’t alone.

Three other palace staff members were waiting in the shadows.

A kitchen worker, a junior administrator, and a maintenance technician.

All of them secret followers of Jesus.

All of them risk their lives just by being in that room.

There are more of us than you think, Omar said quietly.

We’ve been praying for you and your wife for months.

We knew what was happening.

We were waiting for God’s timing.

I stared at them stunned.

How long have you some of us for years? The kitchen worker said, a woman named Aisha.

We meet in secret.

We share one Bible between 12 people and we pray for opportunities to help others escape the darkness.

Why would you risk this for us? Leila whispered.

Omar’s answer was simple.

Because this is what Jesus did.

He freed captives.

We are just following his example.

Over the next 3 days, impossible doors began swinging open.

The third miracle came when international media outlets suddenly broke coordinated stories about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia.

Detailed reports, named sources, diplomatic pressure mounting from multiple countries at once.

The palace descended into chaos.

Emergency meetings, damage control.

Every senior official is scrambling to manage the crisis.

Perfect timing, Omar said with annoying smile when we met again.

Perfect distraction.

Then the fourth miracle.

Security systems began malfunctioning.

Cameras in key corridors went dark.

Guard rotations were suddenly reassigned to deal with the media crisis.

Blind spots appeared in coverage that had been airtight for decades.

This isn’t normal.

I told Omar.

Palace security is too sophisticated for random failures.

I know, he said.

That’s how you know God is moving.

Omar spent hours mapping our escape route on stolen architectural plans, specific corridors at specific times, which checkpoints would be understaffed, which exits would have the fewest ice.

Meanwhile, the network of believers worked miracles of their own.

Forged passports appeared, perfect replicas with our photos, but different names.

Medical visa documents complete with official stamps.

Diplomatic clearance papers that would get us through airport security.

Where did you get these? I asked.

Holding papers that would mean death if discovered.

Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.

Aisha said, “Just know that people have been preparing for this possibility for a long time.

” The waiting was torture.

My father remained abroad.

His condition still critical but stable.

Every day he stayed away was another day of reprieve.

Another day to prepare.

Ila and I decided what to take.

Almost nothing.

two small bags with essential documents and one change of clothes each.

Everything else, the jewelry, the designer wardrobes, the artifacts worth small fortunes, we would leave behind.

It’s just things, Ila said, looking around our opulent chambers.

None of it matters.

On our last night in the palace, we walked the corridors together one final time.

The marble halls I’d run through as a child.

The courtyards where Ila and I had fallen in love.

The library where I’d found the forbidden book that changed everything.

Every step felt like a goodbye.

“Are you afraid?” I asked her as we stood in the garden where we’d first really talked.

She looked up at the stars.

The same stars we’d gazed at when we were still naive about the world’s cruelty.

Terrified, she admitted.

But I’d rather die free than live like this.

If we die tomorrow trying to escape, at least we die as ourselves, not as his property.

Her courage humbled me.

This woman who’d been broken and brutalized still had the strength to choose freedom over safety.

I was transforming, too.

The obedient prince who’d never questioned his father was becoming something else.

A fugitive, a rebel, a man willing to risk everything for a chance at freedom and a god he barely knew.

That night, Omar came to our chambers for the final briefing.

Tomorrow night, 10:45.

The shift change happens at 11:00.

That gives us 15 minutes to reach the service exit.

A vehicle will be waiting.

Diplomatic plates, tinted windows.

From there, to a private airirstrip, wheels up by midnight.

One chance, I said.

One chance, he confirmed.

If we are caught, they’ll execute us for treason.

And they’ll execute you for apostasy, for following Jesus.

The weight of that settled over us.

“Are you both certain?” Omar asked, looking between us.

“Once we start, there’s no turning back.

” Leila reached for my hand.

“We are certain.

” Before we left our chambers, I made one final trip to the library.

I found the shelf where I discovered the Arabic New Testament weeks ago, and I placed it openly on a reading table.

not hidden, not disguised.

Someone else needed to find it.

Someone else trapped in this palace needed to know there was another way.

I opened it to John 8:32.

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Then I walked away, leaving that door open for whoever God brought to it next.

When I returned to our chambers, Ila was waiting by the window, her small bag packed, her hands steady despite the fear in her eyes.

“Tomorrow night,” she said.

“Tomorrow night,” I agreed.

“Everything we’d ever known would end tomorrow night, either in freedom or in blood.

” 10:45 came too quickly and not fast enough.

Ila and I stood in our chambers, dressed in the simplest clothes we owned, dark colors, nothing that would draw attention.

Our bags felt impossibly light.

30 years of life reduced to what we could carry in one hand.

A soft knock.

Three taps, a pause, then two more.

Omar’s signal.

I opened the door.

He was dressed as a regular palace guard, his face calm despite what we were about to attempt.

Now he whispered, “Stay close.

Don’t speak unless spoken to.

If anyone asks, you’re accompanying me to inspect a security concern in the lower levels.

” We stepped into the corridor, and everything familiar suddenly felt foreign.

These marble holes I’d walked thousands of times now seemed like enemy territory.

Every shadow could hide a threat.

Every footstep could belong to someone who would stop us.

We moved quickly but not frantically.

Omar led us through a maze of corridors.

Some I recognized, others I’d never seen.

The servants’s passages, the maintenance routes, the palac’s hidden veins.

First checkpoint, two guards at a junction.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

This was it.

They would stop us, question us.

Discover.

Evening, Omar, one guard said casually, barely glancing our way.

Evening, Omar replied.

Not breaking stride.

We passed through second checkpoint security station with cameras and metal detectors.

The guard on duty looked up, saw uniform, waved us through without a word.

It was working.

Impossibly, miraculously, it was working.

Third checkpoint, the service exit leading to the exterior courtyard.

This guard actually looked at us, looked directly at me.

Recognition flickered in his eyes.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, stepped aside, opened the door.

We emerged into the night air.

And there it was, a black vehicle with diplomatic plates, engine running, rear door open.

Get in, Omar urged.

Quickly, we dove into the back seat.

The door slammed.

The vehicle moved before I could even fasten my seat belt.

The driver said nothing, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

We drove through the palace grounds, through the outer gates where guards saluted the diplomatic plates without question.

And then we were on the streets of Riyad.

Past the mosques where I’d prayed as a child, past the government buildings where I’d attended state functions.

Past the shopping districts, the palaces of other royals, the military installations, past our entire lives.

Every traffic light turned green as we approached.

Every intersection cleared.

Every potential obstacle simply vanished.

“It’s like the Red Sea,” Leila whispered, gripping my hand.

“The waters are parting.

” 20 minutes later, we turned onto a dark road leading away from the city.

The driver finally spoke.

Private airirstrip.

5 minutes.

The small plane sat on an unmarked runway, engines already warming, no airline logos, no identification, just a pilot waiting by the stairs.

This is where I leave you, Omar said as we exited the vehicle.

He gripped my shoulders, his eyes bright.

God with you, brother.

Thank you.

I managed my voice breaking for everything.

Thank Jesus, he said simply.

I’m just his instrument.

He embraced Ila briefly, then disappeared back into the vehicle, back toward the life we were leaving behind.

The pilot hurried us aboard without questions.

Within minutes, we were taxiing.

Within minutes more, we were airborne.

The moment of greatest danger came at the border.

The invisible line where Saudi airspace ended and international airspace began.

I held my breath, waiting for military jets to force us down.

For radio calls demanding our return, for the nightmare to resume, but the radio stayed silent.

We crossed the border without incident.

Omar’s voice crackled through a hidden radio in Ila’s bag.

One final message.

You’re free now.

God brought you out.

That’s when we broke.

Ila and I collapsed into each other, weeping like children.

Tears of terror and relief and grief and joy all mixed together.

We weren’t prince and princess anymore.

We were refugees, fugitives, people without a country, but we were free.

As dawn broke, I looked out the window at the Arabian desert shrinking below us.

The kingdom that had been my entire world was becoming smaller and smaller until it was just another patch of sand and stone.

Everything we’d known was gone.

the palace, the power, the wealth, the identity.

But we’d gained something infinitely more valuable.

Our souls, our dignity, our freedom.

As later we landed somewhere in Europe, they wouldn’t tell us exactly where for security reasons.

The plane door opened and we descended into a gray morning drizzle.

A small group of people waited on the tarmac, men and women I’d never met, speaking languages I barely understood.

But when they saw us, they rushed forward with tears in their eyes and embraced us like family.

“Welcome,” one woman said in broken Arabic.

“Welcome, brother and sister.

You are safe now.

” They took us to a safe house, a simple apartment, nothing like the palace, but it felt like heaven.

They brought us bread and tea, and we ate that simple meal with more gratitude than we’d ever felt for royal banquetss.

“What happens now?” Ila asked, her hand in mine.

“Now,” one of our hosts said gently, “you rest.

You heal.

You learn what it means to be free.

” We had escaped Egypt.

Now we needed to learn how to live in the wilderness and discover who we truly were beyond the palace walls.

The first morning in the safe house, I stood in the small kitchen trying to figure out how to make coffee.

It sounds absurd, a 30-year-old man confused by a coffee maker.

But I’d never made my own coffee before, never cooked a meal, never washed my own clothes.

Servants had handled every detail of daily life since I was born.

Ila found me staring at the machine, utterly lost.

She laughed, actually laughed, for the first time in months.

We’re going to have to learn everything, aren’t we? Everything, I agreed.

And we did.

We learned to cook simple meals, to clean our own space, to do laundry, to navigate public transportation.

Every mundane task felt like a small miracle of independence.

We were learning what it meant to be ordinary people.

The disorientation of freedom was overwhelming at first.

Simple choices.

What to eat, when to sleep, where to go was suddenly ours to make, no protocols, no servants waiting for orders, no father dictating every move.

It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

Our hosts connected us with an underground network of believers, people who’d risked everything to follow Jesus in places where faith cost them everything.

former Muslims from Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Somalia.

Each with their own story of escape, persecution, and miraculous rescue.

We weren’t alone.

We’d never been alone.

We joined their Bible studies, meeting in apartments and basement, learning together.

I cried through the Gospels, actually wept as I read about Jesus’s compassion, his gentleness with the broken, his fury at religious hypocrisy.

This is what God is really like? I asked one evening, my voice shaking.

An older Iranian man named Reza smiled.

Yes, brother.

This is grace, not performance, not fear.

Grace Ila began trauma counseling with a Christian therapist who specialized in helping abuse survivors.

It was slow, painful work.

There were setbacks and dark days, but gradually, so gradually, we almost didn’t notice.

Light began returning to her eyes.

She started smiling again, then laughing, then dreaming about the future instead of just surviving the present.

I was transforming too, from prince to servant, from duty to devotion, from a religion of fear to a faith of love.

I finally understood what the gospel meant.

It wasn’t about obeying power structures or earning God’s approval through perfect submission.

It was about liberation through love, about a God who entered human suffering to end it, not enforce it.

6 months after our escape, we were baptized.

It happened in a small church basement, nothing like the grand mosques of my childhood.

Maybe 20 people gathered in that cramped space, singing worship songs in half a dozen languages.

The pastor, a former imam from Syria, spoke about death and resurrection, about leaving old identities behind and emerging as new creations.

When my turn came, I stepped into the simple baptismal tank.

The water was cold.

Ferris, the pastor said, “Do you confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?” “I do, I said, and meant it with every fiber of my being.

” He lowered me beneath the water.

In that moment, I felt like I was drowning.

Like the old Ferris, the prince, the obedient son was dying.

All the fear, all the shame, all the chains I’d carried my entire life were being washed away.

Then I came up, gasping, reborn.

The congregation erupted in celebration, but I barely heard them.

I felt something breaking off my heart.

Chains I didn’t even know I’d been wearing.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like a prince.

I felt like a son, God’s son.

Leila went next.

When she emerged from the water, she was weeping and laughing at the same time, her face radiant with a joy I hadn’t seen since before the nightmare began.

We embraced in that small church basement, water dripping from our clothes, surrounded by people who’d become our true family.

Today, nearly 2 years later, Leila and I work with the same underground network that saved us.

We help persecuted believers across the Middle East using our knowledge of palace systems, security protocols, and royal connections to assist others in escaping.

We live simply a small apartment, modest income, no servants, no titles, no power, and we’ve never been happier.

We lost the palace, we lost the throne, we lost our country and can never return.

There’s still a warrant for our arrest.

We lost our former identities completely.

But we gained a kingdom no earthly king can take from us.

We gained freedom, real faith, purpose that comes from love, not fear, and a marriage that’s no longer just survival, but genuine partnership in serving others.

Every evening, Leila and I sit together with simple tea and read scripture.

Sometimes we pray for the people we are helping escape.

Sometimes we pray for Omar and the other believers still serving in secret.

Sometimes we just sit in grateful silence.

What looked like losing everything was actually gaining the only thing that matters.

Because when the power of earthly kings failed us, when wealth couldn’t save us, when position couldn’t protect us, when religion couldn’t comfort us, the King of Kings stepped in.

And he’s still doing that today.

If you’re watching this and you’re trapped in a system that calls evil holy and abuse obedience, I want you to know something.

There is a God who sees you.

His name is Jesus, and he specializes in impossible rescues.

He rescued us from a palace that was really a prison.

He can rescue you, too.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re facing, you don’t need wealth or power or connections.

You just need to call his name.

The same Jesus who heard my desperate prayer in that palace bedroom hears you right now.

Before you go, please like this video and subscribe to the channel so YouTube keeps showing you stories like this.

Share it with someone who needs hope.

And tell me in the comments where are you watching from and what time is it there.

I read every single comment.

Thank you for listening to our story.

May the King of Kings meet you in your darkest hour just like he met us in ours.

God bless you.