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Side View from Rienbul: Anita
“ANITA Alaban and Prince Raheem, you are under arrest for the attempted assassination of Prince Shaghad.”
“What?”
Just as I was thinking our hall was rather noisy for this early in the morning, knights burst into our marital bedchambers.
“What do you think you’re doing?! Let me go!” I cried.
“Hey, I’m a prince! You won’t get away with this! Gah!” shouted Raheem.
We were both naked. Of course. We’d spent the night together as a man and woman who love each other. But the knights didn’t seem to care as they dragged us from our bed.
I couldn’t get anything out other than outrage at these knights and their tyrannical handling of the woman who would one day be the mother of the king.
“Prince Raheem, His Majesty has given the order to arrest you,” said one of the knights.
“What? Father has? That can’t possibly be true.”
“Exactly! Don’t spout such nonsense!” I added.
This had to be some scheme by the women who were jealous of me. Not long ago, someone was complaining about how I bedded her husband. It was his fault for falling for my charms and her fault for her inability to keep her man.
Women. They immediately blame beautiful women no matter what happens. They’re disgusting creatures.
“Other crimes are being laid against you two, and we have all the evidence we need,” said the knight. “Save your excuses for court, where you can give them to His Majesty and the judge. We knights are only responsible for investigating crimes and arresting the criminals, not listening to a suspect’s excuses.”
Despite me being a lady, the knights did not act gentlemanly at all as they marched me away and put me in a cell that saw barely any sunlight and was filled with the smell of mold.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I called. “I am a noble!”
“And I’m royalty! Why must I be held in this dungeon?”
Rienbul had separate dungeons for commoners, nobles, and royalty. I might be a noble lady, but I was the wife of Prince Raheem, meaning it wouldn’t be odd for me to go into the dungeon for royalty. Yet, for some reason, the two of us were put in the one for commoners.
Raheem and I insisted on our lawfully given rights, but it was like the knights weren’t even listening. They ignored us and left.
I can’t believe it.
Now that this has happened, I will make sure I become the mother of the king, no matter what it takes. And when I do, I’ll execute all the knights involved, the ones who threw us in here and the ones who barged into our quarters.
“Mother, Father,” came a voice.
“Aisha?”
“Aisha?!”
Something about her had changed in the time I hadn’t seen her, but there was no mistaking my daughter, the one who had been studying in Astra, was in front of my eyes. My worthless daughter, who failed to assassinate Shaghad, establish connections with influential nobles to secure our footing, or capture Astra’s prince.
I had thought her useless, but it seemed she’d come to save us. At least she could be useful when it came down to it. If she hadn’t been, giving birth to her would’ve been a waste.
“Oh, my wonderful daughter. Hurry up, get us out of here,” I said.
I didn’t have time to be picky about my methods for escape. I needed to kill Rashid and Shaghad somehow and steal the throne.
“I think you might be under the wrong impression,” said Aisha. “I’m not here to save you.”
“What? Then what are you here for?” I asked.
“Ismail’s dead.”
“And?”
It’s not like I cared about a useless son who failed to assassinate Shaghad. I was more concerned about getting out of this moldy dungeon as quickly as possible. How could Aisha not understand that? Clearly, she wasn’t as intelligent as me.
She was like Raheem in that way. His stupidity let him believe I loved no one but him. That allowed me to attain my status as a woman of the royal palace, and for that, I’m grateful, I suppose.
“Mother, don’t you think it’s unfair that only Ismail and I had to die?”
“What are you saying, Aisha?” demanded Raheem. “None of that matters; just get us out of here right now!”
“Listen to your father, Aisha,” I said. “Stop prattling on about this nonsense, and hurry!”
“It doesn’t matter?” she said. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter at all. How stupid we were. Brother, you were a fool. We were both fools.”
There was a gloomy light in Aisha’s eyes. I’d never seen that expression on her before. She was always such a good girl who listened to everything I said. What in the world happened?
“You abandoned us first,” she went on. “Which means there’s nothing wrong with us abandoning the two of you. There’s nothing wrong with tossing aside what isn’t useful, right?”
She smiled sweetly, but it sent a shiver down my spine. There was madness in that smile.