“Sister!” Naila pushed the doors to the emir’s room wide open with a swing.
What was instantly revealed as the door came to a strenuous halt against the walls was how her half-sister was being eaten. In a sexual manner of course.
The maid who was savoring the ruler of the land jumped at the noise, turning herself to face Naila, her mouth completely wet.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that, Naila,” Rani responded with a frown, her diversion being impolitely disturbed. “You can go, sweety.” She referred to the fair-skinned maid who was hugging herself in pure embarrassment.
The maid nodded absentmindedly and shyly, and as she passed next to Naila with her clothes half-removed, the sultanzade noticed how the servant’s eyes were clouded in charm. She wasn’t much experienced in that stance; her status didn’t require such tactics if she wanted sex, she could just ask for it and many people would be happy to oblige.
And if they weren’t, well, they would do it either way.
“Poor girl, you may have traumatized her for life.” The emir sighed as she fixed her clothes. “And I certainly don’t enjoy edging.”
“You could have continued.” Naila expressed matter-of-factly. “I do not care about you reaping others.”
“Oh, Naila.” Rani facepalmed. “You really need to understand a lot of things. I guess that’s the actual reason why Aaliyah made me bring you here, you are just oblivious to the outside world.”
“What do you mean oblivious? I’ve been performing my job well.” She crossed her arms, a pout sprouting on her visage.
“Oh, poor girl, I’m not talking about your scribe duties.” The emir stood from her bed and stretched her salacious body, her curves flowing like water. Even if she was clothed, Rani gave the sensation of nakedness as she moved. It amazed Naila how there could be someone more naturally sensual than her mother. But at the same time, she was the daughter of the Sultanah. “Even then, there’s a lot of room for upgrade there. No, I’m referring to how you are getting in fights with everyone over the most minute details. Life isn’t like in palace. You are not in your cradle anymore.”
Naila’s frown deepened at those words. “I’m not a child.”
“Legally speaking, yes. Yes, you are.”
“Don’t you make the rules here?”
“The rules of the land, things like that only Aaliyah can touch.” Rani shrugged. “And I’m fine with the current age limit, otherwise we would have even more stupid adults running around.”
“Eww.” The young sultanzade cringed, taking her tongue out in a puking gesture. “You sounded like mother there.”
“Aaliyah is many things, most wrong, but she has her good moments. She isn’t called the Mother of Knowledge and the Patron Saint of Education for nothing.”
“She is called that?” The amber-eyed girl squinted in doubt. “Who?”
“People.” The amethyst-eyed woman responded. “Just outside of your reach. Especially scholars, they love Aaliyah after making them relevant to the country's eyes. This is just another point as to why you are blind to the outside world and inexperienced. You don’t even know the titles that people whisper about the Sultanah. Let alone the names.”
“And what names do they call her?”
“Whore, mainly.”
“Fair.”
The young sultanzade had once heard a foreign diplomat call her mother ‘The Whore Queen of Ydaz’ at her face. Aaliyah-al-Ydaz laughed at his face in amusement. The man hadn’t been wrong.
Rani sighed and pointed to a tea table in front of her colossal silk-laden bed. Naila, being closer than her half-sister, sat down before. Moments later, her technically-liege poured tea on both cups and sat down. It was cold.
Naila drank it either way.
She may have been blind to the lives of the commoners, but she knew better than to refuse a drink poured by an emir. And it wasn’t like the tea was bad, the quality alone would make some commoners faint in bliss. This was just a lesser-grade tea for her.
“Did you know that people peregrinate to Asina from all corners of Ydaz just to see Aaliyah?” Rani said out of nowhere, she hadn’t still touched her cup.
“Yes?” Naila expressed doubt after putting her cup on the porcelain saucer. “I mean she’s the Heavenly Descendant of Sulnaya, even though I’m not much into religion – mother herself considers it a waste – I do know my lore and traditions.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Well then, you are wrong.” The younger sultanzade frowned, refusing to ask questions, instead waiting for her older sister to elaborate. “People do go to Asina as a ‘pilgrimage’, but not because Aaliyah is the Heavenly Descendant and they want to present their respects to the heavens and the sun, but because they want to see her.” Naila almost interjected but decided against it and decided to let Rani continue. “There’s no religious motivation behind their actions, but two other far more mundane. Do you know which one of those are?”
“Hum...” She tried to, but nothing came to her mind. She was more of the stab first, stab questions later type of girl. “No. Please, enlighten me.” She didn’t mean the words; it was drilled courtesy that spewed out of her mind automatically.
“Two words: debauchery and prestige.”
“Go on.” She said amusedly.
“So, let’s make the setting. You are a farmer in a backwater, heaven-forsaken, dried farmland. So you make your way to the capital, maybe to search for opportunities, but mostly because you want to see the Heavenly Descendant. The goddess among men, the human touched by the heavens. But you’ve heard the rumors, she will fuck anyone. Anyone at all. And everyone says she’s good at it. Very good at it. Worth leaving it all behind for such an opportunity. But even then, it’s not about the pleasure.”
“It is not?” Naila inquired like a child mesmerized by a storyteller’s tale.
“Well, it is, but there’s more. Now, if you do get that chance to get a night – or more like a few minutes with the Sultanah, I doubt a normal man can hold a night, women only have a chance – then you could boast about having fucked the ruler of the lands. But this is Ydaz, thousands of people also share that achievement, so it isn’t exactly special. Boast-worthy to a far-away land, but not by much. But there’s a special chance for something else. If you are a man.”
Naila finally realized what Rani was getting at. “But it’s impossible to tell who the father to sultanzade is!”
“I mean, it can be estimated. Moreso if you’ve been the only man the Sultanah has been for the few days she hadn’t been pregnant.”
“Has that ever happened?”
“No!” The emir slapped her thigh and burst out laughing. “But imagine. This is all an exercise of imagination. The sheer prestige of, maybe, being the father to a sultanzade. And even more maybe, to the future ruler of Ydaz.”
“But there’s no reward? Aren’t they brought to the palace or something?”
“For those people, the boasting alone is the reward. Some people just live for the thrill and the prestige. I believe you can understand them well.”
Whilst not fully agreeing with her half-sister, Naila couldn’t deny that the mantra on training was mostly about that. Superiority over others and oneself, growing stronger with each new step. More rewards could come out of it, sure, but the notion of improvement alone was enough.
Either way, she was not going to admit that. “Is this just a lecture to teach me how blind am I to the outside world?”
“Basically,” Rani nodded and finally drank from her tea. Naila held a grunt of dissatisfaction upon the woman’s smugness. “Aaliyah has... high hopes for you. But at the same time, I believe she thinks you are just a child; no matter the origins and contents, a gemstone will only be valuable until it is polished by expert hands.”
“And you believe yourself to be those hands?”
Her half-sister nodded.
“Aaliyah’s orders were to fill the gaps in your knowledge and behavior. Fields you can easily assume.”
“Is there going to be a training or something?”
“Not really, these things should be taken slowly. With the years you will blossom beautifully, but above else, hardy.”
“Years.” Naila deadpanned.
“I have been in Sadina for a decade now.” Rani smiled. “I’ll guess I can mold you to my liking in half that time, even less if you are cooperative.”
There was a difference between being stupid and dull; Naila could clearly see the stick holding that carrot. It was an exchange of hidden, softly spoken words. You don’t mess with me, I make it easy on you. That was what the emir really meant to say.
“I’ll try.” Of course, Naila’s response was uncommittable and defying, but with a chance of understanding.
That was how conversations in the palace and between sultanzade always were, a spar.
She had always been taught since little that the tongue was as much as a weapon as a blade, and a conversation wasn’t different from a combat where everyone had poisoned daggers. But if everything ended in a fight no matter what she did, why not straight up go to the physical one? That was Naila’s philosophy.
“That’s good enough for me.” Rani’s smile softened, her back slightly reclining to the back of her chair. “So then, can you tell me why you rudely intruded into my chamber?”
“Oh, right.” She had almost forgotten about it from the nearly one-sided lecture. “You know about the new scribe?”
“I hired her, Naila. Of course, I do.”
“I don’t mean about her existence.” The young sultanzade softly growled. “I meant about her vitality!”
“Oh.” The older cultivator nodded in understanding. “So you finally noticed. I can’t decide if it took you a lot of time, or too little.”
Naila frowned. “How can you be this relaxed? That woman has thrice the vitality of a commoner!”
“Huh, so I didn’t imagine that yesterday...” Rani talked in a low whisper – almost inaudible to Naila’s heightened senses – as she caressed her right breast, slowly as if she was recalling something. “It’s thrice now. This may be problematic. Or interesting...”
“Did you know about that all this time?” Naila asked, ignoring her half-sister's whispers.
“I do.” Her expression swiftly rebuilt into confidence. “Do not worry about Aloe, she’s not an assassin or another cultivator if that’s what you are thinking. I knew her mother personally, and she also had her sheer bit of vitality.”
“So it’s a trait of the family?” Her brain started concocting thoughts. Vitality was mostly equal to everyone, even sultanzade. Some people had more, some less; but those differences were minimal, inconsequential.
Ayad’s vitality was not.
She only knew two ways of acquiring vitality: training and reaping. And she didn’t believe that noodle-thin woman had done any physical activity in her life so that only left reaping. But that was also impossible. She was a virgin. How could one reap whilst being a virgin?
It took her Naila years of training and reaping to get to her current vitality level. And suddenly someone had similar base vitality to all that endeavor by the sake of her birth? She couldn’t believe it, or more correctly, she refused to believe it. The irony of that envy was wholly lost on her.
“I do not know,” The emir admitted, Naila’s thoughts only lasting a couple of seconds. “But be as it may, you are not to mess with Aloe Ayad. She’s mine.” Her eyes flared purple. Whatever Rani’s plans were, they were hers alone. The charm began heating Naila’s body. “Understood?”