Fatiha came to visit a few months later, just as Father mentioned. Zaima greeted me with a warm smile that morning, holding a tight-fit gown in hand as she entered my room. It was enchanting—made of the finest opalescent silk with jade-colored embroidery. My shoulders went without covering, showing my collar bones and arms. A small piece of fabric wrapped around my biceps, holding the garment in place. Zaima had to do a lot of convincing to get me to wear the gown, but I gave in to her incessant begging after she all but cried and stomped her feet for me to wear it. Times like those were when I was reminded of her age.

She brought me to a secluded part of the garden, by a pond I’d all but forgotten about. With Otlak being handled, I was allowed to roam the palace freely again. I walked for much longer stints of time now, after working tirelessly to hide the stark limp I once carried. While my right leg still thumped a bit harder to the ground than my left—I was doing better and better each day. I took more pride in my walk, able to play the small limp off by swaying my hips slightly. In the distance was a gazebo, just by the pond, and there she was: my beloved Fatiha. I almost burst into a sprint, but I managed to restrain myself. Each step closer, my chest grew tighter with anticipation. How I’d missed her, dearly.

Once Fatiha saw me, though, she drew in a soft gasp and stood to her feet.

“H-Hala?” She said faintly.

I offered a smile as close to my old self as I could, desperately wanting to be seen as her protector, still—not the woman I’d been over the last year and change.

“Freznah Krodhat, Fatiha.” I said kindly, sliding my arms around her and hugging her as tight as my arms could without straining.

She met my hug with a weak one, her shaky hands rising up and holding me close as her breath began to shudder.

“You’re alive?” She whispered.

I peeled myself from her embrace, now stronger than mine, and smiled somberly to her. I nodded, to which she almost crumbled.

“I can’t believe it…” she said, using the chair she sat at as support. “Everyone thought you were dead, Hala…we thought that you’d fallen to illness and—”

“Duke Markovni spun quite a tale, and Mahsul had to play along with it in order to plot revenge on their Kingdom…for what they allowed to happen to me…” I interjected.

Fatiha’s eyes widened, still bearing her weight on the back of the chair. “What do you mean, ‘what happened to you’?” She asked.

I understood, then, why Zaima settled on the gown she’d chosen for me to wear. I had scars visible at my shoulder blades—scratches, in comparison to the ones along the middle of my spinal column and lower back. I steeled my resolve.

You are strong.

I reminded myself of Mother’s words as I pulled my hair to one shoulder and turned around. The scars I’d sat staring at those weeks ago, utterly devastated and repulsed, were peeking through the shoulder-less gown. They were the only proof of my time in Otlak being brutal Hell.

“Halluma Inaa…” Fatiha murmured. “What happened to you, Hala?”

Her voice was filled with tears, and as I turned back to face her my heart shattered. My beloved Fatiha, crying on my behalf upon seeing what that man had done to me. I loosed a breath, grabbing the back of the chair and using it to help me sit. I motioned for her to do the same. She followed, now adjacent to me at the table as I woefully recounted my years with the Duke—sparing her the gory details and verbal abuse.

“That…that’s horrible, Themaz.” She said through tears. How my heart wrenched.

“But…that sounds nothing like Duke Shahin—how could he do such things?”

My face contorted into a grimace. She, too, had been bewitched by the Duke—similarly to everyone else in the Kingdoms. He was a master at storytelling. The only person I knew who was a better actor was Idris; at least he never used his intellect to harm others in such ways.

“The reasoning behind it is still something I can’t wrap my own mind around, Fati.” I replied grimly.

“It makes no sense…” she murmured, wiping a tear from her now coal-stained cheeks. I never wanted to see Fatiha look like that. Part of me regretted having her come out to see me. She considered everything I’d told her for a long while, her lip quivering on and off as she processed my truth. Fatiha had been smitten with the Duke when we were young, as well. It was difficult to find a woman in Mahsul who wasn’t. Finally, she spoke once more.

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“Hala…you know I love you…but to hear that we’ve been lying to Otlak…saying a Fiid rescued you?” She began. I felt my chest start to cave in. “I want to believe you when you say that Duke Markovni is behind this, but I just can’t…”

And just like that, I lost another part of me. My face twisted with confusion, eyebrows raising and lips pursing. The pure distress within me as my beloved Fatiha refused to accept my words was insurmountable.

“Fati, you saw the scars…” I replied, my voice barely working. “You don’t believe me?”

“Murabiy has met with the Duke on several occasions, some of which I’ve been present at his side for. It simply doesn’t align, Hala.”

“Fatiha—”

“I have to go. My children need me.”

Fatiha stood slowly from the chair, before walking away from me. I stood up as quickly as I could, in an attempt to follow after her; but a small voice in my head spoke to me.

It’s no use.

I froze in place, my eyes narrowing on Fatiha’s figure as she walked further and further away. There were no tears in my eyes, but the crushing sensation in my chest felt like I’d been sobbing for hours. Such feelings only lasted seconds before I felt numb. The Kilsank’s had begun chirping, the gentle breeze blowing Fatiha’s curls as she walked through the garden and towards the pathway back towards the gates. The seed of distrust I’d tried so hard to expel from within my mind grew its first root that day.

————

I holed myself up in my room for weeks after that, not bothering to have meals with my family. I didn’t want to speak to Zaima, or learn languages with Bròn. Abyad would visit me each day, but we’d just sit in a thick silence. The few times we spoke, he’d told me that Murabiy vowed to never speak of my existence to anyone else—he also swore on Fatiha’s behalf that she would do the same. I didn’t trust it, though. Abyad wasn’t aware of what exactly had been said during our reunion, and I planned on keeping it that way. I had a feeling that I’d be found out, eventually—that was just my luck. Much of the time Abyad and I spent together, I ran the encounter over again and again in my mind. I knew Fatiha’s father had customers of high-merit in Otlak—I’d tried convincing myself that was the reason for her refusal to accept the truth.

A reason. I didn’t have a reason for his wicked abuse. That was what made the story so unbelievable, right? I ruminated on the reason for it all long before Fatiha’s questioning. I had always drawn a blank on it. The lack of closure was eating me from the inside out, especially one night when Bròn manifested in Abyad’s armchair.

“Yer sorrow’s back.” He greeted me in such odd ways.

“And what of it?” I snapped, crossing my arms as I sat on my bed.

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Bròn retorted. “What’re you so stuck up on?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It is if ya want that lover’a yours to keep on the straight and narrow.”

“Why must you dangle him over me like that?! Why is he so important to you?!”

Bròn eyed me with hesitation. He was thinking about revealing something—how to spin it into a riddle for me to decode.

“Some of you humans are more at risk than others. All it takes is one wrong decision for the Powers That Be to rule one way or the other. They can be enraged in a hair’s breath.” He said.

“Were they not enraged by that bastard?!” I exploded. “Were his horrid acts unto me not enough for them to damn him just as they damned you?!”

Bròn’s expression darkened at those words, a grimace lining his face.

“I ain’t met with the Council of Seven yet, I can’t say. That Duke’s protected somehow from me powers—I can’t see the sorrow-filled threads of ‘is fate. But if I had to guess, I’d say he’s got threads the same shade as a bog’s water.”

I looked at him with sheer frustration.

“And do you ever plan on meeting with that stupid council?” I asked.

“I might not have a choice, by the looks of it.” He replied.

“What?”

“Powers That Be will reveal it in time.”

I let out a groan, rubbing my face with annoyance. Bròn’s lips turned to a thin line—thinner than they were in their natural state—as he offered a knowing, closed-lipped smile.

“What I can see is that the reasonin’ behind all this pertains to something bigger than you, Bonnie.” He said. How I hated those riddles.

“I was let in, just a wee bit, for a second. To that Duke’s life and past. I don’t know what it is, but he’s plannin’ somethin’.”

My eyebrows furrowed slightly as I tightened my arms around my chest. I didn’t want to hear any more about the man who I’d been thinking about nonstop for weeks—months. Bròn could tell as much by my expression, and he shrugged as he loosed a breath. Slowly, he vanished back into the shadows. The frustration within me swelled and swelled in the seconds after he left, until I finally picked up a book from my end table and chucked it across the room. The smack it made was the only thing I heard before being brought back to complete and utter silence.