Epsilon Twilight
patreon
41. Princesses
🕑 Added 2024-06-25 11:04:17 +0000 UTCNaila hated being summoned. It reminded her of how she had less freedom than she thought. That she was always on a leash like some sort of camel. And unlike the commonfolk, she was lucid enough to see the rope tied around her neck. Perhaps she couldn't be considered an emir yet, but her sheer birth made her someone at the level of a sheikh. She was a princess of the Ydazi Sultanate, for heaven's sake!
Unfortunately for her, the summon came from another princess, and an emir at that.
The scribe shoved the bedroom doors open, not bothering to hide her displeasure.
"You know," her half-sister started without bothering to look at her, "I kept the place free of servants because I knew you would do that. One maid evacuated on the spot when you did that once. I wished you stopped, but alas, door swinging is the least of the things I should bother myself enforcing into you."
"Day to you too, sister." Naila wielded her words with a stern hand.
"Ah, I guess they are not good, then?" Rani-al-Sadina twirled her head to face her. The woman was doing her hair in front of a mirror.
Naila would have asked herself why she was doing herself that instead of calling for a maid, but this was by far the first time she had seen her half-sister do her hair alone.
"Are they ever good?" The young sultanzade scoffed and unceremoniously dropped herself on the emir's bed. It was odiously comfortable. But no one forced her to sleep on top of a slate of wood but herself. It was easier that way. Her posture corrected itself whilst sleeping, her bones grew stronger against the ruggedness, and because it was hanging from the ceiling, no snakes could get to her. Sometimes assassins didn't even need to come personally to do their job.
"Ha!" The emir clacked loudly as she brushed her hair. "That was, perhaps, the wisest thing you have ever said, dear Naila."
"I love you too, sister," Naila said with the same compassion an executioner that spat on the eyes of a soon-to-be-executed would.
"Do you know why I have called you here?" Like always, her half-sister chanted melodiously every word she uttered. A byproduct of her charm.
Rani-al-Sadina was paradoxically the strongest and weakest sultanzade to exist. Her charm existed in realms impossible to anyone else, but every other stance she lacked. Naila didn't even know how it was possible, Nurture didn't work like that. But her weakness didn't come from her lacking stances. Any sufficiently powerful stance was a weapon to reckon with, even the most useless ones. A high enough stealth would make you undetectable and recovery could make you – if not immortal – untirable. Which was almost the same for cultivators.
The emir of Sadina's weakness came from her strength. For she activated her stance involuntarily. It was as if her charm was so strong and her body so weak that it overruled her. A pawn to her own power and desires. And even if it didn't happen as commonly, her charm stance deactivated independently from time to time. If Rani were a warrior on a battlefield, that would be a death sentence. The emir obviously knew that, for not once had she ever wielded a blade.
Naila wasn't dim enough to not see that the woman's weapons weren't beholden by her hands but by her mouth. And as much as she wanted to call her half-sister a cocksucker, she meant her words.
"No, I do not know why you have summoned me." The imperial scribe finally answered. The emir didn't mind the wait, satisfied enough to be occupied with her hair.
"Guess then." Rani hummed to herself.
"You will not say it is the lessons again, right?" Naila groaned at the idea.
"Luckily for your sanity, no." The harmonious woman confirmed. "It is quite fascinating how your teachers at vexed with you. On one hand, you are a horrendous student. Always raising your voice, never listening to the lessons, and skipping them more than once. Yet on the other, you always fulfill any assignment and respond to any question with absolute perfection. You drive them insane."
"Good." The young sultanzade added cuttingly, prompting a snicker from her half-sister.
"No, your lessons are going fine. Regardless of your thoughts, you will blossom into a fine lady. If you had fewer muscles and a duller tongue, Aaliyah would surely have loved to marry you away somewhere."
"Like you?" Naila raised her upper body and looked straight at the mirror. The sister's gazes met on the reflected surface.
"That idea did not come to fruition now, did it?"
"Because the previous emir suddenly vanished."
"Yes. How fortuitous, do you think not?" Rani-al-Sadina's smile contained more venom than snakes or poisoned daggers.
Naila didn't joke this time. That wasn't the smile one couldn't afford to ignore. The cultivator didn't forget that different battlefields required different weapons. She could lunge at her half-sister and snap her neck in a blink, but their dearest mother would be utmostly displeased with the loss of a capable governor and would kill her without a doubt. It didn't help that Rani was also Aaliyah's favorite daughter by sheer virtue that she was the only one who hadn't needed to be forced into a bed at a young age. Naila still remembered how she cracked her fingers one by one and then snapped them into place until she accepted to bed a servant, whether it was a man or a woman. It had taken three iterations before she had broken into tears and accepted.
That had been barely a year ago.
Now it felt like an eternity ago.
As Naila didn't respond to Rani's retort, the emir finally voiced out the answer she was looking for. "You know exactly what you have done."
"I may," Naila admitted without pretense. "And what?"
"You threatened my scribe. Under my roof." The coldness of her tone, the fact that she didn't raise her voice, and her burning eyes all acted together to send shivers down Naila's spine.
Rani was weak, every sultanzade knew it, yet no one acted against her. Know she was beginning to understand why.
"Have I?" The young sultanzade added, but it was not a witty retort, if not a veritable question. "Sister, that woman was not scared of me. Your toy did not flinch when I put a blade against her neck."
The emir didn't instantly respond. She left her brush on the furniture before her and sighed. "Do you know why?"
Naila didn't recognize – or rather couldn't – if it was a rhetorical question or not. "It was mother. She broke her, like she did with us."
"…I see." Some would have said it was sadness in the emir's eyes. But Naila Asina knew better. She saw the boiling rage hidden behind them. She had been stolen, after all.
Considering their conversation was over, Naila stood from the bed, ready to depart from the bedroom.
"Wait." In the harsh coldness of Rani-al-Sadina's voice, an agonizing sultriness hid behind it. Even if she was her half-sister, Naila couldn't help but be enthralled. "There is more I would like to talk about."
"What now?" Naila rested her shoulder on the wall, her blade clinging against it. "I am being your beautiful and political puppet. I am doing all the governance classes, managing the scribe affairs, and even sending scouts around the border with that whole deal with Loyata. What else do you want?"
"Your Nurture." The young sultanzade instantly tensed at the words, faintly reaching for her weapons. "You are being too aggressive with your reaping."
Oh. Nince-damned daughter of a bitch, you scared me. Naila relaxed at the clarification. Incest wasn't the issue for her, but the fact that she could have her strength stolen. Considering how little sultanzade knew each other, and their different fathers, they might as well have been distant third cousins even if blood didn't work that way.
"What is exactly the issue?" She shrugged.
"That I keep hearing the snake-tongues talking how children keep being devoured by the sultanzade." The emir sighed as she rubbed her temples.
"That?" Naila chuckled. "Oh, come on, you cannot be serious. One boy a day does not harm anyone."
"Yes, it does."
"Who? The boys?" The young sultanzade squinted. "You know how they are. They will only boast about having their cherry popped this young."
"Our reputation, Naila." Rani sternly remarked. "Our reputation."
"What reputation?" The muscled girl replied with the same tone. "Even if we would not do what they said we do – which we actually do, mind you – they would still call us whores for mother's existence's sake alone."
"You can change that."
"We cannot."
"Yes, here. In Sadina." The emir explained. "We are no longer in Asina. We are the rulers here."
You don't even believe that. Naila was close to saying that to her half-sister's face. Only a hairwidth of wisdom kept her from voicing it.
"It would seem you forget something, sister." The word weighed on her tongue. "I am one of those children. Maybe your delusions of grandeur and your cowardness have blinded you, but I am not a woman yet by law. Some of those who you call children have been older than me. You have no right to talk about reputation when a boy who is nearly a man comes to me wishing to be a true man before the year ticks by and I take a small commission in the shape of his vitality. If you really think I should not go for children, then you should not toy with those who look younger than me."
Naila hadn't pointed out anyone, yet both princesses knew who she was referring to.
"It is completely different," Rani spoke slowly. "I have never, ever, gone with someone who was not a consenting adult."
"Ah, because consent has always been such a priority to you."
"Do. Not. Joke. About. That." The charming princess stood up and slapped the furniture. "Only barbarians and criminals do not respect consent."
"Like mother?" Naila grinned.
"Like mother," Rani answered seriously with the coldness of every hell to exist.
Naila's mind wandered about another fact though. If Lady Perfect here had never gone to anyone but consenting adults, that meant she had – since young – only been with adults. That single slip revealed so many things, some more uncomfortable than others, but Naila didn't bring it forward. She was trekking on dangerous sands already, and growing animosity for the sake of conflict would have not done anyone a favor.
What truly mattered here was that consent wasn't what Rani cared about, but not being like Aaliyah-al-Ydaz.
"Alright, alright." The young princess raised her arms in defense. "I will not seek dubious prey." She ceded. "But I would like a toy of my own. Someone smaller, easier to gnaw, perhaps durable – even unbreakable – if you will."
But if Naila Asina was something, it was a hypocrite.
"She is mine," Rani growled.
"You are not even bothering to hide it anymore, sister." Naila grinned. "What if she does not want you? What about then? If you are turned down, then does that mean I can have it?"
"No one turns me down. There is no one that does not desire me." Rani-al-Sadina's eyes shone in sensual and appetizing amethyst.
Fuck. Naila switched to stealth stance. Not many people knew it, but the stance's property of undetectability also made it harder for charm stances to focus oneself as the charm stance adapted to nearby people. You fucking bitch. It took all her willpower to not lunge at the woman. She didn't know if it was out of murderous intent or lust.
"I am out," Naila stated and left the room. Rani didn't stop her. She didn't know what had happened in those last seconds, but she didn't want to experiment with it again. Their family was far from functional, but for the first time, she desired to kill someone of her kin that wasn't her mother.
Comments
The3rd
Cookies are here 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
