In the blink of an eye, the meeting had turned overtly hostile to the petite scribe. Rani was grabbing the armrest of her chair, losing her cool for a blink, but composed back equally as fast. What scared Aloe was Nai's reaction as the young girl stealthily reached for her bdes. Aloe didn't doubt a second to switch to toughness. Fatima, unbeknownst to the situation she herself had created, looked confused at the sudden hostility shown by her half-sisters.

  "I believe I have heard wrong." Rani was the first one to talk. She hid her shock well, but Aloe's previous enhanced senses had detected it already. "What do you mean exactly with gathering all cultivators of Sadina?"

  As dim as Fatima was, even the faintest candle illuminated in absolute darkness for her expression shifted from perplexion to coyness.

  "Ah, I see." The well-donned princess smirked. "So you all did not know of Aloe's Nurture?"

  Nai took the affirmation as her calling card, as it didn't take her more than a blink to be at Aloe's wheelchair with a bde on her throat. The threatened woman didn't react, not out of stoicism or courage, but for an outright ck of time.

  "Who are you? Who sent you?" The young sultanzade pressed the tulwar against the scribe's skin, not managing to draw blood through her toughness even if the hand that wielded the weapon was clearly not holding back.

  The scribe of commoners held her breath upon the aggressive interrogation, the scene felt all too familiar.

  "This must be a mistake," Rani stated. Aloe was too occupied with the bde in her neck to realize if the reaction came out of denial or not. "Aaliyah would never allow for a non-imperial to wield Nurture, and I have known Aloe's parents since young, especially her mother. It is utterly impossible for her to be a sultanzade."

  "You know how our older brothers are, dear Rani. Who says they did not enjoy a time with a commoner and gave them a sum of money once they heard of the rumors of pregnancy just to keep the secret?" Fatima stood smugly even when she was incredibly wrong about her assumption.

  Once upon a time, when Aloe lingered on the pace of Asina like an empty husk of a person, she had hinted to the woman that she may be a sultanzade, but she had never confirmed anything. If it wasn't because she hadn't been in the right state of mind at that time, she would have never dared to utter half the words she had on the pace. Especially to the sultanzade she had talked to.

  "Is it true, Aloe?" Rani hastily turned to Aloe, her ebony mane fluttering wildly and her eyes shining purple. Whatever emotion hid behind those eyes, it was a strong one.

  The scribe's lips didn't move, her body fully locked.

  I can still recover. The situation is far from scrapped. She whispered to herself, but the truth was that her hidden hands that were constantly infusing vitality into the dates were trembling.

  "Speak." Nai snapped her back to reality as she barked her order.

  "I…" The bde pressed against her neck as she moved her jaw. "I am no sultanzade."

  Rani visibly rexed at the response, even if she didn't show it with her hands locked in pce. The same couldn't be said about the other princesses though. Nai kept her stern gaze and bde unmoving, and Fatima's smugness crumbled.

  "That cannot be right." Fatima denied her, unable to believe that she had been fooled. "Mother would have literally killed you if you were not a sultanzade. If you do not have a single drop of her blood, how is it that you are alive? Do not lie to us."

  Hostility. Of course, Aloe knew that the woman harbored no liking for her, she was a sultanzade after all.

  Think your words well. Having a non-imperial know of Nurture isn't just something Aaliyah wouldn't like, but a problem for them too. They cannot allow their magic to be known by the outside world. Especially because of how easy it is to perform it. Sure, the reapings would be met with resentment if the common folk knew about how they were treated like cattle, but the true issue would arise from having too many cultivators sprout up like weeds.

  For they may oppose their reign. Not only of Aaliyah, but also the whole sultanzade.

  "I-it is no lie I am not sultanzade." Aloe pressed on, but as she was going to state her next point, the bde indented ever-so-slightly into her flesh.

  "You possess Nurture and aren't one of us," Nai spoke slowly, her speech deprived of any emotion. "You must be disposed of."

  Ah. She wasn't standing, yet Aloe lost all her strength in her legs. So this is how it ends, without a chance to make a counterargument. I should have chosen my words better. The scribe's only ment, from everything she could have regretted, was only that after coming this far with her words, she failed just in the end.

  Without moving the tulwar in her throat, Nai reached for her second one, ready to nd the killing blow. Should I deactivate toughness? It's going to hurt a lot if she doesn't decapitate me with a single sweep. Aloe closed her eyes but maintained her internal infusion. The vital arts were one of the st things she had, and she rather die with them than without.

  As death encroached, the whistle of the bdes growing louder, silence made itself imperative.

  The terrified woman opened her eyes to appraise her ck of death. Her eyes watched over a scene of static. Rani had stood up from her chair and her chest was heaving up and down, her cheeks slightly reddened. From the clues, Aloe could intuit that the emir had shouted, but what the contents of that shout were was an enigma to her as her mind had unwound from the physical world as she was already expecting heaven.

  "That is too dangerous." Nai calmly expined as if she weren't two bdes with the intent of murder.

  "We are three cultivators against a crippled one with less vitality than any one of us, if ought to cssify her as danger, then I must suspect all your training was for show," Rani argued with a serenity that made the apparent outburst seem like a mirage.

  "Tch." Nai clicked her tongue, enraged by the suggestion of weakness. That a wheelchair-bound woman could be a danger to her. She withdrew her weapons but kept them in her hands without sheathing them.

  As the young sultanzade retreated, the emir stepped forward. "First of all, are you an assassin?" Rani's eyes shone brighter than ever as she interrogated Aloe.

  There was no time for hesitation, this was her st chance. She couldn't give them the idea that she was an enemy of them, or rather, a menace. "No."

  It wasn't a strong negation, her tone was rather weak, but that was what she wanted. The princesses here could use the sense stance, she had to be as veracious as possible. As true to herself as possible. Acting, even if it was the truth, could backfire.

  "Second question." She didn't even hide the fact that they were interrogating her. "Are you a spy?"

  Aloe almost fred with rage at the question but held herself. "No."

  "It seems like you had more to say there." It was Fatima who interjected. She maintained a fa?ade of calmness as she sat on top of a table, but it was clear to Aloe that she was wielding the sense stance. "What have you refrained from responding?"

  "Nothing that matters," Aloe answered truthfully and found herself with a bde to her throat again.

  "She asked you a question." Nai didn't take her chances. "Respond."

  "You want the truth?" Aloe shouted and the sultanzade gave her a look as if saying 'Yes, that's what this is all about'. The response only made her blood boil more as she grabbed her wheelchair's armrests. "How in the nince-damned hells can I be a fucking spy if you were the one who forced me to work in this wretched pce? I didn't even want to be here and take my dead mother's position! Do you know how hard it was? People would look down at me and curse me because I skipped the executive dder and seemingly inherited the position through blood rather than merit! If it wasn't because of your whims, I wouldn't have gone to Asina! I wouldn't be bound to a wheelchair! I would be able to walk! I... I wouldn't have been fucking raped by that whore of your mother! All of this happened because you wanted, Rani, and now you have the nerve to suggest I was an accursed spy?"

  Aloe panted heavily, now caring that the tulwar's age was grinding against her skin. Her throat burned from the inside and her vision was blurry from crying, but for once she was satisfied. Perhaps now she could die in peace knowing she had defied the imperial family, if only verbally. She had finally done it, she had made a choice of her own.

  And Aloe didn't regret it.

  Then the bde moved.

  Epsilon_Twilight