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Part IV
“Ruin me if you wish to. I am all yours, Valeria.”
Khalid
“You look pathetic,” the old woman with grey hair mocked me when she entered my room. She scrunched her face at the scent of oil paints and fumes, eyeing the red mess on the canvas. “Did you do that, boy?”
“You know what my name is,jadati,” I said, staring at the painting.
I wanted to tear it apart. Burn it.
“Zain seemed concerned about you. Ever since Salman died, you haven’t stepped out of this room,” she said taking a good luck at the painting.
I shrugged. “So what? Why are you here anyway? You have never been around.”
If you were, you could see what your son did. You could have savedwho was I kidding by overthinking about it. He was dead. I had killed him.
“I wanted to make sure how you were coping, Khalid,” she whispered.
Grandmother never knew what her son did, she lived in another palace even though our grandfather had passed away. My father rarely allowed her to visit but when she did, it felt like she brought sunshine with her to the gloomy Golden Palace. It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know how pathetic her son was. The entire country looked up to him, deemed him as some God.
I could feel her eyes on me but I didn’t care. I couldn’t look away from the painting. When I had woken up from the nightmare after trying to sleep that night, I had seen red and poured it all out on the canvas. The red glowing hair in the sunshine and the red of my father’s blood.
I had never painted such an abstract before but I couldn’t stop it, feeling overwhelmed and complex painting. My hair was mussed and the shirt was red with the splatter of red paint, oddly similar to the night where it was splattered with blood instead.
“Come, eat with me.”
“I am not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten anything for three days”
“I. Am.Not. Hungry,” I glared at her, finally meeting her eyes.
“You did not hear me, child,” she chided. “I wasn’t asking you. I was ordering you to eat with me. Until your brother accepts the crown, I am here to look after Azmia.”
I scoffed, turning away. “Put me in dungeon for all I care,jadati. I am not going to eat.”
“So you would rather starve yourself to death?”
I shrugged. I didn’t care. Zain would accept the title of Sultan and Rahim would be his advisor. Zayed was already a Sheikh and Zara would be cared after by the people who adored her. there was no place for me to exist. I wasn’t needed. The broken prince who had no ambitions to follow his father’s footsteps, who had murdered his own blood.
I was better off dead.
“Suit yourself,” she said. “I will be sending someone to make you eat.” Before she left my room, she said, “You should paint more, Khalid.”
I ignored her comment and braced myself for the soldiers she would send to my room to hold me down and make me eat
But no soldiers appeared. Just my little sister, balancing a huge plate with various bowls of curries, bread and sweets. Including a dish full ofroz bel laban. My mouth watered and stomach growled in hunger as Zara glared at me, puffing her cheeks in anger.
I took the plate from her and set it on the table.
“Eat it,” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips staring at me with narrowed eyes even though she barely reached my hips.
“I don’t want to,” I said, trying to keep my tone down. I had to give it to grandmother, she knew I could never win an argument with my sister. “Why don’t you eat it?”
She raised her chin at me, “I won’t eat it until you do. Grandmother told me that my first task as the Princess of Azmia is to make sure you eat everything from this plate.”
“And what if I don’t?”