32. Fear (Patreon)

To say that Rani was flabbergasted was an understatement. She hadn’t expected such an honest and hard-striking revelation out of Aaliyah’s mouth in a million years. But at the same time, that was how her mother worked.

“You are serious.” The words weakly left the emir’s mouth, it was a statement.

“Indeed.” Aaliyah nodded as she stretched her arms. “I’m getting tired and bored of running a country, it isn’t as amusing as some people make it out to be, you know. I may be too old for these things.”

Rani didn’t speak out, but her thoughts were obvious. Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was the most powerful monarch Ydaz had seen, and even at her sixty-something years, she looked twenty-five at most. She would live far longer than most people, and maybe more than Rani herself.

“Why?” The question was sincere. The sultanzade couldn’t understand how someone could leave such authority behind.

“I’ve told you; I’m getting bored.” And that was all. The sultanah was being truthful, there were no ulterior motives whatsoever. She was simply tired from being on the throne for almost nearly half a century. “And I do believe this recent child will be my last. However young I look on the outside, I doubt my body will continue to be able to produce offspring, and that’s a heaven-sent.”

Rani tried to pry her mother's words and expressions for answers, but she was the one who taught her all the subterfuge she knew. Aaliyah hadn’t become the most powerful person in the world with sheer strength alone.

Still, there was an alternative probably only open to her.

“...So you are incapable of having more children?” Asking.

Simple as that.

“I mean,” Aaliyah took a sip from her wine, “not really. There are a lot of things from Nurture you don’t know. Age certainly isn’t a problem when it comes to babymaking, but I don’t have a need to pump out more offspring, do I?” The woman busted in laughter. “It’s only advantages, really. There’s no risk of pregnancy so I can go haywire and no more menstruation for me. Just positives.”

A normal person would have dwelled on the fact that Aaliyah wasn’t “going haywire” currently with all her sexual prowess as she assaulted not only the denizens of the palace but also Asina. That idea would probably instill fear in the minds of those as they thought about how an unleashed Aaliyah would deal with her lust, but Rani pondered over another point.

Menstruation.

It wasn’t just because she was a woman, but because she understood the weight of the sultanah’s blood and had an understanding, albeit simple, of Nurture. Aaliyah-al-Ydaz’s blood was so powerful, so packed with vitality that it was able to turn barren wastelands into farmlands with a single drop. And more blood was lost during the menstruation cycle than a droplet.

Realization struck Rani’s head like one of her mother’s punches.

She looked out to Aaliyah dumbfounded; the woman ignored her for the sake of her wine. I may be wrong here... Rani thought whilst maintaining her visage calm, but is that why she has been permanently pregnant during all these decades? To avoid natural bloodletting? The sultanzade had never made the connection between these two factors before, but now... all the pieces clicked together.

Do female cultivators really lose that much blood whilst menstruating? Rani couldn’t know, her Nurture was pathetic and mostly fostered by innate abilities rather than training. This whole pregnancy ordeal was just about preventing the natural loss of vitality?

“Oh, you are quite surprised.” Aaliyah calmly raised her eyes from her goblet to look directly at Rani even if the princess herself ought to think she had kept quite an unremarkable expression. “You should have paid more attention to your lessons, it’s quite pathetic that as a female sultanzade common nobles have better Nurture than you. I don’t know how that’s even possible with all the advantages I gave you.”

“So... it is true?” Rani asked breathless.

“What’s true?” The sultanah nonchalantly shook her goblet around.

“Me, my sisters, and my brothers,” the sultanzade started, “we all were just a byproduct of your wish to not grow weaker?”

“Oh, Rani...” If it had been a true mother, Aaliyah's voice would have portrayed a shed of sadness, of pity toward her daughter. But Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was not a mother. She was barely human. “Did you really think I cared about you little djinns?” The Sultanah’s grin shook her to the core.

Rani knew it, she knew the figure in front of her cared only about herself, and it still hurt. But beyond the pain of betrayal – though she doubted it could be considered that, as betrayal only occurred from allies never enemies or neutral factions – what shook her further was the fear.

That vicious, visceral grin.

The person in front of her was not a mother, she had never been. And she would never have one.

Aaliyah-al-Ydaz's only goal was herself. If the country bored her, the country could go to the hells. She didn’t intend to die or give away her power, she had already said it. She was tired. And a person of her caliber wouldn’t tolerate being tired. Aaliyah was not a worker that had to work to survive even if she was sick. No, she was a monarch, if not by authority, by sheer strength alone. And a monarch shouldn’t be allowed to feel boredom no matter the circumstances, the woman’s visage expressed that clearly.

Might made right, especially when talking about power as obscene as hers.

“You know, I’m amused you are even afflicted by my words.” The cultivator drunk unfazed by Rani’s reactions. “I thought I nurtured you better, even ignoring your lacking Nurture in favor of your acute mind and leniency to subterfuge, but right now you are looking weak.”

The last word sent shivers down Rani’s spine. The newly appointed emir thought that Aaliyah hadn’t killed Hassan because it was her son, but now it became apparent. She was just too lazy to do so. If the stars favored so, she would undoubtedly snuff the light out of her children.

Aaliyah laughed at the reaction and puffed some air. “You know how my mother died, no?”

“Y-yes.” Rani stuttered. She stuttered. As she read the Sultanah’s expression she understood her mother wanted her to say it. “Y-you killed her.”

“It’s a bit more complex than that, but yes. I killed her. My own mother, isn’t that sublime?”

The unmitigated use of words by the cultivator unsettled Rani even more. Even in the heart of the palace of Asina, the safest place in all of Ydaz, she felt at risk. She can do it. I know it in my soul. Ethics are only a shackle to the weak.

“It was a powerful woman,” the monarch continued, “but she wasn’t ruthless enough. By the time I killed her, she looked old. I was even younger than you, yet she looked like a mature woman. If she had been more enthusiastic with her Nurture, her lifespan or strength would have been greater. But her greatest sin was her lacking rule. Not out of disinterest like me, but out of incompetence.”

Aaliyah stood up and slowly walked toward Rani, making the young woman shift uncomfortably in her seat, pushing her body backward into the throne as she backpedaled.

“There are many ways to rule, fear, money, knowledge, faith, respect, honor... as many grains of sand there are on the desert, really. But that’s the thing people don’t understand, they are not exclusive. You can use them all, you just need to use the right methods on the right people. Tell me Rani, what method do you think is effective against you?”

“I-I...” She was speechless. Her upbringing hadn’t been easy, but she had never experienced difficulties. No matter the beatings or the hard education, she had been pampered. But now, her heart was threatening to escape her chest.

“I am waiting for an answer, my daughter.” Aaliyah’s eyes shone like the most expensive set of amethysts in the world.

They shone with the cruelty of the sun.

“F-fear, my Sultanah.” Rani responded crestfallen; her body refused to breathe.

Rani recoiled in fear as she heard the rustling of the Sultanah’s fabric, a shadow cast on top of her as she moved.

She expected her mother to end her light at this very moment, even though Aaliyah had no reason to. But at the same time, she wasn’t the kind of woman to need any reason to do something.

Instead of a swift end or a painful death, Aaliyah-al-Ydaz... patted her head.

“Good girl!” Her mother praised her as one would do with a young dutiful child, if not a pet.

Rani carefully looked up, her eyes becoming water out of pure terror.

No matter how sweet it may look as her mother caressed her hair in slow and warm motions, it was anything but loving. Humiliation at best, mindless entertainment at worst. The previous off-hand comments of incest, instead of getting a chuckle out of Rani, now terrified her.

“You should put more emphasis on your studies if you want to manage an emirate correctly, Rani,” Aaliyah added with a derisive smile as she toyed with her.

She treated Rani like a child, and truthfully, she could be considered a child by her standards. The emir was barely in her twenties, but the sultanah was already a great-grandmother.

Aaliyah-al-Ydaz wasn’t stupid, everything Rani knew had been taught by her. There was no way, absolutely none, that she could outdo her. There was a leash around Rani’s neck greater than simple blood ties. A deadly grip that tightened.

“Now,” Aaliyah removed her hand from her daughter’s head and blessed her with a smile, “be a good child and meet up with your sister. You two will spend a lot of time together in the near future. And I will not allow any familial disputes after the recent last one.”

Rani’s body was immobilized as she looked at the Sultanah’s visage. Her lips smiled, yes, but as she spoke the last sentence, her eyes pierced her being. Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was unleashed, and when you were the absolute ruler, infanticide wasn’t considered a crime, only a social label.

Rani whimpered as her mother left the office.